• Published 9th Oct 2013
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The Dragon and the Force - FenrisianBrony



Spike disappears from Equestria, and ends up surrounded by Jedi

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Shadows of the Past

Spike's wings burnt as he landed upon the Ice Spear yet again, his talons digging into the ice and anchoring him there.

Finally Moonstone’s voice echoed in Spike’s mind before she materialised beside him. Though she was perfectly capable of floating in mid air, she instead opted to appear as though she clung to the mountain alongside him, her ephemeral hooves granting her a surety of purchase that no talon ever could, while a thick snow jacket and scarf were bundled around her.

“Why do you never take me anywhere nice?” She had to shout to be heard over the wind.

“Once this is all over, I’ll find us a nice beach planet, we can have a holiday,” Spike roared back, before glancing down towards the specs of Canderous and Revan far below him.

“Getting...tired...again?” Canderous called over the comms, the effort of the climb evident in his voice.

“Hey, if you want to scout a path yourself, you’re more than welcome to try,” Spike shot back. “There’s a stable shelf just above you which should hold you both for a while at least, then it’s a straight shot to the summit.”

“We’ll rest here, then come up and join you and reach the summit together,” Revan called out, his voice far harder to make out, his environment suit not fully stopping the wind from snatching and clawing at each word before they reached Spike, but evidently having an easier time of it than Canderous. “I can’t remember precisely what we’ll find up there, but it would be better if we did not go alone.”

“I’ll wait for you to catch up then, that shelf won’t hold three anyway.”

With the comms channel flickering out, Spike turned to face out from the Ice Spear, digging his talons back into the icy wall in defiance of the wind that sought to rip him from his perch. For a time, he remained motionless and silent, Moonstone beside him as they simply looked into the constant storms and thin atmosphere of Rekkiad at the infinite nothingness that lay beyond this tiny pale sphere. Finally, Spike broke the silence with a contented sigh, a small gout of flame accompanying the sound to banish the cold that was setting in.

“You know...ignore what we’re here for, and there’s a strangely peaceful side to this world. Sure it’s like the Crystal Empire before Sombre’s fall, but still, you close your eyes and...”

“You could almost imagine you’re back there,” Moonstone finished for him.

“Or visiting for the first time,” Spike nodded slowly, his shoulders relaxing some of the tension he barely even registered he was carrying anymore before he turned to look at Moonstone directly. “What are we even doing anymore, Moonstone?”

“What do you mean?” She asked, meeting his question with a cocked head and inquisitive look.

“I mean what are we doing here, with Ordo? With ourselves,” Spike shrugged, or managed the best approximation he could on the cliff-side. “When does it end? Scooped up by the Jedi, thrown into their war. Join Revan and get dragged into his. Fast forward and we’re fighting Revan and Malak as well as half the Jedi council. And now? Now we’re working with Revan and the Mandalorians and Revan to undo what both of us did less than a decade ago.”

“We could just stop,” Moonstone pointed out. “Just fly off, take [i[Harmony and disappear into the galaxy. It’s a big enough place, and if you’re not punishing yourself this time, you may even stay beneath the radar.”

“I made a good gladiator,” Spike huffed, but part of him could see the logic in what she said. The galaxy was vast, and he had given it more than his pound of flesh. He could find somewhere to grow old, some tropical paradise where he could sip cocktails for however long he had left. It was tempting.

“You and I both know that you’d last a year at most,” Moonstone laughed, punching him on the shoulder, only for her hoof to pass through him, her expression becoming crestfallen for an instant before she recovered and continued. “You couldn’t just stop, not unless...”

“I don’t know how we’d even begin to find Equis,” Spike cut her off, knowing where she was going, tapping his wrist-mounted controls and allowing a holo-reader to spring into life, projecting a block of text into the air between them.

Neither of them needed the words before them to know what it said, long having memorised the scroll which now lay safely within Harmony, and yet it was still the only link they had ever found to their true home, Spike taking in each word of the digitised message with the same reverence as he always did.

ToDear To My Dearest Spike.

I don’t know if this will ever reach you. I don’t know where you are. I don’t know if you even survived whatever it was that took you.

I’ve been thinking back to that night so much in the past year, replaying every moment, running tests on the tree, trying to find out what that orb was. I’ve found nothing that can help, nothing that tells me where you are, or how to reverse what happened. Months of searching, more data than I know what to do with, me, not knowing what to do with data, imagine that and yet I’m no closer to finding out where you’ve gone, or what that thing was.

I’m so sorry that I can’t do more, I want to find you, to hold you again. Everything is so different without you, so quiet, so boring. I feel like I took you for granted when you were here. Now all I wish is that you would come back for just one day. Somepony wrote that you never truly know what you have until it’s gone. I know what I had now. All the magic, all my friends, even the princesses. I’d give them up for you Spike.

The others, they don’t understand, they think that I’m just grieving, that I’m still trying to adjust to what happened to you, but I’m not. I’m not going to accept this. No matter what it takes, I will find you again, and I will see you again. I’ve been trying to master Celestia’s message spell for months now, following her notes on how she originally bound the pair of us together back when you first hatched, initial observations when we were both young, everything I can get my hooves on. Celestia thinks I’m crazy, she thinks that I can’t make a link between me and you without you being here with me, but she’s wrong. We’re magically linked you and I Spike, paired at birth for life. I feel your pain, you feel mine, well, you’re a Dragon, pony pain probably isn’t that much too you so maybe you don’t, or maybe it’s a one way street and I feel yours but you don’t feel mine. Who knows? I know you’re still alive, I can feel it, the pain you’re feeling, the anger, the sorrow. I won’t stop, I’ll never stop until we’re back together again.

The others want me to stop, Celestia, Luna and Cadence. They tell me I should focus on my duties, but this is my duty. If you can be taken, so can others, and I will do everything I can to find out more about your disappearance so that nopony else ever has to go through the same pain as I’m going through. I won’t ever stop searching.
Ever.

If you are reading this, if it somehow gets through to you, promise me one thing. Don’t ever stop believing in yourself Spike.

Never give up on what you believe in. Someday, hopefully soon, I will find a way to bring you home, I promise you on everything I own. Please don’t give up on yourself, wherever you are.

Eternally yours

Your mother
Your sister
Twilight Sparkle

“If we searched the galaxy for an eternity, we’d have as much chance of finding it as a grain of sand on the foot of a starfighter has at finding its way back to Tatooine,” a sorrowful smile spread across his face before be continued, “Our one ‘connection’ to Equis has precisely zero connections to Equis. The magic that spawned it is ours, the elements that make up the parchment came from the surrounding atmosphere of Taris. Everything about this scroll is you and me, Moonstone, save the words that were upon it, and you can’t trace words through the stars. Least, I can’t. I have no idea about magic beyond what you can make it do or what feels natural, and nothing about this is natural.”

“So still square one,” Moonstone sighed

“We’re not even on the board yet, let alone square one” Spike shook his head, before taking a deep breath and hardening his mind once more, his smile becoming one of resigned determination. “I guess the fact is we’re here, the why doesn’t matter. Ordo’s where fate’s taken us, we just need to ride it out and make the best of it.”

“Story of our life,” Moonstone gave a weak laugh before the pair lapsed into an uneasy silence, neither placated by the words of the other in the slightest.

It took another hour for Canderous and Revan to climb to their position, Revan leading the way while Canderous brought up the rear, panting hard through his helmet. Wordlessly, Spike waited for them to pass, before pushing off from the Ice in a manoeuvre he had repeated half a dozen times already, his talons tearing free a hail of ice that would have peppered any climbing beneath him, sending him plummeting a few pulse pounding metres towards the distant ground before his wings snapped out, a single powerful downbeat sending him soaring up past the still climbing pair, Moonstone soaring along beside him. With each beat of his wings, Spike felt the joy of flight banishing the doubts of his place in the universe, and by the time Canderous and Revan hauled themselves over the lip of the Ice Spear and Spike touched down beside them, he’d buried them away once more, at least for a while longer.

“You two look like shit,” Spike laughed, clapping Canderous on the back and earning a glare he could feel even through his Alor’s helmet, though no response was forthcoming, Canderous still struggling to catch his breath. Finally he straightened up, looking around the plateau.

True to the scans, the ice was treacherous, each step sinking through a half-melted layer of slush or sending cracks rippling through the surface, echoing ominously through the structure, Spike taking to keeping his wings spread wide, beating them every so-often when he found a particularly weak part beneath his bulk.

“The entrance must be buried,” Revan called out.

“Scans are picking up something about ten metres down,” Canderous nodded, before looking at Spike expectantly.

“You know that large amounts of fire and unstable ice is a bad combination, right?” Moonstone asked wryly.

“By all means then, you can dig the tomb out,” Canderous nodded, looking at Revan. “I’m sure the pair of us won’t find freezing to death up here.

Moonstone opened her mouth before thinking better of it and closing it again, they had a point; the wind was howling across the top of the Ice Spear, and while Spike and Moonstone had little to fear from the elements, Canderous and Revan were not so lucky. Without the wall to break the wind, they would start to show the burden of the cold before long, even Canderous’s armour not able to keep it out forever.

“Stand back then,” Spike gestured, before reaching up and removing his helmet fully, working his jaw now it was free. He could breathe through the grill on it, but that didn’t mean he fully trusted it for what was required of him now.

Revan and Canderous dutifully stepped back as Spike took a deep breath in, the freezing air filling his lungs, before he roared, flames billowing forth in a wild cone before Moonstone focused the flames into a tight beam, ice turning to steam at the merest touch of the arcane fire. For close to half a minute, Spike continued the stream, until a rebounding wall of heat indicated the fire had struck something that was decidedly not ice, stopping his roar in an instant and watching as Canderous and Revan walked forward.

“And you wanted to dig,” Canderous laughed as he walked past Moonstone, peering over the edge of the freshly bored hole as the steam began to clear, revealing what they had climbed all this way for; deep in the ice lay a door, carved from blackened rock, scorched by the flames but still whole.

Without needing words, Revan, Canderous and Spike stepped over the edge, sliding down the steep slope, arresting their speed with talons and knives until they arrived at the bottom, clustering around what they now saw as a crypt door. The dark feeling that Spike had felt from his first moment on the world had now grown to an almost physical presence before him, Moonstone wrinkling her nose as if she could smell the evil that radiated off the stone.

“I give you the tomb of the Sith Lord Dramath the Second,” Revan intoned with a sense of ominous foreboding, removing his environment suit’s helmet as he spoke.

“How long did you say this guy’s been dead?” Spike asked, his scales crawling as the waves of dark side energy lashed at his mind.

“Over a thousand years, and if his hatred is still this strong now...” Revan trailing off, Spike beginning to feel physically sick at the thought that Exar Kun, Ulic Qel-Droma, Malak, even Revan himself, were all akin to children besides this Dramath.

“Oh stop being so dramatic, it’s a tomb, nothing more,” Canderous scoffed. “Whatever’s in there is long dead, let's just get this open, get what we came from and get out of here before we all freeze.”

Spike rolled his eyes, but had to admit that Canderous had a point about speed, reaching down and grasping the rock with his talons and straining. Spike had bested war droids twice his size, marched in galactic conflicts three times over, fought with some of the greatest threats known to the Republic, when he wished something to move, it moved or was torn asunder.

The rock did not move.

Spike’s muscles burnt as he strained, before finally relenting, letting go of the covering and turning to look at Revan, a sardonic look on his face.

“So, you’re now going to tell me that you know exactly how to open the tomb, knew that wasn’t going to work and let me do it anyway?”

“Pretty much,” Revan smirked, before stepping forward and closing his eyes, his hand extending out towards the stone.

With a crunch, the rock moved upwards, Spike however was more concerned with Revan himself. His face was screwed up, but not from the effort of opening the tomb itself, but from the energies Spike knew surrounded them both, yet where Spike held them at the walls, Revan had thrown wide the gates, opening himself to everything.

“Revan...” Spike growled softly, his hands dropping towards his weapons.

“I’m...fine,” Revan grunted, before his eyes opened, Spike seeing a flash of yellow before it was banished as he let the rock go, the tomb now open before them. “Come on, we should not linger now that it is open, and we must still confront whatever is within.”

Revan made to step forward, but Moonstone appeared in front of him, Spike likewise sticking his arm in front of the man to stop him.

“Maybe you should tell us what we are going to find in there before we all go marching in,” Moonstone raised an eyebrow.

“I have no idea what’s within,” Revan admitted after a brief pause.

“But you’ve been here before,” Spike pointed out.

“After the Mandalorian Wars,” Revan nodded, “but before the Civil War, before my fall and my capture by Bastilla. Rewriting minds is not something that should be done lightly, nor does it come without its own set of strings attached.”

“So, how much do you remember?” Spike asked slowly.

“Bits and pieces, fragments really,” Revan shrugged, Spike nearly missing the barely suppressed shudder, nearly.

“Nightmares?”

Revan didn’t respond straight away, before merely nodding. “Something like that.”

“I know full well what that’s like,” Spike’s attitude towards Revan softened just a bit, before he moved past Revan. “But if you don’t remember what’s in here anyway, there’s no reason for you to go first, and with some offence intended, I don’t want you of all people being the first one back inside a tomb filled with the dark side. Moonstone can bring up the rear.”

“Shouldn’t the order be my decision,” Canderous asked, crossing his arms in mock indignation.

“If you’d like me to have to explain to you everything bad in front of you before you take a step and how to avoid it, be my guest, Alor,” Spike bowed.

“Perfect,” Canderous nodded. “So, order; Spike you’re first, then Revan, then me, Moonstone brings up the rear.”

Spike gave the Mandalorian a withering look, before turning and marching into the tomb. For a few metres, light continued to bounce around the complex from the entrance, but after turning yet another corner, they were plunged into blackness, both Spike and Revan drawing their lightsabers, while Moonstone lit her horn, casting rays of purple and white light across the corridors.

It felt like they were walking for an eternity, the tomb far larger than anything Spike had anticipated, going deep within the Ice Spear. Fears of getting lost had seen both him and Canderous beginning a mapping program within their armour, as well as resorting to more primitive means of direction finding as Canderous meticulously marked the walls in Ordo cyphers, laying a path back to the surface, as well as ensuring any not versed in the clans ways would become hopelessly lost if they tried to follow the quartet.

Down and down they went, until finally they emerged into a chamber larger than any they had entered before, the cavernous ceiling soaring away into the darkness high above, even the light that the party was casting not reaching all the way to the top. Carved from the same dark granite as the rest of the complex, the room was cut with meticulous patterns of flowing glyphs and sharp, angular lines, their providence unknown to Spike and yet their meaning somehow clear, drawing the eye inexorably to the centre of the room, no matter where one sought to look, towards the rooms one dominating object.

The sarcophagus of the Sith Lord Dramath the Second.

For such a simple object of carved, angular stone, the feeling of dread that Spike had felt since coming to the world grew only stronger, and it was all he could do to take one step after another towards the foreboding object. None spoke, even Canderous sensing the wrongness of this place and fighting against it, but finally they reached the sarcophagus, clustering around it and exchanging wordless glances.

Revan laid his hands upon the lid of the sarcophagus, before nodding at Spike and Canderous in turn, the pair grasping the heavy stone lid, before with a shared grunt of exertion, they lifted it away. Instantly a hiss of stale air escaped the sarcophagus, filling the room with dust and filth that set the light cast from magic and sabre bouncing erratically around the room, temporarily obscuring everything, even visor filters struck dumb by the power of the tomb, but soon that too cleared, Spike getting his first look into the resting place of the ancient Sith Lord.

Spike hadn’t known what to expect; a desiccated husk of a body, disintegrating bones, an impossibly hale and whole body that could be sleeping rather than long since dead. What he saw however was none of these things, for what he saw was nothing to do with Dramath the Second, no body, no bones, no indication that a being had once been laid to rest here. Where he had once lain, now rested only a singular object, one that Spike knew and hated, yet now sought above all else.

“Mandalore the Ultimate’s mask,” Canderous breathed softly, reaching out a hand towards it, before stopping, his helmet turning towards Spike, his voice low. “What are you doing?”

His words chilled Spike to the core as he looked down, seeing his own claw outstretched towards the mask. Time seemed to freeze as Spike tried to remember extending it, only to come up blank as a voice whispered in his ear.

Take it.

Spike’s mind raced as he sought to place the voice as it spoke again.

Take it. Go on. Take up the mantle yourself.

“...I,” Spike began, his throat impossibly dry.

Take up the Mantle of Mandalore. Lead. Do not follow.

“I don’t...” Spike tried again, but the voice redoubled its efforts, echoing around the room and through SPike’s mind, speaking multiple times at once, the words seeming to crash into Spike all at once.

Mandalore the Draconic

Mandalore the Victorious

Mandalore the Imperishable

Mandalore the Betrayer

Mandalore the Fallen

Mandalore the Desolator

“N...no,” Spike managed, before suddenly feeling a sting across his face, Canderous’s fist drawing back to deliver another blow into his helmet, the metal reverberating with the blow.

“Snap out of it, withdraw your hand,” Canderous’s voice was strained, the telltale signs of combat stim use tinging the edges of the words, as if the Alor was speaking through gritted teeth, which, Spike realised, he probably was.

“I don’t know what came over me,” Spike muttered, stepping back away from Canderous, his mind reeling.

“Can we please grab that thing and leave,” Moonstone looked just as uneasy, only Revan seemingly unaffected by what had just happened.

“Gladly,” Revan nodded, now the closest to the sarcophagus turned, reaching down and grasping the mask from where it lay, holding it out towards Canderous.

“How dare you defile Mandalore's Mask with your filthy Jedi hands!"

The voice startled everyone in the room, all attention having been firmly on the mask. In an instant, all weapons had been drawn, Spike holding his axe in one hand, his gauntlet-blaster pointed at the door, only to be met by the helmed form of half a dozen Mandalorian’s, each aiming their own weapons at the group.

“Veela?” Canderous sounded taken aback for a moment before anger slipped into his voice once more. “What do you think you’re doing?!”

“Put the mask down!” Veela shouted again, not paying attention to Canderous’s words, Revan not moving an inch.

“Put your weapons down, now,” Canderous growled.

“I will not order that,” Veela snapped.

“This is a betrayal,” Canderous’s aim never faltered, his heavy pistol trained on Veela. “You had your chance to invoke your right of challenge, that time has passed so again, put, your weapons, down.”

“Betrayal?” Veela let out a sharp bark of a laugh. “Who are you to talk of betrayal? You who turned your back on your people? And for what? To throw in your lot with him? With Revan the Butcher?”

The words echoed around the room as Revan’s identity was so comprehensively and unequivocally stated.

“Veela,” Spike began, trying to take a step forward.

“Oh, sorry,” Veela snapped, still not taking her eyes off of Canderous. “Not just Revan the Butcher, that would be too easy, too small a scale for our grand Alor. No, you had to invite the Beast of Ranox into our clan as well. What’s next? Will you kneel before Meetra Surik too? Whore yourself out for the sanctimonious Jedi?!”

“Veela, don’t do this,” Canderous warned. “Please.”

“Begging?” Veela scoffed. “We do not want to kill you, Canderous. For all your faults you are my Alor, and I will pledge myself to you until my final day as Mandalore. We’re not here to kill you. Just them.”

“I cannot break my oaths to Revan, nor my oath to protect all members of Clan Ordo, from threats inside and out. Do not become a kin-slayer, Veela. Do not make me become one either.”

“Last chance, Canderous. Stand with us against the Jedi, take up the mask in a way befitting our people and your honour.”

“My honour is unquestionable,” Canderous sighed. “And my honour keeps me here, Veela.”

“So be it,” the words were hollow as Veela spoke them, yet her actions were unshaken as the six opened fire.

With a roar, Spike launched himself at one of the Mandalorians even as Revan deflected the first volley, blaster bolts riddling one of their attackers. His axe howled as it sliced through the air, meeting little resistance as it punched through the other warrior's chest. Even as two of their number fell, the other four stepped back into the corridor as a cluster of grenades was tossed into the room, detonating a split second later with a deafening screech of noise and electromagnetic static.

In an instant, Revan’s lightsaber shorted out, a battlecry ripping from Veela’s lips as she leapt into the air, sword in one hand, a gout of flame billowing forth from her gauntlet to engulf the disorientated Jedi. Spike turned, but the remaining Mandalorians were already charging back in, their weapons trained on Spike and Moonstone as Spike realised that even had they not been distracting him, Veela was moving too fast, her sword already descending towards Revan.

“Revan!” Spike roared as the sword slashed down, before a single disruptor shot rang out across the room, the bolt hitting Veela squarely in the chest. She did not even have a chance to scream as the maximally-powered disruptor did its hellish work, every atom in her body superheating in an instant as she turned into a human-shaped mass of ash which rapidly dispersed.

Veela’s death was like a physical punch to her warriors, buying Spike a second to bring his own weapons back around, Revan likewise drawing his second lightsaber and leaping into the remaining Mandalorian. In as many heartbeats, three more Mandalorians fell to join their comrades, Canderous looking at one of the larger piles of ash as his pistol dropped to the floor, his helmet joining it a second later.

“Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum,” his voice was soft, emotion clearly warring with duty behind his otherwise stoic features. “Ni kar'tayli gar darasuum”

“Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la,” Spike spoke the phrase slowly and carefully, determined not to make a mistake now, a small nod from Moonstone confirming that he had not.

“So ends the story of Mandalore the Ultimate’s war,” Canderous muttered, standing up and moving to retrieve the mask that had been dropped in the brief firefight. “We begin a new story today.”

Spike’s eyes were glued to the mask as Canderous picked it up, taking in every inch of the mask for the first time in years, every detail was exactly how he remembered it. Forged from beskar iron, the mask itself was a ruddy golden colour, impossibly maintaining the same hue even in the strange lighting of the tomb, decorated with concentric lines and emblems of the ancient Mandalorian Crusaders that surrounded the imposing T-Visor that was so iconic to the people who followed this mask. Trailing from it was a hood of thick armourweave, fully capable of sealing the wearer away from the elements with the surety of any full helmet

“Mandalore,” Revan intoned, bowing his head, Spike and Moonstone following a split second behind, Spike softly thumping his fist into his breastplate.

“Mandalore. Mandalore. Mandalore.”

Each word reverberated around the tomb with the pounding of fist on armour as Revan slowly and solemnly pulled the mask up, the armourweave easily fitting over his head as if it had been made for him. As the mask slid home, Spike, Revan and Moonstone fell silent, the sounds echoing away down the corridors of the tomb as Canderous drew his sword.

"Mandalore has returned! I am Mandalore the Preserver, and I will restore the honour and glory of my people!"

Revan watched on, a sorrowful smile across his face as he reached into the sarcophagus, pulling a red-glass pyramid from within and stowing it within his pack. Spike knew he should have questioned Revan, and perhaps he would when they returned to the surface, but for now Spike was wrapped up in the moment, thrusting his own axe into the air and joining his voice with Canderous’s.

“For Mandalore! For the Preserver!”

“For Clan Ordo!” Moonstone cried out, rearing up on her hind legs, likewise given over to the spectacle.

“Thank you both,” Canderous, no, Mandalore the Preserver, turned to face Spike and Moonstone, clasping Spike’s forearm in a warrior's embrace before turning to do the same with Moonstone, the Alicorn merely bowing her head in place of the gesture. “Know that your presence here and your aid will not be forgotten, but for now we have much to do, the work of rebuilding our people has just begun, and I will need your aid to accomplish it.”

“As you command, my Mandalore,” Spike knelt, his head lowered, his axe held out hilt first. “My blade is yours.”

Part of Spike was shocked by the commitment in his own voice, even as another part rallied against it. Quashing the thoughts of cognitive dissonance that seemed to be his constant companion in these strange times, Spike allowing his weapon to be taken from him, before the hilt was proffered back to him.

“Your blade is your own, Spike. Your oath and bond is to Clan Ordo and to me, but while I am Mandalore, your blade shall forever remain your own, to use as you see fit. I will not become Ultimate, nor even Indomitable. This is a new dawn for the Mandalorians, we best make it a glorious one.”

With that he strode from the tomb of Lord Dramath the Second Spike, Moonstone and Revan following behind him, leaving the place an empty tomb for Veela, those who followed her, and Canderous, the warrior that once was now no more as he walked to face the galaxy under a name that would forever reverberate through history, as Mandalore the Preserver.

Author's Note:

So this one has been a long time coming, however it may be a bit of time before the next chapter comes out. Re-reading all my plans for this Act of the story has made me realise how much I dislike it, and how much I would have just been sticking to established events in this Act, and in the entire story so far really, Spike being present for events and impacting them, but not changing them much.

Not sure what I will be doing, but I know I plan to change the act going forward to get us properly ready for the big final act.

Anyway, hope you enjoy it!

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