Theta has never heard-felt-input anything like that rising swell of data, of voices, and he doesn't even have a context for how it might exist. It takes more data points, the chorus swelling louder and closer, until the impossible multiple AI single user intrusion protocols gone becomes the only remaining interpretation and he shrills North's name-brain-identity in a panic a milisecond before Maine's hand shoots out and jerks them up by the helmet.

North isn't as fast. Sure, for a human, he's fast. But as a human his brain is also still trapped in the learned patterns of Maine as ally and teammate, stuck behind the stumbling block of the reality that is being jerked up and in close, toes scrabbling at the ground as the burn of whiplash flares somewhere in the background of strangling on the neck of his undersuit. And it's all dark in the shadow of the stumbling block that becomes a mountain under those easy reassurances that it's fine, _no! hey, win some lose some, _{don't let him take me!} no point in fighting now might as well just take off his helmet and

"NORTH!"

he does. Throws the seal-catches, hard, tucks in tight and kicks off of Maine's chest, tumbling backwards into a hard sphere of shield that snaps up around him. Oxygen burns hot in his lungs and he rebounds off the back of the shield, hexagons guttering in the air like candle flames as his vision spots and Theta jitters terror just behind his eyes.