Ami and Tiger were having breakfast together in a small chamber that overlooked the palace's courtyard. However, the dishes with eggs and poultry currently went ignored because the crystal ball resting on the table between the girls proved much more captivating.
Tiger had dressed sharp for the occasion and replaced her corruption-eroded Sailor Mercury uniform with something that showed off less of her black-striped skin. The combination of red loincloth, metal bikini, and assorted bits of shoulder and leg armour that formed the modified reaper outfit looked right at home on her muscular frame.
In contrast, Ami was still wearing her somewhat wrinkled pyjamas. The faces in the crystal ball were familiar enough that she didn't mind not looking her best.
Within the orb, Mrs. Mizuno was listening to Tiger with rapt attention, the cup of coffee in front of her forgotten. Without the red-tinted light of the rising sun falling in through the window, her face would have been pale as a sheet.
The adopted youma, in full control of the conversation despite Ami's half-hearted efforts, was currently updating their mother on the situation at Salthalls.
Ami listened with mixed feelings. While she wasn't exactly eager to confess to her mother that she had accidentally conquered a city, leaving the explanations to Tiger wasn't optimal either.
"...and she even got the Duke on our side by-" she glanced out of the window, at the crowd several floors below, and lowered her voice. "By doing something I'm not supposed to talk about in public. It involved both of them alone locked in a room for a few hours, though!"
Sailor Mars, sitting to the side of Mrs. Mizuno, choked on her tea.
"Tiger!" Ami shouted, feeling her cheeks heat up. "It's not what she makes it sound like!" she said in the direction of the crystal ball, waving her hands. "I only worked a metal that can't be shaped by evil people, which the troops mustn't know! That's all!"
Completely ignoring Ami's reproachful glare, Tiger pointed at the transformed dwarfs outside. "Anyway, that's why all of these guys are working for us now," she finished.
Mrs. Mizuno blinked, visibly at a loss for words, and turned towards Ami for confirmation.
Ami nodded. "Yes. It was an accident," she mumbled. "I promise we are going to turn them back to normal as soon as possible!"
Sailor Mars angled her head to get a better look at the youma assembled in the courtyard. "And there are really thousands of them?" she asked, her eyes wide.
"Up to forty thousand, according to Duke Libasheshtan," Ami replied. "We aren't sure how many people managed to flee before it was too late."
"This... this is all quite a lot to take in," her mother said. She looked straight into Ami's eyes and asked, "Are you really all right, Ami? You nearly died! Multiple times!"
"I'm fine, Mum," Ami hurried to assure her, "I was possessing a golem body, so nobody managed to hurt me."
"Still, I can't help but worry," Mrs. Mizuno sighed. "Even if you aren't injured, all of this stress still isn't good for you! For a moment, I almost didn't recognise you!"
The young Keeper managed to suppress a wince. She was still in Sailor Mercury form even though she wasn't wearing her uniform. Tiger had activated the crystal ball and then addressed her as Ami, shattering the identity-concealing effect of the transformation. "Ah, that- that's probably the lighting?" she suggested, pointing at her eyes. "With the red glow, my face looks different than what you are used to."
"I- I suppose so?" her mother replied, tilting her head to the side. "It's actually rather alarming, by the way. That glow can't be good for your eyes."
"She'll be fine, she spends most of her time in a golem body for safety anyway," Tiger came to her sister's aid. "Of course, she also abuses that ability to go without sleep for days."
"Ami..." Mrs. Mizuno said, sounding disappointed.
"I only do that when it's necessary!" Ami defended herself. "I take a break when I can afford to. In fact, I just had a good night's sleep."
"Did you sleep well? No nightmares?" her mother asked.
"None," Ami answered honestly, gently shaking her head. She had expected to spend the night tossing and turning, but apparently, safety and exhaustion ensured undisturbed slumber.
"Good. That's good, I think." Mrs. Mizuno paused. "At least I hope it is. I'm no psychologist, but after everything that happened, I feared..." she trailed off. "Are you absolutely sure you are feeling all right Ami?" She stared into her daughter's eyes as if trying to see into her mind.
"Actually," Tiger interjected as she waved a hand through the space between the crystal ball and Ami's face. "Things aren't as grim as they look at first glance."
Sailor Mars scowled. "Everyone in the city got turned into youma!"
"Yes, but that also means everyone became very resilient. It's hard to deal actually life-threatening injuries to a youma," Tiger replied.
Sailor Mars nodded. "Isn't that the truth," she grumbled under her breath, speaking from experience.
"You are saying that casualties were low despite all the chaos and infighting?" Mrs. Mizuno asked, sounding sceptical but cautiously optimistic. She hesitated, her eyes darting back to Ami for a moment. "Do you have some way to confirm that even without knowing exactly how many people are missing?"
Ami nodded slowly. "My imps are supposed to collect corpses they find. So far, they haven't retrieved anything larger than a rabbit," she said. "It's not complete certainty, but I'm taking it as a good sign," she continued, trying to sounding upbeat.
Sailor Mars looked indecisive for a moment, but then pressed on and asked, "What if the dead youma simply turned into dust?"
Ami shook her head. "None of our test animals did."
"I'm relieved to hear that the... the takeover was relatively bloodless," her mother said. "You already have so much to deal with. This is all a lot to take in."
"W-well, things are actually looking up, Mum," Ami said, trying to alleviate her parent's worries. "Despite everything, I may be safer right now than I have been at any point since arriving in this world. That means I can finally focus on fixing things. If everything goes according to plan, the dwarfs should be back to normal within one to three weeks," she said with a smile.
Sailor Mars leaned in closer, looking interested. "You already have a cure?"
"One derived from animated chicken soup!" Tiger said, grinning widely when the comment earned her confused looks from within the crystal ball and an annoyed groan from Ami.
"One step of the procedure involves transforming the patient into living liquid," the latter explained.
"What?" Sailor Mars shouted, staring at her incredulously.
Mrs. Mizuno simply stared with a puzzled look. "I'm not sure I heard correctly," she said.
Ami spent the next few minutes explaining why the liquefying, filtering, mind-restoring and exorcism steps were necessary and how they led to a cured dwarf.
When she finished, Mrs. Mizuno was massaging her temples. "I'll be the first to admit that magical healing is completely outside of my area of expertise, but I have severe misgivings about just plucking pieces out of a body, even if they grow back."
"You can think of it as magical surgery, if it helps," Ami defended her method.
"I can see the similarities, Ami, and therefore I'm concerned about accidental brain surgery," her mother replied. "What happens when the malignant pieces you remove are part of the brain? There could be permanent damage to the patients' mental faculties."
Ami shuffled her feet. In a small voice, she answered, "We can't be certain, but we don't think that will happen. At least, we have strong evidence that, between youma magic and divine healing, it won't be an issue."
"That evidence is?" Mrs. Mizuno asked in a tone of voice she usually reserved for questioning ill-prepared trainees.
"Mengolin," Tiger answered before Ami could. "He's a mutated wizard who's more algae than dwarf. When he turns his head, the inside of his skull sloshes and rustles. No brain, still sane. Well, mostly sane."
"Actually, I sent him into a temple to get that fixed," Ami informed her sister. She put both hands together as she continued, a little embarrassed. "Um, I assume it worked, because he's refusing to come back out and yelling about how I'm not going to deceive him again."
"Figures." Tiger shrugged and turned back to the crystal ball. "The important part is that he's thinking without a brain. His youma magic is compensating for the missing parts, somehow. Now, since corrupted parts of a transformed dwarf's brain are effectively useless, magic must have already taken over their function. Therefore, they can be safely removed."
Sailor Mars scratched her head, while Mrs. Mizuno was blinking rapidly with a blank look. After a few seconds, the adult woman sighed. "The more I learn about magic, the less I understand it. How does it do what it does? How does it even know what to do?"
Tiger shrugged again. "It just does. Not thinking too hard about it helps."
Mrs. Mizuno gave her a pained look. "That attitude offends my inner scientist."
"I know exactly how you feel, Mum," Ami commiserated.
"Yeah, she's absolutely terrible at working glamours on her own," Tiger confirmed smugly, "unlike her much more talented sister."
Ami swallowed a comment about the orange-skinned youma being very much an expert at not thinking things through. Instead, she said, "In any case, I have to trust Tiger's judgement here. I can't experiment on sapient beings."
"I agree completely," her mother said. "Perhaps you could start with curing only those people whose heads are clear of tumours? You might discover alternative options in the meantime."
"That's my plan," Ami said, nodding.
"Ami, there's one part I'm not getting," Sailor Mars said. "How do you plan to cure thousands in just a few weeks? If I understood you correctly, Jadeite needs about an hour to safely turn someone into a slime, and you can't manage the spell yourself."
"Oh, that," Ami said with a smile, relieved at being asked a question she could answer easily. A sheet of paper and a pencil appeared before her as she prepared to show off some math. "It's very simple actually, look here..."
Limul woke to the sight of two female faces staring down on him. He recognised Mengkun, the nervous-looking priestess from one of the local temples, but the human woman was unfamiliar to him. Strangely, it was Mengkun who was shivering when it was the human who looked as if she should feel cold. The long strands of black hair dangling down onto her chest did more to preserve her modesty than her barely-there outfit did.
He paused. Shouldn't he be embarrassed or outraged at the sight? The expected emotions stayed suspiciously absent, and so did the alarm that such a realization should entail.
"He's awake," the insufficiently covered human said, addressing someone he couldn't see. The priestess at her side glanced in the same direction and started shivering even harder.
He blinked. Instead of going black, his vision went blurry and red-tinged for a moment. That wasn't normal either. How had he ended up in this situation?
The human leaned forward and waved her black-gloved hand in front of his face.
Unimportant. The last thing he remembered was his Keeper-Empress casting a spell on him. He blinked again. Since when did he serve a Keeper, and why didn't he care that he did? He'd always thought of himself as a righteous, law-abiding dwarf.
The hand approached his face, prodding his skin with an index finger.
Oh, wait, he knew the answer to the first question. He had joined her a while after her dark magic had turned everyone into monsters, shortly after fighting his former comrades for control of the nourishment zones became unnecessary, but before he'd gotten bored and returned to his guard duties out of habit. In addition, every part of that recollection should have had him screaming in horror and revulsion, but somehow it didn't.
The digit stabbed through his cheek with a curious absence of pain. It started moving in a spiral pattern, making weird slurping noises.
At this point, he intellectually knew that he should be doing something about that. Yet, he simply didn't feel alarmed enough to bother.
"Monteraine, stop that," a young voice he recognised as belonging to the Empress said. "You are interfering with my scan."
The now identified human withdrew her finger from within his face. A trail of reddish goo stuck to the digit, stretching out into a thin thread before it came loose and snapped back to his face. He was reminded of a spring snapping back into shape.
Monteraine turned to Mengkun. "He's completely senseless. Great job messing up a simple calming spell, midget!"
The white-clad priestess took a step back. "I-I did not! I made it as strong as I could!"
Oh, so he wasn't feeling anything because of an emotion-suppressing spell. That made sense. He could definitely understand why they thought he could use one of those.
"Perhaps that's the problem?" Empress Mercury said from somewhere behind him.
Upon hearing her voice, the priestess flinched and let out a whimper through chattering teeth.
The Empress sighed. "Perhaps you could use that calming spell on yourself, Sister Mengkun?" she suggested. "Not at full power, mind you."
"Do as she says," Duke Libasheshtan's voice came from the same direction. Why was a noble like him present and apparently cooperating with the Dark Empress? Why was the priestess still complying with his orders despite this obvious corruption? As a servant of the Light, she should be holding herself to a higher standard.
"We still need to get the patient ready to talk to us," Mercury said.
Monteraine stopped waving her fingers in front of Mengkun's face, earning herself a frown from the no longer shaking priestess. "Very well, time to put him back to sleep before I cancel the current enchantment," the sorceress said. Thimbles of purplish light formed around her fingers as she pointed her hand in his direction.
Dread wasn't an emotion Limul could feel right now. If he could, he would have felt motivated to dodge the thin purple ray that cancelled the spell preventing him from becoming upset.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" The patient sat up from the bed so fast that his liquid upper body whipped forward, elongating and thinning as the momentum stretched it.
Ami started in surprise, having expected a more muted reaction. It seemed as if Sister Mengkun had gone too easy on the calming spell this time. She lowered her head in sympathy. Still, she would count herself lucky if that remained the greatest problem with the curing procedure. With practice, the priestess would eventually get it right.
She also figured that the spell was at least partially working. The patient, called Limul according to the priestess, was hugging his knees and curling up into a quivering ball. It was far from optimal, but still much better than panicked flailing about with stretchy, whip-like limbs.
"NO! NO! NOOOO! LIGHT, WHY?" the liquid youma yelled between pitiful sobs. "I'M A MONSTER!"
"Soldier, pull yourself together!" Duke Libasheshtan barked in a voice used to command. "Your behaviour is unbecoming of a member of the Guard!"
On reflex, Limul jumped to attention with a picture-perfect salute. It was fortunate that the bed sheet covering his body adhered to his liquid skin, as putting clothes on a slime had proved impossible. He stood still for a moment, but then his right eye started twitching when he noticed that the fingers of his balled fist were merging into a single whole.
"My existence is unbecoming of a member of Guard!" he howled as he sat down on the bed with a defeated moan, head and shoulders hanging. "I'm no longer a dwarf! I'm an abomination! Worse, I'm a Keeper minion!"
"Um, at least turning you back into a dwarf can be done in an instant," Ami spoke up, wringing her hands guiltily.
Slowly, the liquid youma turned his head in her direction, as if scared of what he would find. His entire body went rigid when he confirmed that yes, the Dark Empress was in the room and yes, she was looking straight at him. His eyes went wide, far wider than they could have if his body was solid, until they looked as if they would fall from his skull.
"E-E-Empress," he finally managed to choke out, falling over as he tried to simultaneously bow and drop to his knees.
"Please, get up," she said in a friendly voice when it looked as if he would remain sprawled out on the floor, resembling a half melted wax figure. "I do apologise for the inconveniences," she added. "You are the first dwarf we are trying to turn back to normal, and the procedure still has some flaws."
In the back of the room, Sister Mengkun tried to shuffle farther out of Ami's line of sight unnoticed.
"Y-your Imperial M-Majesty?" Limul asked as he looked up at her in surprise before hurriedly lowering his gaze.
"You were supposed to wake up calm enough to read all the explanations we prepared in advance," she gestured at a small pamphlet lying untouched on the nightstand. "Ideally, you would have known that you are going to be turned back to normal before you could worry about your current fluid state. It's just a necessary step before you can be transformed back into a regular dwarf. I intend to cure everyone in Salthalls eventually."
The transformed dwarf, still kneeling, swallowed as he looked at his hands. His arms were drooping like wet noodles, arching at the elbows. "T-Truly? This is reversible?" he whispered, his face vacillating between disbelief and hope.
Ami smiled. "At this point, all it takes is a simple exorcism."
His eyes darted over to the priestess for an instant before his gaze locked onto Ami's boots again. "C-could you...?"
"Just one moment, please. I'll need your help curing the other dwarfs too," she said.
"Mine?" Limul answered, his shoulders straightening. "But I'm a simple soldier, not a mage. How could I possibly help?"
"Right now, you are a type of creature called a 'youma'," Ami told him. "That means you have a natural affinity for the kind of magic required." She telekinetically moved the pamphlet over to him. "Please read page two, which explains the necessity of the liquid phase."
Limul flinched as the levitating paper touched his hand but started reading as instructed. After a while, he lowered the pamphlet and said "Your Imperial Majesty? If I understand this correctly, the liquid transformation is required to remove corrupted flesh that would kill the victim during the exorcism?"
Ami nodded enthusiastically. "Exactly! However, I currently have exactly one person who can turn patients into liquid youma, and he can only manage around ten of them a day. As a youma, you have the potential to learn the technique, too."
Limul's shoulders slumped in resignation. "A-as a youma. You want me to stay like this. V-very well, if that is the price for being cured eventually..."
"It's not a price," she replied, waving her hands defensively. "If you refuse or turn out to not have the required talent, you will be restored back to normal immediately. It's delicate magic, someone coerced into assisting couldn't be trusted to help anyways."
Duke Libasheshtan took a step forward. "It is, however, only a minor inconvenience. Consider this: if only two out of every ten people cured can help cure more people, then we can already cure thirty people tomorrow. If, again, six out of those thirty people have the talent, then we can cure ninety people the day after. Two-hundred and seventy the day after. Over eight-hundred the next. After a little more than a week, every citizen of Salthalls could be back to normal. Will you delay your own cure for less than a fortnight to help your people, soldier?"
Limul's stance shifted the moment he made his decision. His spine straightened, making his slouch disappear, and he raised his head as he saluted. "I will serve, your Grace! It is a small sacrifice on the way to restoring what's left of my honour!"
"Great!" Ami clapped her hands together happily. "Prepare yourself; I will transport you straight to your new teacher, General Jadeite. And keep the pamphlet, it will answer most of your questions about living arrangements."
The moment Limul looked from Duke Libasheshtan back at Ami, his newly gained confidence fled him. "Y-yes, your Imperial Majesty," he replied with a shudder that made most of his jelly-like body wobble.
She transported him to his new destination and addressed her other assistants. "Monteraine, Sister Mengkun, go prepare the next patient, please."
The priestess bowed repeatedly in Ami's direction as she fled backwards towards the exit, almost bumping into the smirking Monteraine in the process.
"That could have gone better," Ami commented, looking at the empty bed. "Still, it wasn't too bad for a first attempt. Thanks for convincing him to cooperate."
The Duke frowned. "You do remember that we do not have enough priests to perform exorcisms on hundreds or thousands of victims a day, right? It feels distasteful to deceive him about the expected length of his service."
"Being unable to immediately complete the final step won't stop us from slimifying everyone," she contradicted. "In fact, building up a backlog of exorcism-ready liquid youma could be beneficial."
The dwarven noble crossed his arms. "Is this going to be part of one of those convoluted plans you are famous for?" he asked.
"No, I'm simply hoping that it will be politically unfeasible for your countrymen to reject a plea to let victims be restored at their temples. Which would require them to open communications to discuss the details with me," she explained with a satisfied smile.
"Does that mean I can skip the regularly scheduled fruitless attempts until then?" the Duke asked, his expression brightening.
"No, but you can already tempt them into talking with the prospect of saving the citizens of Salthalls in the near future," she replied, looking apologetic.
"I'm sure the part about turning everyone into slimes will make them take me more seriously," he grumbled.
Duke Libasheshtan withdrew the arm he had wrapped around Umbra's waist, splitting up the inky shape formed by their combined silhouettes. Still disoriented by the teleport, the dwarf took a stumbling step away from the taller youma.
Ami looked up from her computer's display and down the table lined with empty chairs. As she watched, shadows peeled themselves off her two visitors and dissolved on the floor tiles.
"Empress," Umbra said, inclining her masked and hooded head in greeting.
The Duke squinted, blinking rapidly to adapt his vision to the sudden brightness. Luminous crystal squares shone at him from all of the chalk-white walls, seamlessly integrated into the room's geometrical engravings. After a moment, he managed to spot Ami at the other end of the room, and he turned to face her. "Your Imperial Majesty," he greeted as he bowed.
"Duke Libasheshtan," she acknowledged as she rose from of her chair to return his bow.
He froze for a split-second, his gaze lowering and the corners of his mouth twitching downwards briefly before returning to a neutral expression.
Following his gaze, she quickly identified the issue. While standing, a small section of bare skin had become visible between the gold-rimmed hem of her dress and the surface of the table. While the black garment felt as if it had shrunk a size, it was still at least as long as her senshi uniform's skirt.
Nevertheless, she sat back down quickly, sinking into her seat's thick padding. The dress wasn't particularly scandalous by her own standards, but she still felt her cheeks heat up due to the dwarf's disapproval. So much for making a professional, dignified impression despite the corruption effects eroding her wardrobe.
Avoiding the Duke's gaze, she focused on Umbra's masked and hooded face instead. "Umbra, you may leave until the Duke has need of transport again."
The youma nodded and disappeared in an expanding wave of shadows that briefly made the lights flicker.
Walking across the impeccably clean floor tiles, Duke Libasheshtan approached the table.
"How did it go?" Ami asked him expectantly, shifting on her chair. Proportioned for a dwarf, it was too wide for her. Even with the fabric of her cloak bunching up over its armrests, she didn't manage to fill up enough space and resembled a small child sitting on an adult's seat.
The Duke's lips tightened in annoyance. "Poorly. I'm afraid you won't be talking to any dwarven diplomats today," he replied, briefly glancing at the inactive crystal ball to the right of her computer. Less utilitarian than regular models, it rested on a silver pedestal with decorative carvings and tiny embedded gems.
Ami's eager anticipation turned to disappointment, which she was unable to keep out of her voice. "Really? I admit I was expecting better news after you remained in the temple for so long."
The Duke pulled out the chair closest to her left. "Don't remind me," he grumbled. "So much time wasted talking to clerks who go on and on without saying anything of consequence." Shaking his head, he let himself drop into his seat. "Do you mind?" he asked, gesturing towards the tablet with silver goblets and a bottle, which, according to him, were a traditional staple of dwarven negotiations.
Ami pushed it closer to him, not seeing a reason to worsen his mood.
"As I said, I wasn't able to contact anybody important," the black-bearded dwarf continued as he poured himself a drink. He looked at Ami the whole time his hands moved, but somehow didn't spill a single drop. "I assume there are orders to keep me from interacting with anyone in a position of power. And also to encourage me subtly," he rolled his eyes, "to find the nearest hero gate and escape."
"That's unfortunate." Ami lowered her head, frowning at her reflection in the table's glass-sheathed wooden surface. Sighing, she reached up to her forehead to remove the weighty crown-like tiara she had put on in preparation for a diplomatic meeting.
A surprised choking noise came from the Duke's direction. Cross-eyed, he stared into his goblet for a moment before tilting his head to the side and meeting her gaze. "Grape juice?" he asked in an incredulous voice. His perplexed expression urged her to explain herself.
She sank a little deeper into her seat. "I'm too young to drink. Even if I wasn't, I would try to keep my head clear until I was off-duty," she said quickly. "Anyway, I was really expecting that there would be progress with everything we are doing and with a Duke arguing in my favour."
The noble in question shrugged. "Your mistake is assuming that my title would exempt me from the laws about not negotiating with Keepers or their servants. In fact, I have to choose my words very carefully to avoid giving the impression that I am working for you."
Ami steadied her elbows on the table and rested her head on her hands. "Your laws are irritating. I can't negotiate with the King personally. I can't order anyone to negotiate on my behalf either," she summarised her dilemma.
"They are meant to prevent non-violent interaction with Keepers," the Duke pointed out.
Ami narrowed her eyes at him. "That's- that's just..." She groaned in frustration. "Do I really have to conquer the entire kingdom just to make peace?"
Paling, the Duke sat up straighter. "Please don't," he said in a flat voice.
"Don't worry, I wasn't serious," she assured the alarmed dwarf, making him relax fractionally. "Why would anyone think those laws were a good idea in the first place?" she asked tiredly.
Duke Libasheshtan cleared his throat. "Well, it made sense in context," he said. "Not listening to Keeper Bartholomeus would have avoided a civil war and a third of our nobles going into exile in disgrace." His teeth clenched and he looked down, his gaze unfocused.
She paused while he relived unpleasant memories, pondering. Quickly, she made the connection between the poorly regarded dwarfs in Sirith Anlur who couldn't work adamantine and the disgraced exiles. It figured that the only dwarfs she could potentially convince to exert political pressure on her behalf didn't have any influence worth mentioning. "Is there really nothing that could convince King Ral that I have peaceful intentions?" she asked after a moment.
The Duke stopped brooding and hesitated for only a moment. "Short of digging up the adamantine prison, putting it on a train, and sending it to him? No. I doubt there's anything aside from inspecting the damage himself that could make him reconsider his stance."
"Tempting, but it would get me killed," she replied. "Too many people would handle it to preserve the secret about my true allegiance."
"Your minions," the Duke said, "how much do they know about adamantine? Could you not pretend that you broke through under your own power?"
Ami briefly considered the most likely outcome. "I'm sure some of the dark gods would gleefully set them straight. Though, with my luck, I wouldn't be surprised if King Ral believed me."
Duke Libasheshtan didn't smile at her attempt at levity. Instead, he slowly looked her up and down, stroking his beard as he let out a drawn-out humming noise. Just as she was getting uncomfortable under his measuring gaze, he started muttering, "Perhaps... yes, with your Empress title..."
"You have a new idea?" she asked, perking up.
"Yes. I believe it's workable, but I will have to refresh my memory on family and succession laws relating to foreign nobility before I can be certain."
"Why would you-" She gasped as she made the connection, and her skin tingled.
To get around her diplomatic obstacles, she needed someone who didn't work for her and wasn't her subject, but who could still negotiate in her name...
Cheeks burning, she jumped to her feet. "I- I'm not marrying anyone!"