I stared at Cole a bit surprised. All the times I'd seen Cole, which had been like two or three, he'd looked jumpy, nervous, sometimes worried. Eun had told me that was probably because he was a spirit, like Jack, but there was also some hidden darkness within him. But the Cole in front of me looked like he just didn't care anymore. He had not even answered my question, instead going on about how I could go fight the demon, although we'd never be able to defeat him.

...did I actually sound like that back when I was at the library? No wonder why the rude person from earlier told me I had to work on my attitude.

Still, no one should lose hope, so I felt compelled to make sure he wouldn't.

"We'll stop them," I assured him, patting him on the shoulder with a smile. "We're going to do all we can, and we're going to put an end to this for good. I promise. So please... don't give up just yet, okay?"

Restaurant

"Well that's no matter, I don't plan for us flying around and shoo—"

Garrett's eyes suddenly went wide. He whistled through his teeth. "What is that thing?! It takes up the whole—" he said, standing up and stepping up to the window to stare at the colossal Death Star. "Hell, I don't think it fits into the sky! Damn... I thought nothing would surprise me anymore in this city, but this—"

"Not if she keeps helping it..." Cole said, still not looking away from the scene outside the windows. "Not as long as the one that she works for wills it done. They want us to hurt. That's all that they want. That's why they do it."

He turned his head slightly away from Ara, still not moving from his sitting position. "I think it was a lie, about someone wanting to write a book. This is just to hurt people...taunt and tease and torment and torture. It isn't going to stop. It's just going to get worse and worse...just finding more and more ways to hurt us to keep them happy."

Another short pause before he spoke in a softer voice. "The Templars would stop once you stopped fighting. Once you let them win, once it wasn't fun anymore. That was the only way to stop it. It might help...just...giving up. Just letting them hurt us until they're not having fun. Maybe then they'll stop..."

Lewis had been preoccupied with thoughts of the general caliber of It's not like any of that was even real and She'd never do such a thing, you idiot, such as to not be paying significant attention to his surroundings. Needless to say, it would probably be a while before the feelings of anguish subsided.

He looked up at the blackness of space offhandedly. It was still filled with an ominous space fleet of death, nice to see. In fact, in the time since he'd (very briefly) last seen it, it had apparently grown bigger and started firing like mad at some other fleet that he hadn't really gotten to see clearly.

And quite pressingly, on one side, he could clearly make out a certain spherical object that made every object surrounding it look minuscule in comparison.

Despite being their group's designated sci-fi nerd, Arthur hadn't seen Star Wars until the group's collective teen years, if only because Tempo was small and isolated enough that copies weren't readily available. Then Vivi got Netflix. The results were predictable: no one tried to get it on, and all of them figured they might as well inform themselves on this particular movie, not satisfied with mere Pop-Cultural Osmosis.

And that was how he knew why the Death Star was named the Death Star.

It seemed the Writer had some good taste in bosses. Distracted by the spectacle, Lewis's thoughts went toward making use of that camera. Upon which he recalled that, since he'd been too busy asking for information and then dying (again) to actually take it, the object was still sitting uselessly on the librarian's desk.

He groaned. Of course he had to die for stopping by the library just to make a few minor requests that he didn't get anyway!

Overcome with frustration, he manifested and then immediately pushed over a tall metal brazier◊. He then proceeded to kick it repeatedly, the noise of foot against metal rivaled only by his swearing up a storm containing such colorful^note ly juvenile phrases as obstructive shit-for-brains city layout from hell and stupid fucking overgrown pigeon bitch in a retarded robe who thinks he's hot enough goddamn stuff to do whatever the hell he wants.

This would probably be very distracting to anyone who was trying to think, whether to themselves or out loud.

Sans' thought were soon interrupted by much cursing coming from a fellow skeleton that had been in the library during the chaos, this one was significantly more upset about dying than he was, that was for sure. Still, he figured he might as well offer him the chance of making good use of that anger.

"hey, i know you're angry an' all but how about directing that anger towards the thing that killed you?" he asked, as since the guy was a skeleton like him that meant he didn't need to use a suit to get around in space so it all worked out well enough, "i can get us there in a bit, if you want."

Plague Knight was knocked right into the window of the library by a projectile he did not see coming. While the shield he had protected him from being impaled, the knight had his wind knocked out of him, and their was the combination of both major blood loss and rupture of important organs from the stabbings Lucas's healing PSI did not fully address. He warily got up and was about to throw a bomb, but, his strength gave out and he fell.

"I will find you next time," he said, his voice filled with wrathful hate. He then died........

Plague Knight gasped and shot up. He looked around and found himself inside the supermarket. At any other time he would have found this to be highly convenient, but he had a more pressing concern -

"The children!" he exclaimed. "I have to find Wander!" The knight than ran through the store until finding Ara and Cole by a window. "Quickly, you two come with me!" he said to them. "We have to go out and.....find......"

He trailed off as he focused on the intense space battle occurring out in space, with frigates on both sides with one side having a massive, spherical......thing that was clearly man made but far larger than anything the alchemist had ever seen in his entire life. He nearly mistook the thing for another moon it is were for the smaller details he noticed. To emphasize the chaos outside, a craft that looked like a sleek tube with a pair of wing shaped flotation parts on either side◊ flew past the window being chased by a gaggle of much smaller, disc shaped ships with an elongated glass dome covering some kind of creature with beady black eyes and oversized head◊.

"This.....complicates things......" Plague Knight muttered.

edited 1st Dec '16 9:39:29 AM by UdtheImp

Jack winced as his shifting pulled at the wound in his side, though he could have almost swore it hurt a little less than previous, and kept his staff raised as he faced off against the Nightmare beast. It had stopped, and was standing there growling instead of attacking. The spirit wasn't sure what to do; This was different and new. Then it started to growl louder and his head was hit with another bolt of pain.

There was... something to the growling, something underneath it. Could- could whoever it used to be still be in there? He focused, pushing past the pain as he tried to listen. The Nightmare beast flickered, and for a moment it was replaced by Curly. Jack's eye widened and he almost dropped Twinetender. "W-what-"

Before he could say anything more, the robot-girl had already leapt back into the air. A moment later, the pressure in his head was just gone, and all the images that had been flickering around went with it. As he went to turn his head to get an actual look at the battlefield, he was hit by something else. His limbs locked and spasmed as waves of pain seemed to set his nerves alight. All that came out of his mouth was a strangled grunt as he fell forward. As if reacting to the danger, the wind started to whip around faster.

With a shaky arm, Jack lifted his staff as power into it, then quickly slammed the crook of it against the floor. There was a muffled 'thump' and an explosion of light, fluffy snow suddenly appeared before it was quickly carried up into the air by the wind. Quickly, a small area around the injured Guardian became a sight-hindering miniature snowstorm.

Rising shakily into a crouch, Jack used a free hand to slow make more and more snow to add to the slowly growing storm. It wasn't as easy as he normally would be, but making snow like this was like breathing to him. Then, with a call to the wind, the snow exploded outward in a rush as Jack took to the air. Twisting mid-air, the spirit had Twinetender ready as he watched the snow move; Ready to strike if it seemed to stop suddenly on something invisible.

"You... you're talking about Miss Tairee, aren't you?"

I could see what he meant by that. After all, she had given the demon everything he requested for, which in the end resulted in so much pain for all of us. But... I didn't really believe she was fully to blame for it. Still, he seemed convinced that Tairee and her boss had no other reason to do all this but to enjoy with their suffering. I couldn't say I shared that thought, but I couldn't exactly argue with him because there was no way for me to know anything other than what I had gathered from Viola and the paper I had taken from the counter three days earlier.

So for a few moments I sat in silence, not knowing what to say at all. But I couldn't just leave him like there, just sitting there waiting to receive further punishment until he no longer did.

At some point Plague Knight appeared in the store as well and exclaimed that we should go with him, but... the request came at a rather bad moment, so unfortunately I could not volunteer to join him at the time... unless Cole himself did.

In the end I did the only thing I felt I could really do. I grabbed Cole by both shoulders and pulled him towards myself into a hug. He had clearly suffered enough already, but perhaps someone just needed to remind him that other people cared about him and wished to see him well.

Maybe it wouldn't hurt if he cried a little as well, so I patted the back of his head just to encourage him to let his feelings out if he so wished. But in the end I knew it was entirely up to him.

Eve joined Rex's attempt to attack Old Feather Beak by covering him with a shield made out of her hair (!!!) and made a joke about his hand. That was a nice change of pace.

"See? Now that's an attitude I can get behind"

The demon briefly made himself visible, possibly because he was too busy fighting the spear-lady and some sort of pink flaming skeleton, plus Ben and Curly's attacks. Sadly the first two didn't make it and even Cole got killed in the struggle. At least they had managed to hurt him a bit and Rex's shot was help with that. Well, it was hard to tell if it had actually connected, really.

"Did I hit him?"

Eh, regardless. It was unlikely that just one hammer would do the job and although the illusions were having a hard time looking real it was obvious that the demon was still alive. The good news were that it wasn't the only weapon that could hurt the demon. Wells had dropped his when he died. The bad news were that they couldn't give the demon even a second to retaliate.

"That weapon can hurt him. Build something to throw it at the demon, I'm going to distract him"

Rex proceeded to build his nunchucks. That was sure to give him an edge in the fight.

...Ok, but it at least helped him keep his cheerful attitude. Rex liked being able to build new constructs.

Rex began spinning them around and said "Hey, oversized turkey!" as he shot an energy bolt from them in the direction where he had last seen the demon.

edited 30th Nov '16 8:04:39 PM by DeisTheAlcano

Eve|Library

The illusions disappeared. She could finally see somewhat clearly. Somewhat. A blizzard had begun to fill the library, which was just fantastic for visibility. Eve rolled her eyes at Rex's pun. Of all the possible puns, that was what he went for. She was almost disappointed. Almost. When he asked if he had hit the demon she shrugged, putting up her hands in an almost multiversally recognised gesture for "buggered if I know" before sending three large strands of (expendable) hair towards the pile of weapons near the desk.

Provided they made it, they would grab and drag a random weapon towards the two nanite-empowered.

In the meantime, Eve rolled her eyes once more at Rex's antics.

"Oversized turkey? Really? That's the best you've got? Also, compensating for something there?"

Eve pointed at the nunchucks.

"Hah! Well, sucks for that piece of shit. The others are probably fucking him up as I, waste...time...having a conniption...Well, since when did this damn city like making travel easy for hapless assholes any—?"

"hey, i know you're angry an' all but how about directing that anger towards the thing that killed you?"

"NO!"

He kicked the brazier, startled, a little harder than he'd been kicking it, as one hand went toward the locket and the rest of him tensed up in a defensive position. Visible though not obvious on the side of the brazier was a small dent and some light scratching.

Then he realized there was no immediate threat, only a short bony fellow that he'd seen around before.

Within two seconds, Lewis's stiff defensive posture became an only slightly less stiff "everything's fine don't worry" posture, and the brazier dissipated into nothing. "Ah, uh..." He pointed at Sans's goofy grinning face. "Sssssssssssssssaaaaaans, right?"

Cole didn't so much as look up at Plague Knight's appearance, still just watching the fight raging outside. It seemed as though he was content to just stay there and watch, just waiting on whatever might come next.

After a bit of silence, what came next was Ara reaching out to pull him closer, hugging him, patting his head. He could tell she wanted to make him feel better...that it hurt her to see this. She didn't like seeing someone else in pain. That was nice to know.

"...I'm fine here," he finally said. "I can't do anything anyway. I may as well just stay out of the way while other people who can go. It's...probably for the best that I stay away. I...I don't think I will become a demon again...not now. But...it's better that I stay away."

Teleporting to somewhere out of your line of sight, directed by only your best guess based on where other people were attacking, to attack an enemy that was currently invisible, was probably not the most solid of plans, but at least was bold and focused. To the royal brothers' credit, at least this time their attack hadn't landed anywhere close to an ally, but they were still two bookshelf aisles away from their intended target.

They were also now within the area were Diamondhead was knocking over bookshelves in an attempt to pen in Old Feather Beak; the domino effect wasn't happening as fast as he would have hoped, since long, horizontal, and heavy bookshelves aren't the greatest thing to be knocking over like dominoes. Now it looked like they'd be inadvertently smacking into the two brothers, until Diamondhead saw, through his goggle-turned-eyepatch, the daemon turn around and look at him, eyes narrowing a little and raising his staff up. The latest bookshelves that just got hit and were starting to tip over suddenly halted before they could hit the next ones, then shot upward where they hit against the ceiling; thus with the overlap of the previous shelves leaning against them they effectively made a complete wall between Diamondhead and Old Feather Beak, completely taking the daemon out Diamondhead's view.

On the daemon's side of this new wall, the bookshelves on either side of Lothric and Lorian suddenly rushed inward, slamming into them like a sandwich of knowledge. Thankfully though, they impacted with the larger brother and between his shield and armor, wouldn't really hurt him; though his shield did shatter.

Just before this, when Diamondhead fired a few spikes at Yael, he had actually hit the quarian but only shattered his shield. Up where he was now, a new attack of an energy blast shot just about right past him, as Rex fired at where he last saw Old Feather Beak, which also happened to be right where Diamondhead had moved to. The blast would have hit into the ceiling of the second floor, but at the same time a bookshelf had flung forward towards Diamondhead, and was inadvertently intercepted by the energy attack. The bookshelf was blown into two halves which went around Diamondhead, leaving him to only be hit by a few stray book pieces, which didn't even break his shield. Over on another part of the second floor, with nothing currently hitting her, Curly's shield came back online.

It was about this time that the first floor and the inward area of the upper floors where they looked out over it were starting to turn into a snowy blizzard. For most of those besides Jack this provided no small amount of discomfort, and it didn't seem like it would really be all that helpful. It was hard to tell, because the snow wasn't really sticking to them, but if one were to look closely there were some spots where the snow seemed to be curving around nothing; like it was blowing across the surface of something that wasn't there. The two biggest of these areas was one advancing towards Caro, and another that was between where Yael had been and Jack's position, rushing towards Jack quickly. With Jack's intended reaction, he fired a bolt of magic forward that seemed to hit something, and not a moment later there was a retaliation of fully automatic submachinegun fire, coming at Jack from close range; and his shield hadn't had enough time to come back online yet.

That other notable place where the snow's movement seemed odd also had projectiles fire out from it, but instead of bullets it was shots of blue plasma. They pelted into the shield Lucas had casted on Caro, bringing it down, and the barrage continued towards the young summoner, looking to overwhelm the shield Miss Tairee had given her next...

Meanwhile, Fastanook and the other militia member had untangled themselves from each other and taken inventory of the current scene. The unnamed human of the two took his handgun and started firing on where the submachinegun fire towards Jack was coming from; Fastanook charged off towards where Caro was being attacked, but although he could move fast he had to weave around all the furniture in the lobby.

Thomas had previously picked up the strange gun he'd pulled over to himself and seemed to be inspecting it; he seemed terribly confused, but also just plain terrified of the situation in general and obviously panicking to do something to help with seemingly everything around him going wrong. "H-how do you use th-this, thing?!" Thomas said, holding the gun by the bottom of it and pointing his wand at it. The gun was making odd sputtering and clicking noises it sounded like it probably wasn't supposed to be making. On a vaguely similar topic, Eve managed to pull over the two halberds to herself; but, they didn't seem to be making any noise, intended or otherwise.

edited 30th Nov '16 11:29:06 PM by FirockFinion

Diamondhead winced a little as the books hit him, a little upset that his plan to use the bookshelves to crush Old Feather Beak didn't seem to work. He dug into his bag, pulling out the guitar-axe he had used on Vendral on Day 4, then moved to try and hack at the bookshelves blocking his way, letting out a screeching roar of an electric guitar as he swung. Surprisingly, after a few chops, while the bookshelf did cut in half, it remained in place, floating there controlled by Old Feather Beak.

Diamondhead's response was to keep hacking at the bookshelf until little of it remained, then to step forward, use the grappling hook to swing at Old Feather Beak with one hand, and make a downwards chopping motion with the axe in his other hand. (Or if that was too awkward to use with just his one hand, he would just turn his hand into a blade and make a stabbing motion at the demon. Either one really.)

He had no time to be wasting around having a casual conversation with someone as much as he would like to. Caro was still there, well, presumably, and he couldn't leave her in a fight and not do anything especially since his magic was going to be so helpful in that situation.

"yea, it's sans and y'know what..." Sans began saying,

With that, Lewis would suddenly find himself in space for all of ten seconds before Sans ended up bringing both of them to the outside of the library, thankfully from the spot in space Sans decided to look from he managed to spot the library right off the bat before something could start shooting at them.

"you decide what you're gonna do from here" was what Sans wanted to say afterwards, but since they were still technically in space nothing could be heard coming from him.

edited 1st Dec '16 5:03:19 AM by FullMoon

Gon

Gon whistled when he caught sight of the Death Star.

"Now I'm not too sure if we should take some precautions at least..."

The moment the sound of gunfire started, Jack tried to drop out of the way. But, as fast as he was, he wasn't fast enough to dodge bullets up close. His stomach was hit several times, we his legs being grazed as well as one right through his right thigh. He cried out, and hit the ground limply. Still, he couldn't stay where he was if he wanted to survive. Opening an eye, fighting the burning pain that was now covering almost his entire body, the spirit spotted Caro under fire. His eyes shot up, the sight forcing the pain down as he focused on the young girl in very real danger. "No!"

What he was going to do next wasn't graceful, or anything like his usual flying, but he didn't care. He wasn't going to let Caro be hurt of killed. He called to the wind, urged it to get him to the spot where the attack was coming from. And it did.

Jack was bodily picked up by the wailing winds, and flung around in arc so suddenly it made him grunt and shudder in pain. He focused on the spot as he came around towards from slightly behind it and to the side. He couldn't even focus on using his magic to attack the invisible enemy, not that it might have even worked. But, the spirit had another plan. Gripped tightly in his free hand was the phaser. When he hopefully collided bodily with the attacker, Jack planned to press it against them and fire it as many times as he could or until they were stopped.

Library - Under fire

Things went south pretty quickly. One moment she had felt her barrier being shattered by something, quickly followed by a sensation of pain together with a corresponding cry from Fried. She quickly removed the goggles, only to see first the poor little dragon stabbed by a large sword. Even faced with that, it was impossible to not note had happened to Sans. He had been decapitaded, with his head giving a warning about the Lord of Change being uptairs before he then turned into dust and vanished. That sight left her in shock for quite a while. He had asked her to protect him and she had failed. If only she hadn't been wearing the goggles, maybe she had could have spotted the incoming attacks and stopped or at least warned him.

She was snapped out of it when she found herself under gunfire. The bullets first hit some sort of additional defensive layer that she didn't know where had come from, but was quite grateful for nonetheless. The gunfire then started hitting the shield from the generator. At that point, Caro quickly threw up another, smaller barrier around herself and Fried. Hoping those layers would last enough, she then finally went to tend to Fried. The sword seemed to have a strange effect, because the wound around was slowly expanding. Normally, it likely wouldn' be advisable to pull something like that out, but that effect probably would effectively negate any healing that she could do, specially since she probably couldn't do much at this point.

"I'm sorry, Fried, but I really need to do this. I'll make it as much better as I can soon," she said, before removing the stabbed sword as much carefully as she could. There was still quite a bit of pained crying from the dragon, as well as quite a bit of blood. She dropped the removed weapon beside her and then quickly casted her healing spell. That seemed to quickly take away the pain at least and she hoped she would be able to keep at it long enough to take care of the wound proper.

edited 1st Dec '16 6:17:03 AM by JamesShields

"...I understand."

Since Cole didn't sound like he wanted to cry at all, I finally pulled back from him, but still held him from the shoulders. I wanted to get a good look at his face, and I wanted him to at least be on the receiving end of a friendly smile, even if he was not willing to smile himself either. Unfortunately there was not much I could do at the time beyond that, so maybe it would be best if I did as he said and headed to the library straight away. Maybe I'd still be in time to rejoin the fight.

"Other people care about you too," I told him, "so please take care of yourself, yes? Not just for your sake, but for theirs as well."

With that said, I let him go, and finally started heading towards the entrance. But before I went too far, Eun asked me to stop and give Cole a message for her.

"Oh, one last thing," I added, turning my head around to look at him one more time. "Eun told me to tell you that she thinks you should share what you feel more often, because that's one of the things that make us human after all."

Cole still didn't have a lot of reaction to anything Ara was saying to him, listening to what she had to say, not even flinching as one ship outside the window abruptly exploded in a brilliant shower of lights.

"I haven't helped anyone here," he said, shrugging slightly, looking out the window again. "They wouldn't be any worse off if they hadn't met me, and some of them might be better. I...I've hurt people. I've been one of the tools the one keeping us here has used to hurt people. This is how I can help. I can stay away. I don't have to hurt anyone anymore."

Ara seemed to be leaving now, worried though she was about things, when Cole was aware of that duality acting up within her, and the next thing she said...didn't warrant a lot more of a reaction than a barely-there lifting and lowering of his shoulders.

"But I'm not human. And I'm never going to be. So...why would I want to act like one."

It wasn't exactly a question. Still, even with what should have probably been some sort of emotional response, Cole only shifted himself backwards a bit, to lean against the window a little more, turning his head again to continue watching the battle raging outside.

Plague Knight glanced between Ara and Cole as the two talked. "No idea what transpired here, but irrelevant." The knight walked over to Cole. "Can you use your powers to find others, can you? I need your help to find someone. Specifically a little hairy man named Wander, and I left my children in his care. I lost track of him when the demon came to the library, and I need to know if they were all unharmed."

"She thought maybe you'd want to know that," I explained to Cole, coming back to him a little bit. "We both saw how happy you were when Miss Tairee made the demon you go away and took your powers. You even made Mister Jack's mood better with the hug you gave him." I took the chance to squat next to him and put his hat on his lap. "You're a lot more human than you think you are."

It wasn't something Eun had told me to say, and it surely wasn't a lie, at least from my point of view. It was something I actually believed, even though I didn't really know him all that much.

Plague Knight was clearly worried about other problem, namely that he had left his children with Wander, and all of them had gone missing. While I was surprised to hear that he had children in the city, I could understand why he was so worried about them, specially with the demon alive again, and the battle going on outside. Still, that was no way to treat a depressed person, and I had to make it clear.

But... I couldn't bring myself to do it.

"If they were at the library before the demon came, they could've left with the people who got evacuated," I pointed out instead in an attempt to relieve the masked man, although I couldn't stop myself from thinking about the alternative. "Either that, or... they could still be trapped in there with it."

Cole listened to everything from the both of them, staring at Plague Knight for a long pause, before he shifted a bit, getting to his feet, taking his hat and looking at it for a bit before putting it back on his head. He looked back out at the battle outside, seeming like he might be contemplating things.

Then he looked back at Ara, gesturing vaguely towards Plague Knight. "The militia wanted me to find doctors, find the demon. Jack Frost asked me to search for children. He, this one here, asks me to search for children. The demon sought me out to add me to its forces. Always being asked to see things, find things, do things. ...I am not a person. I am a power to be used. That is what people see of me. The ones who don't find me strange and...and only as a puzzle to be solved. All anyone will lose if I go is...convenience."

He turned away without another word, starting to walk further into the store, his image vanishing in a swirl of green mist as he went, leaving the two of them behind.

Eve questioned Rex's choice of quips. Everyone's a critic.

"Not all of them can be gems, alright?" Also something about compensating with his builds? She was a bit young to be implying that "And what is that supposed to mean?"

The energy shot was intercepted by Diamondhead but luckily a bookshelf protected him from the attack. Friendly fire, am I right? But hey at least Eve took the haldberds without a problem.

"Whoops, my bad. I was aiming for the bird. Keep him entertained Ben, I've got something in mind"

Just like before, Rex built his cannon and loaded it with a chunk of the ground. The snow wasn't helping with finding OFB but at least it made the Ruckus members stick out like sore thumbs. Just as he was ready to aim, Thomas was having some difficulty grasping the concept of a gun.

"Just point and shoot" he aimed his weapon at what smelled like Yael "And be careful with the recoil" he said, as he shot

edited 1st Dec '16 9:08:31 PM by DeisTheAlcano

Eve|Library

So Eve had suceeded in grabbing the halberds. Leaving them near Rex, and shrugging at his comment about her age and her quip, Eve let the shield fall, since both of their shields had recharged.

Also, any joke that she made would be entirely lost on him, mainly because they would be based around a nickname for members of her profession, 'stray cats'. Considering that Old Feather Beak was an overgrown chicken, the jokes practically wrote themselves.

"Have the halberds. I'm more of a melee fighter anyway."

Eve scanned the room. Caro was under fire, but that was being handled. Then she spotted Lucas. He was desperately eating, amd completely unprotected. It was strange time for a food break, so he probably needed the energy for something.

This was no time for subtlety, so Eve made full use of the altered gravity and launched herself across the room to land in front of Lucas. The shield she made this time was smaller, but still about 20 cm taller than Lucas all around.

"Are you okay?"