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watcheraurora · 29 days

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Monsters

I'm having angsty thoughts. Back to regularly-scheduled programming later 5.2k words

—

Tango joined the game

Tango faceplanted spawn, is what he did. Slipping in mud and splatting. He cursed, shoving his hands into the mud until they had enough purchase to peel his face out of it. Grumbling half-baked curses under his breath, he straightened up.

"What in the... where am I?"

The world was dark. The sun was definitely overhead, but the sky was black, the clouds were grey, and stars were visible.

He tapped a button on the HUD that clung to the underside of his left arm and pointed to a block.

Light level 0.

All the way around. There was no light here.

Wiping mud from his skin, he deactivated the window over his HUD and squelched through the mud until he reached water. Mangrove swamp for spawn? Whose idea was this?

Granted, the more pertinent questions were, actually:

Where am I?

And,

How did I get here?

Neither of which Tango had any answer for.

He shoved vines out of his way as he dunked himself into the water, using it to get the rest of the mud off. His clothes shouldn't stain—the Void only knew how much redstone had been caked into the fibers over the years, and yet they stayed the same—but he didn't want to be moving around covered in dirt when the mud invariably dried.

He scrubbed at his face and hair too, for good measure.

There was no one around. The spawn chunks were untouched. Not a social hub, then. Lot of spawns weren't, but most worlds with more than a few players set up some level of infrastructure at spawn. At least a sign welcoming new players to the world. Sometimes stocked with food and basic tools.

There was nothing here.

He raised his arm and flexed his left ring finger. A list appeared over the HUD on his arm.

The only active player in this world was him. He saw several spaces for more, but they were all... redacted. He couldn't see faces or tags. That was different. Usually residents of a world who weren't active were at least displayed.

He washed himself off again and climbed out of the water and kept moving, having chosen a random direction and moving in it.

He heard the bamf behind him of an Enderman's teleport. He whirled. If he could get an Ender Pearl... But, gah, he didn't have an axe or a sword—

He didn't need one, but he'd rather use one.

There was nothing there. The Enderman was probably blocked by the thick trees and vines.

"Come on out, skippy!" Tango challenged, frustration heating his blood. "Promise I don't bite." That was a lie and the row of sharp teeth he bared in a sneer proved it.

The Enderman bamfed again after a moment, but no more visible than before.

Tango growled and stalked to the nearest mangrove tree. An utter waste of a beautiful block to make tools out of, but apparently this swamp was plentiful.

The tree did not break.

"What the—?" He peered around the tree, looking toward the Tango-shaped hole in the mud where he'd, well, landed.

How big was the no-touchy zone around spawn? He knew some worlds had them, but not all. Hermitcraft didn't—they had community builds to help players who died without a bed or anchor within a few hours of hopping to the new seed.

Tango didn't remember what the no-touchy zone around spawn that prevented building, breaking, and PvP was actually called and he didn't care. It wasn't normally useful so he'd never bothered to remember.

He kept moving. The light level zero of the world with its black sky and muted sun and stars meant that he'd soon be faceplanting into mobs that spawned outside the player radius when he appeared.

He splashed through more water. He hated swamps. Mangrove or otherwise. They spawned slimes and drowneds and navigating the water and land and mud was an absolute headache. Maybe he didn't normally hate swamps, but he certainly was hating one now.

He used a propagule to haul himself out of the water—and it broke off from the tree in his hand and popped into his inventory.

"Finally," he muttered, approaching the trunk of the tree to start getting geared up.

The Enderman in the distance teleported again.

Tango grumbled under his breath. "Stupid Endy mocking me," he muttered.

Bamf! "I'm not mocking you."

"WAH!" Tango whirled, slipped in the mud, and fell back into the water. This time, he didn't even care. He scrambled back and away. No armor, no tools, no weapons—royally screwed—

"Whoa, whoa! Hey. It's okay," the feminine voice said as though soothing a startled and skittish horse. "I'm not going to hurt you."

Peering through the vines were a pair of vibrant violet eyes.

The girl pushed the vines out of the way with her shoulder and carefully approached Tango. She put her hands in front of her, again as though trying to soothe a horse. "It's okay. You're okay. I'm sorry for scaring you."

The skin of her face was fair—freckled, even—but her hands were as pitch black as the sky. They only faded back to fair up near her shoulders. She had on a light, lavender tank top and grey shorts. Her feet were bare, and black. Also fading back to fair, though Tango couldn't see the end of the transition with her shorts in the way. Her long hair was black, and faded to violet on the ends.

Violet particles drifted off her.

"Who—what—how—" Tango spluttered.

"It's okay, it's okay. I'm Eclipse." She glanced at the underside of her left arm and flexed her left ring finger. "Are you Tango?"

"Yeah."

"That just your tag or is it your name too?"

"No, it's, uh, it's my name."

Eclipse crouched, letting her knees sink into the mud slightly. She extended a hand to help him out of the water. "Nice to meet you, Tango." Her eyes swept him up and down as she said it, never quite meeting his.

"You too."

He took her hand and let her haul him out of the water. He shook his head hard to get some of the water droplets out of it and felt the fire spurt back to life in his hair, warming his whole body down his spine. Goosebumps rose on his arms. "Was that—did you—you were the one teleporting?"

Eclipse nodded.

He looked at his HUD, flexing his ring finger. "I don't see any other active names."

"Oh shoot. Sorry." She tapped on her own arm for a moment. The Tab List pinged and one of the redacted blocks hiding a name fell away. Tango saw her face and ForeverEclipse16 a few slots down the roster of resident players. "I forget that setting is on a lot. You can only see names if you've been allowed by that person after you know they're part of this world. Folks here like their privacy. Some don't care, but most like to keep to themselves here."

"Where are we?" He looked around the mangrove swamp, then deliberately looked Eclipse in the eyes, hoping it would spook her into giving him an answer. Most Players tended to be a little unnerved by his completely red eyes.

She cringed away, squeezing her eyes shut. "Please don't do that."

"Why?"

"I'll get to that. For now, to answer your other question."

Her screwed up face relaxed and her vibrant violet eyes opened again, but refused to meet his. Instead looking just below them.

"Welcome, Tango, to the World of Monsters."

—

"Okay, so, let me get this straight," Tango said, hiking up a hill that Eclipse was leading him up. They'd finally left the mangrove swamp and had found plains. His companion had been fairly silent the whole time. "Just to make sure I'm brain-ificating correctly. Which I might not be." He broke some grass and scooped up the seeds. So far he had a set of wooden tools and no armor. Eclipse wore none either; and hiked with bare feet no less. "When you say World of Monsters, you mean the name of this place, right?"

"Sure," Eclipse replied, flinging some hair off her shoulder.

Tango rolled his eyes. His sclera, iris, and pupil were all the same shade of red. She wouldn't even notice if she was looking. Which she wasn't. "Care to actually elaborate on that? This place has constantly had a light level of zero yet I haven't seen a single hostile mob spawn. How can this be the world of monsters if there are, oh I don't know, no monsters?"

Eclipse huffed a laugh out her nose, smiling but trying to hide both behind her hair and shoulder. "Hostile mobs don't spawn here," she said.

"Oh, great. That explains everything. Thank you." Tango knew his dry sarcasm was often found to be abrasive, but he couldn't help it. The attitude was in his nature. "Apart from how you teleported, how I ended up here, why the sky is dark—oh, and also where exactly am I."

Eclipse stopped at the top of the hill and swept an arm out, looking across the landscape. Tango pulled to a stop beside her.

No hostile mobs within render distance, but there were pockets of skulk.

"The World of Monsters," Eclipse said. "It's a unique place. Only Players with hostile mob code in their strings can enter this place. Some of us burn if the sun is allowed to shine properly. So the sky is kept dark." She fidgeted. There was a Bamf and she was several blocks away. Then another and she was on Tango's other side. No Chorus Fruit to be seen.

"I don't have hostile mob code," Tango said.

Eclipse snorted. "Sure you don't." Her eyes flicked up to his burning hair. "Blaze."

She turned and started marching off again. Tango squawked in protest and followed after her. "So, wait. Why this place?"

"Because hostile mob hybrids are often feared. This is a place where we can be ourselves without worrying about how other Players will react to the monstrous parts of us. We've got one guy—Creeper-code—who shows up here just to blow up when he's mad before going back to his usual world." She smiled. "That's why there's a large zone around spawn that prevents breaking blocks. So he can spawn in, blow up, and leave without leaving pockmarks all over."

"And you're an Enderman hybrid."

Eclipse nodded. "Human enough that water doesn't bother me. Ender enough that looking me directly in the eye does." She cleared her throat. "But that's because Endermen communicate telepathically by looking one another in the eye. But Players have a lot more to process. Complicated thoughts and emotions. If a Player looks an Enderman in the eye, they attack because they get overwhelmed by the amount of information they try to process from a Player. It's a defense mechanism. But they count as hostile. So here I am." She placed a dirt block to make a two-block gap climbable. "When you look me in the eye, I can read your mind. All of it. Having a mostly human brain and mostly human intelligence means I can handle Player thoughts and emotions. But that doesn't mean I want to see everything. So I don't recommend looking me in the eye."

"Noted," Tango said. "No looky-looky." He cleared his throat and kept climbing behind her. "How did you guess I have Blaze code?"

Eclipse raised a brow and eyed his hair again. "Gee, I wonder," she remarked sarcastically before continuing her hike.

"No one else has ever guessed," Tango argued, trailing along. He wasn't entirely sure where she was taking him. She said she'd bring him someplace safe, and for the most part, he believed her.

"Well, how many of your 'no one' is also a hostile mob hybrid?"

"At least three. One of my friends is part zombie. It's in her tag. The other is part slime. The last has Creeper code."

"Maybe they were just too polite to say, since your hybrid traits are more subtle and you can pass for a normal Player with some fire powers. But you couldn't access this world otherwise. So it was easy for me to guess." Eclipse fidgeted, teleporting several blocks ahead and then back to where she'd been. "Sorry," she muttered. "I do that. I don't usually mean to. It's kind of a side-effect."

"It's fine." Tango really couldn't care less that she was a nervous teleporter. "Why don't hostile mobs spawn here?"

"Because we turned off those spawns. We wanted a place where we could be ourselves without... looking at what makes us different. It's nice to have one peaceful world where we can just live." She cleared her throat. Bamfed away and back. Kept hiking. "My base is just on the other side of that mountain. I didn't want to be too far away from spawn in case I accidentally broke my bed."

"You can teleport. Isn't that, like, not a big deal?"

"Well sure but 'porting still takes energy. I'd rather save it." She cleared her throat. "Speaking of." She turned and held something out for him. "I forgot. You'll probably be getting hungry."

Tango peeked at his HUD as he took the golden carrot from her. His hunger was, in fact, getting really low. He ate the carrot and then the next one she offered him. He considered his meter high enough after that and politely declined a third.

They hiked for a while longer, crossing the plains biome and into a mountainous one. Goats bleated high above. They seemed to be circling the base of the mountain, rather than going directly over it. The day was getting on, the muted sun crawling ever closer to the horizon. "So you can't farm Blaze here," he said.

"Can't farm a lot of things. Skeletons for bones and arrows, zombies for rotten flesh for clerics, zombie piglins for gold, Endermen for Pearls and XP, creepers for gunpowder, Blaze for Blaze Rods, shulkers for shells. We don't do a lot of brewing here. And, actually, without zombies, iron farms don't work either. Let me tell ya, Jevin was bummed when he first got here and there was no way to make an Ender farm."

Tango froze. "Did you just say Jevin?"

"Yeah. Blue slime guy. He's actually pretty chill."

"I know him. He lives on my main residential world with me."

"Oh. He's the one you mentioned earlier?"

"Yeah!" Tango peeked at the Tab List again. iJevin had appeared on the roster, though the name was greyed out and [Off-World] was next to it.

"Interesting." Eclipse shuddered like an aggravated Enderman and after shaking her head hard, continued onward.

"What about spiders?" Tango asked. "Since they're passive but also hostile depending on the light?"

Eclipse gestured around her. "Light level zero," she reminded him.

"Right. So no string or spider eyes either."

"Nope." She cleared her throat. "Anyway. Home sweet home." She extended an arm out.

Tango paused.

She'd built a whole village out of End Stone variants and Purpur blocks. Like if an End City and a normal village had weird hybrid children houses.

Apart from the castle—that appeared to be made out of Purpur and studded with Amethyst. It was gorgeous, reaching toward the sky. Eclipse smiled at him and started hopping down the mountain to the village at the base of it.

"That's gorgeous," Tango said, following her.

"Thanks. Let me get you kitted out and then you can do what you want. Come and go as you please."

He hopped down the mountain after her. "So... how did I end up here?"

"Eventually every hostile mob hybrid just gets brought here. Most of us don't stay here full-time. We just come here for vacations. To be how we are with no fear of scaring normal players. You could turn into a bonfire right here and no one would bat an eye. If anyone was even here at the moment. Since no one's really a full-time resident. Except—" She cleared her throat. "Except me. I live here."

"Why did you choose to live here?"

She eyed him sarcastically, her gaze just off from his eyes. With a Bamf noise, she was almost the entire way down the mountain. This time, she didn't come back. Tango pursued her faster, catching up upon realizing she hadn't started moving again.

"I live here because being on public residential worlds is overwhelming. People look me in the eyes without meaning to. I teleport randomly and have broken redstone circuits by accident just by getting stuck in one. Here, I can just do what I want. I can wander and 'port and build and not worry about someone dumping their entire brain into mine because they happened to be curious about my eyes." She blinked. "At least here, everyone knows what I am and are polite enough not to look me in the eye."

"What about a more private world? Like a whitelisted one with only a handful of people?"

She shrugged. "Maybe. I don't need the headache of people finding out about me. Based on my experience, it doesn't end well when normal players realize you've got hostile mob code."

"My zombie friend has been accepted well, on our world. So has Jevin."

"Then your world is kinder than most." She pushed open a door to a large, rectangular house—that was absolutely filled with chests. There were signs attached to each one detailing what was inside. Her storage hut. "Let me get you some things." She lifted the lid of a chest.

"If you can't get Ender Pearls or Blaze Rods, you can't get to the End, can you?"

"I never said that we can't get Ender Pearls. We just can't farm them. I can make them. It's part of my Ender code." She gestured to a double chest labelled Ender Pearls. Tango, at her nod, peeked under the lid. It was absolutely chock full of Ender Pearls. "Why? What's so important in the End?"

"Well... how do you get Purpur and End Stone? How does everyone here fly?"

"I don't. I 'port. I can get to the End."

"Where's the Stronghold?"

She shrugged. "Dunno."

"Wait, wait, wait. You mean you can teleport directly to the End?"

"I can teleport to the Nether, the End, and the overworld at will."

Tango stared, blinking. "What?"

"Just part of my code. I can only really hop to the Nether directly corresponding to where I am in the overworld. But the End I can, y'know. Get wherever. So I harvest my blocks there. But I've got a crop of Chorus plants too that I can turn into Purpur."

"How does everyone else fly?"

"Most of them don't." She snuck a look at him out of the corner of her eye. "But Blaze fly naturally."

"Yeah. I just made a habit of using an Elytra so the other Hermits didn't think I was weird." His Blaze Rods burned into being, orbiting his head. He lifted a few inches off the ground and touched back down. The Blaze Rods vanished.

"No wonder your friends never guessed you were Blaze code." She reached deeper into the chest, short enough that her feet came off the ground, kicking the air to maintain her balance. "If you keep your Rods hidden, why would they assume?"

"I don't... mean to keep them hidden. They just get in the way."

"Mmhmm." She didn't sound convinced.

Particles drifted off Eclipse as she rummaged in a chest labelled Food.

She pulled out several stacks of golden carrots, handing them over. Tango let them pop into his inventory. "That should be enough to last you a while. I've got lots of crops here and a handful of villagers with golden carrot trades so let me know if you need more. You can just ping me in the chat or send a whisper or whatever. You could also, uh, stop by. If you want. Just whenever. I don't mind unexpected company."

Tango eyed her. The way her shoulders curled forward as she opened a different chest. "You're lonely," he said. Not a question.

"I'm fine," she replied, passing over a set of diamond tools. None of it was enchanted, but it was diamond.

"Wait, hang on. What is this?" Tango demanded.

"What?"

"You're just handing me diamond tools like it's no big deal!"

She shrugged. "It's not a big deal."

"How is it not a big deal?! It's diamond! This set must have taken you hours of mining to get—and you're not even wearing armor!"

"I don't need armor. There's no hostile mobs here and fall damage is easily mitigated by teleporting. Besides, the tools are nothing." Her own set of diamond tools—gleaming with the magic of enchantment—spun through her hands from her inventory. "I traded for them. I didn't mine. I built a village. I have villagers."

"Still, that's a lot of trading."

"Tango, look in this chest and tell me I don't have tools to spare."

He peered over her shoulder. The double chest was full of diamond tools. All unenchanted, but all diamond. "Wow."

Eclipse continued searching her storage room. "Let's see what else I can give you... Oh! A bed. Hang on. I think I've got some wool and planks..." She crossed to a different chest—labelled Wool—and ducked into it.

ZombieCleo joined the game.

Tango stared at the chat over his hub for a moment.

Then his hand flew to it.

<Tango> CLEO?!

<ZombieCleo> Tango?

Eclipse straightened out of her chest with some wool in her hands, reading the chat on the underside of her arm. "Oh. You know each other?"

"Cleo also lives on my homeworld!"

<ZombieCleo> Where are you, Tango? How did you get here?

<ForeverEclipse16> He's at my base

She went to a crafting table and started assembling a bed.

<ZombieCleo> Stay there. I'm on my way

<Tango> Roger, roger *thumbs up*

"There you go!" Eclipse said, turning around. "I have lots of dye if you want to pick a color."

"I don't really care. Plain is fine. A bed is a bed." Tango took it from her and put it in his inventory. "This is more than generous, Eclipse. Thank you."

"Sure thing. We don't get new Players often. Least I can do is help you out." She smiled. "Let's go out and wait for Cleo. They tend to move pretty quick."

"Yeah. Sure thing."

—

When Cleo emerged from the tree line on a horse, they looked slightly cross. Eclipse had been Bamfing around the houses of her base, up on the rooftops, waiting for their arrival. When she caught sight of them, she waved.

Cleo followed the directions Eclipse gave and rode straight up to Tango. "And just what have you been keeping from us, Tek? How are you here?" they demanded.

Tango knew that a lot of Cleo's intimidation was bravado and bluffing. That didn't stop his pointed ears from flattening to his head and his hair simmering low. He was still intimidated by them when that angry voice came out. Cleo could probably wipe him in PvP and he didn't want to trek all the way back here to pick up the bits Eclipse had given him.

"I, uh..." Tango started, rubbing the back of his neck. "I have hostile mob code?"

"Why do you say that like a question?" Cleo glowered down at him. "You can't get in here otherwise. Out with it."

"I'm part-Blaze, okay?!" Tango snapped, his temper, hair, and Blaze Rods flaring. Cleo blinked in surprise at seeing the Rods manifest around his head, their eyes tracking the orbit. "I'm Nether-spawn! I didn't tell anyone because Nether mobs are—they're—" He cut himself off with a huff, his fists clenching. His Blaze Rods spun around him faster.

"Tango." Cleo's frustration had vanished. They slid off their horse, tied it to a post, and approached him. They were taller than him and ducked down enough to force him to meet their eyes. Vibrant green, and now full of affection. "Tango, you know none of the Hermits care. Doc's got Creeper code. I've got zombie. Jevin's a slime. X is a code-shifter. Who knows what the hell Mumbo is. You never needed to hide anything from us."

"It's different," Tango muttered. "You're all overworld hybrids."

"Were you scared that the Hermits would reject you?"

"No! ... Yes? ... Kinda?" He rubbed the back of his neck. "It's different for me."

"Enlighten me," Cleo said flatly, eyes narrowing to a bit of a glower.

"I'm going to assume you didn't say that as a fire pun," Tango muttered. Eclipse had Bamfed away somewhere, apparently out of earshot, and was sitting up on a tower of her castle.

"Tango," Cleo warned.

He sighed. "Look. It's different for me, okay? I'm not overworld-hostile-mob. I'm Nether-hostile-mob. And more than that, I'm Blaze code. Nether mobs are the worst and the Blaze are... they... I... I couldn't let that part of me show."

"Why?"

"Because if the Hermits knew I was Blaze code, they'd be fine with it. They'd tell me I didn't have to hide. They'd encourage me to be open about myself."

"And that's a bad thing?" Cleo challenged.

"Yes!" Tango threw up his hands. "Because if I let myself be open about my Blaze heritage, I'd get lax about controlling it."

"Fire spread is off."

"That's not what I mean." Tango's hair flicked faster. "I know that. I like having fire in my builds as much as the next guy. More, even. It's the other parts that I have to keep down. You think my temper is bad and explosive now? Imagine how much worse it would be if I embraced the monster in my code." As he spoke, his teeth bared in a snarl. Their white, sharp points flashing in the starlight. The sun had truly gone down, but no mobs spawned. The End Rods that kept Eclipse's farms at the right light level to grow plants were the only light in the area.

Cleo considered him. "Am I a monster?"

"Don't," Tango said softly.

"Is Doc a monster? Is Jevin? Is Mumbo?"

"It's different for me!" Tango shouted. His hair burst into a massive plume of flame, his Blaze Rods flaring with light and heat and shooting around his head like meteors. The fire crawled down from his hair, consuming his head. Neck. Shoulders. Arms. Torso.

"How?!" Cleo retorted with equal gusto.

"Because I'm from Hell!" he roared. "The Nether is a hellscape and that's where my code comes from! I'm not like the overworld hostile mobs! You can survive in extreme conditions and just stitch yourself back together! Doc can release all his emotions in one quick explosion and carry on. Everything literally slides off Jevin. I'm not like you guys. I'm from the place no one actually likes going. People go to the Nether out of necessity. And you know what they do? They break through the damn ceiling and build up there so they don't have to deal with the rest of it!"

The fire had crawled to Tango's knees.

"Jimmy never thought you were a monster," Cleo said.

Tango's fire vanished, leaving only his hair burning low. "What does that have to do with anything?"

Cleo leaned back, folding their arms. "You won't listen to me. You wouldn't listen to Impulse if he was telling you this. You won't listen to the Hermits who believe that you're not a monster. You know us too well. You're like a child who won't listen to their parents but if someone else suggests the same idea, you do listen. So if you won't believe me when I tell you that you're not a monster, maybe you'd listen to him."

Tango stared. "He doesn't know the real me."

"He held your heart and soul in his hands, and you held his. He knows you well enough. You nearly burnt him alive when he tried to hold you back after Scar caught the ranch on fire. And he held onto you anyway. Would he do that for a monster?"

Tango's whole body felt like Cleo had thrown a bucket of ice water over his temper and dropped an ice cube down his spine.

"I don't care what your relationship with him was like behind closed doors," Cleo continued. "I don't care if you were romantically involved or just good friends having fun in a death match together. It doesn't matter. What matters was that it was obvious he cared about you, and you cared about him. And he held you through one of the worst rages I've ever seen you in. So what are you so afraid of with the Hermits? Why do you think they'll see you as a monster? You're not one."

"I'm not now. Anymore. But I was and I could be again if my control slipped." Tango's hair was flickering fast.

Cleo reached out and set a hand on his arm. "Don't beat yourself up so much. You're more than the sum of all your code. We all are." They looked around. "Come on. I'll take you to my base here and then you can find a spot for your own. Then you can pop in and out of here whenever you need to."

Tango looked around the End Stone and purpur village.

<Tango> Eclipse? Pop back down?

Bamf! "What's up?" Eclipse asked.

"Cleo's taking me to her base and from there I'm gonna find a little plot of my own. But first I wanted to say goodbye. And thank you. Since you've been so kind."

"Oh, no problem." Eclipse smiled, her eyes flicking to his for a split second before blinking hard and looking away. "Happy to help. If you ever need anything while you're here, let me know. I'll probably be here," she said. "I have a Creative world I mock up builds on for the village when I need to, but more likely than not I'll be here." She put out a hand. Purple particles drifted off the black skin.

Tango shook her hand. Her skin was cold compared to his, but everyone's was. "Thanks again."

"Sure thing. Enjoy your stay. The World of Monsters is a haven for you now. Whenever you need to Blaze away from the eye of your friends."

"Yeah." Tango turned to Cleo. "Lead the way."

Cleo hopped back on their horse. "Try to keep up."

Tango just laughed, his Blaze Rods spinning around his head and lifting him off the ground. "I think I'll be fine."

Cleo laughed that infectious laugh of theirs and urged their horse into a gallop. Tango shot off after them.

Eclipse watched them all go, a small smile on her face.

#Hermitcraft fic #Aurora Writes #Rory Writes #TangoTek #Tango Tek #ZombieCleo

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