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| Too many topics at once? |
| Yup. Stupid girl. |
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[ 3 ] |
| Psh... Naw. |
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44% |
[ 12 ] |
| Well... |
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| Total Votes : 27 |
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 Posted: Sat Oct 27, 2007 8:32 am
Shadows appeared in a dozen different places around Amara, all radiating with James's power. She could attack one of them. She probably would. But odds of her finding the one that contained him were relatively small.
"Was there ever any trust to begin with?" James asked with a smile, one hidden by the shadows he wrapped himself in, "I love how you refer to me as if I weren't human, Amara, when you know full well that I am as much a human as you are. I followed you here because I wanted to speak with you, and happened upon some more useful information along the way."
Do not toy with the girl! She is in poor straights right now, and you don't know what she'll do!
I have my ideas.
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Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2007 3:06 pm
(Must save from bottom of list....)
Maria nodded as Isaac had just told her he was expected elsewhere at some time. "I gotta go, but I should be back again soon."
"Isaac, you know very well that you won't be able to do much with that arm."
"I know, but it should heal quickly, especially with your help." Isaac replied to his worry-wart girlfriend.
Mariah hesitated before answering, "I wish I could go with you... But I'm not suited for combat... I'd get hurt before any of you do."
Isaac took her gently with the one arm that could, "It's okay. Really. I'll see you later okay?" Isaac kissed her on the forehead before turning and running towards the Cybele Sterre, he'd never been there before. But he'd seen it a few times while wandering the city. He slowed as he came to the front, checking that his brace was still where it should be.
"Hello?" he called, walking inside.
------------------
Maria went back into her house and sat down. "What am I ever gonna do with him?" She pulled her hair back and huffed. "I think it's time that I tried to do something in the SeeDs... They could use the help.."
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Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2007 3:26 pm
~I'm a crazy a** star~ ((Must...help.))
Erec awoke with a start, letting out a small groan. He had no idea how he managed to fall asleep leaning against the door. One look at the bed snapped his mind back into focus.
"Right...Riol," he muttered as he got up, his bones cracking from the movement. He turned around, opened the door and walked down the hall towards the lobby. He was gonna hear it from Luke, so he prepared himself for it.
'Why you're scared to be yelled at by that human, I'll never understand,' Cerberus' voice bellowed in his mind.
It's not that, but his voice gets annoying very fast when he gets angry. As he approached the desk, he saw Isaac standing there.
"Yo," Erec called out to the fellow SeeD.
"Erec...that another SeeD standing out there?" Luke called out from the other room.
"Yeah, I'll grab a key for him. Also...I'll need...another room." Erec winced inwardly as he heard the silence.
"What for?" He sighed and opened his mouth.
"The bed collapsed on me, man. I think I forgot to remove my junctions." A bold-faced lie, but Erec wanted to deal with Riol on his own.
"What?! Damn, Erec! Another one?!" Luke emerged from the room, his face slightly red from the exertion. To answer, Erec simply shrugged.
"Charge me for it then. I don't want to hear it now, Luke. Just gimme another room!" He didn't mean to sound so angry, so he just grabbed two of the reserved keys and handed one to Isaac.
~Like a ********' asterisk~
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Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2007 4:20 pm
Isaac blinked once, confused at the argument. "Um.... Thank... You..." Isaac took the key slowly, he hadn't been around these people long, maybe two minutes together, and he thought they were weird already. He nodded to the pair and started looking for his room. He really wanted go to sleep at this point.
Lying down he threw his tattered vest across the room and slipped his shoes off. Every other piece of clothing was preferred on.
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Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2007 9:27 pm
((Ack! I'm seriously sorry it's been taking me forever to post...I've been so busy. Never again! whee ))
Amara stared at the endless shadows with rising frustration and nothing short of resentment for the sorcerer. He was playing games with her, as if banter were something that the SeeDs could afford when dealing with a swiftly approaching war. Perhaps if he were a lower-ranking SeeD, some insolent fool who did not know better than to seek to aggravate and stalk her like a coward—yet this was entirely different, because it was James. The man who had just planned his way through destroying a Behemoth ravaging Esthar was insulting her by playing games, and neither she nor Diablos appreciated the sudden attention. A low, almost bestial snarl ripped from her twisting lips as waves of Diablos’ outrage undulated throughout her body in a near-possession of her already frayed emotions. Behind her, Odine was trembling like a crumpled leaf, imprisoned by the own winded fear of his “creation” and the advanced, unknown magic of the shadows in which he was encompassed.
Narrowed eyes examined the dark silhouettes encircling her, watching the shadows as they twisted and churned tauntingly before the Galbadian like writhing black bodies. Both she and James knew that Amara couldn’t find the singular silhouette that held his cowardly figure, and yet her mind and very being itself screamed at her for her inability, set fire to her nerves with Diablos’ growing rage. The guardian’s screams pierced her eardrums and caused her to wince slightly as she walked forward a few steps and continued to examine the thick shadows. Tentatively, she passed a gloved hand through the nearest tangible silhouette; immediately the girl drew her fingers back as a shudder of cold passed throughout her body and chilled her spine.
Wrong one.
And the countless others around her--well, her head ached just to think of how long it would take her to actually find him, if he were willing to stay in one place. Nearby, the Doctor was cocking his sickly head at the nearest silhouette, as if struggling to analyze its nature, to do anything rather than appear like the helpless old fool he truly was.
“This is ridiculous,” She hissed, her head lowered towards the ground in vain, “What do you seek to gain from playing such games with me? You’ve already shown your power, sorcerer. Not only that, you’ve spied on me—why not just ask me what you wish to know so badly and get on with it?!”
“A-a sorzerer?!”
Amara cursed inwardly at the bulging of Odine’s eyes from the words which so stupidly escaped her lips. She had shouted in her aggravation, and could merely watch at Odine’s fear was suddenly eradicated in favor of a crude, maniacal interest.
"Ah...now I zee...zis is most interezting!"
A nervous yet wicked cackle bubbled from the depths of his rotund belly; the laughter rapidly degenerated into feeble hacks and wheezes, yet it did nothing to lessen the inevitable dread which filled the Galbadian at that point. Odine was a greedy man, yet not a particularly strong one--she did not fear anything he was possibly capable of doing in his vestige of a body, yet how difficult it would now be to lessen the Doctor's sudden interest in their intruder and get out of the laboratory unscathed of both injury and conscience.
The Doctor's once merely eccentric ambitions for his own selfish pursuits had long been sacrificed in pure, inhuman thirst for the power which a sorcerer possessed. Power which could kill the artificial shell of the man in an instant.
Just kill him. Kill him and the sorcerer!
“Yes, Odine,” She retorted with forced resolve, “The next evolutionary step above your mutation, wouldn’t you agree?”
Her voice held an intentional edge to it, resembling a bitter hiss, as she continued to stare at the endless abyss of shadows in which James was apparently concealed, wondering what the sorcerer could possibly be thinking in such a situation.
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Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2007 10:17 pm
Has the doctor seen you!? He cannot see you! Doomtrained roared inside James's mind, his train engine growing ever louder in frustration.
He hasn't, and he won't.
All of the shadows converged on Amara, completely enveloping her. The chill that she received from the first one wasn't there, though. It was a warm, tingling sensation that time. James had to collect her without giving himself away, and he had to be get her out of there. Which that was what he did. After having surrounded her, all of the shadows disappeared. She wasn't there.
Odine, the crazy, old fool that he was was left alone in his lab, likely to figure out a way to harness the residual energy left from James's shadows. But the man would be hard pressed. The crazed, old bat was alone again.
James and Amara were teleported away from the lab and deep within Esthar, to the roof of one of the many complexes there. He immediately released her, knowing full well that she would lash out now that he could be seen. He had toyed with her. He had aggravated her. He had gone so far as to insult her. And now he had to deal with the consequences. It was something he was prepared to deal with.
And oddly, he simply walked to a near by bench and sat down facing her. His face was stone, entirely emotionless. Despite how much she would want to, she would not pick anything off his features.
"On so many occasions, you could have taken my, and Rainer's, life." His voice cut deep, like a sword piercing human flesh and ripping straight to the bone, "You haven't. You have wanted to, but something has stopped you. What? Diablos only has so much control over you. He can only temper so much of your obvious disdain. Why haven't you simply destroyed us and fulfilled your own personal ends?"
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Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2007 8:50 pm
Amara's body was enveloped in warmth as the strange magic of the shadows devoured her, the sensation and rivaling repulsion making her feel as if she were being compressed and squeezed and confined by the temporary yet suffocating prison all around her. Her lungs were heavy, her mind wracked and screaming with her guardian's howls of discomfort and utter rage; and as her own deep, innate hostility brought from the very depths of her soul overtook her, the saffron eyes that were quickly disappearing from the laboratory met with that of the mad doctor's for the briefest, most fleeting instant.
"N-No!" The Doctor hissed feebly, reacting too late to the shadows as they dissipated, claw-like hands snapping at the empty air that had been Amara's frame only a second before.
The Doctor was utterly alone with the hum of his machinery--alone with his own kind. Briefly, he appeared crestfallen, utterly hurt, as if suffering a great and terrible loss with the two disappearances. Yet then his great, bulbous eyes flicked towards the clear test tubes nearby, marked and sloppy with hasty scribbles, and his shock became another gluttonous smile. The test-tube had the girl's name on its sloping body, and then, stored in a neighboring shelf, an identical tube with the name "Adel" scrawled on its surface. It had been his greatest work...and yet, all at once, his catastrophe.
She was too human, still; he had been a fool, indeed, to have kept her brain mostly untouched when she was in captivity. If the Doctor would have simply cut off the section of her mind capable of emotion, manipulated her thought processes at a younger age, then perhaps she could have at least hurt the sorcerer that had intruded in the laboratory, or even served Galbadia as was originally intended.
And yet...did it all matter? Odine cackled quietly to himself in his mechanical chair, the sagging flesh of his face the perfect imitation of a thousand wrinkled smiles. The girl was compelled to kill any sorcerer she found; a cruel irony to her actual purpose for the Galbadian Army. Her body was poised to respond to their presence, and even Diablos could not quench that thirst to destroy--for he, too, suffered the biological temptation that constantly lurked within her mind. Whether she liked it or not, she would give into her urges, try to kill a sorcerer--one of Galbadia's, or one of the SeeD's, it did not matter. She was, deep down, a good little specimen, and she would bring him wonderful data.
*
Amara's body responded before she could even recollect her thoughts. Instantly, her glaive was in her hand, the curved blade pointing straight towards James' apathetic throat. Her chest heaved and her body burned with the pain of being so close to the sorcerer, Diablos' hiss sharp and violent in her mind. The SeeD's gaze was burning with ferocity, a ferocity that ignited at the man's seemingly careless demeanor. And yet even then she was keeping herself from attacking in her rash anger, from challenging the man who was ultimately more powerful and unaffected by his emotions.
Weakness. Damn human weakness!
He leaves himself open. You can kill him now, end this nonsense.
The thought flickered tantalizingly within her mind, and yet burned out just as fast. Something deep inside of the girl's mind grew disgusted at the very thought, and yet Diablos edged her on, both calming her and infusing her with his blood lust. With an aggravated snarl, she lowered her glaive, her hands shaking within her gloves, whipping around so that the girl's sheet of ebony hair was all he could see of her face.
"If I were capable of killing you, I would have. If I were less...human, I would have!"
Amara's voice was low, yet dripping with toxic; she bit her lip until the pain numbed the rage quailing inside of her body, the sickening temptation. Slowly, her breathing came back to normal, her mind reclaimed by cool, calculating logic, released of the carnal rage that so often bubbled up within her whenever near Rainer or James. The Galbadian couldn't bring herself to look at the SeeD in fear of losing herself. Instead, she crossed her arms and welcomed the familiar feeling of detachment.
"I am not a staple of Galbadia any longer," She continued, bile rising in her throat at the very thought, "Their agenda is not my own. I will do nothing that coincides or furthers their interests...and so why would I kill off anything that poses a threat to them?"
Liar.
"It's true that I feel...compelled to hurt you. You know it's inside of me--this hatred of you. But I hate every one of you and your kind equally, and I can make the ultimate judgment on who to harm. Galbadia wants me as a tool, so I fight against it, on the opposing side. My personal ends don't include your deaths--that would simply be irrational, wouldn't it?"
Amara was silent afterwards, anticipating the sorcerer's rebuttals, any oncoming threats or isolation from the remainder of the SeeDs. He had heard more than any individual should ever have the right to hear, he had exposed her very nature--and if she would be ostracized from the potentially powerful group of SeeDs that are taking part in this war, then she would find another way to sustain herself.
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Posted: Sun Nov 04, 2007 11:17 am
"Honesty and lies." His face was stone, his voice was so cruel, "You both impress and disgust me."
James's eyes bore into Amara, looking almost to her very soul. He saw Diablos there. He saw near complete darkness. Amara's soul was torn and tattered, likely caused by that old machine many people once called a man. Odine. He was to blame. But James could not interfere. It was not his place. His place was to protect his students. That's what he planned on doing.
"Honest and Lies." He said again, although significantly kinder than the first time. He was still angry, but it was lessening, "You claim your agenda to be your own, but I know just how much you would like to kill me where I stand. Your agenda coincides with that of Galbadia on many, many levels. But, you're like a child rebelling against its parents. They created you, and you hate them. And for some reason, despite Diablos's best efforts, despite your own instinct, Rainer and I still live. You would do something to threaten me because it would make you feel more powerful, not necessarily because it would aid Galbadia."
He got up at that point, and turned away from her. It was not so much a taunt as it was he had to. He needed a moment to control himself. He needed a moment to regain his composure, to make sure he didn't do anything irrational.
Why do you let his go on?
If I eliminate her, I'm no better than the enemy.
Sometimes a man must become his enemy to defeat them.
No!
James could not stand this girl. Part of him wanted her destroyed. Not so much because she wanted him dead, but because she had threatened his friends. Amara had threatened the only people James had ever considered his family. But it was exactly as he told Doomtrain. If he destroyed Amara, he was no better than the dogs of Galbadia. The Estharians were far above that.
Finally he turned around to face her again, a small smile covering up his true feelings. He was no longer angry; he was torn. Destroy the girl and put her out of her misery, or try to help save her? Try to turn her away from the very instincts that she had known for so long. James had made his choice, and it was most certainly the harder path.
Madness, Sorcerer. Madness.
"Amara," James spoke, his tone surprisingly light although his recent anger still tainted the happiness, "I need a person like you with the group. You're cold and calculating to such a merciless degree that your Tactician skills rival many of the A Rank SeeD I know. Isaac is skilled, but your talents are certainly hard to come by. Can you set aside your feelings for me, and for Rainer, and fill that role? Can you give orders unbiased, and delve into combat, where you can't know exactly what Rainer or I are capable of?"
James was sure that a job offer wasn't what Amara was expecting. It couldn't possibly have been. But it's what she got. It was the truth. For the battles that were soon to come, they were going to need her help. Badly they were going to need her help.
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Posted: Tue Nov 06, 2007 10:47 pm
James' initial words caused Amara to scowl, knitting her brows in obvious disdain for the man's judgment towards her actions. She was not a tool of Galbadia, nor would she be consciously willing to aid them in any fashion, if only because the most beneficial thing at that moment would be to help the SeeDsvand their strange sorcerer elite. It was all for self-benefit; how could he expect anything more, anything less? She was not a toy, and she had to prove such by self-sustainment. She had to prove it by keeping herself from being the underdog of any side, of chaining herself to any one opposing force for fear of being assimilated and taken in as an object, ust as the SeeD were to her. Objects. Seeds to be sown for the growth of violence and destruction from a short-lived peace.
Even while watching him with an eerie sort of smugness, her brow raised and her arms crossed before her, Amara was not prepared for James' final proposition. As the girl was unwilling to let any sort of awe escape her expression, she stared with incredulity at the sorcerer before lowering her gaze momentarily to the ground below.
You expected him to try and hurt you.
Who wouldn't, at this point? He knows now of my threat, and it would have been the most logical way to reduce harm done to his students--his little toys.
But he is flawed just as you are. Emotion-driven fools. Disgusting, you humans.
Amara considered James' offer of re-initiation into the group. Her eyes met his for a moment, burning and scorching as always with the undertone of a constant rage toward anything and everything prone to receive it. Diablos was hissing in her mind; calculating, speculating, infusing his thoughts with her own logic, if only to reduce the slim chance she would act out on her silent fury and physically assault him.
I'm not so reckless. I do what best benefits myself.
"Alright," She replied, her lips tight against her carefully drawn face, eyes narrowed as she spoke to the strange SeeD before her, "I'll do my best to aid you, if you are willing to keep the whole of Esthar from knowing of me."
Her words were slow and methodical, yet even as she said them, she squinted slightly. What a strange turn of events, to be readily hostile toward the same person she was now initiating a strange agreement with. And yet it made the most sense, really, to keep herself from turning out of James' favor; Amara hadn't planned to depart from their group anytime soon, and his spying on her meeting with Odine had threatened to destroy her agenda. The girl thought of the others in her group who she found tolerable enough compared to her former Galbadian associates, although her mind wandered to Rainer and her lip curled just as quickly.
What a sad day for Galbadia and its witches.
The very idea of further acting peaceable and tolerant around any type of sorcerer unnerved and disgusted the girl, yet she knew it had to be done. A minor sacrifice for her own sake, rather than being used by the nation which had corrupted her. Now all she needed to do was stand true to her words.
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Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2007 10:13 am
~I'm a crazy a** star~ Erec sighed as he stirred from his sleep yet again. He muttered about how unfair it was to be woken up three times in a single day as he slid to the edge of his new bed. After he had gotten the spare key, he remembered hitting the bed and passing out.
Can't even pass out for a good enough time, he thought to himself. He half-expected Cerberus to answer with some witty retort, but the Guardian was unusually silent. Worse yet, Erec could feel the waves of uneasiness rolling into his mind. He had never seen Cerberus this way before. Hey...Cerberus, what's wrong with you?
'I feel a presence,' it answered bluntly. 'It feels similar to a Sorceress. Worse yet, there's two of them.' Erec was already dressed as soon as Cerberus mentioned a Sorceress. Garden taught him to treat Sorceresses as serious threats, so the mere mention of one wiped all traces of sleep from his mind. Not wanting to waste time walking down the long hall, Erec opened his window, hopped out and closed it tightly. He broke out in a run, desperate to find the source of the Sorceress powers.
((Sorry for my long...long departure.))
~Like a ********' asterisk~
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Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2007 9:57 pm
"Keep your word, Amara, and not even your traveling companions will suspect your true feelings." James replied confidently, "No one will know who, and more importantly what, you really are. Fair enough? We should be getting back."
James closed his eyes momentarily, feeling out every aura and power that held itself in Esthar. Odine's complete lose was the first thing to wrap around his sense. (The bag of bones and machinery was quite distraught that he had lost his experiment and his chances at a Sorcerer.) Then, he could feel the residual energies from everyone that participated in the battle against the Behemoth King. (The energy was still quite strong; it hadn't even been a full day since the battle.) Finally, he was able to catch the thread of energies that belonged to Isaac, Erec, and the larger thread that belonged to Rainer. The Cybele Sterre...what an interesting place to stay.
"Shall we walk?" James asked as he opened his eyes, smiling to Amara. He was regaining his cheery nature and composure, despite everything, "It's either that, or I take us there by magic. The choice is yours."
((Where is the Purple Gentleman Going?))
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Posted: Fri Nov 09, 2007 9:36 am
Amara drew in a sharp breath at James' attempt at advice, Diablos hissing like a serpent in her mind. She didn't much enjoy the prospect of accepting anyone's aid or being reduced to the vulnerable position of needing it, especially by a sorcerer. "Partner" or not, he was still what he was, his very essence repulsing her to the core.
Golden eyes narrowed in distaste, her expression puckering slightly at James' offer of using magic to transport them. Where he had taken them couldn't be considerably far from the others--she could use the walk for some valuable thinking and reflecting. Besides, the girl would not helplessly put herself at risk in the care of the sorcerer and his strange powers. She would rather walk a thousand miles than be fool to an unsuspected attack on James' part.
The Galbadian made her intentions clear as she raised her head and broke into a fast-paced walk, not giving much care to turn her head or check on the SeeD's progress behind her. For a moment she was free to pretend such beings did not exist.
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Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2007 4:42 pm
Fair enough.
Are you going to let her go on like that?
If she wants to ignore me, then let her. As long as she holds up her end the of the deal, then I have no reason to complain. All things worth waiting for come to those who are patient.
Do not mock me with your words, Sorcerer.
Too late.
If she wanted to ignore him, James would allow Amara exactly that. She could easily pretend he didn't exist, he do the same to her, and the tides of the oncoming war would continue to flow regardless of the two of them. Eventually they would either come to working together, or they would be violently separated. James was taking a risk, banking on the prior. But, it was a risk that he felt was worthwhile. Obviously, DoomTrain had other feelings.
And so he let her ignore him. They made their way back to the Cybele Sterre on foot, a remarkably short walk, and met up with the others. James was hoping that they had a plan on what to do next. If not, he could easily lead them in the right direction. They were going to need more power if they took on Galbadia, that was for sure. Whether they found that power in numbers, or in strengthening their few, only time would tell.
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Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 8:59 am
~I'm a crazy a** star~ ((Maybe departure was the wrong word. I probably meant to say "absence". And I apologize for another one, I had a brief moment of RP laziness.))
Erec had no idea where he was going as he ran through the streets of Esthar. The civilians there were staring at him as he weaved through them, but he didn't care. They had no idea that there were Sorceresses in their city. The futuristic city that had trapped one in the past now had two resting in their midst.
'Wait...the presences...they're gone,' Cerberus' voice bellowed in Erec's head suddenly, causing him to nearly lose his balance.
Gone? I've been running for fifteen minutes and they're gone now? I just think you wanted to watch me run, Cerberus, he growled mentally at the Guardian.
'Not likely, Erec. Don't flatter yourself. However, I think there may be other problems that you'll have to deal with.' Once again, Cerberus' alertness put Erec on guard. His eyes scanned the area around him, but he couldn't see anything. Just then, a movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention. He turned and saw a young man with long blond hair with sunglasses staring back at him. Even before he took off the sunglasses and exposed his dark blue eyes, Erec already knew who it was.
"Riol," he whispered. His former-student-turned-enemy looked at him and gave him a little wave before backing up to the edge of the walkway and lurching backwards. Erec ran towards the edge and looked down to see his student on the walkway twenty feet below staring up at him with a cocky smile on his face.
Damn...he's junctioned too, Erec thought to himself.
"How about a little jog, Sifu?!" Riol called up to him as he broke out into a run.
((I'm gonna continue it a bit later here.))
~Like a ********' asterisk~
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Posted: Mon Nov 19, 2007 5:32 pm
(Damn! Must, save.... I'd do something.... But Isaac's sleeping!)
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