GiftofLove
A Gift From The Heart
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I imagine they'll just get together and found their own Japan. The land is still there, after all. If they just happen to not have an Imperial family, well, that's fine too.
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RIP @Silver Swallow
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ProdigiousThunder
Know what you're doing yet?
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ALEXANDRABEES
GiftofLove
A Gift From The Heart
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I really wonder if any of the Triumvirate will seek citizenship on Avalon?
edale
Versed in the lewd.
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- Jan 10, 2015
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- 1,879
Might want some kind of addition to this to cover cases like violent rebellion against the imperial government. Otherwise their own Constitution prevents them from defending themselves.
Cranial is ToyBox, not Pantheon. Pantheon's just bought and modded some of Cranial's tech.
Is ToyBox getting a chunk of Avalon? They don't really need it, but....
Nilbog created Alex Mercer?
TanaNari
Verified Dick
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How? Rebels aren't considered a nation. They're just a collection of well organized criminals.
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dasstan
:)
- Joined
- May 23, 2014
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- 5,321
...which means she's for hire and Pantheon has the wealth of all the dead worlds they can get their paws on to pay her for services?
edit: or just buy a bunch of her stuff and give it Dragon, and then get Dragon to fix the problem.
SwiftRosenthal
Connoisseur.
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- Sep 3, 2014
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"If God wanted the rebels to win, he would've given them cavalry." - Every classic Paradox gamer ever.
(EU3's final expansions finally did just that, and even gave the rebels leaders too. It didn't help.)
Amelia, Ch 249
TanaNari
Verified Dick
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Amelia, Ch 250
I woke up in a biochamber. Naked. The fuck? The pod made a beeping noise, and then I was sprayed with a gel material. My power immediately told me it was some kind of psuedofungus and a bit of sugary composite that it fed upon. It solidified, forming crude clothing on my body.
Then the door slid open. Riley jumped on me and hugged me hard. "I missed you so much!" she sobbed, her face buried in my chest.
Missed me? Oh. That's not good. "Wha hamd?" I asked. Wow, talking sucks. Why? Taylor didn't have a problem talking when she was restored.
"Let's just say the last Endbringer battle went phenomenally badly," Lisa replied from somewhere outside the pod that I couldn't see. "Would you like the bad news, the worse news, the really bad news, or the worst news first?"
"Just give it to me in whatever order makes the most logical sense," I slurred the words so badly that I was pretty sure Lisa only understood me thanks to my power.
"Well, the next Endbringer is weird," Lisa replied. "I've not yet decided if it's two Endbringers, or a single Endbringer with two different bodies. If it's just one, then there's one more unknown Endbringer left. If it's two, then there's two more unknowns. For naming's sake, they're being called Tohu and Bohu."
Two at once? Fuck, no wonder we lost. "Ohay, tha's a sar."
"Bohu's the easy one," she continued, stepping into my limited view. "More or less a direct counterpart to you or Labyrinth. Warping and reshaping the environment into a super death maze. Every Endbriner seems to focus on one of the power classifications. Bohu's the Shaker." Okay, that doesn't sound unbeatable. "Tohu's a Trump." Well, fuck me. "It can manifest the powers of any three parahumans it wants."
"Uhuh," I responded. Using sounds I knew I could trust myself to make properly.
"It manifested Taylor," she added. "Activated the emergency overrides on our armors to pull us out of our nice, safe, Avalon. And last but not least, set the Zerg on the defenders. Then it manifested a copy of Lily's powers. And for the ultimate fuck you? Shatterbird. Say goodbye to all those nice Dragon suits that our Zerg were playing meatshields for."
Oh god. "Who..." else was killed?
"You, Taylor, Theo, Missy, Crystal, and Sabah. Plus most of the defenders," Lisa answered. "In a way we're lucky. Pantheon's method of being the entire front lines meant there weren't a lot of capes in range of our Zerg. Trevor was the real hero of the day, cobbling together a signal that shunted all our suits back to Avalon and cutting off the dimensional relay. Emma managed to save Riley's life." The girl squeezed me harder and whimpered mournfully. "She might have been able to save some of the others, but frankly they were better off being restored from backup."
I moved my arms woodenly, draping them over Riley. This must have been hell for her. "How long?" At least talking is starting to get easier.
She tilted her head. "Six days," she answered. Six? It's only suppose to require a couple days to grow a new copy. "You were a little harder to restore than the others. Something about how your power works. This was our fourth attempt, and we were getting worried."
"Taylor?" I asked.
"On her way. She's with her Dad," Lisa answered. "He's... well... I haven't gotten to the next SNAFU of the week."
"What?" I asked. After everything else, what could make this worse?
"Remember how the last few Endbringers have been unusually well documented?" Lisa asked. "You and Taylor were killed on live television in front of billions. We had to go public with our cloning technology."
"Mother fucker," I muttered. "What's the damage?"
"Remarkably little," she answered. "Once we explained just how hard it was to use this tech, and for that matter how it's done, it was amazing how quickly most people decided they would rather not have it. There's still a few that are interested, we're trying to figure out what to do with that, but the general concern is nightmare fuel wondering just what changes we could make to their brains when we work on preparing the copy. Plus there's that whole 'is the copy still me?' existential crap. Which, by the way, has your family flipping out."
"Crystal," I sighed.
"And Victoria," she reminded. "We were slightly less than honest, with that whole 'mind transfer' bullshit. Krouse wasn't thrilled with the news, either. Noelle, however, seemed remarkably okay with it. Pretended she knew all along, kept her boyfriend in line."
"Well, that's a relief," I sighed. We still didn't know what would happen if Noelle re-triggered. Given the current trend of re-triggers to be more powerful than the original, I could only dread the possibilities.
"And now they're bringing this resurrection tech up in court to determine whether the clones count as legally the person they're a copy of. Or various other inheritance and legal rights laws. It could get pretty contentious. Not a problem for you and Taylor, but Theo and Missy are in particularly precarious positions. Between the pair of them, that's potentially a billion dollars they might lose legal access to. Although in Theo's case it might never matter since they'd have to openly reveal that Horus is, in fact, Theo Anders. I doubt anyone will risk the fallout of doing that."
"Carol's doing her thing, I presume?" I asked.
"Dragon, actually," she answered. "She's funding this particular legal battle. Has some really high powered lawyers on the case. I'm not sure exactly why, but I'm pretty certain it's personally important to her. And not just locally. She's using Avalon's law as existing statute and taking it before the United Nations. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense on a matter of case law. But since when has that ever stopped us from doing anything that we do? Really, it's going to come down to political maneuver, and that comes down to 'are you sure you want to say that two of the Endslayers and the girlfriend of the remaining Endslayer don't count as people anymore?' We'll be fine."
I managed a smile and wobbled to my feet. "I want to see the footage. The fight." My death.
"It's already in the VCR," she replied. "But first, you should know about Zach."
"Isn't he-"
"Not against Lily, he's not," she answered. Riley put her shoulder under my armpit and helped prop me up to walk out of the chamber.
Zach was in a different kind of stasis chamber, levitating in place by what I assumed was gravity manipulation tech. He was still in costume and his power was activating so fast that it looked almost like the effects of a strobe light, as blood attempted to gush out the hole in his back, only to be reduced to dust as quickly as it was appearing. "What's happening to him?" I asked.
"His power is still keeping him alive, but it can't correct the injury caused by Lily's power," Riley answered. "The energy field is keeping him unconscious, and hopefully he's not suffering. We're waiting until his body heals naturally, but it's attempting to regenerate from a punctured heart. Going faster than it would for a normal human healing by a factor of three, and no risk of scar tissue problems, but it could still take months before he's functional again. Emma and I are working on something to get around his power and speed his body's healing process. But there's been no progress."
I placed an unsteady hand on the glass. "Is there anything else we can do?" I asked.
"We considered asking around for a trump that nullifies powers, at least temporarily," Lisa spoke. "But there are too many unknowns. With bad timing, we risk him turning to dust and then being unable to reform. We're trying as best we can, but we don't even know what kind of power would help, since Zach already borders on a Trump in how his power works to specifically protect him from other powers."
"How's Emma holding up?"
"Standard Thinker and Tinker coping mechanism," Lisa replied. "Throw yourself into work so hard that your loved ones feel the need to stage an intervention. Victoria took it pretty hard, too."
"What did she do to whose body parts?" I sighed.
"Nothing," Lisa replied. "She helps Emma and Riley whenever she can, but other than that she doesn't know how to cope. Classic depression symptoms. Hopefully you'll be able to help, because she's starting to worry me."
==================
A/N- Welcome to the next story arc.
Also: Apparently this story still doesn't have a wiki page. And a few people keep feeling the need to mention this fact for whatever reason.
I woke up in a biochamber. Naked. The fuck? The pod made a beeping noise, and then I was sprayed with a gel material. My power immediately told me it was some kind of psuedofungus and a bit of sugary composite that it fed upon. It solidified, forming crude clothing on my body.
Then the door slid open. Riley jumped on me and hugged me hard. "I missed you so much!" she sobbed, her face buried in my chest.
Missed me? Oh. That's not good. "Wha hamd?" I asked. Wow, talking sucks. Why? Taylor didn't have a problem talking when she was restored.
"Let's just say the last Endbringer battle went phenomenally badly," Lisa replied from somewhere outside the pod that I couldn't see. "Would you like the bad news, the worse news, the really bad news, or the worst news first?"
"Just give it to me in whatever order makes the most logical sense," I slurred the words so badly that I was pretty sure Lisa only understood me thanks to my power.
"Well, the next Endbringer is weird," Lisa replied. "I've not yet decided if it's two Endbringers, or a single Endbringer with two different bodies. If it's just one, then there's one more unknown Endbringer left. If it's two, then there's two more unknowns. For naming's sake, they're being called Tohu and Bohu."
Two at once? Fuck, no wonder we lost. "Ohay, tha's a sar."
"Bohu's the easy one," she continued, stepping into my limited view. "More or less a direct counterpart to you or Labyrinth. Warping and reshaping the environment into a super death maze. Every Endbriner seems to focus on one of the power classifications. Bohu's the Shaker." Okay, that doesn't sound unbeatable. "Tohu's a Trump." Well, fuck me. "It can manifest the powers of any three parahumans it wants."
"Uhuh," I responded. Using sounds I knew I could trust myself to make properly.
"It manifested Taylor," she added. "Activated the emergency overrides on our armors to pull us out of our nice, safe, Avalon. And last but not least, set the Zerg on the defenders. Then it manifested a copy of Lily's powers. And for the ultimate fuck you? Shatterbird. Say goodbye to all those nice Dragon suits that our Zerg were playing meatshields for."
Oh god. "Who..." else was killed?
"You, Taylor, Theo, Missy, Crystal, and Sabah. Plus most of the defenders," Lisa answered. "In a way we're lucky. Pantheon's method of being the entire front lines meant there weren't a lot of capes in range of our Zerg. Trevor was the real hero of the day, cobbling together a signal that shunted all our suits back to Avalon and cutting off the dimensional relay. Emma managed to save Riley's life." The girl squeezed me harder and whimpered mournfully. "She might have been able to save some of the others, but frankly they were better off being restored from backup."
I moved my arms woodenly, draping them over Riley. This must have been hell for her. "How long?" At least talking is starting to get easier.
She tilted her head. "Six days," she answered. Six? It's only suppose to require a couple days to grow a new copy. "You were a little harder to restore than the others. Something about how your power works. This was our fourth attempt, and we were getting worried."
"Taylor?" I asked.
"On her way. She's with her Dad," Lisa answered. "He's... well... I haven't gotten to the next SNAFU of the week."
"What?" I asked. After everything else, what could make this worse?
"Remember how the last few Endbringers have been unusually well documented?" Lisa asked. "You and Taylor were killed on live television in front of billions. We had to go public with our cloning technology."
"Mother fucker," I muttered. "What's the damage?"
"Remarkably little," she answered. "Once we explained just how hard it was to use this tech, and for that matter how it's done, it was amazing how quickly most people decided they would rather not have it. There's still a few that are interested, we're trying to figure out what to do with that, but the general concern is nightmare fuel wondering just what changes we could make to their brains when we work on preparing the copy. Plus there's that whole 'is the copy still me?' existential crap. Which, by the way, has your family flipping out."
"Crystal," I sighed.
"And Victoria," she reminded. "We were slightly less than honest, with that whole 'mind transfer' bullshit. Krouse wasn't thrilled with the news, either. Noelle, however, seemed remarkably okay with it. Pretended she knew all along, kept her boyfriend in line."
"Well, that's a relief," I sighed. We still didn't know what would happen if Noelle re-triggered. Given the current trend of re-triggers to be more powerful than the original, I could only dread the possibilities.
"And now they're bringing this resurrection tech up in court to determine whether the clones count as legally the person they're a copy of. Or various other inheritance and legal rights laws. It could get pretty contentious. Not a problem for you and Taylor, but Theo and Missy are in particularly precarious positions. Between the pair of them, that's potentially a billion dollars they might lose legal access to. Although in Theo's case it might never matter since they'd have to openly reveal that Horus is, in fact, Theo Anders. I doubt anyone will risk the fallout of doing that."
"Carol's doing her thing, I presume?" I asked.
"Dragon, actually," she answered. "She's funding this particular legal battle. Has some really high powered lawyers on the case. I'm not sure exactly why, but I'm pretty certain it's personally important to her. And not just locally. She's using Avalon's law as existing statute and taking it before the United Nations. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense on a matter of case law. But since when has that ever stopped us from doing anything that we do? Really, it's going to come down to political maneuver, and that comes down to 'are you sure you want to say that two of the Endslayers and the girlfriend of the remaining Endslayer don't count as people anymore?' We'll be fine."
I managed a smile and wobbled to my feet. "I want to see the footage. The fight." My death.
"It's already in the VCR," she replied. "But first, you should know about Zach."
"Isn't he-"
"Not against Lily, he's not," she answered. Riley put her shoulder under my armpit and helped prop me up to walk out of the chamber.
Zach was in a different kind of stasis chamber, levitating in place by what I assumed was gravity manipulation tech. He was still in costume and his power was activating so fast that it looked almost like the effects of a strobe light, as blood attempted to gush out the hole in his back, only to be reduced to dust as quickly as it was appearing. "What's happening to him?" I asked.
"His power is still keeping him alive, but it can't correct the injury caused by Lily's power," Riley answered. "The energy field is keeping him unconscious, and hopefully he's not suffering. We're waiting until his body heals naturally, but it's attempting to regenerate from a punctured heart. Going faster than it would for a normal human healing by a factor of three, and no risk of scar tissue problems, but it could still take months before he's functional again. Emma and I are working on something to get around his power and speed his body's healing process. But there's been no progress."
I placed an unsteady hand on the glass. "Is there anything else we can do?" I asked.
"We considered asking around for a trump that nullifies powers, at least temporarily," Lisa spoke. "But there are too many unknowns. With bad timing, we risk him turning to dust and then being unable to reform. We're trying as best we can, but we don't even know what kind of power would help, since Zach already borders on a Trump in how his power works to specifically protect him from other powers."
"How's Emma holding up?"
"Standard Thinker and Tinker coping mechanism," Lisa replied. "Throw yourself into work so hard that your loved ones feel the need to stage an intervention. Victoria took it pretty hard, too."
"What did she do to whose body parts?" I sighed.
"Nothing," Lisa replied. "She helps Emma and Riley whenever she can, but other than that she doesn't know how to cope. Classic depression symptoms. Hopefully you'll be able to help, because she's starting to worry me."
==================
A/N- Welcome to the next story arc.
Also: Apparently this story still doesn't have a wiki page. And a few people keep feeling the need to mention this fact for whatever reason.
Last edited:
Daunmi
Shun the sun, night so nice
- Joined
- Jan 15, 2015
- Messages
- 433
Hmm, I've probably read too many things where people mix different standards then. And I wasn't seriously complaining about the laws, I have no idea what constitutional laws look like.
Hmm, considering that Taylor is known to the population of Earth Bet via PHO, I wonder how many memes like that exist and will transfer over? It could actually be one of the first cultural differences on Avalon, in that people use 'bees' as a catch all term for what happens when you fuck up badly, or something like that.
Tohu: "Because fuck using the obvious powerhouses, Taylor gunna wreck your shit."
He's always waiting to spring chapters of WHAM(tm) on us. You mistake is in thinking he's ever going easy on us.
Been expecting this since he and Lily were on the same team together. Admittedly, I was expecting it vs an eventual Simurgh fight...
Tohu: "Right, lets see what I'm up against... Fuck, Pantheon. Alright then, turnabout is fair play!"
Coruscant Knave
'Twas love that did this to you.
- Joined
- Feb 9, 2015
- Messages
- 344
I was wondering when an EB would fuck with their 'sploits.
So were those the only casualties, or were there other defenders there anyway who didn't have backups? I assume it will be specified later, but feeeeeed meeee.
So were those the only casualties, or were there other defenders there anyway who didn't have backups? I assume it will be specified later, but feeeeeed meeee.
dasstan
:)
- Joined
- May 23, 2014
- Messages
- 5,321
SoD broken.
pepperjack
A Variety of Cheese
- Joined
- Sep 29, 2014
- Messages
- 27,996
I've forgotten: do we know why Taylor has her original powers but Victoria doesn't?
- Joined
- Jan 10, 2015
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- 1,044
I can't say I'm surprised by this turn of events, things were looking far too positive we needed a good dose of dark.
Divabot
KILL ALL THE HUMANS
- Joined
- Aug 4, 2014
- Messages
- 94
In Worm, glasses are still made of glass!
Jealous much, Eidolon? Someone needs to get him to Dr Yamada right the fuck away.
Hexed999
I trust you know where the happy button is?
- Joined
- Jan 11, 2015
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- 715
I can see Tohu nullifying some of the Bullshit that Pantheon brings to the table by using either Shatterbird or Taylor but both? It skirts too close to the edge of what the Endbringers can really do to be simply Tohu going "fuck Pantheon". Either Tohu was worried about something or it felt the need to escalate for some reason.
Edit: I suppose the fact that the Endbringers were originally supposed to provide Eidolan with stronger opponents would be a good reason.
Divabot
KILL ALL THE HUMANS
- Joined
- Aug 4, 2014
- Messages
- 94
Dunno. It was a few months, Vicky's shard was still attached to the glass Vicky (guessing from Grue getting powers hanging around the glassed people), they couldn't find an original Vicky DNA sample? Taylor was quick, her shard wasn't attached to another copy of her and they had original DNA to hand.
tsuknoryu2986
Not too sore, are you?
- Joined
- Feb 20, 2014
- Messages
- 436
With Taylor, they were able to do an exact copy, DNA and bran scan. With Vicky, they didn't have an perfect non-degraded sample of DNA to copy. So it was off just enough for the shard to get confused.
Snake/Eater
Myth Maker of the North
- Joined
- Jan 11, 2015
- Messages
- 6,421
so i guess Toho stealing Zach's heart means he's not a virgin anymore...
GiftofLove
A Gift From The Heart
- Joined
- Jun 16, 2014
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- 11,542
Supercomputer might be super good at what it does, but you tell that bitch that Victoria is Victoria, but isn't Victoria and it flips its shit.
I assume they have Taylor's entire genetic code on record. Bonesaw.
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Snake/Eater
Myth Maker of the North
- Joined
- Jan 11, 2015
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- 6,421
I was implying Zach is TOTALLY f$%&ed
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cosoco
Not too sore, are you?
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2014
- Messages
- 370
My personal fan theory is that Riley intentionally got it wrong enough that Victoria wouldn't get her powers. That's exactly the kind of thing a good little sister would do!
WHY ARE WE SHOUTING?
TanaNari
Verified Dick
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- Jan 10, 2015
- Messages
- 28,450
I had all the EB battles- including the originals- imagined in their basics from well before the Simurgh battle. I knew the structure of "wake up, you're a clone now!" thing since around the end of the Butcher arc.
What makes you think he wasn't there? Or that Tohu took the gloves off?
Bwahaha!
You mean like all the rest of them have done? I mean, seriously, name *one* Endbringer fight that they can point to and go "that actually worked out pretty nice for us", because I can't. Simurgh murdered India. Behemoth was Scion, that don't count, and then China claims credit. Barghest *humiliated* them. Khonsu exhausted them, set back their plans, and even after they can't claim they won anything of value.
Lisa making a smartass comment is hard to believe?
Well, I don't know about you, but the people who pay attention have had it virtually spoonfed to them.
Record? They have live tissue samples in stasis to work with.
It really is, isn't it?
Diller
Versed in the lewd.
- Joined
- Apr 14, 2014
- Messages
- 1,604
Honestly I can't say I'm surprised at all. Tohu was the perfect EB to go "puny gods" to Panthenon and we had Khonsu so it was likely we're get Tohu and Bohu. Plus things were going far too well which obviously meant that shoe had to drop.
Stil this is going to be a major fucking hit to morale. Tohu just beat their asses like they owed her goddamn money. The fact she copied Shatterbird shows she can copy Caludron capes and dead capes meaning she can copy capes like the Siberian, Heartbreaker, Noelle, Nice guy or Imp.
Seriously if Tohu wanted them permanently dead she could've switched to Claivoyant,Doormaker, and Amelia to follow them back to Avalon and then had Yggdrasil kill them all. Or stop working to make the planet uninhabitable again.
Don't even get me started on the slaughter that would have been a combo like Imp/Eidolon/GU or Contessa/Eidolon/GU or better yet Eidolon/GU/Grue.
Make no mistake this beat down came from jobbing Tohu and they probably know it.
Stil this is going to be a major fucking hit to morale. Tohu just beat their asses like they owed her goddamn money. The fact she copied Shatterbird shows she can copy Caludron capes and dead capes meaning she can copy capes like the Siberian, Heartbreaker, Noelle, Nice guy or Imp.
Seriously if Tohu wanted them permanently dead she could've switched to Claivoyant,Doormaker, and Amelia to follow them back to Avalon and then had Yggdrasil kill them all. Or stop working to make the planet uninhabitable again.
Don't even get me started on the slaughter that would have been a combo like Imp/Eidolon/GU or Contessa/Eidolon/GU or better yet Eidolon/GU/Grue.
Make no mistake this beat down came from jobbing Tohu and they probably know it.
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doomlord9
Experienced.
- Joined
- Jan 15, 2014
- Messages
- 4,739
No, the fact that they are using a VCR for their video playback needs.
TanaNari
Verified Dick
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Does someone else want to explain the joke? I gotta go cut off my neighbors' hands so I can facepalm the appropriate amount.
Coruscant Knave
'Twas love that did this to you.
- Joined
- Feb 9, 2015
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- 344
'sploits as in video game exploits. Like hiding behind a rock that the boss AI can't figure out how to path around. None of them had messed with Avalon yet. Tohu be all like "patched!" Even if they figure out a way to keep her from doing it the same way again (which I think this chapter implied they did?), they won't feel quite as secure anymore.
TanaNari: I find it is best to just completely disregard any comment using SoD seriously. Alternatively, assume any comment using SoD is sarcastic.
doomlord9
Experienced.
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- Jan 15, 2014
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- 4,739
I get it, I was clarifying the comment.
I probably shouldn't be posting, didn't sleep well and am kinda drifting in a haze.