Blocking Out Fact

[thepurpleone]

WHO: Donnie, Lark, Tony, maybe you?
WHERE: Agrii Ship, possibly the Glitter Food
WHAT: Thar's been an explosion folks!!
WHEN: Time is a nebulous thing...
WARNINGS: N/A
NOTES: Will match tag format preference!!


The explosion had been a surreal thing to behold. Things had been going so swimmingly, so how could they have gone so terribly wrong? Donnie has his suspicions, but right now theories were going to help no one. It's easy when the problem is clear outside the window, and so Donnie's quick to grab his tools and make for the shuttle bay to be bussed over to the Agrii ship from the Glitter Food. He is wholly unprepared for the chaos he's greeted with the moment he steps off the shuttle.


I. Paralyzed (Closed to Lark and Tony)
While Donnie had gotten rather intimately familiar with the systems on the bridge and poked around Engineering during the previous weeks, he had never really considered what the protocols would be for dealing with a ship-wide emergency. His only experience to pull from are numerous Jupiter Jim movies he and his brothers have watched, and ultimately he knows that the chances of any of those instances actually being helpful are closer to zero percent.

It's by reflex that he avoids the many urgent hands trying to usher them all towards Engineering, and maybe it's easier for him to slip away when the Agrii are so intent on just getting anyone to where they believe their He Rows are urgently needed. Donnie presses against a wall like he'd become a part of it if he tried hard enough, just trying to keep his breathing steady as he simultaneously tries to rein in his thoughts.

Whatever semblance of order he'd had them in just seems to have shattered in the face of the actual situation. Engineering makes sense to go to, but wouldn't the bridge be able to actually give them a better idea of the structural damages and any other compromised areas? What good is bringing everyone to Engineering- surely they can't all fit? How many injured? How many unaccounted for? Is Te Mi okay??? What should he do? Where should he go? He can fix things but there seems to be so much that needs to be fixed!

The blaring alarms and the panicked voices only build on the pressure to do something, underlined by the almost incessant pinging of the tablet in his belt pouch. The world continues around him but Donnie's brought to a stand-still.


II. Mister Fix-It
Once he's got his head in the game once again, Donnie's focused. It might be hard to believe that he'd been stuck some time ago, his tendency to overthink making his thoughts turn into a panic-ridden mobius strip. But now he's here, he knows what he needs to do, and his fingers fly over the controls and toggle systems like no one's business.

At first he's at the bridge. He knows there's trouble in Engineering but there's trouble everywhere so long as they're on this ship, and when the Agrii don't know the depths of their own systems, things will just get worse. So he's helping them, pulling up ship readouts, locating problem areas and directing Agrii who are able to pass off the info to others, such as relocating people in potentially compromised sections. If he's able to, he'll try to reroute power to more important parts of the ship, and the less space they need to worry about, the better.

Once he's exhausted whatever efforts he can put into controlling things from there, it's clear that he'll have to make his way to Engineering to work on more vital repairs. He for one would very much like to be able to keep breathing, and his portable mask while good was still made mostly in mind for still having some sort of breathable atmosphere around. At least this time he doesn't freeze up, eventually finding himself in Engineering where he can actually take a look at just how bad things are there.

"Oh, that looks a lot worse in person..." he grimaces as he studies the hole.


III. WILDCARD
((OOC: I'm playing things by ear but if you want to do anything with Dee after he's gotten some help in kicking his shell into gear, let's chat or you can just throw a thing down here and I'll go with it!))

Comments

I.

[in_extremis]

In contrast, chaos was fuel to Tony. In the time it took Donnie to make his way to the problem and freeze up, Tony had gotten past him and was already on his way back from Engineering, brow furrowed and darting around Agrii with a sharp hand up to maintain his focus. He only let it break with a flicker of recognition when he saw green among the warm colours, but didn't let this slow his stride, calling instead as he approached, "What are you doing? Are you just standing there?" Donnie didn't have time to explain whatever he thought he was doing, because Tony's hand was already on his shoulder to pull him into Tony's wake, moving inexorably toward the Bridge. Someone who could actually speak his language was going to make this go much smoother. "These alarms need to be turned off, this is ridiculous, this isn't helping anyone. There's a hole in the ship, and no one down there can tell me what else is broken or what they have to fix it."

[thepurpleone]

Donnie had barely started to register that he was being addressed, jolting under the sudden weight of a hand on his shoulder. He only started to move because not doing otherwise would mean falling.

"S-sorry..!" he blurted, feeling like he was literally trying to surface from his thoughts. It was all he managed as Tony continued, letting the man do the steering as he tried not to be completely dragged along, hanging on to each word. He hated that he hadn't just committed to doing so the moment he'd gotten aboard, it wasn't like he hadn't thought about it. It was just that he also started thinking about everything else too.

"Right...we...we need a shipwide scan, if that's even working." He grimaced, feeling like one big disappointment. He could do better than this, he knew he could, he should be right in his element!

[in_extremis]

By the time Donnie got his feet under him, Tony had swept them around several rushing Agrii, and had to pull Donnie against his side with a protective hand over his head as one went stumbling by on whatever mission the aliens had deemed most pressing. Despite the gesture, he still sounded impatient and methodical as he replied, "Good thinking. Priority number one, figuring out what we should already know, and pinpointing the gaps. Get that scan working if it isn't, get a body count, start flagging what we don't know."

[thepurpleone]

It was a grounding gesture that might as well have been compacting all of Donnie's rampant thoughts that had been spinning circles around him. He nodded beneath that hand, letting Tony do the figurative driving as he let his focus condense into the upcoming task.

"I can do that," he said, like he was trying to convince himself. He'd been poring over that system and its subroutines long enough that he was confident he could get things working if they weren't. Figuring out how to adjust the scanners definitely wouldn't be a problem.

"Should be able to pull up ship status and damage readouts. There's a lot of preexisting protocols but the Agrii don't seem to be aware of them. I had to do some digging."

[in_extremis]

"Hey, you're way ahead of the rest of us, this isn't going to surprise you: that's because it looks like someone else has been running the ship," Tony said as he invited them onto the Bridge, where it seemed like Donnie already had the experience that he thought he was going to have to give himself a crash course in. "Not, you know--we knew that, but that big hole that just blew is giving us a peek backstage. All of this is just for show, it looks like there's a whole other engine down there behind the curtain. Can you dig back in?" The Agrii certainly didn't look like they were getting anywhere, several of them quickly falling on their He Rows to try to urge them back the way they had come and toward the site of the disaster. Tony had to ward them off, free hand up to give them space as he tried to assess which one, if any of them, understood him as he said, "We're trying to find out what happened. Did anyone see anything? Do you know what happened?"

[thepurpleone]

"Yeah, figured that," Donnie said, frowning as he heard his comm ping again. He staunchly ignored it, though he did look concerned at the revelation of a hole somewhere. Definitely worth checking out, but he tried not to let his thoughts get ahead of himself.

He let Tony handle the Agrii, the man seeming quite effective in keeping their clammy hands at bay. Instead of answering what he figured to be a rhetorical question, the turtle went right to the main console once the way was cleared, not hesitating to start pulling up commands as he toggled the ship scanner.

I

[stitch_witch]

There were types of emergencies that Lark knew how to provide some degree of assistance with. This was completely beyond Lark. But a lost young man? That she knows how to deal with. It doesn't matter that he looks nothing like any child she's taken care of, but she doesn't care.

"You should take a deep breath," she suggests of the young turtle. "We can do it together. Deep breaths in and out. Would you like to try?"

[thepurpleone]

Donnie visibly starts at suddenly finding himself addressed, looking for a moment like he'd attempt to climb higher up the wall if at all possible. Given his quickened breaths, the woman's suggestion isn't a bad one.

He still looks reluctant to peel away from the solid wall, but Lark's got his attention. The turtle teen gives a rigid nod, even as he tries to take a deeper breath.

[in_extremis]

They had their space to play to their strengths for a moment, while Tony kept the Agrii charmed with some smiling and waving until he got what he wanted and had Ga Re's attention. She could talk to him, and it appeared she could manage the other Agrii, because she sent them back to their assignments so Tony could try to get information out of her. Unfortunately, it wasn't a terribly productive conversation.

When someone was invading Donnie's space, it wasn't a hug-hungry Agrii, but Tony again, close to his shoulder and muttering, "That's not your friends checking in on you." The pinging of Donnie's tablet was pretty hard to ignore, and wasn't lining up with the typical network activity that Tony could see.

[stitch_witch]

"Breathe in slowly and deeply. Fill your lungs fully. Breathe and hold on a three count."

They can add more as time passes.

"Breathe in, two three. Hold, two three. Out, two three."

Each little step to calm matters. Though he could probably hold his breath for far longer than she expected, couldn't he?

[thepurpleone]

Donnie gave a heavy sigh at that, his face twisting into an annoyed scowl as he continued configuring scanning diagnostics.

"It's- ugh, incoming signals to the ship. I programmed a subroutine to ping my comm whenever the ship received external signals so we could try finding something to trace our elusive spectators. I know, I know- it sounded brilliant at the time except that I neglected to take into consideration the fact that all communications from Temba count as incoming signals- the constant video feeds, our own communique through the network- I was literally getting flooded by notifications."

He hit the button to start scans, bringing up the ship layout on the main screen as he waited for it to complete. "So I figured at least I had more than enough information to create a filter for those notifications, weed them out, condense things into a daily report rather than a real-time update but something keeps screwing up- I thought had it working, I switched over data points and combed through all my codework and it looked fine, but now it's like...sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't- case in point-" he said, brow twitching at another ping from his pouch.

[thepurpleone]

Holding his breath for too long would probably be counterproductive, so Donnie goes along with Lark's count. Breathe in, breathe out. It helps him pull back his focus from the separate little paths his thoughts had split between, and while he doesn't move away from the wall, the tension he'd been exhibiting slowly seems to ease up at least a little bit.

He can't completely calm down though, not with a clear emergency still occurring, not with panicking Agrii about. Donnie starts to push away from the wall, his attention straying from Lark as he looks anxiously down the way everyone's been rushed.

[stitch_witch]

"Again," she suggests, because he's looking toward where people are going, and it is quite clearly causing him stress. So she needs to address that.

"But on a four count this time. Breathe in, two three, four..."

SHe's going to keep this up until he seems a bit more anchored.

[thepurpleone]

When has he ever not been stressed? There's been very little cause for him to relax ever since he'd been brought to whatever universe this is. It doesn't feel right just standing there doing nothing when clearly there are Things that Need to Be Done.

Donnie looks back at Lark again, clearly having trouble trying to concentrate on breathing exercises. He tries though, sucking in an impatient breath, sighing it out, getting through about two sets before he shakes his head. "We're wasting time!" he blurts. "I should be fixing something, not- not just standing here..!"

audio; would love to have her run into him eventually, he's just on her "check in immediately" list

[cactusy]

Hey. You good?

[She's a little out of breath, and there's the sound of panicked Agrii in the background; clearly she is also right in the thick of things.]

[in_extremis]

Tracking signals received seemed like a backwards instinct, but that could have been the gift of hindsight now that Tony knew most of the ship's controls were entirely on board and not being dictated externally. With a thoughtful frown as Donnie explained, he waved a hand expectantly for the kid's device to try to solve this filtering problem, or perhaps do the more reasonable thing and start tracking outgoing signals. "There's that much traffic from the planet, when we're not even there?" he did have to wonder.

<3

[thepurpleone]

[Hearing from her does help him a tiny bit.]

Oh, you know, good as can be after coming off a near panic attack and well, this whole situation.

...how's it over there?

[thepurpleone]

"The cameras are still live," Donnie pointed out. "Probably a waste of power-" He frowned and looked at the scan results.

"With multiple systems compromised, it's putting a strain on the ship to power everything. We need to shut off unnecessary space, group the Agrii so they're not scattered everywhere."

He gestured at the screen. "We get everyone out of personal quarters, keep the main areas we'll need functional accessible, and I'll try to reroute power so we don't end up completely dead in the water until we get things patched up."

[cactusy]

Just finished putting a bandage on a busted leg, and everybody wanted to moisturize me in thanks.

[So things are about as weird as usual.]

[thepurpleone]

So nothing too out of the ordinary, got it.

[Relieving, in a way.]

How bad is it over there? You okay?

[cactusy]

It's not great; there's a huge hole. But I'm fine. This is the kind of work that I'm used to.

[thepurpleone]

[It's some time before Donnie gets back to her.]

Ohhhmygosh sorry, my comm's being stupid and- anyway, complicated hope I didn't miss anything vital.

I heard about the hole, sounds pretty bad. I...guess it's good that you're in your element but I can still ask. It's not a great situation all around.

Trying to ease things up on the system so we don't, you know, run out of air or something equally terrible.

[stitch_witch]

Ah, there it was. Stress because he feels he needs to do it all.

"You are not in a condition to deal with it," she points out, her voice frightfully soft. "These seconds, these minutes, they will ground you. Give you the strength and composure to help however you can. But if you do not have them you might get hurt. And things might get worse. Is it not better to invest a little time and caution first?"

[thepurpleone]

He looks ready to argue that point, except that Lark's delivery isn't sharp and insistent, and deep down, Donnie knows she's right. He can hardly get his head straight, his focus is a scattered mess. If he tries to do anything right now, he might just make things worse, and that thought scares him. This isn't something he can mess up.

Donnie winces, sagging against the wall before sliding down to the floor to sit.

[in_extremis]

"And they're continuously sending you packages instead of a live feed?" Tony wondered, looking skeptical, but his voice had dropped and he tucked his expectant hands into his pockets, effectively warded off for now while he watched Donnie focusing on his scans. After a beat, he only briefly glanced at them then gave a nod, offering, "I'll ask Ga Re to get them under some control, set up some beds in the cafeteria so you can shut down nonessential operations. That's duct tape on a burst pipe, though. Where's the biggest leak?"