"That would be much appreciated, General, thank you."

"Perfect. I'll grab my Shining Blade detachment and meet you there."

"Commander's destination ahead! Looks like we're in for quite a ride," says one of the General's crewmembers.

    "...we're not flying into that scramble, are we?"

"By gods, grow a backbone! Scared of a little weather?"

James seems to now have a broken leg.

How did that... happen.

He's had his legs broken before. He has in fact kind of lost count of how many times he's broken things. He can recognise the pain. But usually he knows what caused it. Now, he...

He remembers light, and sound. Actually, wait, sound, he can't hear anything right now except for a very loud ringing. Did he go deaf? What happened? They were flying towards that admittedly terrifying storm cloud, and the red lightning emanating from the brilliant shining red spot where presumably the bloodstone was was perhaps a warning that they should've turned back and tried to approach more cautiously, but whatever happened happened really fast.

Where... is he?

When he opens his eyes, he will notice that it's not just the ringing in his ears that's blocking his senses. There's a white film covering everything he sees, which he can't blink away.

But he's not completely blind. He's in what's recognisably the wreckage of General Soulkeeper's airship, and they're grounded, but it's really hard to make out what's outside, on account of the dusty red fog that seems to be surrounding the ship.

Light, and sound. Was there... an explosion? Did the Bloodstone explode? But if a Bloodstone exploded he would not have expected to survive that. He'd have expected to be pulverised, honestly.

Alright, he needs to get oriented. Lying on the floor with a broken leg is a great way to not stay alive for much longer, so he needs to be up and to find a healer. A better one than him, that is; what little healing he does know cannot deal with the extent of the damage he's suffered, not when he's probably been unconscious for several minutes, now.

The ship should have one. Are they alive? Is anyone else?

Actually there do not seem to be any corpses in sight! Everyone seems to either be awake, getting that way, or groaning in pain. If the Bloodstone exploded, it was a very localised explosion that barely touched the airship beyond grounding it. It probably didn't even properly crash, James has experience with actual airship crashes from that kind of height and it looks a lot less pretty than this.

The healer is over there, currently taking care of General Soulkeeper.

Excellent. Now, how broken is his leg, can he put any weight on it...

Nope he definitely cannot, okay!

He'll limp, then. It's been about ten seconds since he came to and that is far too many seconds of disorientation, in his opinion. He pulls himself up, ignoring the pain from everywhere else in his body. There might be other broken bones, but none of them are as obvious as his leg, which now that he looks is really not great, yikes.

But he needs to be up. He needs to figure out what's happening.

"General?" he calls, once he's successfully limped close enough that he doesn't have to shout. He can't hear his own voice, but hopefully she can.

She looks up at him and says something, but he can't make it out.

He points at his ears and shakes his head at the same time as he says, "I can't hear anything right now."

She looks at the healer and says something to them.

They stop healing her and turn their attention to James.

For a wound that's several minutes old like this, it's not immediate, but he does little by little recover his sense of hearing.

"This is much better, thank you!"

"General, what happened?"

"I think the Bloodstone... exploded, and then not."

"'And then not'?"

"We're alive, aren't we? Something must've stopped it."

"Commander! Commander, can you read me?" says Taimi's voice, coming from... somewhere behind James.

He looks around, but she is not there. "Taimi? How are you—where are you?"

"I'm in your bag! I put a two way communicator in there when you were in Rata Novus."

"I don't have time for this, something just expl—"