GUICHE FIGHT GUICHE FIGHT GUICHE FIGHT!
Don't let me hold ya back. Enjoy~
"I shall see you at the Vestry Court, barbarian. If you are lost, its that place out there." The boy made a flamboyant gesture with his rose, and then stalked off to the echo of his fellows' laughter.
Siesta was pale, and trembling. The tray had long ago fallen free of her grasp and was now rolling up the aisle made of tables and shocked students. She looked up at him, eyes wide and framed with tears. Her lips were moving, making soft mewling sounds, but nothing coherent. The maid gasped for a breath, before settling back down, shaking.
Katie was looking up at him in a mix of confusion, fear and... something else. Jack knelt down, and offered her a hand. She scampered away, before disappearing into a clutch of sympathetic friends.
"What are you waiting for, you vagrant? I've given you all but a written invitation!" More laughter.
Jack arched an eyebrow as the boy retreated, wondering if there would be more commotion if he had opted to simply crisp the guy with a blast of Incinerate!. Deciding against that course of action, the older of the two duelists turned away and started checking through his supplies; he found himself half-thankful for the fact that most of his armory was back at Rapture, since now he didn't have to reload all of his guns and other 'bits and bobs'. Settling back down, checking himself, Jack closed his eyes and concentrated slightly. On the inside of his eyes, he started seeing a large blue bar stretching across his vision. EVE is okay, though a little short... hmm, may need a top-up. Finding himself picking through his pockets, Jack pulled out, tore through and started chewing on a pep bar, feeling the traces EVE soaking into him as he enjoyed what could have been the last pep bar he would have for a long while.
"Familiar! What are you doing, just eating like that?"
Said familiar found himself frowning a little. Meals like this were meant to be enjoyed! He wasn't going to be denied his food!
But the girl had a good grip on his hand, and Jack sighed as he allowed himself to be pulled along, further up the aisle of bewildered onlookers as they tried to rationalize what they had just seen. Whispers followed them, most asking who exactly Jack was. Theories of him being Louise's servant, lover, a wandering rogue or even an actor were passed along. He didn't have the time to answer them, because Louise was now pushing her way past a crowd trying to make their way out to the court.
"We need to hurry." She hissed, tense as a crossbow's string when pulled back. Louise was... worried? About what? Jack tapped her on the shoulder, and looked around.
"Where?"
"To Guiche, of course! Dimwit, what were you thinking, slapping him like that! Of course he was going to take it as a challenge!"
"Idiot." Explained Jack, nodding as he made to follow the blond outside.
"No! I mean... yes! He is a stupid skirt chaser, but... gaaah, I give up! You think you're going to be facing him with fists? He'll use magic, that's what! Guiche might even kill you! You struck him, so its more than reasonable... But we need to apologize! If you do, Guiche may just let ou off with a warning, or even a simple beating... what's with that look? You think you're going to win against him!"
Jack nodded simply as he made his way clear of the twin-door bottleneck, and checked that his wrench was still in its place. He pulled it free of its harness, and began to inspect his most trusted weapon. "Yes."
"You might be able to beat him with that thing, but not if he has magic!" Louise screeched. "What are you going to do about that?"
"Plasmids." Jack explained.
"Plasmid! What in the Founder's name is a plasmid? You think they're going to help!"
He looked at her, his own bewildered expression not quite as emotional as her own, but effective at relaying his confusion nonetheless. "Yes."
She stopped him, causing another person behind Jack to crash into his back. He ignored the short, blue haired girl as he paid more attention to the pinkette in front of him.
"Oh, and why is that?" Louise drawled, jabbing a finger into his chest. "Is this plasmid of yours so effective?"
"Plasmids." He repeated, emphasizing the plural in a rare case of verbal inflection.
"How, exactly?"
The splicer familiar shrugged. "They work."
Louise gawked at him, slack jawed and bewildered as she tried to comprehend what exactly had her familiar been smoking.
"And what have they worked on before? Magi? Because that's what you're facing!"
Jack scratched at his chin, thoughtful for a moment. "Big Daddies."
"There you go on about those Big Daddies again! Brimir's sake, you're going to die if you try and fight him!"
"... Louise."
"I mean, what do you think you're going to do, brain him with that mace you carry around!" Louise suddenly realized that their surroundings had gone quiet. "What, what!"
Master and familiar looked around them, the two having drifted from the Vestry Court right into the middle of their dueling ground, breaking through the ring of students that had given them no resistance as the two had argued back and forth. Jack palmed his face, and shook his head as he realized how stupid the two of them would have looked.
= Old Osmond's Office =
"Old man Osmond! Old man Osmond!"
"Yes, can I help you, Professor?"
"There's a student that's challenged a commoner to a duel!"
"Oh my... then you must go break it up. We can't have him beating the poor thing..."
"I'm exactly worried about that, sir. I mean, mages wouldn't' stand a chance..."
"I beg your pardon, Colbert?"
"The commoner is Miss Valliere's familiar. You know. Gandalfr."
The leggy secretary dropped the clutch of files in her arms.
"Oh my... are you sure about this?"
"We'll know for sure if that man gets a hold of a weapon."
= Vestry Court =
"So... uh... you finally showed up, huh?" He seemed rather unsure of the situation, as anticlimactic as Jack's entry to the ring had been, his prepared speech seemed to have died at his lips. Good. Jack really, really didn't like long speeches. It made him want to fall asleep. Checking his EVE one last time, the splicer stood in front of Jack, and unhitched his wrench.
"Well... hmm... uh... drat, I had a speech all worked out..." Guiche upped the volume of his mutterings. "You vagrant rogue! Insulting the honor of two women, and slandering me, Guiche da Garamont! You have some nerve, commoner scum!"
Louise shot up like a launched grenade, her cheeks flared red like a proximity mine. "Hey! Don't you insult my familiar like that! Now stop this at once, Guiche! This has gone too far!"
"Miss Valliere, you must be quite naïve to misunderstand the insult that your commoner has given the nobility of this fine academy. First, he reduces a first-year to tears with lies, and then causes a second, a bright star of beauty," Guiche smiled and gestured at the only one of the two girls that had been referred to, who still crossed her arms in fury. The lip-service seemed to be working on the girl. "that is even now anguished at even the suggestion of such a thing. He then slapped me. A commoner laying his hands on a noble like that simply must be punished, and I am generous enough to give him a chance to defend himself and his masculinity by offering him a duel."
"This duel will be one sided and you know it, Guiche! You idiotic skirt chaser! Don't you know that duels are forbidden?"
"Of course I do, but duels are between two nobles, not a commoner and one such as myself. And may the loser beg for forgiveness." Sneered the boy. "What say you, brute?"
Jack sighed, and settled his wrench on his shoulder. "Fight."
"Stupid familiar! Just listen to your master and give up! There's no way you can win against him!"
"See, commoner? Even your mistress recognizes the stupidity of your actions."
Jack bristled at that.
Louise, however, seemed to seize the chance for forgiveness. "Then just let him apologize and be over with it!"
"Fine, if you must so insist, Louise." Drawled the blond fop. "And for you to yield this duel, here are my terms. First, this brute must apologize for insulting the honor of two fine women. Second, he will apologize to me for striking me."
"Sounds fair enough..."
"But that's not all, Louise the Zero." Laughed Guiche. "You must also pay your price."
There was a sudden intake of breath.
"Admit that you are Louise the Zero, that you aren't any use! That insult you offered me earlier must also be remedied. How say you? Kneel, Zero, and beg for forgiveness. Your 'familiar', too."
The entire Vestry Court stood still for a moment, as Louise whirled around to look at Jack, and the other stared at her. The pinkette would not meet his eyes, but instead turned to face Guiche.
"This is for your own good, familiar. You should count yourself lucky." She gave out a bitter cough. "The only way I'd do this for a commoner is if he were my familiar. Guiche Da Garamont! Listen well!"
The boy folded his arms.
"I... I am Louise the Zero!" She shouted out, mortified and close to tears. There were a few shouts, supporting both Louise and Guiche.
"Go on." Sneered Guiche, inching forward, though it was obvious he was growing impatient. "What, Louise, you can't even go through with an action you have committed to? How pathetic. Would you kindly just admit your uselessness, Louise the Zero!"
There was an almost audible crack in the air. Jack suddenly went to confused and rather apprehensive to something more akin to a strung bow, his posture suddenly changing from detached to defensive.
Would. You. Kindly.
Put together, they were the three most hated words that he had ever known.
His pinkette master hesitated, before sucking in a shuddering breath. "I am..."
"Louise." Jack growled, interrupting her.
His voice was deep, menacing. Louise froze in place as his hand settled on her shoulder, pushing her backwards as he walked past her, and raised his wrench at Guiche, still advancing. "We fight."
"So we shall fight, then? Fine, have it your way." He brandished his rose. "I am Guiche Da Garmont, my runic name is 'the Bronze'. As such, I shall fight with bronze golems as my weapon and your opponent."
The petal detached itself, and landed on the ground. A slender figure rose from the ground, metal shaped like liquid as the form compiled itself into a figure, though its shoulders and head were armor-like in shape, the rest of the statue was undoubtedly female. Jack shivered instinctively, remembering the plaster-splicers. Silent, unlike the other splicers that he had encountered, and utterly devoted to trying to kill intruders within their domains. They had lost so many to those plastered ones, trying to clear out Fort Frolic once more...
"They are my golems, the bronze fist of the Garmont family!"
Guiche's single bronze golem shot forward as Jack charged, trying to get as much distance between himself and Louise as possible. Its right fist shot out, trying for a chest-shot, but Jack easily side-stepped it, and then delivered a crushing blow to the back of its head. He mused at the slowness of the enemy, being far too used to the thuggish pipe-wielding cannon fodder creeping up on him from all angles. Lead-headed splicers simply kept their distance and behind cover, while the spider splicers bouncing all over the place made things even more difficult for him to handle. This slow bronze statue was a relief to him, actually.
And yet, it disconcerted him as his wrench struck home. The feedback he got from the wrench was like hitting a Big Daddy, and at the same time so unlike hitting a Big Daddy. His arm protested, the jarring impact almost knocking the wrench free of his grasp, and the wrench recoiled as Jack sprung back from the counter-attack. A distinct ringing sound alarmed him. It was hollow?
The hollow golem turned around, its head almost crescent shaped from the blow that had connected. Not enough focus to the blow. He needed something sharper. Jack began to work at the threaded cylinder at the side of the wrench, extending the jaws of the steel club as he and the bronze statue circled.
"Such strength..." Mused a voice.
Jack prepared himself again.
Guiche was getting more frustrated as the splicer stepped back from a sweeping kick, and then stepped aside another clumsy grab. "Go! Strike him down!"
Jack sprang back, putting distance between himself and the golem as it charged again, utterly silent in all but its footfalls. He stepped into the blow, almost flowing around it as he made sure that he was simply not where the bronze construct struck, and then he hit it again; this time, an entire section of its armor caved in. A second blow struck it, the pointed beak of the upper jaw puncturing the bronze 'skin', ripping and tearing through the thin outer layer of bronze and into the hollow space inside. Gripping the wrench, Jack grunted as he pulled it free, the arm following as the rend in the armor tore the limb off.
His arms were racing as his tonics pumped his body full of adrenaline and chemical stimulants. There was no doubt in his mind that without the Jockey tonics coursing through his bloodstream and into his muscles, he wouldn't have been able to tear through the bronze.
He struck again; two, three more swings were made, lightning fast as the man tore into the golem, stunned into immobilization by the inaction of its puppeteer.
"Im... impossible." Stammered Guiche. "Take this!"
Three more were summoned, their forms the same as the first. Jack turned around, his wrench idly swinging in an almost whimsical pattern as he waited patiently for the new golems to arrive.
When the four combatants met, it was like water meeting stone. The man seemed to flow like the sea around rocks, simply sliding past each blow as the golems tried to punch or kick at him. His movements carried him in a circle, dodging each punch and clumsy grab while – like the metaphorical sea – his wrench would strike like an iron snake, whipping out and nipping a chunk of bronze away. Soon he was fighting two, the third collapsing from a combination of the sheer stresses that Guiche was demanding of it on the much reduced strength of the metal.
After another series of strikes, there was only one as Jack brought down his wrench on the second golem, his wrench tearing its chest open in a scene reminiscent of a carrion bird ripping into a carcass.
And then, there were none. Jack deflected a blow and tore off the last one's leg with the wrench, shards of metal flying off as he pulled the wrench out, dragging it across the thin layer of softer bronze.
Guiche growled, and detached a new petal, to the sound of jeers from his 'friends' and the other academy students.
"You're pretty good, I'll admit to that! But these are mere constructs, imitations of my true Valkyries!"
This time, it was a single golem. Guiche sneered as the metal took form. It was another female knight, but this time it was more well armored; metal strips formed a hinged skirt that half-covered a pair of jointed greaves. The rest of the details were lost to Jack as he spotted the broadsword in its hands.
"This is my Bronze Valkyrie, brute. Know it well, for few have had the honor of fighting my creations."
Jack attributed that to the lack of enemies that Guiche was willing to face...
Louise screeched as she tried to enter the ring of combat, only to be stopped by a pair of sympathetic students. "Guiche! You'll kill him!"
"Don't worry, I made the sword blunt, so it'll only break bones." Grinned Guiche. "I promised you fear, and so you shall kn-"
*CLANG*
"What in Brimir's name was that!"
Jack had shot forward as Louise and Guiche had argued, and struck the new golem in the face. He kicked off the Valkyrie's chest, sending it back at a stagger as he switched his wrench arm to his other hand. Okay, he managed to dent the Valkyrie's face, but it seemed that this one was solid. He knew that now because his hand was hurting from the recoil of the blow. Stepping back from it, he ducked under the blind blow that swept over him, and then skipped back another step when it chopped down from above.
He grit his teeth, his right arm still buzzing from the shock of the strike. He had assumed that this one was hollow, as well. Too bad.
Time for a change in tactics, then.
The Valkyrie swung back, ready to bring down the broadsword, and Jack rolled out of the way.
"What, can't do anything but run, now? You think you're so tough now, huh?" Jeered Guiche. "Can't even take a single golem on, you pathetic little commoner! Those ones you fought are like paper dolls compared to this masterwork!"
He waved his hand, sending another petal towards the ground, ready to form a second Valkyrie.
This wasn't good. He wouldn't be able to handle two with just his wrench. Economy of force was the dictate of this particular splicer, and he didn't want to waste his EVE. But if he didn't spend it, this would get painful.
Jack switched hands again, his left arm clenching as he cycled through his available plasmids. It was like the world stopped for a moment, and the cylinder of a revolver was suddenly in front of him, the buttons for each plasmid hovering before him.
Taking his pick, he grit his teeth as the plasmid activated. Spikes of ice burst out from under his arm, the bloody needles already pink with the blood that had been torn free as well. His hand grew cold, pale and sickly even as the air around it condensed into little icicles. He let out a sigh as the pain faded away, and pointed his hand at the Valkyrie.
The surge of Jack's winter ice froze it and the ground between them, a sudden frost freezing the grass into a triangle of white as the ambient heat was sucked away. Having been in a dead run when it was blasted with the frost plasmid, the momentum of the Valkyrie tilted it over as its legs locked up into a solid mass, sending it crashing to the ground.
Guiche's second Valkyrie failed to form past what looked to be a lumpy bronze brick, which dropped to the ground with a heavy thump at his feet. It proved to be very soft, and deformed as it hit the grass.
"N... no way..."
Silence reigned in the ring of students as the splicer pumped his fist, cycling through to his second plasmid. Ice melted and water evaporated as burns began to appear along his arteries, the white-hot glow of supercharged EVE filling his veins. With the upgraded plasmids that he had been using when fighting Fontaine, Jack had learned that they were horribly inefficient in their default states. He learned that simply waving your hands was a disgustingly wasteful way of expending EVE. That was why Houdinis could send little pellets of fire all over the place; they had been learning how their plasmids worked. Jack, on his first day free of Fontaine, had started learning how to use them.
For example; Incinerate!. It was a perfectly good flamethrower in its default state, but when one wanted precision...
Well. Use two fingers.
Jabbing the two digits – his index and middle finger – forward, Jack felt his EVE boil in his blood, and this gesture sent a small shaft of fire, no wider than his thumb, which still carried all the intensity of the original plasmid. Ice and bronze melted together as one, the searing heat bisecting the prone golem from head to the base of its armored skirt.
He turned to Guiche, and closed his eyes. EVE consumption was... minimal. Enough to put a dent on his supply, but a good tradeoff. Still running on a full tank, he let the flames idle around his fingers, the burned and charred flesh flexing as if it were healed.
Turning to Louise, Jack held up a hand, still alight with his plasmid.
"Plasmids." He echoed his earlier statement, again emphasizing the plural.
The pinkette was stunned. Though thoroughly incompetent at using magic, she knew the theory back to front. An ice spell required a line-class mage able to stack the elements of wind and water. Something that only one of the students at this academy could manage. As well as that, he had then struck with a fire spell so concentrated that it could only have been a line or better class spell...
That meant...
A red-headed student let out a strangled cry. It was filled with surprise, fear and... interest? "He's a mage!"
"Two... no, three elements?" Puzzled out a second. "Triangle class?"
"Are you stupid?" Barked Louise. "That second spell had to be line class! Casting so close together... he's gotta be a square!"
"Im... impossible! Louise summoned a mage!"
"Wanna say that again, huh!"
"Where's his wand? Where is his wand!"
"That thing in his hand, of course! Look at it!"
"Did you hit your head something? He didn't even incant anything!"
"Is someone helping him, I wonder?"
"Guiche! Look out!"
Jack kicked Guiche to the ground, sending the boy across to the edge of the ring.
The earth mage stood up, waving his rose back and forth. He summoned a pair, then a quartet of Bronze Valkyries. That was his limit as a dot-mage. Standing back as the four solid enchanted golems drew their weapons, ready for combat. Two sword-and-shield combos, one spear and an axe. Jack sighed, and sprung back as a spear-tip plunged into the ground where he had been standing.
He pumped his fist once more, cycling through to his next set of plasmids. The first golem was frozen in place with a second blast of winter ice. An advancing golem was thrown into the air as a whirlwind appeared underneath it, and then lost its arm landed on top of the first, the metal shattering from the stress of the impact.
It lost its head as Jack shot it with a stab of his fingers.
A cheer rose up from the assembled students.
The third reached him, and Jack's blazing fist punched clean through it as he wrapped his fist in radiant heat, then smacked it away with a blow from his wrench. Finally, a golem landed a hit; its shield rammed him, sending the splicer to the ground as he was distracted with pulling his arm out of the Valkyrie's chest. Taking the blow into his movement, Jack tumbled across the ground as the golem's sword plunged into the earth.
"Familiar!" Louise's strangled cry cut through the haze of pain as he fought to recover. "Jack!"
Hah. She finally called him his name.
Though in pain, the splicer rolled back up to his feet. He looked at the four golems, now circling around him as he stood at the center of the ring. Missing an arm or head, dented beyond recognition or half-melted as they were, the Valkyries were still ready to fight. Jack searched his surroundings, calculating as his eyes took in the buildings around him, the crowd that was even now backing away, and the four Bronze Valkyries that were approaching him, hemming him in with their shields.
"Are you ready to surrender yet, you oaf? Wouldn't you just give up!" Screamed Guiche.
Jack let his wrench fall to the ground, and then set a knee beside it as he raised his arms.
"Jack?"
"Mr. Jack!"
"Oh my..."
They blazed with fire. Two fingers outstretched, he spun around in a circle. The accompanying lances of red heat sliced through the four Valkyries in the blink of an eye, bisecting them at the waist. Their shields fell away, melted in half. Spear shafts were broken, axes beheaded and armor cut through in a cascade of molten bronze.
The four Valkyries fell apart, collapsing into pools of bronze.
"What! Im... impossible!"
Summoning up his willpower, Guiche created more and more golems; they were crude constructs compared to the Valkyries, or even the first golem that he had faced. Earth formed to a vaguely man-shaped lump, and armor also coalesced into hollow constructs so crude that Jack could see through them. In all, almost a dozen golems now stood between him and the boy. It seemed that Guiche had finally understood that he could bury the splicer under a crowd of earthen constructs, while still hiding behind them.
"Now you shall know pain, insect!"
Wait... insect?
The splicer began to laugh. It started as a chuckle, then rose into a loud, booming sound that chilled the atmosphere as surely as a blast of ice. His augmented voicebox flexed and hummed as the man laughed, the unnatural sound freezing his opponent into place.
"Wh-what's so funny, huh?" Demanded Guiche, stomping on the ground.
The splicer raised his arm. "Insect?"
Jack pumped his fist again, instantly remembering why he hated using this plasmid. Holes opened up in his arms, each wide enough to fit a finger in. He grunted from the pain, even more so as he began to feel his flesh being re-formed to create the bees that now crawled from the newly made orifices. There were gasps of surprise, disgust. Jack ignored them as he watched the golems. A mop of blond hair was just barely visible.
"Insect."
He spread his arms, and let loose the hive.
Guiche knew pain. He had been struck before, by his sword master, the man who taught him the art of using blades in battle. Scrapes, bruises, he thought he knew pain as he rubbed salve over purple flesh.
It was only now that he really reassessed that statement as the bees zipped above and around the golems, which were to slow to even dream of intercepting them. They buzzed around him, a primal stab of fear clenching his heart. Guiche staggered back, and tried to shield himself with an arm as the cloud of bees descended upon him. Suddenly, all his world was pain. A hundred needles were being pressed into his skin as his eyes filled with streaks of yellow, each stinging stab of the bees numbing another part of his body.
He could only scream, and try to bat away the stinging insects.
Cries of alarm, pity and shock were raised, and Guiche struggled on the ground. His chest, his face and his arms were like they were on fire, although his legs and back were untouched thanks to the clothes he wore over them.
"FAMILIAR! Stop this at once! Familiar! JACK, STOP IT, NOW!"
His vision flashed. A man in his hands. A splicer in his hands. A monster in his hands. Hands. Neck. Hands. Strangling. Pipes. Walls. Floors. Crashing...
Tenenbaum.
Jack snapped his fingers, the loud click echoing across the walls as he called off his bees – only a short five seconds after they had first touched him - as the focus of the mage broke, the spells holding together earth and metal crumbling along with the constructs.
Turning around, he faced Louise. She had physically pushed two students to the ground in her rush forward, knocking the two flat onto their backs as she shoved them aside. Face red, tears almost forming in her eyes, she now stood in the ring of battle.
"Fa... Jack..."
He walked past mounds of dirt, and pushed over a bronze armor as it fell to its knees in front of him.
Towering over the writing mass of flesh that was Guiche. Jack pulled him up.
"Hurts?" He asked.
There was a soft whimper from the boy. "Aaaugh..." He raised the flower in his hand.
The splicer raised his wrench.
"Yeelduh! I yeeld!" He cried out.
"Apologize." Jack growled.
More sobs. Tears were forming in his eyes. "Soh... sohreh..."
He shook his head, and turned Guiche around to face Louise, Katie and Siesta. "Them."
Dragging the boy to the girls, Jack planted him on his knees, letting him fall forward to collapse at their feet. All three recoiled from the sight of the boy, who had been reduced to this mass of pus and swollen flesh.
"Louise." Jack advised him, seizing the back of his collar to point him at the girl.
"Vahl... Vhalleere... sohreh..."
He picked out Siesta from the crowd, and pointed her out to the boy.
"Meh... mehd... so... sohreh..."
Katie was now pointed out. Guiche's sobs intensified for a moment before he bowed down before the younger girl.
"Khaytee... sohreh."
Now crying openly, Guiche slumped over as Jack released the back of his clothes, falling to the ground and then curling up into as little a ball as he could form, struggling to keep away from the man who had so thoroughly humiliated him.
The splicer nodded in approval, and then turned to the girls. Seeing that he was asking for their approval, the three quickly nodded and turned away.
"Good."
"Hey! What about me?"
"What?" Asked Jack, glaring at the drill-haired blond who had spoken up.
"Uhm... nevermind..."
Kneeling down, he inspected the wounds on the boy. His face was probably going to be ruined for the next week or two; the usual dosage of the bees' poison would have taken a few more seconds before they would have fully taken effect, so this boy was going to be tender for a while. His hands were a lumpy mess, as was his chest.
His hard, unforgiving eyes met the younger boy's. "Never again."
"R-righ'..." Mumbled the blond bumpy thing.
"Good."
= Old Osmond's Office =
The three observers gawked at the scene of carnage; chunks of earth and metal were easily re-imagined as masses of flesh, and the destruction perpetuated across the entire school. Shocked silence reigned.
Cautiously, as if afraid of directing the attention of a man almost a two hundred meters and twelve layers of protective spell warding away, there was a hoarse whisper."
"So... does this answer our questions? Is this man Gandalfr?"
"I'm not sure... all I can see is that he definitely is no familiar I have ever seen before." Muttered the scholar. "I don't know... I just don't know."
You guys should know the drill by now. If you enjoy, review!