003 - A Body in Motion Stays in Motion

[purplexing]

There's always room for improvement. This isn't any new realization so much as a long established fact. It seems that with ever mission and undertaking that Donnie goes through, he finds there's just so much more he doesn't know, or that he can get better at.

Truthfully the past month's left him a bit strained, or at least that's how he's felt. Maybe it's because of the raid, maybe the mission. Maybe the encounter with that horrible duchess. He doesn't know. The previous month had been busier than he'd expected, leaving him no time to go and see if his family was still where he knew them to be, but then he'd been reluctant to check after the address from the Emperor.

He's been restless, always seeking distractions, and with the Corsairs there at least never seems to be a lack for things to do. Repairs to be seen to, new ideas to be drafted and crafted. Upgrades to apply.

I. Armory A
The Armory's a normal haunt for him. He's made progress on the repairs for the Armor he'd scavenged some months back and he's eager to test it out. While he can't do any flying inside, he can at least run through movements, and with the lighter build, it makes it a bit easier to execute more natural moves.

While typically a Feder isn't armed with a polearm, for mobility testing purposes, Donnie's borrowed a spear from a Lanze. It's difficult to pull off the same maneuvers he would with his own staff, but sticking to more basic motions, he tests response times and range of movement, putting the sleek armor through a few drills.


II. Armory B
Perhaps you come across the turtlekin when he's at a workbench, carefully crafting the settings for some very small ether stones. His ENC bracer's currently being used as a paperweight atop one of many schematics he's drawn up, and off to one side his staff rests in its separate sections, along with its normally hidden internal mechanisms. Is that a grappling hook? And the slim knife is certainly a new edition.

As usual he's caught up in his work, not at all meaning to be rude towards any visitors, but you'll have to excuse him for not noticing you there. He also tends to wear his earmuffs tight when in the Armory since it gets loud.


III. Training Rooms
The training dummy before him has seen better days. Unfortunately, as a training dummy, it doesn't have much options for better days, and the rooms have seen plenty more use of late. Today's no exception, and the green lad in the purple mask isn't holding back on his strikes.

A dull metal ring echoes with each hit he makes with his staff, leaving indentations on the dummy between each spin and thrust. He's not sure how long he's been beating up on the thing, but it's a quick way to expend some restless energy. Maybe he's been at it too long, or maybe he just hit the thing too hard, but there's a clang as the titanium staff's slipped from his hands and fallen to the floor, rolling off some ways.


IV. Free Play
((OOC: Need him for anything else or want to do something elsewhere in the Vault? Insert option here!))

Comments

III. (Zooms in here)

[chosenkingoflucis]

Noctis hears the ring of metal on metal and decides to be nosy and see who's training. He's pleasantly surprised to find his friend Donnie hard at practice. Until he seems to wear himself out and Noctis is at his side in an instant the second he drops the staff.

"Hey man, maybe it's time for a rest?"

[purplexing]

Donnie almost jumps when he hears Noctis. He hadn't even noticed the other had found his way here, it seems.

"...maybe," he concedes as he looks down at his hands, flexing feeling back into his fingers. He steps over to where his staff had rolled to pick it up.

[chosenkingoflucis]

Honestly, aside from the slight limp in his gait, it's no surprise Donnie hadn't heard him. Noctis is a master of stealth, even when he's not trying.

"Everything okay?" He asks with a hint of concern to his tone. "You can vent to me if you want."

[purplexing]

"Yeah, yeah, everything's...fine." Donnie looks at his staff, sighing after a moment. "No. I don't know. There's just been...a lot of things going on, I guess."

Maybe it's his fault for keeping so busy, but then that's how he operates. He wouldn't know what to do with himself otherwise.

But even then, there's no accounting for the things that have happened. There's no way he could have anticipated how this or that would turn out. There's nothing he could have done to prepare for them either. Maybe that's what's bothered him most of all. It's so much and he doesn't know how to put it into words, the things he's feeling.

[chosenkingoflucis]

"Hey" Noctis says, putting a hand on the turtlekin's arm and then motioning to a bench on the outskirts of the training hall. "C'mom, take a load off."

He then moves over to the bench himself. Knowing how much Donnie seems to enjoy coffee, he remembers he's got something stored away in the Armiger, he might like. A can of Ebony, Ignis' drink of choice. He pulls it and a soda for himself, along with a few snacks before plopping down on the bench. When Donnie approaches, he holds it out to him.

"Here. You'll like it." He hopes. Noctis himself isn't fond of it, but he doesn't really like coffee, only drinking it to look mature.

3

[lightnovelexperiences]

“Maybe it would help to pick on someone your own size?” suggests Deedee - who had a small chance to observe some earlier technique unannounced.

“Only so much you can learn on your own, after all,” she says. Then, more gently, she adds: “Besides, I think you aren’t quite after training.”

[purplexing]

"Deedee..." Donnie blinks as he realizes he has company then. He looks away awkwardly at her addendum, eyes trailing over to where his staff's fallen.

"Guess that's true." To which he's responding to, he doesn't specify although it could apply for both pretty easily. He shakes out his hands, rotating his wrists as he walks over to reclaim his weapon.

[lightnovelexperiences]

She settles into fighting stance, letting Donatello get ready.

"What are the rules? Live magic - wind and fire for me - or physical attacks only?" Deedee asks. "Want to know how hard you want to push yourself today."

[purplexing]

Giving each of his shoulders a few rotations to loosen them up, Donnie kicks up his staff, giving it a twirl once he has it in hand again. He turns around to face Deedee, sliding into his own at-ready position. His frowns thoughtfully as he considers.

"...light on the magic, but I want to try working on potential defense maneuvers for those," he says. He's not sure how strong Deedee is but he figures she knows how to control it for a sparring session. Fire still makes him a little anxious but at least he figures if he's expecting it, it shouldn't be so bad. But he doesn't want to get caught flat-footed by such things anymore, if he can help it.

I

[freearcadia]

Harlock had been spending much of his evenings in the Armory lately, getting used to how the armors operate - he had tried other models but found the Feder's maneuverability more to his liking. He leaned on the railing above, watching Donnie go through the drill with interest, idly making notes on how he moves.

When the turtlekin exits, he gives a casual two-finger wave from his vantage point.

[purplexing]

The end of the spear is set down with a solid thunk as he brings the Armor to rest, settling down on one knee. When the cockpit opens he's still making some quick notes, but he catches sight of Harlock once he clambers out. Donnie offers him a wave before hopping down.

"How'd it look?" he calls out as he starts up to join him. "I think I've worked out most of the response delays but I might have to do some rewiring on that left leg. What I really need to do is test out the flight capabilities."

[freearcadia]

The man leans over the railing. "The left side did look a little, lopsided for the lack of a better word." He concurred on that point. "We just need a good time and place to try flying," and By the cosmos, he longed to fly again properly under his own power. "I suspect a pole arm is not the usual load out for this kind of Armor."

[purplexing]

Donnie nods. "Yeah. Maybe we can get away with a night excursion..." He really wants to see what that Armor can do in the air and is excited about the prospect.

"Heh, yeah- Feders are usually equipped with guns or swords I think. But I figured since I'm used to a staff, it'd be easiest for me to tell what all needs to be tweaked if I went through the motions with something similar."

III

[newmemorywhodis]

Oddly enough, while Link's spent plenty of time with Donnie, he hasn't actually seen him really fight much yet.

So when he sees Donnie at the training dummy, he stops. Takes a few moments to watch. See what Donnie's capable of.

When the staff slips free, it rolls towards Link's feet. Picking it up, he holds it out towards Donnie - and pulls out a staff of his own from his korok-enchanted pack.

Perhaps Donnie would like an opponent? Although he might want to ignore the fact that Link's staff looks rather like a broom handle.

[purplexing]

There's a moment of a blank look as Donnie looks at his staff being offered back to him, as though puzzled how it had even gotten away from him. But he takes it, blinking when Link pulls out his own.

...well, a staff is a staff. It's not like Donnie hadn't used a mop or a broom handle before, and by now he's stopped questioning anything that Link pulls out of his bag.

The corner of his mouth quirks at the silent offer before he takes a few steps back, readjusting his grip on his titanium staff. Hopefully Link's broom handle is at least sturdy, but Donnie at least figures he should probably not try to strike as hard as he had been with that dummy.

[newmemorywhodis]

Sure, a spear or halberd - or indeed anything other than a broom handle - would probably be better. But Link didn't have one of those, so, broom handle it was.

His first moves are a cautious one - a ready stance, keeping a little bit of distance. Watching Donnie closely. Link might have great capacity for recklessness, but he's not one for charging in without sizing up the situation.

Clearly, he's leaving the first move up to Donnie.

[purplexing]

At least it seems Donnie's not shy about taking the first move. He looks at Link as he walks, keeping the distance between them the same. His stance gives nothing away, but then if there's a weapon Donnie knows like the back of his hand, it's a staff.

His movement is sudden, a quick step forward and a jab paired with it. It's nothing fancy, but opening moves shouldn't be, especially not when you were fighting someone for the first time.

II

[singlemilletgrain]

A slight clearing of the throat behind him goes unnoticed. ...As does a louder clearer. And louder. Until Shu is forced to tap him on the head.

"Ahem."

The throat-clearing is probably not necessary anymore whenever he takes off his earmuffs to turn around, but she does it anyway. As could probably be expected, Shu is holding a little lunchbox wrapped up nicely in a handkerchief for him.

"...I passed by four hours ago and noticed you here then. I presume you have not gone home to eat."

[purplexing]

Well, that's one way to get his attention. Donnie jolts in place, tool clattering from his hand and sending a couple of tiny Ether stones scattering across the workbench. He turns about looking partially annoyed as he tugs at his headpiece to loosen it, expression mellowing when he sees who it is.

"Oh. Shu."

He blinks, looking from her to the lunchbox she offers. And then he blinks again.

"Four hours...?" Wait, really? He reaches over for his ENC to check the chronometer, grimacing. Well, not like it's not unusual for him to lose track of the time when he's deep in his work. He could've sworn it had only been two.

"I...have not," he admits, reaching for the lunchbox.

[singlemilletgrain]

"You must take better care of yourself."

This seems to be spoken in a mostly perfunctory manner, as Shu would not be fulfilling her duties if she did nag him at least a little bit. She does, however, lightly tap his hand with two fingers as he attempts to reach for the lunchbox.

"Go wash your hands."

This is not a nag, but a command.

Whenever he does so, she will have cleared a small space in an area she deems suitably hygienic for his lunch.

"...You should start to eat. But there is something important I think I need to tell you."

[purplexing]

Donnie's smile is a touch tight at that, but he ducks his head a bit in some sort of silent apology. He draws his fingers back with the lightest of frowns, but he doesn't object as he quickly gathers the things that had scattered before going to wash. Not entirely necessary, he still thinks, because he hasn't been directly working with the forge and components like these need to be kept as clean and grime-free as possible.

He's wiping off his hands with a clean rag that he tucks into his belt when he comes back. Shu at least wouldn't have had too difficult a job; Donnie always keeps a pretty clean space, even when he has a lot of things going on. He sits himself down, his stomach not bothering to hide its protests about being forgotten (again).

"What's on the menu today?" he wonders aloud as he unties the handkerchief around the box, trying not to look too eager about it. Considering their last conversation, he can't help but look a bit wary about what Shu says next.

"...what about?" he asks cautiously.

IV - Subterranean Farms

[supersmashbrother]

To think he would have gotten better at navigating the underground after roughly a month's passing...

"I know the sewers like the back of my hand," Raphael grumbles. "This should've been cake by now..."

After hearing about Donnie from Shu, Raph's main objective (aside from lending a hand wherever he could) was to seek his brother out.

His not-brother. The brother who should be hidden away in a science lab that didn't really exist in a place like this. Instead of seeing it as a dead-end, he thought of other similar places his turtle brother would reside — places which were straightforward, but still ways away from each other.

On the other hand, his grasp on the language fares somewhat better than it used to be; despite having several hiccups in trying to mime a book to two civilians because he conveniently forgot the word 'library' in the moment, he's able to ask about Donnie's current whereabouts — and somehow not finding anyone resembling him once he gets there. This happens more times than he expects it to, leaving him to wander almost everywhere to be sure he hasn't missed anything. And he probably would have done it one more time if he didn't looped into helping with a project within the subterranean farms (since he couldn't say no in the first place).

His frustrations eventually wane after doing plenty of heavy lifting and receiving the gratitude of those who don't have to worry about doing as much work for the day, heading off to try another round of searching before giving up and finding something to eat. In doing so, he almost overlooks the vines and purple flowers climbing the rocks along the path he strides; it takes some backtracking when he registers that detail, blinking as he then follows them into the smallish nook within the carved out stone walls.

Purple. Different kinds of purple flowers surround him as he stoops to keep his head and shoulders from touching any of the plants growing within the nook. Initially he's curious about the space, but he notices the other splashes of familiar colors out of the corner of his eye.

Orange. Blue. Red.

"...Waitaminute..."

[purplexing]

With Flotsam broken up to avoid Imperial detection, Donnie wasn't sure how to go about searching for someone who purportedly was some dimensionally-adjacent brother of sorts. For all that he's always been considered the smart one of the family, that seems so difficult to process, but then up until now, it had been relatively easy to accept the fact that there were other worlds beyond, and that the Empire pulled people from them to be used as a free, cheap source of labor. It's sickening, really.

While it had always been a fear of Donnie's to find that perhaps his family had fallen to the same fate as he had, hearing about someone so similar to his own brother and yet at the same time not, had never been something he ever would have thought possible. And it's not that he doubts Shu; this is not something she'd have reason to joke or lie about, not that she'd been known to be a liar or much of a joker in the first place. But it's still hard to believe.

Part of him hopes that maybe somehow, there's been a mistake.

Yet the day has been plagued with mentions, sightings of the older brother who shouldn't be here. It's led Donnie on some sort of wild goose chase, and unlike Raphael, he is familiar with the Vault. It's become home these past few years, even though he's never directly said as much. His own frustrations have since grown as the day wears on. How can someone so big be so impossibly hard to find?!

It's like he's hunting a ghost. Donnie's starting to wonder if he's somehow hallucinated everything, his conversation with Shu, this entire day drifting between places being informed that the turtlekin he sought was in another castle section. He blames the sob that escapes him entirely on exhaustion as he stumbles past the farm area, deciding to give up his search. But his plants have been neglected and he can't not check on them now that he's here.

Visitors to his little garden are rare, but he can tell at once that someone's been here as he sees the flowers along the vines on the wall. Silent Alarms, he'd named them, because the flowers closed up whenever they were disturbed by someone's passing. And certainly someone had passed.

No.

Someone was still here.

A gasp slips from him as he comes around towards the opening of the nook itself and stops, staring at an all too familiar spiky shell.

[supersmashbrother]

The same spikes — and yet different from what Donnie can remember.

When he finds him, Raph is stooping to get a closer look at the flowers sprinkled among the purples and violets, hesitantly letting a large turtle finger hover over the cluster set somewhere in front of him. It's at the last second he decides not to touch anything — something something about not touching things even if they appear safe and touchable, or if it doesn't belong to him, he doesn't quite remember the full extent of the warning — only to poke at it when trying to withdraw.

Panic rises with a little noise as he makes sure once, twice that the flowers aren't damaged. "Petals are all accounted for," he mutters to himself, then glancing at his finger. After a beat, he finally blows out a sigh when he's sure nothing has changed. "No weird rashes or breakouts. Okay, good! I think it's time I should scoot..."

It's only then he suddenly realizes he isn't alone.

Think, Raph, think! He tries not to flail about, keeping his arms close to his sides as he garbles his words. "Sorry! Didn't mean to intrude— !"

Any further explanation he is supposed to come up with on the fly dies on his tongue once he turns to see his brother there. Blinking twice to be sure his eyes aren't betraying him.

It takes the large turtle a few silent breaths to try again, this time stuck on a name rather than a sentence.

"...Donnie?"

[purplexing]

The words that he hears tumble from the larger turtle are so strange, conflicting. Tally marks that further weigh in on the things that Shu had told him. Something in his chest hurts.

But then Raph turns, and there's no doubting that it is Raph, because there are so many similarities, too many in fact, to contradict that he isn't. Still, Donnie can see them, the little things, in his response, in his movements, tiny details that somehow don't quite mesh, but could easily be overlooked. The inflection of a language that he should have grown up with mashes into each other in that telling way of a foreign tongue unused to where it's supposed to go.

Yet the world goes still the moment the other really looks at Donnie and speaks his name.

Donnie hadn't thought this plan through. It had taken him long enough to even convince himself to go through with seeking this doppleganger of a brother, to set things straight. Now that he's in front of him, Donnie blanks. His mouth starts to move, a shaky, hesitant shaping of a name that doesn't quite reach more than a whisper in volume. His eyes burn with that uncomfortable sensation accompanying the eventual blurring of his vision, and he's not sure if he's angry or relieved or sad.

His brother's here...but not. This is his brother, and at the same time, it isn't. How's he supposed to respond to that? He...he doesn't know.