Othello Von Ryan (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thepurpleone) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
revivalproject2024-09-28 10:58 pm
thepurpleone) wrote in revivalproject2024-09-28 10:58 pm
Trying Not To
WHO: Donnie and you?
WHERE: Between and within Orange, Blue and Green
WHAT: Wall
WHEN: Late September
WARNINGS: I was in a write-y mood
It's hard to fix things when it seems that people don't care about having things fixed.
Back home, when things needed to be fixed, there'd be no peace until the problem was corrected. Donnie had slotted himself right into that role and performed it without complaint, and he prided himself in keeping things in working order and up to date. His family could live in comfort and despite having to live apart from humanity, was still fully connected to the world around them so long as the wifi was working.
So of course when he'd found himself dropped into the late snows of an alien planet, once it became clear that there was a problem to be attended to, Donnie assumed that his purpose here was obvious. Could a fourteen-year-old possibly be so arrogant to think he was the solution to fixing the problems of a displaced alien race?
Yes.
Admittedly, after being here for a year and with little actual Storm experience to show for, it had started to temper his ambitions, but Donnie had been much too stubborn to give up. He couldn't give up, because that meant never going home, and for someone who had never been away from his family for so long, this simply wasn't an option.
He'd found his drive again, in spite of the things that had happened, and in other instances, because of the things that happened. He now had his brother to lean on when things got difficult. And things had certainly gotten difficult.
This whole murder witch-hunt however is wearing down on him in ways he'd never considered. The confrontation with Stu had been a disaster so far as he had seen, and the more that had been said, the less he'd felt that putting in an appearance then would have helped matters. All the jumble of emotions had balled up so tightly in his gut and he had no name to any of them, save that he could probably do without the experience. He wanted to be sick, he wanted to just not be there, but every time someone said his name, it just felt like couldn't leave. Maybe he shouldn't have told anyone else. Maybe then things wouldn't have gone so horribly wrong. Again.
What was the point of it all? Any efforts made to try and get them any closer to figuring out what was going on with this planet and their mystery-watchers were being effectively waylaid because someone decided they were going to try killing people for the heck of it. Maybe that was evidence in itself, maybe they didn't really take the situation seriously. But did that really matter? Words hadn't resolved anything yet, which is why Donnie usually let his work do the talking. His confidence was always in his work, and in getting things done. And yet that had brought up another realization.
What's the point of being the tech-guy when anyone can fix things or code things with the touch of a sphere and an instant upload into your brain? It feels like his abilities were cheapened. Sure, he'd been ecstatic when he'd gotten Leo to figure out how to work with and understand code, and it was bad enough not being able to do two things that otherwise went hand-in-hand so far as he was concerned. But those uncomfortable, familiar insecurities have been working their way into his thoughts.
Is he even really needed here? If anyone can figure out how to fix or put together machines or program a tablet with a data point, then where did that leave him? It's a crippling thought that hurts even more than admitting to himself how bad he is with people. It swirls and builds with everything else like a steadily building cyclone and trying to pull anything from it to make sense of it has been an exhausting cycle in itself.
The emptiness that eventually rolls in after is almost welcoming. Maybe that's not quite what it is. Can someone get tired of feelings? Not his area of expertise. At the moment he doesn't particularly care so long as it saves him the discomfort. He has... Well, he thought he had things to do. He doesn't feel very motivated to continue them at the moment, but with the power being unreliable of late due to the strange storm patterns, maybe it doesn't matter too much.
So it's outside that he goes.
It's cloudy out but for the moment it doesn't seem like there's any rain just yet, not that the wet weather particularly bothers him so much as the hints of Storms with a capital 'S'. But with the instability of tech that comes with such Storms, that also means it's probably better not to fly around. Crash-landing from equipment failure seems somehow more embarrassing than getting caught walking around alone despite all the insistence from people not to, but it's one of those rare times where his overthink's not running wild, and he wants to enjoy the silence while he can. The walk out to the space he's planted his test garden is a long one given it's on the opposite side of the city and it's only longer if he doesn't cut through the city center, but at least he's more or less managed to regain his usual stamina since the accident aboard the Agrii ship.
WHERE: Between and within Orange, Blue and Green
WHAT: Wall
WHEN: Late September
WARNINGS: I was in a write-y mood
It's hard to fix things when it seems that people don't care about having things fixed.
Back home, when things needed to be fixed, there'd be no peace until the problem was corrected. Donnie had slotted himself right into that role and performed it without complaint, and he prided himself in keeping things in working order and up to date. His family could live in comfort and despite having to live apart from humanity, was still fully connected to the world around them so long as the wifi was working.
So of course when he'd found himself dropped into the late snows of an alien planet, once it became clear that there was a problem to be attended to, Donnie assumed that his purpose here was obvious. Could a fourteen-year-old possibly be so arrogant to think he was the solution to fixing the problems of a displaced alien race?
Yes.
Admittedly, after being here for a year and with little actual Storm experience to show for, it had started to temper his ambitions, but Donnie had been much too stubborn to give up. He couldn't give up, because that meant never going home, and for someone who had never been away from his family for so long, this simply wasn't an option.
He'd found his drive again, in spite of the things that had happened, and in other instances, because of the things that happened. He now had his brother to lean on when things got difficult. And things had certainly gotten difficult.
This whole murder witch-hunt however is wearing down on him in ways he'd never considered. The confrontation with Stu had been a disaster so far as he had seen, and the more that had been said, the less he'd felt that putting in an appearance then would have helped matters. All the jumble of emotions had balled up so tightly in his gut and he had no name to any of them, save that he could probably do without the experience. He wanted to be sick, he wanted to just not be there, but every time someone said his name, it just felt like couldn't leave. Maybe he shouldn't have told anyone else. Maybe then things wouldn't have gone so horribly wrong. Again.
What was the point of it all? Any efforts made to try and get them any closer to figuring out what was going on with this planet and their mystery-watchers were being effectively waylaid because someone decided they were going to try killing people for the heck of it. Maybe that was evidence in itself, maybe they didn't really take the situation seriously. But did that really matter? Words hadn't resolved anything yet, which is why Donnie usually let his work do the talking. His confidence was always in his work, and in getting things done. And yet that had brought up another realization.
What's the point of being the tech-guy when anyone can fix things or code things with the touch of a sphere and an instant upload into your brain? It feels like his abilities were cheapened. Sure, he'd been ecstatic when he'd gotten Leo to figure out how to work with and understand code, and it was bad enough not being able to do two things that otherwise went hand-in-hand so far as he was concerned. But those uncomfortable, familiar insecurities have been working their way into his thoughts.
Is he even really needed here? If anyone can figure out how to fix or put together machines or program a tablet with a data point, then where did that leave him? It's a crippling thought that hurts even more than admitting to himself how bad he is with people. It swirls and builds with everything else like a steadily building cyclone and trying to pull anything from it to make sense of it has been an exhausting cycle in itself.
The emptiness that eventually rolls in after is almost welcoming. Maybe that's not quite what it is. Can someone get tired of feelings? Not his area of expertise. At the moment he doesn't particularly care so long as it saves him the discomfort. He has... Well, he thought he had things to do. He doesn't feel very motivated to continue them at the moment, but with the power being unreliable of late due to the strange storm patterns, maybe it doesn't matter too much.
So it's outside that he goes.
It's cloudy out but for the moment it doesn't seem like there's any rain just yet, not that the wet weather particularly bothers him so much as the hints of Storms with a capital 'S'. But with the instability of tech that comes with such Storms, that also means it's probably better not to fly around. Crash-landing from equipment failure seems somehow more embarrassing than getting caught walking around alone despite all the insistence from people not to, but it's one of those rare times where his overthink's not running wild, and he wants to enjoy the silence while he can. The walk out to the space he's planted his test garden is a long one given it's on the opposite side of the city and it's only longer if he doesn't cut through the city center, but at least he's more or less managed to regain his usual stamina since the accident aboard the Agrii ship.
no subject
The scope of the destruction of the building is still pretty intense, monster or no. It must have been a huge building before this happened, but now it's just rubble. He wonders if there was anything useful inside before this happened to it.
"Whose palace do you think it was? Before, uh... that."
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Donnie shrugs as he looks at the mess, testing his footing on some of the debris before he starts to pick his way up some of it.
"No idea... The Agrii apparently never lived in this city though."
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"Wait, they didn't? Huh." Leo kicks a rock, watching it skitter away across the ruin. "Then who did live here?"
If there are other intelligent races on this planet (other than the plants), that's interesting.
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"Here things are closer to our scale, and even the clothes in the department store are lacking the extra pair of arms. The buildings are kind of weird here and there with the stonework..." He lowers his goggles as he looks around at the rubble again, toeing at a chunk to shove it aside.
"I think the ones who lived here are called Graq? But...they weren't native either. -huh."
Donnie stoops down, picking up a piece of debris for close inspection.
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Donnie is looking at rocks, which is boring, so Leo clambers over some more debris to move a little further into the remains of the palace - though still within Donnie's sight.
"How do all these people who aren't from here keep ending up here?" Leo wonders aloud. "Hey, do you think this is like, the Australia of the universe?"
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"It's weird, right? And like...if the differences between here and Temba suggest that the original cities themselves weren't built by their inhabitants. The stone additions seem something exclusive to the Graq here. But...it feels like someone transplanted people here to live for...some reason." He frowns. "But if it was the Atroma then why would they suddenly want to drive the Agrii away? And what happened to the Graq here?"
Even more unanswered questions. It's getting really annoying.
"Hey Leo? I don't think this place was demolished by space creatures. Unless said space creatures had access to explosives."
no subject
He does not for a second think this was all a ruse to make Donatello Hamato specifically mad, of course. He says it just to heckle him a bit. It's not like he has any good idea why this would happen otherwise.
He's still poking around when Donnie brings up his next point, and he looks over curiously.
"So you think it was someone from our camp who did it?" He cocks his head to the side. "You know, if you blew this up you can just tell me."
This is also a little heckling.
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"I mean, who else would be able to come up with enough explosives to level a building..." he murmurs, before once again turning a dry look towards Leo. He forces his hand to drop the piece he'd been studying, pushing himself to his feet.
"I have better targets I'd love to blow up," he says, starting over to where Leo is. "Which does make me wonder why this place was chosen as a target. I wonder what used to be here? You know, aside from just being labeled 'palace', because that can mean anything."
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"You never saw it before it was destroyed? Hm..." He looks around at the debris, though it doesn't mean much to him like it does to Donnie's discerning eye. "Maybe it was someone with a big ego. They wanted to have the biggest house on the planet or something."
He flips another old stone over with a kick. "Or maybe there really was a monster here, and a super cool explosion was the only way to defeat it."
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Donnie strokes his chin as he regards the debris field. "Except blowing up a building wouldn't have worked for them on the account that they were easily as big as one, so if something were here that had to necessitate an explosion of epic proportions, it would have had to fit to be properly buried."
Which...makes him wonder if indeed such had been the case, would it have really taken care of whatever might have been buried or just simply buried it alive and it's still somewhere below them. Oh hello overthink! Nice to see you've returned.
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(Is it sad that Leo's gotten to the point where he hopes for a big monster? At least it's a simple and not emotionally taxing problem.)
"Duuuude. What if we're standing on a monster grave right now?"
To illustrate his excitement at this prospect, he starts jumping up and down. Like he's trying to wake it up, or something.
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Donnie watches his brother with an increasing expression of unamusement.
"And if we were, what do you hope to accomplish by doing that?" He pauses. "Awaken it's restless, vengeful spirit?" he asks, smirking slowly.
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Spooky! But also he doubts it.
He's stopped jumping but he kicks over another rock, just to make some noise.
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"Well, that'd depend on how recently this happened, and how resilient this unconfirmed monster might be." He looks down again. "Or it could just be a whole lot of rubble. How curious are we and would it be worth whipping up a ninpō crane?"
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"You can make a crane?"
If only April were here to operate it...
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He taps his chin with a finger as he considers the best spot for one. At least something made of energy doesn't have to worry about weight. Briefly he looks towards the skies, but the nearest smattering of dark clouds looks yet a ways off, if it's part of the scattered storms they'd been experiencing.
"An excavator would probably be more appropriate," he muses aloud, trying to mentally work out the specs. A ways from them, magenta light flickers and starts to trace in the air.
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He doesn't think they'll actually find anything, but now he's motivated by the simple desire to see a big machine tear up some dirt.
"I can't wait to see this," he says, settling back against a crumbling wall.
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"Not even a cave boost, baby!" he grins, even as he takes a slightly swaying step to the side. He holds his hands out, waiting a moment before he straightens. Okay, okay, so far so good. Once he's sure he's not about to fall on his face, he takes a few steps back down the pile to let the thing have at it.
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Though Donnie swaying on his feet afterwards is not. Then again, Leo can’t really remember a time Donnie made something so big and intricate, at least not without his existing tech to back it up.
Not to mention neither of them have been eating or sleeping well…
He doesn’t fall over, so it’s probably fine! Leo does step a little closer though, in case.
“Yeah, I can dig this,” he says.
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"-I will forgive you that one because Woo! Look at it go!" he says excitedly. It's the first time he's pulled something off this big on his own and he's absolutely fascinated by it, being able to really see it in motion as opposed to whipping up some sort of weapon on the fly.
The debris pile shudders and shifts as the excavator claws through the top layers, depositing things to the side. Parts of it begins to flicker like the bad reception on a television screen and it seems to get stuck mid-way through scraping back another load as Donnie staggers. For a moment he tries to stabilize the construct, but it inevitably begins to decompile in a flutter of glowing purple pixels.
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He gets closer to help stabilize Donnie, if he needs it, grinning as he does.
“Hey, nice! You made a pretty big hole.”
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"Yeah, but...so far it still seems like it's just more rubble underneath. It will probably take a while to dig any further but who knows if we'll find anything," he says, rubbing at a spot between his eyes. Note to self, probably not a good idea to generate large mystic-tech on low fuel.
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"Eh, probably not worth it. Too bad we didn't find any treasure though."
Not that he really thought they would, but it would have been cool. Though who knows what they would have done with it...
"Want to head to the power station now?"
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"Yeah. Lame, huh? That would've been something." Not that Donnie figures there would have been any treasure either but digging a hole hadn't really answered why the whole place had been demolished.
"...we can do that, yeah. Who knows, Scuttle might've actually beat us to it."
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"Well, it's not like we can't come back! We're gonna be here a few days."
He tosses his arm around Donnie's shoulders and wheels them around the other way, opening a portal that can at least get them back to the hotel area.
"No way Scuttle beat us. Buuut if you wanna place a bet..."
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