Following The Whitehawk City Massacre And The Battle Of Wintersmith Manor, Derrick is left barely dead-alive. Undead, granted, but still severely wounded and horrifically burned. Even with his regeneration, Derrick likely would have perished if not for Darius, Carmella and Sam finding him and the others in the nick of time, driving Ramona off and doing what they could to save them.
Derrick is taken to Dragonspire Stronghold, the scraps of clothes he still had on are removed, and he's lowered into a pool of blood. This supercharges his regeneration abilities and increases his power and he soon awakens, his body completely healed. He springs out of the bloody pool and lands on the floor naked and covered in blood. The blood is absorbed into his body as he tries to get his bearings, thinking that Ramona is behind this. He begins calling for his friends. We are then introduced to one of the staff at the Stronghold, a Vampiress Meido named Fiorella Lo Conte.
After calming down, Derrick sheepishly apologizes for attacking Fiorella...and to both her AND Carmella for running around naked in front of them.
Derrick quickly gets dressed and gets caught up on current events: Ramona escaped, they brought him and a certain other friend whom will be revealed in the story, were brought here to recover, his other friends and the survivors of Ramona's attack are being treated at hospitals.
Derrick, naturally, wants to run to their side. However, and this is important, they shoot this down. Derrick is too young, inexperienced and emotional. If he was to walk into a hospital, with all of the blood either being shed from surgeries or other complications or being transferred into people, there's a very real chance he would lose control of himself. Furthermore, in his current state, Derrick could be overcome by rage over seeing the conditions of his friends and do something irrational.
He is staying at the Stronghold learning discipline until they decide he's able to control himself. Derrick starts to insist but Fiorella slaps him to the floor. Derrick gets back up and tries to push past her and she just throws him down until he gets the point.
"When in serenity, you rationally care more about general wellness and
peace than any other problem. In rage, you care irrationally about the
problem or it's solution and everything else turns into an unaffordable
luxury. Focus, and by extension, success, is found in the balance between being rational and irrational. Water is formless, therefore it can adapt to every form. You, however, are often way too rigid. When
a situation arises that you do not think you can handle, fear overtakes
you and you degenerate into a state of helplessness. You
are not adapting to your circumstances, are not dealing with the
situation, and instead complain about it, and even blaming it. When
the teacup situation arises you yell at it if you do not fit in right
away, and blame the surroundings for shaping you into a shape that does
not fit. You do not adapt. You
let your past control who you are and are staying rigid in your form,
which means you only fit into certain situations and crack at others.
When water crashes against an object, it disperses and forms again, but when a box, for example, crashes against an object it shatters into pieces. Currently,
you are like that box, trying to force yourself to adjust to different
situations, shattering to pieces, breaking your own spirit, if you
can’t.
What Bruce Lee meant with his quote “Be like water my friend” is that you should not hold your own image so tightly. You
are not your past, you are not the object people shaped you to be; you
are simply water that has temporarily taken on that form. You
can be successful no matter your start, can be anything you like to be
and adjust to any and every situation if you just adjust and deal with
things the way they come instead of wishing they were different. Stop trying to make the teacup adjust to you and adjust to the teacup instead. Problems
arise all the time in life, and you can try to keep your rigid shape,
smashing into the problems until one of you breaks, or you can be like
water and slip through the cracks."
Darius sums it up that he's not ready to go out into civilization yet. So he's going to remain there and undergo meditative exercises until he has a handle on his Beast.
Derrick accepts this and spends time at the castle learning about himself, his new body, vampire history and culture and the supernatural world he's been dragged into. When he's not drinking or undergoing meditative exercises with Carmella, he's spending time in the library boning up on history and various other subjects. He takes a great interest in Alchemy and Advanced Chemistry as well.
After a few weeks of meditative exercises and rest, he is finally able to visit Dolores at the facility wherein she's recovering.
Naturally, there's a confrontation with her parents. Which, to be fair, from what they can tell, their daughter got her arms ripped off by something, she's a traumatized wreck, she was found near the burned and mutilated corpses of several of her friends and police officers and a burned down mansion, and HE'S just now showing up again, wearing a suit, without a scratch on him. Derrick keeps his cool and does his best to talk around it when Dolores hears his voice and calls out to him. Not long after, a nurse wheels her out. While they were able to heal her wounds, they couldn't give Dolores back her arms.
Regardless, Derrick gently hugs her.
It's a very somber scene. Nobody talks and she gently sobs into him and Derrick tears up as well. After mourning their friends and the loss of their innocence the monster caused them, Derrick sits next to her bed and they catch up and Derrick fills her in on his training and the new allies he's making.
She comments that he looks good and after he explains it, Dolores is the one to crack some jokes about his regeneration and after a laugh, they calm down and Dolores lays back and Derrick pulls her blanket over her. Dolores tries to ask him something but Derrick just smiles and assures Dolores that she is still beautiful and that no matter what, he will always love her the way she is.
After a kiss, they resume talking and Dolores discusses Jessica Cox, the world's first licensed armless pilot, as well as the first armless black-belt in the American Taekwondo Association, and Dolores feels that if SHE never gave up, then Dolores won't either.
Thus, they agree not to give up and keep pushing forward. After all, as Rocky himself said.
Derrick continues his tutelage at the castle with his vampire bretheren with renewed enthusiasm while Dolores gradually learns to use her feet for everyday activities and how to walk without arms while she and her family explore options for prosthetics. Carmella also does them a solid to ensure they can afford the best the Corporation has to offer. By solid, I mean she gives the father a small handful of diamonds, each one at 341.9 carat diamonds, worth nearly 21 Mill.
Being Vampire Royalty has its perks. 😏
A few days after this meeting, a blur is seen on the news flying into a building and taking out a gunman. It flies back out and carries an injured civilian to the hospital. Derrick catches it and realizes that it's Officer Graves, healed up from her wounds caused by Ramona. He sets up a meeting with her and the admittedly small group survivors from The Battle With Ramona and they get caught up on everything and have drinks and reconnect. Eventually the party winds down and they sit down and discuss their plans. Naturally, Derrick wants revenge for everything Ramona did and flat out admits that he plans to kill her, pointing out that it's the only way she'll ever stop. The only way they can truly be safe.
The Survivors are kinda split on it. A couple want to join with him but the rest want to let the proper authorities and trained professionals handle it.Which does make sense considering that everyone who survived except Derrick, due to the blood pool regenerating him, was left maimed/scarred/both.
Derrick acknowledges this and says that he won't hold it against them and they can take all the time they need to decide.
Back at The Castle, Derrick continues his training, gradually graduating from mental training to physical conditioning and training....which, for awhile, basically consists of Darius thrashing him, pulverizing his bones and dropping him in the blood pool so he'll heal up and come back stronger.
Carmella quips about this being standard procedure for Newbies and Darius admits it's a good way to train them.
Once he's strong enough, they put him into the combat program, which Darius describes as:
Besides, if he's get too fucked up, they can just chuck him back in the blood pool to accelerate his regeneration.
Speaking of which, they also introduce a method for muscle building.
Yes indeed vampires can build muscles but not in the same way humans do. A human turned into a male vampire will have a perfect physique with all muscles moderately developed complete with six pack abs. Females are extremely fit but not to the point of displaying noticeably unfeminine musculature. Despite a difference in muscle build both sexes would have equal strength if brought across at about the same time by the same vampire sire. If vampires consume a consistent moderate amount of blood, or satisfy their basic hungers, they will remain looking like a well toned model for all eternity. If for whatever reason they start to deny themselves blood then they will lose muscle mass, and eventually appear quite boney.
Vampires who want to look like a pumped up bodybuilder won’t achieve it by bench pressing cars, or Mack trucks, all day long. They would need to consistently consume massive amounts of blood beyond their normal hunger over a period of time. Normally a few months will do. If the female vampires do this they will display male like muscles as well. A vampire can theoretically consume an infinite amount of blood without getting fat because it only increases their power. The type of blood matters as well. Human blood is ideal while animal blood is inferior.
A vampire only consuming animal blood would probably have to gorge for at least double the time to achieve a gargantuan body. Since it can be difficult to get large enough quantities of human blood animals are often the way to go. Although a vampire must be prepared to do nothing but drink away all day!
Monster muscles can be attained much faster,and with lower quantities, by drinking the blood of various supernatural beings. The quickest bulk up can happen in less than 24 hours by drinking hard to acquire demons blood. Some say drinking the Devils blood would yield bodybuilder status in less than an hour. Of course the evil in a vampire would be magnified many times, and they would become a slave of the demon whose blood they partook of. Demi-Demon blood is the second best for building fast muscle but again you have similar side effects. First Generation vampire blood is the next closest to demons, and can pump up vampires two generations removed from them. The next best would be Yeti, aka Abominable Snowman, blood. However the side effects are a steroid like rage, and a need for cold temperatures.
In general higher generation vampires are more muscular than the lower. First Generation vampires are the most muscular, and can grow large the quickest by consuming large amounts of blood. Their personal body guards, and foot soldiers who enforce their royal vampire law about the Earth are called Enforcers. These Enforcers are always angry, and have monster muscles as if they were hopped up on steroids. When not performing their enforcement duties they spend most of their time hunting down human victims to keep their muscle mass intact. They also carry the blood of their First Generation masters, and other paranormal creatures. With the quantity, and mix of supernatural bloods they can end up being far more powerful than vampires who may be a higher generation, or older than them since longer lived vampires are stronger.
In Derrick's case, while they do increase his muscles to an extent, they also focus on increasing his fighting skills, speed and mental defenses. While his mind is strong for a Fledgling, his willpower will only protect him so much, and he hones his mind with Carmella to be able to handle combat on the mental plane.
While building his powers, Derrick also hones his Muay-Thai while also learning Kung-Fu alongside Carmella and a few more fighting styles. He tries to learn about Chi Manipulation, but because he's Undead, his body can't generate it, so if he was to use any of its power, he would have to learn how to properly harness it from the world around him, something that takes him a long time to get.
Most importantly, Derrick learns about The Beast and how to safely tap into its power....
Meanwhile, Dolores and her family finally agree on the full body cybernetic augmentation, especially since they can afford it now, and they go through the proper channels, talk to the right people, get the low down, etc, etc.
Notably however, Dolores also goes through an extensive psychological examination and treatment.
After all, if you're going to modify someone, you'll want them to be of sound mind and body. In the meantime, Dolores continues learning how to do basic things with just her feet, including painting, playing guitar and driving in a simulation.
Once she gets the clean bill of health,they ask her one last time if Dolores is willing to go through with this. Once the procedure is completed, she will never again be able to go back to being human.
Her bones will become steel and her muscles, nerves, flesh, it will all be modified and enhanced with stronger components. Bones and fibers have to be hardened and supported, or else the new arm will rip clean off your shoulder the first time you flex. You'll need tensile support across your back, or your spine will snap the first time you lift something heavy. You need new skin; human skin isn't tough enough to handle the subcutaneous tension of superhuman strength. You'll take a chip in your brain to handle the specific dataload from the artificial nerve system.
The organic brain has more than one type of storage system. Electronic storage is great for rote or literal data such as addresses, phone numbers, dates, etc. Often the organic mind struggles to keep these often disconnected memories intact. However, the organic mind is peerless when it comes to complex interconnected memories. Carl Sagan explained this very well: even a concept as simple as the number one has an elaborate logical underpinning. It analyzes, synthesizes, and generates abstractions based off of that. Electronic data storage cannot process interlaced information that way- it isn't the job of of a storage device. The organic brain does all these things on the fly.
Interfacing electronic and physiological information storage is a very complex engineering problem which took decades of work by an entire field of scientists and engineers to solve. The key advantage of electronic storage is that it is digital, easily expandable, and does not degrade over time. While purely electronic storage would be a poor system for a brain, a hybrid allows the user to have the strengths of both systems. The key to the solution is that recalled memories in the brain activate the same brain cells which were active when the memory was created. If you have a network of electrodes in the primary visual cortex, you can use that network to detect what the user is seeing, read the basic visual information from recalled memories, and input visual information into the brain. In addition, any visual information your input through such a network will form a memory trace in the brain, which can be consolidated into a long-term memory. For input/output of stored information, you could put networks in each sensory area that you want to store. This is the most basic level of the technology. A more advanced method is to put your electrical activity sensor array higher up in the brain hierarchy: in the so-called polymodal areas which combine information from all of your senses. The key area for information storage in humans is the entorhinal cortex. This is the primary source of input to the hippocampus, where sensory information is integrated into somewhat discrete "memories" before being distributed to the rest of the brain. Once you have I/O to every cell in this area, you can read and input memories. To make the whole system work, you also need implants in a few other areas: prefrontal cortex electrodes to allow conscious commands to the cybernetic device avoids the need for voice commands, locus ceruleus simulators to mark inputs as "salient" and thus worthy of consolidating, and thalamic electrodes to control the direction of information flow between the entorhinal cortex and other brain areas.
Nevertheless, Dolores goes for it.
She is prepped for the surgeries and then taken into the lab and they put her under.
While she is going through the surgery, the rest of the team trains themselves, either through augmentation, surgeries, honing their powers, or military training.
After a few months of surgeries, Dolores awakens and receives instruction on how to train and control her cybernetic abilities as well as her new combat form.
After admiring her new look and getting used to having arms again, Dolores begins her combat training.
Along with getting used to her new body, she also gets used to the fighting styles downloaded into her mind: Capoeira, Muay-Thai, Taekwondo, Boxing, Savate, Wing-Chun, Krav Maga, Judo, Aikido, Ansatsuken, Five Animals Kung-Fu, Swordsmanship and Markmanship.
She also has multiple other nifty gadgets built into her.
Naturally, there's a confrontation with her parents. Which, to be fair, from what they can tell, their daughter got her arms ripped off by something, she's a traumatized wreck, she was found near the burned and mutilated corpses of several of her friends and police officers and a burned down mansion, and HE'S just now showing up again, wearing a suit, without a scratch on him. Derrick keeps his cool and does his best to talk around it when Dolores hears his voice and calls out to him. Not long after, a nurse wheels her out. While they were able to heal her wounds, they couldn't give Dolores back her arms.
Regardless, Derrick gently hugs her.
It's a very somber scene. Nobody talks and she gently sobs into him and Derrick tears up as well. After mourning their friends and the loss of their innocence the monster caused them, Derrick sits next to her bed and they catch up and Derrick fills her in on his training and the new allies he's making.
She comments that he looks good and after he explains it, Dolores is the one to crack some jokes about his regeneration and after a laugh, they calm down and Dolores lays back and Derrick pulls her blanket over her. Dolores tries to ask him something but Derrick just smiles and assures Dolores that she is still beautiful and that no matter what, he will always love her the way she is.
After a kiss, they resume talking and Dolores discusses Jessica Cox, the world's first licensed armless pilot, as well as the first armless black-belt in the American Taekwondo Association, and Dolores feels that if SHE never gave up, then Dolores won't either.
Thus, they agree not to give up and keep pushing forward. After all, as Rocky himself said.
Being Vampire Royalty has its perks. 😏
A few days after this meeting, a blur is seen on the news flying into a building and taking out a gunman. It flies back out and carries an injured civilian to the hospital. Derrick catches it and realizes that it's Officer Graves, healed up from her wounds caused by Ramona. He sets up a meeting with her and the admittedly small group survivors from The Battle With Ramona and they get caught up on everything and have drinks and reconnect. Eventually the party winds down and they sit down and discuss their plans. Naturally, Derrick wants revenge for everything Ramona did and flat out admits that he plans to kill her, pointing out that it's the only way she'll ever stop. The only way they can truly be safe.
The Survivors are kinda split on it. A couple want to join with him but the rest want to let the proper authorities and trained professionals handle it.Which does make sense considering that everyone who survived except Derrick, due to the blood pool regenerating him, was left maimed/scarred/both.
Derrick acknowledges this and says that he won't hold it against them and they can take all the time they need to decide.
Back at The Castle, Derrick continues his training, gradually graduating from mental training to physical conditioning and training....which, for awhile, basically consists of Darius thrashing him, pulverizing his bones and dropping him in the blood pool so he'll heal up and come back stronger.
Carmella quips about this being standard procedure for Newbies and Darius admits it's a good way to train them.
Once he's strong enough, they put him into the combat program, which Darius describes as:
"Making His Whole Life About Fighting Even If He Dies!''
Besides, if he's get too fucked up, they can just chuck him back in the blood pool to accelerate his regeneration.
Speaking of which, they also introduce a method for muscle building.
Yes indeed vampires can build muscles but not in the same way humans do. A human turned into a male vampire will have a perfect physique with all muscles moderately developed complete with six pack abs. Females are extremely fit but not to the point of displaying noticeably unfeminine musculature. Despite a difference in muscle build both sexes would have equal strength if brought across at about the same time by the same vampire sire. If vampires consume a consistent moderate amount of blood, or satisfy their basic hungers, they will remain looking like a well toned model for all eternity. If for whatever reason they start to deny themselves blood then they will lose muscle mass, and eventually appear quite boney.
Vampires who want to look like a pumped up bodybuilder won’t achieve it by bench pressing cars, or Mack trucks, all day long. They would need to consistently consume massive amounts of blood beyond their normal hunger over a period of time. Normally a few months will do. If the female vampires do this they will display male like muscles as well. A vampire can theoretically consume an infinite amount of blood without getting fat because it only increases their power. The type of blood matters as well. Human blood is ideal while animal blood is inferior.
A vampire only consuming animal blood would probably have to gorge for at least double the time to achieve a gargantuan body. Since it can be difficult to get large enough quantities of human blood animals are often the way to go. Although a vampire must be prepared to do nothing but drink away all day!
Monster muscles can be attained much faster,and with lower quantities, by drinking the blood of various supernatural beings. The quickest bulk up can happen in less than 24 hours by drinking hard to acquire demons blood. Some say drinking the Devils blood would yield bodybuilder status in less than an hour. Of course the evil in a vampire would be magnified many times, and they would become a slave of the demon whose blood they partook of. Demi-Demon blood is the second best for building fast muscle but again you have similar side effects. First Generation vampire blood is the next closest to demons, and can pump up vampires two generations removed from them. The next best would be Yeti, aka Abominable Snowman, blood. However the side effects are a steroid like rage, and a need for cold temperatures.
In general higher generation vampires are more muscular than the lower. First Generation vampires are the most muscular, and can grow large the quickest by consuming large amounts of blood. Their personal body guards, and foot soldiers who enforce their royal vampire law about the Earth are called Enforcers. These Enforcers are always angry, and have monster muscles as if they were hopped up on steroids. When not performing their enforcement duties they spend most of their time hunting down human victims to keep their muscle mass intact. They also carry the blood of their First Generation masters, and other paranormal creatures. With the quantity, and mix of supernatural bloods they can end up being far more powerful than vampires who may be a higher generation, or older than them since longer lived vampires are stronger.
In Derrick's case, while they do increase his muscles to an extent, they also focus on increasing his fighting skills, speed and mental defenses. While his mind is strong for a Fledgling, his willpower will only protect him so much, and he hones his mind with Carmella to be able to handle combat on the mental plane.
While building his powers, Derrick also hones his Muay-Thai while also learning Kung-Fu alongside Carmella and a few more fighting styles. He tries to learn about Chi Manipulation, but because he's Undead, his body can't generate it, so if he was to use any of its power, he would have to learn how to properly harness it from the world around him, something that takes him a long time to get.
Most importantly, Derrick learns about The Beast and how to safely tap into its power....
Meanwhile, Dolores and her family finally agree on the full body cybernetic augmentation, especially since they can afford it now, and they go through the proper channels, talk to the right people, get the low down, etc, etc.
Notably however, Dolores also goes through an extensive psychological examination and treatment.
After all, if you're going to modify someone, you'll want them to be of sound mind and body. In the meantime, Dolores continues learning how to do basic things with just her feet, including painting, playing guitar and driving in a simulation.
Once she gets the clean bill of health,they ask her one last time if Dolores is willing to go through with this. Once the procedure is completed, she will never again be able to go back to being human.
Her bones will become steel and her muscles, nerves, flesh, it will all be modified and enhanced with stronger components. Bones and fibers have to be hardened and supported, or else the new arm will rip clean off your shoulder the first time you flex. You'll need tensile support across your back, or your spine will snap the first time you lift something heavy. You need new skin; human skin isn't tough enough to handle the subcutaneous tension of superhuman strength. You'll take a chip in your brain to handle the specific dataload from the artificial nerve system.
The organic brain has more than one type of storage system. Electronic storage is great for rote or literal data such as addresses, phone numbers, dates, etc. Often the organic mind struggles to keep these often disconnected memories intact. However, the organic mind is peerless when it comes to complex interconnected memories. Carl Sagan explained this very well: even a concept as simple as the number one has an elaborate logical underpinning. It analyzes, synthesizes, and generates abstractions based off of that. Electronic data storage cannot process interlaced information that way- it isn't the job of of a storage device. The organic brain does all these things on the fly.
Interfacing electronic and physiological information storage is a very complex engineering problem which took decades of work by an entire field of scientists and engineers to solve. The key advantage of electronic storage is that it is digital, easily expandable, and does not degrade over time. While purely electronic storage would be a poor system for a brain, a hybrid allows the user to have the strengths of both systems. The key to the solution is that recalled memories in the brain activate the same brain cells which were active when the memory was created. If you have a network of electrodes in the primary visual cortex, you can use that network to detect what the user is seeing, read the basic visual information from recalled memories, and input visual information into the brain. In addition, any visual information your input through such a network will form a memory trace in the brain, which can be consolidated into a long-term memory. For input/output of stored information, you could put networks in each sensory area that you want to store. This is the most basic level of the technology. A more advanced method is to put your electrical activity sensor array higher up in the brain hierarchy: in the so-called polymodal areas which combine information from all of your senses. The key area for information storage in humans is the entorhinal cortex. This is the primary source of input to the hippocampus, where sensory information is integrated into somewhat discrete "memories" before being distributed to the rest of the brain. Once you have I/O to every cell in this area, you can read and input memories. To make the whole system work, you also need implants in a few other areas: prefrontal cortex electrodes to allow conscious commands to the cybernetic device avoids the need for voice commands, locus ceruleus simulators to mark inputs as "salient" and thus worthy of consolidating, and thalamic electrodes to control the direction of information flow between the entorhinal cortex and other brain areas.
Cybernetics: Next. Level. Shit. 😎😲
Nevertheless, Dolores goes for it.
She is prepped for the surgeries and then taken into the lab and they put her under.
While she is going through the surgery, the rest of the team trains themselves, either through augmentation, surgeries, honing their powers, or military training.
After a few months of surgeries, Dolores awakens and receives instruction on how to train and control her cybernetic abilities as well as her new combat form.
After admiring her new look and getting used to having arms again, Dolores begins her combat training.
Along with getting used to her new body, she also gets used to the fighting styles downloaded into her mind: Capoeira, Muay-Thai, Taekwondo, Boxing, Savate, Wing-Chun, Krav Maga, Judo, Aikido, Ansatsuken, Five Animals Kung-Fu, Swordsmanship and Markmanship.
She also has multiple other nifty gadgets built into her.
- AUGCOG: Short for augmented condition, it is composed of a system of technologies that create revoluionary human computer interfaces and will allow Dolores to scan a battlefield and identify potential threats and relay it to her allies.
- SATELLITE LINK-UP
- SYNTHETIC VISION TO SEE WHAT AN OBJECT IS MADE OUT OF.
- ELECTROMAGNETISM GENERATOR ENGINE
- SUCTION FINGER TIPS/BOOTS
- 360 DEGREE VISION
- SWIR IMAGING: Eye Cameras that can even pick up ion emissions, allowing Dolores to even pick up on objects based on moisture consistency, and will allow her to see night vision as clear as day.
- HARV: Head-Aimed Remote Viewer allows her to look through and guide remote networked cameras.
- VISCEOCRANIUM EXTRA-SENSORY PERCEPTION NULLIFCATION APPARATUS: Nullifies Psionic Attacks.
- ONBOARD AI AID: ANGELA
- IAD ChemTech Flamethrower
- Mini-Missiles
- Sterling L2A3 Submachine Guns
- Cobray M11/9s
- Beretta 92FS pistols
- Heckler & Koch USP pistols
- Glocks,
- Micro Uzis
- Berettas
- Zastava CZ99 pistols
- Skorpion SA Vz 61 submachine guns
- Madsen M50 submachine guns
- AKMs
- M60 machine guns.
- Steyr MPi 69s
- Sterling SMG,
- SA Vz.58 assault rifles.
- Marionette-Sabers
- Sunrise Beam: A powerful burst of solar energy fired from Dolores's chest. The weapon is activated by drawing in a great deal of solar energy, crossing her arms and focusing her power, the energy is then drawn from her power cells and released, causing a devastating amount of damage. The drawbacks to this weapon is that it takes a few seconds to charge up and leaves Dolores in a weakened state from the energy depletion afterward when it is night.
- Thermoptic camouflage
- Stealth Mode
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