Tempering the Blade

Posted on Sat Jan 19th, 2019 @ 3:37am by Amare & G2-O7
Edited on on Sun Jan 20th, 2019 @ 12:22am

5,304 words; about a 27 minute read

Chapter: Chapter V: Unbound
Location: Ritual Pool of the Archon, Korriban (near XoXaan's Temple)
Timeline: 0120 Hours, Day Two (after "Lady and the Beast", concurrent with "Qotsisajak")
Tags: Amare, Archonus, Acala, azoth, Sith, Jedi, Nautolan, pureblood, Alyndra, Sith Empire, Dromund Kaas, Korriban, Shii-Cho, Makashi

OLD:

With the gentlest declaration, one filled with feminine acceptance and the deepest sense of passion and overwhelming power she ever felt, she answered in the definitive, "...I am Amare."

From the rubble, strewn next to her belt that was lost from the fall, a lightsaber and shoto pair flung to the hands of their reborn owner. An amber and chartreuse blades flared to life. Upon grasping them, electrical energy danced along the lengths of the super-heated plasma blade, and with a blood-curdling banshee's scream, Amare flung herself into a somersault through the air to viciously bring death to the terentatek once and for all.

As if stirred by the Nautolan's sudden welling of power, the monster had dragged itself up from the ground, arm limp but vicious eyes filled with no less malice than before, even in the face of its certain and final doom. With its one working arm raised and ready for its final stand, the terentatek opened its mouth for a crowning roar, serenading the true and ultimate conclusion to its millennia of suffering and hate as twin blades descended upon it.

ON:

Amare was shivering and panting, overwhelmed with the spoils of victory, the husk of the terentatek sprawled on the floor lifeless for all the Sith spirits of Korriban that cared to spy a glance at the apprentice's handiwork. Her dual-saber assault was an unleashed flurry of blows driven by untamed insanity and blind rage executed with such speed and agility that it all seemed like a blur. She had completely surrendered herself to all of her inner malice, launching all of her wrath like an armed proton torpedo, only she didn't smash into the beast; she leaped over it and reverse thrust her blades into the critter's exposed flesh upon landing. Exploiting its weakened and sluggish state, she had then whirled around and continued to hack and slash and scream relentlessly until it stopped moving.

She didn't understand why, nor did she care, she took her victory further and had mindlessly thrown down her lightsabers and plunged her hands into the deep cavities of vaporized flesh she had wrought in the terentatek's body. Those hands had burned in red crimson light sating the deep, ravenous hunger for the abundance of living essence her inner demons so deeply craved. The creature was the greatest feast of concentrated Force energy she had ever consumed, surpassing even the much larger Zenibalas she had slain in the desert skies of Lorrd.

Combined with the miraculous healing experience of bathing in, and fusing with the mysterious azoth, she was overcome with so much unnatural pleasure and dark power that it was absolutely nauseating. She had dropped to her knees, doubled over and began to regurgitate nearly a pint of shimmering clear liquid.

"Even the most perfect panacea has its side effects," the host of the forge spoke coolly to her.

Amare, huffing a moan of exhaustion and disgust, wiped her mouth with a forearm and slowly raised her fearful gaze up to the semi-transparent Force ghost that stared down at her with a harsh glare. The spirit was an ethereal blue and white image of a ceremonially well-dressed and handsome pureblood Sith man of above average height, athletic build, and slicked back black hair. His lips were shaded solid obsidian and there were similarly shaded tattooed markings around his eyes with one of them covered with a silver monocle that held a lens polished to a crystal perfect shine. His glowing yellow eyes--piercing twin embers symbolizing his many centuries of adherence to the dark side of the Force--met her with a nod of approval. He spoke confidently with a regal old Imperial accent in a smooth, calming baritone voice to her.

"Hello, sweetie," he greeted her with a wry grin and arms folded across his chest as his eyes assessed her from the crest of her head tendrils down to her bare knees.

Amare gasped in shame realizing her revealing situation and reacted by covering her bare chest with both arms and tucked her nude legs tighter together. She looked away from the ghost, blushing with embarrassment.

"Really, now," the ghost said shaking his head with an amused smile. "Do you think you're the first disrobed woman to grace my eyes? I was a father and a husband, you know."

"D-don't stare!" Amare snapped, her words stammering from the cold she was feeling in spite of the room having been humid and near room temperature. "I know who you are, Archonus."

"That is Darth Archonus to you, whelp!" the ancient Sith Lord shot back at her with a sneer. He turned away from her to glance at the vanquished terentatek, and the walked over to the pool and began to make arcane gestures at the empty pit that was once held the azoth. "I never imagined in all these years that an inexperienced alien female with almost no training would be my heir. Still, I always accept the opportunities I am given. Hm, you look a little light-headed. I imagine listening to all that drama in your head about me was what really made you sick. It's quite trite and pretentious when you put my history into a narrative."

"You k-killed y-your own d-d-daughter...urrghh..." Amare said with contempt right before doubling over to spew more of the "side effects".

"A life for a life," Archonus gently countered nonchalantly over his shoulder. "Though in this case, five lives to save yours. You may think me cold-hearted to feel no pain for killing her, but from my perspective, I see the act as merely the rearrangement of the Living Force. A means to a greater end...that being you. Not long after I sacrificed Alyndra, the Dark Council--men and women comprised of the most powerful Sith Lords of my time--sent their best assassins to capture me. They learned of my dabbling in some, shall we say...'forbidden' knowledge. So they decided in their grand collective wisdom to relieve me of my limbs, and graciously left my head and torso intact so that I may live to experience becoming a meal for a terentatek much larger than the one you just skewered. I will never forget making contact with its stomach juices after it had chewed half of my body into mushy chime and bloody entrails. The fire from a torch feels like ice by comparison. Now, chin up and get dressed. You have a lot to do."

The spirit from antiquity tossed a neatly folded bundle of fresh onyx-coloured clothes that landed at Amare's side with modest gold piping at the cut of the short sleeves and a trio of gold lines on the abdomen below the bust line.

"I did my best to reconstitute using what bits of your old outfit survived your rebirth, as well as materials I gathered within my domain. I believe this will be more suitable for a Sith apprentice until you can fashion something else. Heed my advice: learn life skills. There is far more to being Sith than waving a menacing lightsaber and throwing electricity around at unsuspecting fools. What good is being a Sith Lord if you cannot look the part? What use are you if you do not know the basics of survival, or how to maintain your gear?"

"I see...th-thank you..." Amare said with a mix of gratitude and skepticism as she fought back the remaining nausea she felt and unbound the bundle. She was astonished that the material was a vast improvement over the synthetic fibers of her old mercenary bodysuit. The threads she felt were velvety smooth and soft like satin.

"Spare me your ingratiating tributaries," the ghost spat with irritation as he knelt down to examine the remains of the terentatek. "I am only interested in results. Indeed, you were most thorough with my pet. A shame it failed to eat your friends. Imagine the power you could have engorged yourself in had it been successful. Of course, draining that much Force energy all at once would likely have caused your frail female form to burst into pieces. An amusing thought, but would've been such a waste of my azoth."

Amare ignored his grim musings as she focused on dressing herself. She was surprised, relieved, and more than a little pleased how comfortable and well-fitted the bikini-like black undergarments were, and she was smitten with the flattering robe that revealed some of her toned thighs and upper arms. There was even black leather forearm gauntlets with a spike near each elbow, and her robe was mantled with a black hooded cloak sporting a bright gold inner lining. The knee-high boots slipped on easily and were astonishingly light and silky soft yet felt firm and protective at the same time.

Archonus turned in time to witness Amare having suitably equipped herself, and saw her deftly use the Force to retrieve the utility belt that came loose from her fall, and fastened it back on. He grinned with a lewd gaze at his handiwork, more than a little proud of his fashion sense, especially after having been out of practice for several thousand years. He thought that if she so impressively looked the part, and was going to carry the blessing (and curse) of his azoth in her body, then perhaps he would have to test her worthiness of his generous gifts as any Sith should.

"I once met one of your kind on Alderaan," the deceased Sith Lord waxed nostalgic as he admired how well the female before him modeled his latest Sith design so tantalizingly well. "A male who happened to be a Jedi on his first solo mission. I caught him unawares swimming in a lake near the grounds of House Panteer. I admired him from afar in the moonlight. When I dared ventured too close to his liking, he leaped with such immaculate grace from the water much as you did just now, and summoned his lightsaber to his hand in a single acrobatic motion. Such glorious chiseled strength and virility in him. He was focused, yet filled with such spicy passion. I immediately offered him a truce, and proposed we set aside our differences for one night and indulge in companionship and wanton pleasure. Meant every word. Such a wasteful shame he powered on his blade. It pained me greatly to divorce him of his life. By every respect, he was the superior duelist, and his whirlwind swings came down with the ferocity of a titan. Do you know why he lost?"

Amare shook her head, not sure how she felt about Archonus revealing his...flexible sexual tastes. "You're going to tell me, aren't you?"

"He betrayed his Code," Archonus answered for her.

"His...Code?" the apprentice asked. "You mean...the Jedi Code?"

Archonus nodded, "He attacked me first out of anger. A Jedi must never attack, only defend. To do as he did meant breaking that solemn oath. In truth, he fell to the darkness, not me; I was merely its instrument of justice. Such weakness turned a beautiful Nautolan of divine physical calibre into an ugly sack of rubbish in my eyes. At a critical moment, the Force abandoned him for his dishonour, and I claimed his head."

"But...I thought the Sith embrace the dark side," Amare remarked, confused by the story in how it related to being a Sith. "That it is everything to us. His falling to the dark side is a good thing for us, isn't it? Why should we care about the light if the dark is more powerful and makes us who we are?"

"Fool!" Archonus snapped at her with scowling rage. In that same breath, he raised up a hand towards her and scrunched in his fingers tight just shy of a fist. Instantly, Amare began to feel the breath being choked out of her. "To ignore the light is to ignore the entirety of the Force!" Slowly, he began to hoist a choking Amare off the ground with his telekinetic might. "The dark side is only half of a greater Whole. If you fail to understand the ways of the opposition--how they think, how they feel, and how they approach life's challenges--then they will most surely vanquish you."

In her struggle, Amare quickly began feeling faint as Archonus' grip gradually tightened.

"Such an idiot I was to think you were the one worthy of my grand design!" Archonus bellowed his antipathy at her. "I showed no mercy to my own daughter. Do you think I shall spare any for you?"

Amare, quickly inching closer to death by the second, began hearing a small chorus of unearthly whispers, the presence of others that insisted on pressing stern thoughts into her mind. They were words of vengeance; words that urged her to fight back; words that conveyed a potent strategy. She took those words on faith, let their influence flow freely into her, gave in once more to her destructive feelings and raw hatred, and acted decisively on them. One hand lit itself with red energy, draining the channeling of the Force choke to lessen its intensity, then lowered her other hand and balled into a fist, directing the telekinetic energy and steadily focused her desire to convert it into energized electricity.

"Perhaps I will destroy you," Archonus continued, blinded by his own rage and diabolical thoughts that revealed the qualities of a mentally unstable entity scarred by millennia of social isolation, "Yes...I can rekindle the azoth with your remains until a more worthy Sith comes to claim it. If that is thousands more years of waiting, so be it! I have all eternity. In the meantime, I think I shall greatly enjoy repainting this entire chamber with your blood!"

Amare screamed bloody revenge and unleashed the combined power of the Sith Lord's choke back at him, along with the energy loaned to her by the spirits of the failed apprentices, and a daughter that longed to make her treacherous father pay for his crimes. The rippling bolt of blue-green lightning lanced through Archonus' ghostly chest like a harpoon shot from a cannon forcing him to release the Nautolan who dropped hard to the floor.

Amare gasped deep for a breath of air and was barely able to look up in time to see Archonus vanish in a large puff of dispersed blue particles. She could actively feel a cool tingling sensation in her throat that morphed into a gentle soothing warmth repairing the damage that Archonus had done. Upon recovering her strength, she could hardly believe she had the power to destroy a Sith Lord.

Her smile was one of relief and she sighed with a conflict of emotions surrounding her. The old ghost had given her so much only to try and take it all away again. And for what? To satisfy his ego? He had lashed out at her so suddenly that it had reminded her of Thane's actions on Yavin 4 all over again. It was that memory that helped supercharge her anger to resist long enough to fight back. But then it wasn't Thane that she was angry at, it was the chaotic effect the dark side seemed to have on men she encountered. She was fed up with powerful men making her feel humiliated when she couldn't live up to their standards (such as with Bomoor), or physically punishing her when she chose to speak her mind (a la Thane). It made her loathe how powerless and pathetic they made her feel. She wanted to change and grow to a level such that she could demand their respect, and have power equal or greater than theirs to back it up.

"Change is the way of the dark side..." said Archonus directly behind her.

Amare whirled around and hurled another dagger of intense energy, gnashing her teeth together in righteous anger. Archonus disappeared again before it struck, and he reappeared a short distance to her left flank.

"Again!" he goaded her.

Amare replied in kind by lashing out with her Force-enhanced streams of deadly electrons, and once more saw her target vanish, tormenting her with his supernatural mobility.

Your master attacked you due to your insolence and flagrant violation of his interpretation of the Sith Code said the invisible Sith Lord whose disembodied voice echoed in all directions in the chamber. With the Dark Council long since a forgotten memory to all but the most studious of Jedi, it falls to the master to interpret and execute the tenets of the Code as he sees fit. The old ways are nothing more than relics wallowing in these dust-filled tombs. Marka Ragnos...Ludo Kressh...even my muse, Lady XoXaan herself...our time has come and gone. We failed. You must not. The Sith must evolve, change with the times, learn from their mistakes...or be forever extinct, and when that happens...the light will extinguish all life in a self-destructive blaze of judgment, the Force will wither and fade, and the galaxy as you know it will be no more.

"Stop it!" Amare screamed as she turned and glanced all around her with large paranoid eyes, her twitchy hands covered in coiling bands of deadly energy. "Stop trying to distract me! Show yourself, coward!"

From the extreme corner of her vision, the sight of her lightsaber, the one that once belonged to Thane, spiraled through the air past her. She spun on a heel and her eyes followed it and saw the bright golden blade flare to life in Archonus' hands. Amare turned, reached out for where she left her shoto, and called it to her hands and ignited the chartreuse short blade.

"It is your duty, even as an apprentice," Archonus said gripping his stolen prize in a standard Shii-Cho combat stance, Amare doing likewise, "to reconcile the individual and social wills of all living sentients." He rushed at her, not charging with his feet, but gliding inches above the stone floor, swinging with every intent at killing her, forcing Amare to block each blow, staggering her, preventing her from making clean parries, trying to throw her off-balance. "Our order must be complete and absolute. There can be no lords in an anarchy. Only we can tip the scales, assure dominion over the chaos. Only the Sith can spare the galaxy from the ignorance and corruption of the light!"

Amare managed a counter thrust into the abdomen of the Sith Lord's image, but it cut through nothing but air.

"Ha!" Archonus used the Nautolan's moment of disbelief and threw a push with the Force and sent Amare flying back, sliding and tumbling down into the azoth pit. "Such a maudlin little fool you are. So much to learn." He slowly stalked towards the pit and added, "You are not a brute; you are a woman. Though you may be Nautolan, your mental state is not much different than your Human counterparts. Your mind is governed by your feelings. In the realm of the dark side, that is to your advantage. Use the power of your emotions! They are the fuel that ignites your abilities. Your passion is your strength! With the Force, even the least intimidating female can match, or even exceed the savagery of a man."

When Archonus reached the edge of the pit, he looked down in time to see a green saber blade lash vertically up through his ethereal face as Amare somersaulted up and over him, much like she had with the terentatek. When she landed on the other side, she was aghast yet again to see another strike having zero effect on her undead foe.

"Damn you!" she cried. "It's not right! This isn't fair! Were you alive, you would be dead at my feet!"

Archonus gave no verbal or facial reply. Instead, he offered her a salute with Thane's old lightsaber, a traditional Makashi-style formal dueling salute with the blade held vertically in front of him at center mass. He then flourished the blade, held it low and to his side and declared, "A Jedi Master once said: 'A wave that comes in...'" He immediately launched a surprise one-handed slash, "...'must return to the sea!'" Amare barely deflected it in time, and swung with a wide arcing slash. Archonus easily caught the strike and slapped the blade out of her grasp. Again, he tried to bash her with a heavy Force push, but this time Amare held up both hands defensively, and only slid several feet along the floor while still maintaining her footing.

This development pleased Archonus, but he allowed himself no visible approval and instead howled his blood thirst and came at Amare with a hard overhead chop to bring all his might down to cleave the apprentice in two. The blow landed, but the result was not at all what he anticipated.

Amare had given birth to something that was far more dangerous to Archonus than any lightsaber or Force lightning: It was a weapon of pure dark side sorcery that he once thought was just some strange esoteric legend found in an old book in the ancient Sphere of Knowledge library on Dromund Kaas.

"No...this cannot be...the...Acala?" Archonus identified with shock in his eyes as the golden lightsaber he pressed heavily with ground with sparking intensity at Amare's left forearm which was engulfed in a long sheath of blue-green energy shaped like a curved ancient longsword. Amare didn't know how it came to be, only that she knew it was all she had left, and summoning this astral weapon to block the powerful lightsaber was quickly taking all she had out of her. She was down on one knee, faltering to Archonus' sheer power, only seconds from being torn to pieces. She had just enough left in her free hand to let loose one last burst of lightning. Archonus growled out in pain, and vanished yet again leaving the lightsaber to fall deactivated to the floor at Amare's feet. The Acala dissipated as suddenly as it manifested, and she was alone once more.

She was almost completely spent, panting and dizzy and feeling--

"Most impressive," the Sith Lord said bemused.

Amare sprung back to her feet, but before she could turn around, the elder Sith's otherworldly hands were upon her shoulders, fingers pressed firmly, but not harmfully on her pressure points. He made her feel a gentle surge of power from his fingertips, evoking his will over her to calm and placate her hellish fury. Amare's eyes closed and found that she couldn't move, but only because she lacked the desire to, or so she was telepathically encouraged to believe.

"Calm yourself," he said soothingly to her, gently moving his touch past her head tendrils and massaging her neck muscles with tiny pulses of telekinetic vibrations simulating the feel of actual strong hands. "Save your wrath for later; you will need it. You have passed my little test, apprentice. Though I am disappointed that I did not see it before. You, my dear, were marked with dark water long before you made contact with my azoth. You have the taint of Dathomir upon you, yet it is somehow...different. You are not becoming a sorceress...nay, you were born as one! Such magick does not exist on Glee Anselm. How did this happen? I wonder who imbued you with such a gift."

He released Amare, half-expecting things to escalate again, warily watched her slowly turn to look up at him with content eyes, the streaks of swirling lava in them absent. They were humble solid black orbs again...those gentle Zaracoda eyes. Though there was, however, a slight frown that revealed the Sith had failed to achieve full control over her.

"My lord...?" Amare started to ask, but then changed it to a firm, yet respectful statement. "I wish to leave this place. I have to return to my friends."

"That's it?" Archonus queried with an arched eyebrow. "No protest? No yelling or pitching a fit at what I've done to you, or how much I tried to kill you? You would be justified in being angry with me. I will not stop you. There's no reason to hold back."

Amare sighed, looked away towards the pit for a moment, then locked eyes with her unholy dead mentor again and shook her head. "I just have one question."

"Of course," Archonus offered with a nod. "You've earned the privilege."

"I saw the bones of your apprentices while I was down there waiting for you to get close," Amare explained. "They spoke to me, and for a moment, I could feel each of them as if I were a part of their lives. They each showed me one Sith ability they favoured, and told me how to resist you. But there was only four of them. There was a fifth set of remains...an infant. Who was she?"

"Amare..." Archonus replied, turning his forlorn gaze to the empty pool. "Her name was Amare."

"What?" the Nautolan was taken aback.

"You are my fifth apprentice, the reemergence of my stillborn daughter," Archonus confessed. "Or so I believe. There is no other explanation I can think of to determine why the azoth reacted so easily to you, and why the apprentices refused to let you escape the pool when you first fell in. They chose you, and through the ritual fluids, bonded with you. The night my Amare was born, her untamed power was such that she drained all the life from her mother, and died in my arms. The power she unknowingly absorbed burned her little body from the inside. The Force brought her into the world just long enough to send me a message. My entire life, and un-life as a Sith was spent trying to decipher that message. Now here we are, thousands of years later, the answer standing before me in the form of a young amphibian. It turns out the fruits of my great experiment were always meant for you. You are now to me as a father would look to his daughter. You are my heir, and worthy of the name Amare."

Amare's face turned to one of unbridled disgust. "Dispel yourself of that thought, Darth. I would never want to be your daughter. You are undeserving of the honour of fatherhood. But I will keep my name, for it was through her and her sister and your loyal apprentices that I was born again. It's a beautiful name, and I will live my life honouring her memory while purging you from my thoughts. Your azoth is my prize; I will perfect it, use it to make myself more powerful, and you shall never be credited for its creation. If there remains any signs of your mark in this galaxy, I will destroy it. To assure you will be left here alone with no purpose, and to forever be forgotten for all time is the greatest revenge, and you are deserving of no less."

Archonus paused and raised his chin high, growling low under his breath, tensing his shoulders and doing all he could to hold back his rage. "Fair enough," he relented after a brief moment of monumental self-control. It was true all that Amare had cursed him for. He had a long time to think about what he had done in the extremely selfish pursuit of his dark research, and he long since accepted his guilt. Sith or Jedi, good or evil, it didn't matter; no man in all the universe had a right to slay a child who loved and trusted him for any reason whatsoever.

"You will be unable to leave the way you arrived," he revealed. "Thus you require a new path." He raised a long bony finger and pointed past Amare towards the way out. "The passage leading to your master lies beyond the red jewel embedded on the far wall over there. Use your fledgling Sith knowledge to open the way, and never return to this place again."

Amare glared with suspicion at him, but then believed there was no trickery in the pureblood's yellow eyes. She retrieved her lightsabers and turned to take her leave of his miserable spiritual existence.

Out of nowhere, a small grav sled struck Amare in one of her shins.

"Ow! What in the--" she turned and looked down to see it was carrying the majority of G2's parts.

"Take your trash with you," Archonus huffed through his teeth. "It's the least you can do for a machine that saved your life twice. I've also been looking for a reason to get rid of that damned sled for over a thousand years. Take it and begone!"

Amare felt more ashamed at herself than angry at the Sith for having almost forgotten her droid saviour. She guided the sled with simple telekinesis, and sure enough found the jewel Archonus mentioned, a small hexagonal shape in the center with six arrows pointing out from it in almost every cardinal direction surrounded by a hexagonal outline. She thought of turning around to ask what it meant, but she refused to give the Sith Lord the pleasure of her perplexity.

"To defeat your enemy, you must know you enemy," Amare spoke the mantra quietly to herself. She stared hard at the jewel, held her open palm up at it, and said aloud, "Peace is a lie. There is only passion." Nothing happened, and she continued, "Through passion I gain strength. Through strength I gain power." She then increased the tempo of the recital in frustration, "Through power I gain victory. Through victory I--ugh! I COMMAND YOU TO OPEN!" There was no reaction. "Open! Open damn you!!!" Her final spat was accompanied with a blast of lightning on the jewel causing it to vibrate, crack, and fall to pieces. There was a quaking rumble felt throughout the large ritual chamber just as a part of the wall where the jewel was embedded pushed back slightly, then slowly slid aside granting her the way out she desired. The air ahead was cold, damp, and rancid, but it smelled like freedom.

"I answered your question," Archonus called out to her, "now you will answer mine."

Amare turned to face the Sith Lord one last time just as heavy stones and mortar started collapsing down from the ceiling behind where Archonus hovered.

"Do you love 'him'?" he asked.

Amare made no move to answer him in any way. She held her harsh gaze at the Sith for but a moment, and turned away from him taking G2's remains on the sled, disappearing into the unlit gloom of the ancient hidden passage.

"I see. You are indeed a fool. A powerful one, but a fool nonetheless. It is the way of you females," Archonus said, uncaring whether she could hear him anymore. He knew, eventually, the Force would convey his message to her in some way, shape, or form. "Then perhaps you too shall fail as we have. If you cannot shed your feelings for him, then when the time comes..." More stones fell in front of him, filling the pit while still more pulverized the remains of the terentatek. "...he will most surely destroy you."

The room completely caved in, and the sacrificial legacy and presence of Darth Archonus was sealed away forever.

TBC

__________________________________

AMARE (formerly ZARACODA WOLPH)

(includes events from Trial of a Lorrd)

▼ Dark Side Shift
☼ New Ability - Force Lightning
☼ New Ability - Conjure Astral Blade ("Acala")
▬ Melee Combat Increase
▬ Lightsaber Combat Increase
▬ Stealth Increase
▬ Force Ability Increase
▬ Force Telekinesis Increase
▬ Force Drain Increase
▬ Force Sight Increase
▬ Force Levitation Increase

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