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 Posted: Sun Nov 30, 2014 7:15 pm
Zirconia was starting to accept that her magical capacity had been significantly and probably permanently damaged by her bout with the strange recoil from mirrorspace. She still hadn't figured out what, exactly, had happened or what could have caused the physical reflective surface to bow out like a mass of reflective material as it had, but with the old parallel soul being frustratingly forgetful about old sorcery she used to know and the human mostly seeking revenge and other base desires, investigation into the matter seemed to come to a standstill.
Cassandra was probably the most intact magician to confer with, but considering she had triggered the event trying to double cross the b***h, it wasn't exactly her first choice. Especially when her conversations with Cassandra on mirrorspace previously hadn't been exactly enlightening. Or she thought so. She couldn't really remember exactly how they had gone, like there was a haze over her memories if she tried to think about it too hard.
Either way, it was completely ill advised to be limping around the city in her physical state. Sitting at home, however, was torturous. She had severely damaged the crystal and lost precious shards of it to mirrorspace, and all she could do was sit around and listen to other people talk, apparently. It wasn't helping, and at least being out and about she could delude herself into thinking that she was going to magically stumble on someone who was going to shower her with shard pieces and save the day with no real effort on her part.
The limping lilac cat padded through the snow along the city streets having decided to make her way back to her nest where the mirror resided, and it was here she suddenly became acutely aware of a heavy Negaverse aura in the area. Unsure of what was to come and too winded to break into a run or find a mirror, she just sort of gave up and plopped down to sit on her haunches and wait. Maybe it would be one of her friends and she could bully them into a ride home. Or maybe they'd simply pass her by and ignore her presence. Either way, she didn't think she had it in her for any great escapes or even much of an energy blast to the face so she was banking on the off chance whoever was nearby wouldn't find her and if they did, they wouldn't be looking to line their uniform with any lilac fur.
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Posted: Mon Dec 01, 2014 11:05 am
Walking was a bad idea, he knew.
A constant, blissfully dulled ache in an inhuman spot just beyond his left shoulder blade refused to allow him to forget the matter. He didn't care anymore. He felt awkward, lopsided, but at least he shirked the boredom. Instead he counted the number of throbs per step, until lightheadedness caught up with him and he needed a few minutes' count of a break against a wall, a park bench, a sidewalk. Idly Alois wondered, time and again, if teleportation was possible while under the influence of analgesics. Those wonders ceased when another spike of pain caused him to wince, to reevaluate how to swing his left arm (if at all), how to torque his body to avoid something passing too closely.
The algid air felt refreshing, and he was only marginally concerned with fever or hypothermia. Ultimately, he supposed, it shouldn't matter. He retained all his mental faculties so far as he could reason; if he found grounds for concern about hypothermia then he would rectify them accordingly.
Until, he discovered, that he couldn't feel his fingers and he was most certainly assured that his illegally pilfered painkillers were not anesthetics. <********," he muttered to himself while he walked. Alois hadn't strayed terribly far from the house, had he? The view of the park nearby confirmed otherwise; unless he found a horde of emperor penguins looking for the latest member of their blubber club, he needed to obtain a heat source or a means to return to one quickly. An addled, tawdry fan of senses provided next to nothing of worth - he found a single lieutenant in quick retreat. "********," he cursed again while he continued his shaken, stumbling gait toward the park.
I could pull a starseed, he assured himself as he walked. It's a perfectly good energy source when in a time of need. There are still more than a few people around in this godforsaken city; one death isn't going to impact the populace greatly. And I don't have to justify myself to Quenton for what he doesn't know. It doesn't take much energy or effort to steal one, either. Bleary eyes settled on an older man walking his dog perpendicular to Alois' intended course, barely illuminated by a dying penumbra cast by a nearby street lamp. It could be him, easy as that. No one will know but the dog.
For ******** sake, I'm still ******** fixated on that idea of a deterministic nonlinear system, aren't I. Alois seethed inwardly as he passed unnoticed beyond the man and dog. He started into the snow, markedly more unsteady in stepping through the several inches, and he grew increasingly infuriated with himself for each successive near-misstep that had the propensity to send him tumbling into white. His journey continued in monumentally irritating fashion until a hidden beer bottle nearly sent him into a bundle of lilac fur sitting in a defeatist posture in the middle of the sidewalk.
His first instinct was to seize it and carefully tuck it away in the tattered remnants of his coat for heating purposes. His second instinct was to kick the damnably fat dollop of cat for being so petulant and difficult to bargain with.Ultimately he found himself quietly cursing at a bulge of his coat in a strange and embarrassing fashion.
"What ze hell are you doing here, Zirconia?" Alois intended to sound pissed, but found it increasingly difficult to curse with scathing tone when heavily drugged with illegally obtained painkiller of questionable dose. Mostly his declarations and accusations came out like a poorly rehearsed acting performance. "I should snap your neck, or... Somesing. Where is zat crystal you were raving about before? You should be gone by now."
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Posted: Sun Dec 07, 2014 10:50 am
The lilac pile of fur continued sitting, almost determined to be as stiff and unmovable as possible as the the deteriorating husk of half youma seemed to beach himself in the sidewalk snowbank before her. Her head pulled back, puffing out her chest and a mane of winter fur while the few bits of snow that landed on her head rolled off and became displaced.
She seemed to move in slow motion, although she didn't have too much energy to do much more than that. She watched him, taking inventory of his damages and changes and strange motions before she lifted one paw, as if to reach out and prod him with it. She apparently thought better of it, since she place it back down on the ground and stood instead.
Mustering the motivation to give a haughty little shimmy to displace the snow, she paced, both in an effort to circle him and remove herself from arm's length just in case he gave in to either one of his initial desires. She was not nearly quick enough, and she nearly missed what he had to say as she screeched and yowled and hissed and spit at the indignity of it all.
However, in seconds she realized she didn't have the strength to struggle, and seemed to lose all sense of bone structure as the furbag went limp, even if burning yellow eyes still peeked out from his coat with the utmost contempt.
"Complications," She hissed. And then extended one paw out with the attempt to bat and swat at his face.
"You look and sound as if you're having complications yourself, you giant , bedraggled heap of pus and stench. What the hell have you gone and done to yourself?"
She sounded offended. Where did he get the nerve to go and damage himself when he had the potential to be such a valuable resource? And also why wasn't she invited to this party or whatever even that had caused him to be missing some noticeable parts?
"That demanding mirror hag wants all of the pieces, she wouldn't settle for just most of it. With the shards activated by these strange visions of the future people have been having, they've been easier to find, if not for the fact Cassandra was entirely untrustworthy. And I have had an unfortunate mishap attempting to cheat her stupid game. I was on my way to speak with her, if you don't mind."
She did her best to lift her little chin high. Which was not very high at all.
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Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2014 8:50 pm
"Amputation," he answered shortly and flatly.
It later occurred to him that she might want an explanation. "A certain White Moon trollop elected to tackle me off a building. I landed on a wing, broke it, and since I'f never once glimpsed a vet zat majored in cat-people or youma, I couldn't exactly set it properly. Ze wing got infected - compound fractures and bat skeletal structures are not part of my taxidermy experience - and somesing about crushed arteries or..." Tapering off, he dismissed the remainder of explanation with a wave of his hand. "It had to be cut off. It's not much of a loss - I would'f done it myself if I could manage a way to excise it wis'out massif' hemorrhaging or shock. And I would'f opted for amputation of ze remaining wing but my reluctant surgeon was averse to zat course of action." He lacked fervor in his latter explanation, implying the possibility that he was not entirely committed to the decision.
Alois sough to ruffle wings out of habit, causing undue strain and agony that he winced through most unceremoniously.
Zirconia relayed her own woes in a twist of fate that left Alois not entirely displeased. So it looks like someone else in the world is good at playing this fleabag's game... Good. Let her suffer her part before she leaves this wretched pit indefinitely. "So if she wants all ze pieces, go find zem. And if you intend to visit zis mirror hag, take me wis' you. I could stand a break from having only my own misfortunes to focus on."
Besides, if this Cassandra can only operate through mirrors - as evidenced by Zirconia's explanations and this mirror person's lack of presence in our world - then it stands to reason that she lacks the means to secure these mirror shards herself. And considering that Zirconia fosters no threat against the strength of a General, absconding with that chunk of crystal she found shouldn't be too hard. If that magic she learned is possible to emulate by one of this world, then farming out the remaining shards with a few hints toward discovering their locations should secure a fine ticket out of this body and into the next.
It is, perhaps, the most realistic method of doing away with this visage. I'm sorry, Quenton, but the White Moon's greatest powers simply aren't enough.
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Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2014 1:10 pm
"Ew," Was the less than eloquent answer. Cutting out the youma bit likes unwanted and dead flesh had been a crack idea knocked around in the penthouse with Kairatos, but it definitely didn't seem or sound pleasant or viable. Definitely not productive.
"Should I know the trollop?" She asked, over thinking his wording and giving a few small bats at his nose again.
She retracted her paw into the loaf of cat fur and remained there. "Would that I could, you overgrown disease pigeon. Do you know how hard it is, tracking a pile of splinters that may or may not exist and if they do are possibly hidden inside people? It's a bit of a lost cause now. I was actually on my way to face the consequences of my silly risk taking.
"You see, after realizing it was a fool's errand I attempted to cheat by restoring the crystal myself. A small experiment in amplifying power I don't really have through a magical array into a mirror and back into the crystal in an attempt at restoration. But there was a recoil I wasn't expecting."
She shifted up to cat-girl from without much consideration for the fact that she was being used as jacket lining and sat there as if her sudden increase in size was no imposition at all. She held out her burned hands to show him the damage done by the crystal's overload, and the marks up her forearms. Visible damage also marked her calves and feet. "I've never seen a phenomenon quite like it. Mirrorspace... came out of the mirror. Just a bit, and just for a moment."
She turned her palms to herself to stare at them for a bit with empty and tired eyes before shrugging.
When he said he wanted to come, she felt like this was a moment where she should argue and bargain him to death in an attempt to deter the interest, but exhaustion seemed to have taken its toll since the only response she could muster was a placid shrug and, "Alright."
Not that she managed the energy to move, however.
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Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2014 1:44 pm
Bischofite snorted. "No, you shouldn't know ze trollop, and if you did, I would ask you kindly to pull your head out of my a**." 'Kindly' amounted to a full-blown lie but remained a minor detail in juxtaposition to his venom. If I say another word of it I'd just as soon find you investigating the personal affairs of my love life for a little extra dirt to spite me with.
The paw bats met with a snort as the thick tufts of fur between toes tickled his nose, but otherwise he couldn't be bothered with the effort to thwart her tactics. However, when she shifted from relatively benign feline to a fully grown cat-human hybrid, he regarded her with a skin-peeling glare that threatened to bend the forces of the universe into vanquishing her. Or so he hoped. "You are incredibly lucky zat my coat was already ruined." Saying nothing more, he settled on the pavement to examine the damage done by this purported recoil of Mirrorspace. The trauma to her skin produced patterns consistent with serious burns. The whole of it looked reddened, angry, and blistered, which contributed to his distaste toward touching it. Bischofite only shrugged with the one shoulder that still bore a wing.
"Weird," he mumbled, feigning boredom and disinterest. Inwardly he hoped Zirconia might take offense and launch into a tirade about the workings and natural behaviors of Mirrorspace to give him more informational basis for him to formulate a theory about what occurred.
"Obviously your little cheat didn't pan out in your favor." His disinterest in prodding at her wounds finally gave way to curiosity and he poked with talons at some of the blisters surrounding her ankles. "So you can eizer do what I do and cheat a different way, or you can perform as agreed and find all zese little... Chips or splinters or whatever inane chunk of rock zat might be stuck inside all zese miserable little meatbags. It sounds much too similar to a demented game of piñata which is possibly ze only reason I could be bozzered to assist. Zen again, I seem to recall you chiding me for sinking zat ze only way to a person's useful giblets is by punching srough zeir chest. What a shame, what a pity."
When satisfied that the blisters acted no differently than normal ones, Bischofite finally drug himself to his feet. A nearly overwhelming sense of dizziness pervaded him, causing him to falter a moment before returning to present conversation. Afterward he used the catwoman's shoulder to steady himself. "Good. It'll be just like old times - we can stumble srough your mirrors like drunken heaz'ens and I will b***h ze whole time. Lead on."
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Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2014 6:08 pm
"Well then."
Apparently the greatest symptom of the bad way she was in was the lack of snark. Not that she was without snark, there was less of it. She couldn't even manage to shoot for the easy target about what else he might have living in his quite possibly spider infested posterior .
Instead she just sort of shrugged as he used her as support and tried not to fall over while he talked about more nostalgic days when they had more ability to shoot better barbs and threats at one another. "As you do."
She powered down to a full feline again at some point, and limped along. The mirror's location was only a short distance away and due to the nature of the building it was stored in, she decided the less nervous she appeared to have him present then the less reason he would have to assume that maybe the place meant anything besides and easy safe keeping spot. She knew the pace of the security patrols and the routine of the multi use, multi storied glass building in the financial distract of the city from living in the penthouse in the upper floors. Slipping in through the loading dock between shifts was painfully easy, and the biggest obstacle for them both seemed to be stumbling down the stairs to the basement storage.
She didn't have a key, but she knew all the quirks to the lock and shifted to her humanoid form with fingers to expertly finesse it open.
The mirror stood there, imposing and silent beneath a sheet that quickly pulled off before Zirconia tapped the glass to activate it and sat down on a box. She primly crossed her legs and smoothed out her skirt and overlay as a dark haired woman in the mirror realized she was being called and came to the edge to peer through it.
"Zirconia, you look... Oh my-- What is that thing?" Her eyes fixated on the youma hybrid in zero seconds flat.
"I think he looks like an emaciated, one winged and tar covered turkey, personally."
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Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2014 7:42 pm
Given present circumstances, Bischofite grew less and less fond of the booming businesses that remained active long into the night. Lacking the means of minimizing his size to something commonly identified in daily culture, Bischofite found himself increasingly loathe to delve into the depths of the building without the energy to teleport. However, he often thought fondly of Zirconia as a nagging b***h, and she maintained that stellar side of her personality during their loping along through a glass-paned maze.
Stairs earned his highest contempt due to the railings using desperately sore shoulder muscles and a lack of adaptation to account for the missing ten pounds off his left scapula. A cluster of colorful expletives commonly left his lips when descending one stair at a time, sideways, while dealing with systemic exhaustion.
However, the payoff yielded a quick perk to his roiling and acerbic attitude.
The mirror showed no outward signs of being particularly different from the rest, but the woman who arrived to greet them looked nothing like a Dark Mirror senshi should. He questioned to himself if she might be one of the senshi that Zirconia once served in her Black Moon court, but without outright asking...
""Sing? I know I don't feel terribly pretty today, but I did not realize I was grounds for genderless inanimate object. And you, I haf' half a mind to drown in tar..." Ultimately though he knew he cut a poor figure in terms of coercive presence. Without any mirror powers to speak of, he lacked all influence over the situation beyond what he might have to offer as a pawn - and while throttling Zirconia and absconding with her crystal sounded utterly delightful, he lacked any means to discern this mirror foreigner's moral compass.
Finally the creature straightened up somewhat and embarked on picking at his uniform in a persnickety manner that led to no overall improvement. The fast unraveling wad of gauze that packed the stump of a wing trailed down to mid back with some of its longer strips and he made no effort to secure them. His lack of sunlight shone plainly beneath fluorescence via the sickly pallor that overlaid his gaunt countenance. Hair greasy and often plagued with flecks of tar, he likely smelled of body odor and commercial road repaving services. However, with half mask in place and posture straightened, he tried to offer the best side of the shambling wreckage known as his body.
It wasn't working.
"I am Bischofite - not a sing, and certainly not a turkey," he finished with a soured glare toward the Mauvian. "I am a general of ze Negaverse. And yes, Metallia's finest are every bit as dysfunctional and woefully unproductif' as I look. No, not all of zem haf' curious assortments of animal parts hampering zeir daily functioning - just me, so far as I'f discovered.
"Now, it would be prudent to identify yourself."
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Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2014 8:48 am
The mirror seemed to act more as a window now, a pane of glass that separated them from the regal and glittering inner sanctum of Earth's palace. Cassandra stood composed in her gown, looking through at the motley pair with less than impressed eyes.
"It would be equally prudent, my dear creature, to not threaten the life of a high priestess. Especially when you have no means of carrying it through. Zirconia, what is the meaning of this?"
Cassandra seemed fairly confident in the incomplete mirror portal not allowing any harm to come through to her. If such a thing was possible, that tenacious cat would have found it by now.
"Oh, you're not interested in gazing upon the exotic wonders of a servant of Chaos? The Metallia he speaks of is a Chaos seed. I don't know if your generation's ever seen what Chaos can truly do," Although Zirconia lounged, and every word was smothered in almost gleeful sarcasm. Cassandra's discomfort was as a wonderful pick-me-up for the fatigued Mauvian.
Cassandra still didn't look amused and glanced between the youma in the foreground and the lilac cat lady laying back on boxes. "You are a youma, then, yes? The others spoke of such creatures. Chaos monsters and the like only exist in deep space here, I was not expecting you to look quite so human."
She bowed, with no sincerity in the robotic motion. "I am Cassandra, high priestess of the Pyrite Millennium and keeper of the nightmare realm Tartaros. I am not familiar with the Negaverse."
"More Chaos nonsense, it's not important."
"You brought him here," Cassandra snapped. Cassandra had the stiff airs of a woman who typically minded her manners, but Zirconia had brought her to the end of her patience a long time ago. And then she paused, taking in the sight of Zirconia's state. "You're injured. What have you done?"
"Ah," Zirconia shifted down to fully feline form and rolled over on a box lazily. "We can talk about that later."
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Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2014 9:25 am
"I wasn't sreatening you, High Priestess. I was sreatening her. As you are likely already aware, ze people of zis dimension lack any messod of penetrating mirrors except for ze Dark Mirror court. As it is, all I could do is break it, and zat would not do any of us good." He tapped the mirror gently to showcase the impossibility of penetration. "So, forgif' me if it sounded like a sreat to your person." The act of apologizing felt rather foreign, much like swallowing a particularly hated texture that forced an involuntary shiver down his spine. He shrugged it off, instead clasping hands together and pacing away to a more official stance in front of the mirror.
"Cassandra." He nodded. Keeper of the nightmare realm Tartaros... Well look at you. You call yourself a Keeper and yet you're faced with a nightmare that's running free in the confines of Destiny City. You and Metallia could strike a deal, for most of her soldiers are synonymous with Albtraum - nightmare. "I suspect zat ze Pyrite Millennium has some kind of parallel to ze Silver Millennium?"
Bischofite glanced over his shoulder to Zirconia when she claimed the Negaverse was of little importance, and quirked a brow. Turning back to Cassandra, he confirmed the statement. "She's right - ze Negaverse is not important. It's nossing more zan ze mous' of an organism zat chews everysing it can find to prolong ze life of ze creature zat owns it. Currently it's chewing on Ears', like it was hundreds of years ago. It never got anywhere before, and it's not really getting anywhere now.
"However... Ze information ozzers haf' given you concerning Youma is not quite correct. Youma-oder-nicht is not an on and off switch. Zere is... a fluidity of state for some, running a wide span much like... Human sexuality. Zere is not just gay or straight, just as zere is not just Youma or human. I, for one, do not qualify as entirely Youma. I will explain why.
"Ze process of creating a Youma is simple." He headed toward the now-feline on the boxes to demonstrate. Scruffing her as he had before, Bischofite gestured toward her general chest area. "Were she human, I could certainly ram my fist into her chest and fill it wis' chaos energy. If I was possessed of ze interest in adding to ze ranks of Chaos, as well as ze power, she would likely be transformed into one of ze Chaos-oriented guardian cats. No longer ze same lilac pain in my a** zat she is now." Afterward he dropped the purple puff ball onto the boxes without reverence and approached Cassandra's mirror once more.
"Wis' a civilian lacking a senshi or knight's starseed, ze immense flow of Chaos energy into zeir starseed will shatter it completely, which devolves ze body into a nightmarish shape of any composition - and perhaps, zey look like zey might belong in your Tartaros realm. My youmafication, partial as it is, is... Different. My starseed is still intact. It probably looks like s**t, but if I remof'e it to show you I cannot be certain zat your most cherished companion over zere will put it back before I die." He shrugged.
It was time to move onto the backstabbing business and play dumb if she furiously objects to the spilling of secrets. "Oh, what happened to her. Zat's right. She said... Somesing abouuuut... Ah yes, trying to fire her power srough a mirror at ze Pyrite crystal and repair it, or make it sound like it's complete, or somesing. Zen Mirrorspace reached out and burnt ze everliving s**t out of her. Is zat accurate, Zirconia?"
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Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2014 3:11 pm
Cassandra's gaze was fixed on the hybrid youma at first, but as he spoke of the process her gaze drifted as if out of disinterest. No snark came, no impolite words, but she also appeared to be very obviously bored. Chaos was no threat and had no meaning to her. There may have been a quiet mumble from Zirconia that sounded something like 'spoiled children these days'.
Zirconia yowled as she was scruffed for a demonstration, and her weight made the top of the box collapse in on itself, sending her through.the top.
Her head shot up to peek out the top with yellow eyes narrowed up at Bischofite. "Hey!" She hissed in a whisper as he tarted talking about what she'd done. "Hey! Hey!" But he just kept talking. And that drew Cassandra's attention.
She almost snapped away, and glared at the cat who met her gaze. Zirconia's ears flattened to her skull as her eyes peered over the box's edge.
"You did what?"
"Only a minor experiment."
"On my brother's crystal? Did you think you were going to go around me and get a bargaining chip? Where is it? I demand to see it immediately."
Zirconia narrowed her eyes up at Bisch again and disappeared down into her fallen box, only to leap out with the velvet box in hand "Some pieces are missing, others are damaged."
"You imbecile..." Cassandra actually appeared to look grief stricken at the news. "I still do not understand this mirrorspace. How does it burn?"
"It was a mass draining of energy at extreme speeds, it had a strange reaction," Zirconia said as she powered up, and seemed a it dazy as she started and then stopped making a comment on not knowing what mirrorspace was.
"Can you retrieve the lost pieces?"
"Probably."
"Good. That is the only way I am opening the portal and letting you come home. You," She pointed to Bischofite, "What is your business here?"
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Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2014 3:59 pm
"Ah, so you were listening," Bischofite responded with a certain smugness taken on that implied winning. "My business here is very simple. It's obvious, as you'f heard, zat Zirconia is incapable of providing zis crystal intact and undisturbed to your person. However, I can assist her in reclaiming ze pieces, by force if necessary, and contribute to delivering it to you. For a price, of course - and zat price should be somewhat simple for someone of your unconscionable abilities." A wink toward Cassandra spoke of his intents to abscond with the crystal wholesale and leave Zircnia out of the business.
"My price is simple. I don't want zis body. Take my soul to your dimension as you once exported Zirconia's soul. Give me a body zere - any will do, so long as it is human - and I will be satisfied. We may even work well togezzer." Bischofite remained silent for a time, only pausing to turn back toward Zirconia to take in her undoubtedly blistering reaction.
My services are available to the highest bidder if that's what it takes. Swimming with sharks has its charms; I am not new to the sea myself. Let's see what you two can do.
"In any case, it sounds like zis crystal holds a great deal of importance to you. Surely you see ze necessity in having additional protection to safeguard its composition. If it happened to, say, slip away into ze bottomless pit of ze Rift, it would be quite a shame. So far as I know, no one zere could retrief' it but me." The smile deepened, this time showing teeth.
"Now, Cassandra, we're talking sreats."
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