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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Calinon" data-source="post: 1511686" data-attributes="member: 13737">Arizona - Methesda"I'd say a ton of dirt and concrete," Anna says as she rolls up beside Cosmo near the edge of the dirt and punches him in the leg.  "Jerk," she says with a glare at him.  Cosmo just rolls his eyes. "Well, jeeze, next time should I leave him in the hole?" he asks with a sarcastic shake of his head. Which of course reminds Johan that he spotted a hole leading down inside the hole in the wall created by the avalanche. ChinaKevinCarl just snorts in response.  "I know how to pull my punches.  If I didn't, X would still be lyin' out cold outside." "Master Wen's first days are notorious for draining a person," Nova says.  "You'll get a heavy workout from us and it'll seem like cake." X12Xi is obviously uncomfortable with your attention to his throat scar, and moreso by your description of it.  Both he and Master Wen listen as you talk. "Some of this, I remember too," Xi says in a raspy voice that makes it sound painful to speak with.  "I remember hanging from a ceiling and being shot by those that look like us, and I remember a woman with a number seven on the back of her neck purposefully missing me.  She replaced me as the target; I was forced to watch as they shot her repeatedly," he says, pausing, his eyes looking more over you, seeming distant. "I remember being injected with poisons and contagions, only to be given antidotes moments before death.  Over and over, until I was no longer affected by them.  And the videos we would watch in the training halls," he says, not elaborating, pausing for a long while. "I remember being given a mission.  An assassination.  Then... then I felt someone draw a blade across my throat.  And heard him.  The man, always cloaked and in shadow, always observing, always punishing me for the slightest failure.  And always bringing bringing us back from near death with the two that could heal with their touch."  His eyes regained focus again. "In all my visions, I wished I could just die, but I knew he wouldn't let me.  You or the other one of us with the 13 on his neck always were allowed to heal us.  I swore I would kill you for that," he says, but he makes no indication of any hostile intent. "But most of all, I dream of our escape.  She came to us at night, the woman with the seven on her neck, like I have a three and you a twelve.  She stole in and killed the guards and freed us.  There was an explosion... and..." he slows, eyes closed as if he is trying to remember but can't.  "And then we were outside, in a snowy forest and being chased down a road.  I remember nearly being caught.  An ambush by soldiers.  Many of us were shot and injured.  I saw seven shot and she shouted for us to run," he says.   "The rest is disjointed images I get in my dreams.  Pieces of things that make no sense.  It's all unclear.  The only things I remember clearly are those since I woke up in a small Chinese village a year and a half ago.  I wish the visions would stop.  I do not want to remember more of my past.  I had not had any visions for nearly seven months, until you arrived.  I would be happy if it stayed that way.  I will not go back to being some number, or an killing machine." His final words are spoken with surprising vehemence, or perhaps not so surprising, given what bits and pieces you yourself know of what you've both been through. "No memory can change who you wish to be," Master Wen says reassuringly. New York - Methesda"I think I'm better off as part of the distraction.  After all, I look pretty harmless when I'm in bouncing form, but I'm not real good at sneaky," Rebound says. "I'm good at distractions," Monica says with a grin, pulling a dozey Sanjay along with her.  "Time to get focussed Mr. Sleepy," she says, smacking him hard on the butt to wake him up.</blockquote>

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