12242/A Tool for Peace

A Tool for Peace
Date of Scene:	01 August 2022
Location:	Labs - Titan's Tower
Synopsis:	Madison has proven herself in the field without a weapon of her own, so Vic determined to build her a lightsaber-- as befits a Jedi! Now she must still her mind and focus on her powers to bring the tool for peace into precise alignment.
Cast of Characters:	Caitlin Fairchild, Victor Stone, Madison Evans

---

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
It's taken weeks to pull together, but the parts laid out on the table are everything that Caitlin and Vic are reasonably sure they'll need to build a very special device. A formidable weapon in the practical sense, but also a tool for defense. For peace.

Caitlin's wearing pink scrubs under her white labcoat, sleeves rolled up to her elbows, and just to be safe, she has welding goggles on her face. They're working with high energy devices and it's better to be safe than sorry.

"All right, we've got the housing, the switches, the emitter array, and--" she opens up the rather solid-looking box on the workbench. Inside, glowing a subtle shade of blue, is one miniaturized arc reactor. "--a power source," she concludes.

"Where do you wanna start?" she asks Vic, deferring to him politely.

Victor Stone has posed:
    Vic is in lab safety gear, because Vic of all people takes lab safety /incredibly/ seriously. "I still hope this is gonna work," he says dubiously. "I mean--it's not a kyber crystal. Is it a /real/ lightsaber?"

    Vic is maybe a /little/ too willing to believe kyber crystals are actually a /thing/. But given Wonderland, who even knows?

    He looks over the pieces on the workbench, some of it from the prototype he built and some of it refinements, some of it--like the arc reactor--from Caitlin when he'd brought her in on the project. "Let's make sure the arc reactor will work in the housing first, because if the shielding doesn't work, the whole thing falls apart. Maybe literally. We don't want to accidentally poison Maddie, you know? We /just/ got her mom to be okay with all this."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"Oof, yeah." Caitlin grimaces. "We don't want her to get hurt. Speaking of, I vote that we install a safety lockout and keep it on 'low power' mode while she's getting used to it," she tells Vic. "And maybe make her practice while she's wearing some kind of polyreflector suit so she doesn't lop a foot off."

Caitlin picks up the laser welder and dials her goggles to full-dark to protect her eyes. "You clamp, I'll weld. I promise I won't tack your fingers to anything. Again."

"Once we've got the safety shielding in place we can fit the reactor into it. Though--" she glances up at Vic, eyes invisible from behind those smoked lenses. "I've never heard of an arc reactor explosively discharging itself."

Victor Stone has posed:
    "She wanted there to be a 'stun' setting anyway, so a safety lockout's a good idea," Vic says. He walks around the workbench to get in position and reaches out to clamp the safety shielding in place in the housing.

    "First time for everything. Honestly though I'm less concerned with an actual 'kaboom' and more just with general radiation or something. There's a /lot/ of power there, and if we're going to be able to honestly say we did our due diligence to make sure it's safe, I want to take potential accidents into account." A pause. "And /please/ don't tack my fingers to this, we'd have to make a whole new hilt!"

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"The Arc Reactor only works commercially because its not radioactive," Caitlin points out. For bring the bruiser she is, Caitlin's capable of some very fine dexterity, and she paints a professional-looking weld around the shielding to join it permanently to the main housing unit. "I don't know exactly *how*," she admits, "but if I did, my name would be Tony Stark."

She finishes the weld up and inserts the reactor unit. It is indeed small enough to fit into the hilt, and Caitlin takes a steadying breath before she attaches it carefully to the interior of the unit with the pinpoint precision of the laser welding tool.

"OK, that should do it," she concludes, and kills the laser. It's set aside and she puts her goggles on her head. Her red hair's pulled back in a tight braid coiled at the base of her neck-- also a very important safety rule! "Let's put it in the blast chamber and run a couple charge cycles to the Reactor to make sure it's primed correctly," she suggests.

Victor Stone has posed:
    "It's the not understanding that worries me. I don't know how it works, exactly, so I can't tell if there's a flaw in the construction somewhere. I mean, I trust that it works and it'll be mostly fine, you know? It's mostly the beam generation that I'm concerned with, in terms of shielding. It's all /that/ power coming /out/ of the reactor."

    Vic keeps an eye on the welding as it gets done, and then nods, double-checking the work. Then he takes the partly-built contraption over to the blast furnace. "Open it up for me?"

    As Caitlin does so he adds, "So how're we going to--Madison's been convinced /she/ has to build her own lightsaber, and she's not wrong. So are we presenting her with the pieces to put together? Assuming this all works right, of course."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin obligingly hops to, opening the doors for Vic while he hooks it up to the inducer units. She closes the safety grate and they step back around the corner to watch the progress via remote monitors.

"We're doing the stuff she can't do well. The fabrication, incuding the reactor, calibrating the emitter array." She looks at Vic and cracks a grin. "You're not gonna believe this, but the most important part will actually be the focusing unit. Now, we don't have khyber crystals, because we live in the real world and not science fiction. But-- I was considering options and kept coming up short. It requires an extraordinary level of precision. So what we'll do is set this in a safety unit, and install a poly-crystalline wafer in the unit's screwtop. She'll have to--" Caitlin laughs and touches Vic's good arm for balance, cackling. "She's gonna love this. She has to use her telekinesis to manually focus the crystal wafer to the ideal shape for the plasma arc. It has to be done with the emitters up and running." Caitlin grins in delight, pleased at the idea of fulfilling one of her friend's dreams.

Victor Stone has posed:
    "Ohhh, that's a /really/ good idea," Vic says, making sure the hilt is well-situated in the blast furnace and hooked up to the inducers before going around to watch the priming on the monitors. "And that means, yeah, she's doing the most important parts herself. I mean--the power levels really aren't what's hard, you're right. It's the... shaping of the beam, and keeping it /steady/."

    He watches the progress of the arc reactor for a moment. "I /did/ show her some welding and wire-cutting and basic electrical stuff, but--they don't teach that in normal schools, I guess? So she was /way/ out of her depth. Doing this part probably shouldn't wreck the whole thing." He grins.

    "But c'mon, Caitlin--look at /me/ and tell me we don't live in science fiction a /little/ bit. There could be kyber crystals out there! Just--we don't know where."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin makes a dismissive sound and looks away, one hand waving the notion away. "Science fiction is a matter of timing," she says. "I mean, like, the idea of autonomous androids would have been unthinkable in 1900. Thirty-something years later, Tesla creates the first intelligent android. And even-- gosh, Jules Verne, he predicted we'd get to the moon with a *cannon*, not a rocket." Hands rise and fall, flapping against her jacke, and she leans a shoulder against a support beam while glancing at the project's progress.

She looks at Victor and uplifts her chin slightly. "How're you holding up?" she inquires. "I mean--" she gestures at her torso with her palm. "--the cybernetics. I haven't heard you complain much about them lately, but things have been so crazy, I mgiht have missed it if you did. Sorry," she adds automatically, and winces.

Victor Stone has posed:
    Vic shakes his head. "I'm doing alright. Gonna go back in for a tune-up at STAR labs in a week or so, so the few things that are bugging me I'm just kinda... riding through. A few glitchy things, maybe Wonderland messed with something somewhere?" He grins. "Between the hookah and Uffish and all the weirdness around Donna... maybe my cybernetics aren't liking clashing with not-science-fiction stuff."

    Yeah, yeah, he's ribbing Caitlin a bit.

    "Anyway, I guess timing makes sense, given kyber crystals would be 'long long ago' and 'far far away.'" Vic smirks, and peers at the monitors for a moment, the re-sets the priming cycle. "Let's do this /one/ more time, just to be sure it's all set."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"Let me know what day, and I'll make sure my schedule's clear to come with," Caitlin tells Vic. She gives his flesh-and-blood hand a sisterly squeeze and smiles reassuringly. "If nothing else, you know I'll make sure no one uploads FIFA soccer statistics into your storage drives again."

Caitlin throws a few switches and carefully discharges the main charge of the reactor, returning it to baseline levels. Fortunately the Titan's power grid is pretty impressive, and the battery systems in the caves below could power Manhattan for most of a day in a pinch.

"All right, readings are nominal... inducing test charge." She sets the electronics into motion and watches the glow of the arc reactor increase in intensity once again.

Victor Stone has posed:
    "I don't mind the sports stats so much. It's that they made the files as big as possible so it took up /all/ the space on the drive and forced errors. Just rude." Vic shakes his head, but smiles at Caitlin. "I'll let you know. I mean--I gotta talk to my dad anyway, and that's..." He huffs out a breath. "I could use the backup, you know? Remind me not to just get mad."

    He focuses back on the arc reactor and says, in a seeming change of subject, "I'm glad we convinced Madison's mom to let her be a proper Titan. She's a good kid, and she's definitely got the stuff." A grin breaks across his face. "And she's gonna /love/ this."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"Kid. Golly," Caitlin says, shaking her head in amazement. "Sometimes I think about how far we've come and I can only think 'wow we totally should have died that first time out with the Khund'," she tells him, expression full of fond recollection.

"I mean-- I know we were the same age when we got started. But we were just...blundering through it. Got lucky, a lot. She's getting all this up-front training, and discipline, and teamwork and camraederie..."

"I mean, you're 28," she tells Vic. "And I am, on paper, anyway. We've been at this for like ten years. You ever think we'd get to this point, training up the Titans 2.0?"

Victor Stone has posed:
    "Honestly? No. I mean... a few months back--no, geez, almost a year ago now?--I was complaining at Donna about like..." Vic goes to lean against a wall, folds his arms across his chest. "I mean, I could've been a big-time NFL quarterback by now or something, you know? I was like 'man I coulda been in the /big leagues/.' I could've joined the JLA back when they were... much of a thing at all."

    He holds up a hand. "But before you say it, Donna pointed out--the Titans /are/ the big leagues. I'm a Titan, I don't need to go somewhere else to find... validation, and purpose, and whatever. I belong /here/. But it's taken me a long while to really start to accept that this isn't just--you know my dad paid for a bunch of this stuff to replicate /college/ for me?" He shakes his head. "But most people don't /stay/ in college. So I kept thinking of it like a... stepping stone, I think. A stop on the way to somewhere else, somewhere bigger, better, whatever."

    He smiles. "But where else is better than /us/? Now we're the big team the kids want to join."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"Uh, I'm pretty sure 'The JLA told us to take a hike' was in the first drafts of the Charter," Caitlin agrees with a wry humor. "Richard and Donna were really salty about that, remember?"

She falls silent, thinking. "Y'know I think that's what we've got that the JLA or the Avengers don't," she suggests. "The League is... y'know, that's a lot of powerhouses all in one room. And the Avengers have a bunch of really strong personalities-- I mean I /work/ for Tony, and I still am a little intimidated by him. I can't imagine being in a room with him, and Carol, and Thor and Cap and, uh, Nadia's mom," she says, snapping her fingers as the name escapes her.

"But neither of the teams have family," she says, gesturing back and forth between her and Vic. "We all had to learn as we go. We build each other up. It's not competitive or confrontational. They're all... very competent, yeah, but I don't think they care about each other the way we all do."

Victor Stone has posed:
    "Ohhh I remember. Best thing they ever did for us, though, really. 'Cause we would've been caught up in whatever their rules are and we wouldn't be a /family/. And that's definitely the big part. That's what I tried to tell Ms. Evans, you know? We care about Maddie. We want her to be safe, but we want her to be the best Jedi she can be. Or whatever she actually is." Vic grins.

    There's a moment of hesitation, and then the grin fades a little and Vic says, "Which reminds me, umm... all that stuff back in January, if you ever want to--talk about it." He sighs. "Look, I know I wasn't... I never checked in on you, and I'm sorry. And we haven't talked about things much since you came back. But I just--I'm glad you /are/ back. I don't really get what /happened/, but... ugh! Just. I dunno. You're family, right? You belong here, too."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin's smile fades away and she drops her gaze to the floor. "I made a bad mistake, is what happened," she says in a quiet voice. "I became the worst kind of Christian: I wanted to be right so much that I ignored the evidence right in front of me."

She takes a heavy breath and pushes it out, meeting Vic's gaze and then immediately flickering away. It's an uncommon expression for Caitlin: shame.

"Everyone told me I was in the wrong. /Everyone/. Terry, Donna... but I didn't want to believe it. On some level, deep down, I /must/ have known. Or suspected, at least. I tried to convince myself that it was all done in the name of the Greater Good, the righteousnes of Heaven... I got addicted to it. The responsibility, the /authority/ I had. For the first time ever, Donna and Richard weren't the ones making the calls. I was. And even aside from all the other Heaven gifts Michael gave me, being able to *fly* just..." she shakes her head. "I'm the only one of us who has to weigh taking the subway to a crisis."

She inhales, looks at Vic. "I was actually penning my resignation. Then Wonderland happened, and Donna went missing, and now Terry is, and.... I guess I realized that me quitting might have been right for me, but it would have left the rest of us-- especially the new kids-- in the lurch."

Victor Stone has posed:
    "I mean... if it helps... my Aunt Ruth said to tell you to keep fighting the good fight." Vic sighs. "I just mean--you're not the only one who believed, you know? I got it. I /get/ it. Some people really want God to come along and scour the world of sinners." A pause. "I figure--I want to make it better, you know? And I know you do too. I still don't know if it was /actually/ angels or what, but magic exists. Why not angels?"

    He considers what she said, frowning thoughtfully. "I mean... it tells me you're not happy with something here. Just like Donna's got some kind of issue if her 'bad dream' is that she's the only Titan. You want more responsibility. Or just to be able to fly." He grins. "You know we can probably hook you up with rockets, right? Or... I don't know. Something."

    He hesitates, and then says, "I wouldn't think--you shouldn't resign. We're family, we can get through this. I don't know about anyone else, but /I/ trust you. Yeah, you made a mistake, but that's not--you didn't hurt anyone on the team, right? You honestly thought you were doing the right thing."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"I threw hands with Donna, but I don't think either of our hearts were really in it," Caitlin confesses. "She was just trying to stop me. I can't be mad at her for that."

The redhead walks around to the blast furnace and undoes the heavy security lugs so she can extract the unit from the testbed. A quick scan reveals no trace radiation or emissions worth worrying about. She tugs her goggles into place and sits down at the table to start welding the various components into their chassis insert.

"It /was/ angels," Caitlin says after a couple quiet moments. "I've only ever felt that sense of.... grace, in Church. Michael talked right to my heart. I guess the Vatican's debating it but there's a real push to declare them to be extra-terrestrials. Otherwise they've got to rewrite the Bible, and they kinda frown on that."

She sighs, setting the laser aside for a moment. "It's not that I'm unhappy here, Vic, it's just-- Michael was my shot at stepping out into the spotlight. Doing things my way. Donna's my best friend, and I love her, but it's been ten years of... being in her shadow."

She looks up at Vic with a worried, guilty expression. "I know that's an awful thing to say. I'm -- I don't think of myself as that petty. But it clearly worked on me, so... maybe Michael knew something about me that I didn't."

Victor Stone has posed:
    Vic comes over to the workbench, picking up some of the other components and laying them out to be sure they're all ready to go into the chassis as needed. "That's just--stupid. I mean, okay, so if that really /was/ the archangel Michael--so what if the Bible has to be re-written? Don't they want to know what's /really/ going on?" He shakes his head. "You'd think that /helps/ them. I mean, as a scientist, I have to look at all of this and go 'well there's definitely some kind of deity' given we're meeting literal gods. At some point the difference between 'really powerful alien' and 'god' is so thin it doesn't matter. And that's not /quite/ the same thing, I just mean..." He huffs out a breath.

    "I believe you, I guess is what I'm saying. Whatever that means about the world."

    He adjusts his own goggles and picks up the bits they have laid out for a safety cutoff, starting to carefully thread wiring into the casing. "It's not awful," he says. "If Donna can feel like she's in her sister's shadow, or Dick can feel like he's in Batman's--why can't you feel like you're in Donna's? Nothing wrong with wanting to step out and do your own thing. That's the whole reason we /founded/ the Titans. Because we weren't just going to sit back and let the 'adults' take care of everything. The problem is when you won't just admit 'hey I need to do my own thing here' and then somebody comes along and exploits that."

    He frowns. "Although--it /is/ weird to think of an angel--/exploiting/ anyone. What--why'd you leave, anyway?"

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"Because he stabbed me in the back," Caitlin says in a forcibly even voice. Thank goodness for the goggles blocking the view of her eyes, though the tell-tale sniff is hard to miss. "I thought I was doing everything right. I /was/ doing everything right. I did exactly what he wanted me for, and I did it eagerly and without questioning him. And when he was done with me, he just--" she clenches a fist in the air and makes a pulling motion. "He yanked all that power, that /grace/, out of me. It hurt worse than anything I've ever experienced. And believe me-- it was what he thought would be *merciful*. We didn't even see a fraction of his power on the field. He could have swept the floor with us with a snap of his fingers, except the rules kept him from doing it."

"Anyway, I guess that was my wakeup call. I wasn't going to be part of the Host. I never could be. Michael called me, um--" she clears her throat. "He called me an abomination. He /knew/. Everything, about where I came from, who I really am. Said there was missing Scripture that prophesied me leading people astray." She focuses back on the chassis again, then slides it over to Victor. "You're faster at calibrating the microchips than I am. If you tune the PCB, I'll get the switches and dials ready," she offers.

Victor Stone has posed:
    "Well, he was /wrong/," Vic says hotly. "You're not--" He shakes his head. Like he can't quite manage to find the words. Instead, he picks up the microchips and focuses on that, on tuning them properly. It's almost meditative, this work. Relaxing.

    "You know he was wrong, right?" he says after a moment. "I mean, really, Cait--you're a good person. One of the best people I know. And I'm sorry we haven't been... I dunno, talking to you, more? Checking on you. You shouldn't have to think you have to resign."

    He glances up, and then says, "Any team that doesn't want you on it isn't a team worth anything, in my mind. You got that?"

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin sighs, hands flopping onto the table in weary exhaustion. "Yes, I understand all that intellectually. I was mislead, I was deceived, I was manipulated, all of that." She taps her noggin twice, then touches her sternum.

"But down here, I'm all torn up still. How much of it was my operant conditioning? How much of it was what I am, versus who I am? And how much of it was just ... all my insecurities, making me ignore the obvious so I could be the big show for once?" Realizing she's speaking with too much heat, Caitlin swallows her words and stills the drumming of her heel against the flooor. She starts threading wiring into the buttons and switches that will activate and tune the lightsaber. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have dumped all that on you. I really do appreciate the morale boost."

Victor Stone has posed:
    "What else is family /for/? I mean, who're you gonna tell 'I don't like being in Donna's shadow all the time,' /Donna/?" Vic smirks. "I mean, yeah, maybe eventually you need to hash that out, but you've gotta say it to someone else first. It's fine."

    He frowns at the microchip for a moment. "I mean, I've been kinda--I was hiding in my lab. Not just because of you. It's been... there's just been a lot. Hank came back, and Metropolis went wonky, and I think I just keep bracing for everything to fall apart again, you know? I should've... when Donna became Troia, or whatever that was, I should've stepped up. And I didn't, because I was just--my friends kept disappearing, and it hurt, and I was mad. 'Cause it felt like people were abandoning me, all over again."

    He sighs. "You're not the only one who knows something in their head and doesn't feel it in their heart. I belong here. I know you guys care about me, and I care about you. And something's still just--in the way. You know?"

    After a moment, he says, "Microchips tuned. Here, you want to set that into the chassis?" He holds out the half-built lightsaber.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin's quiet until Vic addresses her with a question, and she looks up at him sharply. "Hmm? Oh, yeah-- sorry, let's do it. Hopefully we got the CAD parameters right," she frets.

The chassis is inserted into the hilt and after a litle jiggling and coaxing, Caitlin gets the alignment holes set up correctly so they can start drilling the mounting screws into place. "I know it's not as pretty as a real lightsaber, but I think modularity is gonna make repairing it a *lot* easier."

She looks up at Vic as they get the parts installed. "Vic, we respect your privacy and we know you need your space. The only reason we didn't push harder is because we figured you'd come out of your room when you were ready."

Victor Stone has posed:
    "I know, I know," Vic replies to Caitlin. "Like I said, I /know/ that, but I have to /feel/ it. Working on it." He grins at Cait, and reaches over to give her a pat on the arm in lieu of a hug, because hugging while futzing around with electrical systems is /probably/ not a great idea.

    He looks over their work, making a 'hmm' noise, and says, "You know, I think we're about ready to bring Madison in on this. You want to give her the call?"

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin smiles at Vic, nodding once in grateful appreciation for his sympathies. The suggestion is a good one; the talk's a bit heavy for the light work they're doing, after all. This is supposed to be fun!

"Sure thing. Just one more solder point..." She sticks her tongue out the side of her mouth, squinting from behind the goggles, and almost nose-to-nose with the unit. "Annd... almost.... just... whoops, hang on. ...okay, and... there!"

She sits back and removes her heavy welding goggles, and tak Most of the design process had been done in simulations and testing parts independently. The theory is sound, but no one's combined these parts the way the two engineers have to create a wholly novel new concept.

"MARVIN, page Madison please, tell her to come down to the lab if she's not busy?" she requests of the AI in a polite tone. "Oh, and-- where's that drone. SIRYN?" Caitlin whistles like she's calling a dog, and her little ornithopter drone unfolds its wings and zips over hover off her shoulder. "Get some good video of everyone, and the table," she orders it.

Caitlin takes a second with a tissue to make sure her eyes are dry. Fortunately she wears very little if any cosmetics.

"When's Madden 2023 coming out?" she asks apropos of nothing, while they wait for Madison to arrive!

Madison Evans has posed:
    Madison isn't always in the Tower - after all, she lives in Happy Harbor. She does have to come down frequently, though, to meet Donna's exacting training regiment - and today was no exception. She's breathless when she answers the summons. "What? The lab? Yeah okay." She could use a breather.
    When the teen emerges, she's still damp with sweat - in fact, her hair is wet enough that it's a fair bet she dumped some of her water bottle out over herself. She takes a drink from the water bottle still in her hand as the door slides open to admit her.
    "What's the sitch?" she asks casually, looking between the two, far-senior Titans.

Victor Stone has posed:
    "In, like, two weeks? I've already got it on pre-order. I am /really/ looking forward to kicking Gar's ass, he's been getting kinda big for his britches." There's an ominous tone to Vic's voice. "Some of my Roombas have disappeared. I'm not sure if it's the glitter he was using when he was the Cheshire or just trying to clean up his socks, but--I /owe/ him." When does Vic /not/ 'owe' Gar for /something/? It's the cornerstone of their relationship, practically.

    When Madison enters the lab, Vic grins at her and says, "Safety gear first! Cait, you wanna tell her what's up?"

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin's all smiles for Madison as well, and hands her a lab coat and safety goggles with adjustable shading. Hers are set almost translucent, enough to see her green eyes. "Here you go," she bids Madison.

"Okay, Vic, so-- no, wait, one sec." She scoots over to the fridge, opens the door, and extracts two SnackyShakes, chocolate and fruit medley. Caitlin offers Madison her choice and takes whichever the younger Titan declines.

"Okay. Now, big surprise--" she looks from Madison to Vic. "We didn't rehearse this. Do we just like, get out of the way, or should I find a dropcloth or something for the dramatic reveal?"

Madison Evans has posed:
    "Oh, com'on, put on more stuff when I'm //already// hot?" Madison grumbles - but she takes the offered safety gear, sliding it on, and covering her eyes with the goggles. "How do I look?" she asks - striking a pose.
    A bit ridiculous, with her hair wet like that.
    As the two drinks are offered, she takes the chocolate, giving a grateful smile, and takes a large drink before lowering it. Looking between the pair she asks curiously, "Dramatic reveal...? Have you guys been building one of those R2D2s or BB-8s or something? Because that would be pretty cool, not gonna lie."

Victor Stone has posed:
    Vic manages to hide a snort at Maddie's striking of a pose, and says to Caitlin, "I don't think we need a dropcloth and all that. Maddie, you remember how I was working a prototype hilt for a certain piece of equipment? Well, Caitlin finally figured out the power source problem. It's all set."

    He grins, and steps aside a bit, gesturing at the workbench, with pieces of metal in various stages of welding and wiring and disarray. "You still have to put it together yourself of course. Cait figured that part out too."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin steps out of the way as well, beaming at Madison. She looks back at the device, then at Madison, then back again. "Oh, right, wait," she says, and turns her back to start working swiftly. It just takes a few seconds to assemble it. She turns around again with the parts (mostly) installed in the housing unit. It's a cylinder about 12" long, with two switches on the side.

"I figured you didn't want to spend a few years learning how to work in a machine shop, so we fabricated the core unit for you. There's just one more task to do, and *you* have to do it."

She flashes a grin back at Victor. "A more elegant weapon..." She holds it out atop her two palms, offering it to Madison. "For a more civilized age."

Madison Evans has posed:
    The teen's jaw drops in an almost comical way as she sees what the pair have been working on. "Oh, no- ...flipping way," she breathes.
    Yeah. That was a closer call than usual.
    "It's- you figured it out? It'll work? I can have a //lightsaber//?" she asks - bouncing up onto her toes - and even giving a little shake of her hands in her excitement. She drops back down onto the flats of her feet, wiggling her fingers, before reaching out to first touch - and then take the cylinder. "I- how do I do it? what do I need to do? I mean- I have to find a crystal, don't I? A kyber crystal? At least - that's how that works in //Star Wars// but- I mean, there's nothing like that here on earth, unless they just mean diamonds or something-" But a diamond that size, it would be expensive. And she's supposed to //find it// herself. Most diamond mines don't just let teenage girls wander in. Do they?
    "Oh my gosh oh my gosh this is //so cool//!"

Victor Stone has posed:
    Cyborg is grinning like a maniac, himself. He's a huge nerd, and he loves it when his friends get this excited about literally anything. "No kyber crystals on Earth--I thought about asking Mac for help but that kinda seemed like cheating, you know? And then everyone's gonna want to come after the crystal and that's a whole... mess."

    He gestures toward the hilt. "That's why I said Caitlin found a way around it. We've got a miniaturized arc reactor for the power source, but you're going to have to /shape/ the focusing crystal." Vic grins. "You're not gonna /find/ your crystal--you're gonna make it yourself."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin steps aside and gestures for Madison to move over to the blast room. It's a hardened, reinforced, everything-proof chamber that can withstand almost any non-nuclear explosion. It's used for testing devices (or containing people) who might prove hazardous to keep around the Tower for too long.

"Silicone is very commonplace," she tells Madison, and opens up the chamber door. The safety interlock is engaged behind her, and her voice transfers over to the output monitors and speakers at the workstation. No glass here, unfortunately.

"In some ways, getting the arc reactor was easy. I just asked Mr. Stark and he said I could borrow one of the mini-models indefinitely. ...Needless to say, don't lose it," she bids Madison, glancing up at the camera focused in the blast room. "I'll be paying Mr. Stark out of my paycheck for the next century to replace it."

Once the focusing mechanism is in place, Caitlin sets a small box on the tabletop. Leaving it closed, she walks out of the blast room and latches both inner and outer door firmly shut. There's a *whishh-WOOSH* of air being violently cycled around through the HEPA filters until it's manufacturing-room sterile again.

"But the focusing array was really tricky. I needed something flexible that could hold a parabolic arc, but it had to be translucent to the emitter beams in order to--"

She looks back over her shoulder at Madison. "Uh, that's not important," she apologizes. "Anyway, the problem is that I can't just make this. Every one would have to be hand-fitted, and the only way to do that is with --" Caitlin gestures at Madison. "Telekinesis."

She manipulates the waldo arms overhead using the controls, to deftly open the box and extract an incredibly clear lens from it. It's guided over, set into the top of the casing, and then held in place with a tension screw. One of the waldoes moves down and flicks the activation switch-- and purple plasma erupts from the emitter, crawling around the room until it touches the grounding rod in the room.

"So you'll have to adjust the curve of the lense very, very slowly," she tells Madison. "Once it's in focus, you'll have your lightsaber."

Madison Evans has posed:
    "This is so cool, this is so cool, this is so cool!" Madison enthuses - she can't wipe the almost manic grin off her features as she watches everything Caitlin does with minute detail. "I won't lose it," she promises. "A Jedi's lightsaber is their life," she says solemnly. Nevermind how many lightsabers got broken, dropped, or lost in the Star Wars canon.
    "...is it possible to screw up the lens?" she asks uncertainly.
    She looks at the monitor - at the beam, and the lens, and- what if she gets this wrong? What if she can't do it?
    ...but of course she can. Right? She's a Jedi. This is something every Jedi //has// to do. And if she's really going to be a Titan then- then she's going to //need// this lightsaber. "Okay," she breathes quietly - before pulling over a chair. She spins it around backwards, and sits on it, arms folding over the back of the chair, and her chin resting on her wrists, as she stares at the monitor. She reaches out with her mind, gently grasping the lens, and giving it experimental nudges - as small and gentle as she can manage. This... is going to be hard. But if she trusts in the Force...
    She takes a deep breath in, and lets it out slowly. She can do this. ...it's just going to take a while.

Victor Stone has posed:
    Vic steps back as Caitlin prepares the blast room and the lightsaber hilt, getting everything in place, still grinning. "It'll work. Just trust the Force." Is the Force even a /thing/? Well--maybe? He's got some theories about trying to reconcile Madison's very obvious Jedi powers with what he and Nadia know of magic, with the kind of tech they deal with on a daily basis--

    Look, the important thing here is Madison believing in herself. Most of the time, /anyone/ has to trust in themselves to be able to effectively use their powers, whatever they are.

    "Is it supposed to be purple?" he asks Caitlin /sotto voce/. "I thought purple implies, like--I mean, do we think Madison can handle the kind of stuff Mace Windu was good at? Like, I don't know if she should be learning /Dark Side/ lightsaber techniques, you know?" A pause. A blink. "There /are/ actual people who know lightsaber techniques, even if it's for movies. I wonder if Gar has any contacts..."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin *almost* gives Vic a look when he complains about the color, but at that familiar chivvying tone, she breaks into a wide grin and laughs once behind her hand, shaking her head. "It might be too much power for even such a promising Padawan," she agrees in that same conspirtorial voice.

She lifts her chin at the monitors. "I depressurized the room and filled it with noble gasses as a safety precaution," Caitlin tells Vic more conversationally. "Same stuff in the little, um, you know, the--" she tries to make a gesture with her hands to indicate a sphere about 12" in diameter. "Plasma ball things. The color comes from the atmosphere, not the energy itself." She nods at the display. "In oxygen-rich environments it'll turn, uh..." Her eyes go a bit vague as she tries to think through it.

"I gotta think on it," she admits. "Guess we'll find out." Caitlin steps around to look at Madison and gently touches her shoulder with two fingers to get her attention. "Madison, I know we're joking a bit, but this really will take a lot of focus and concentration from you. You might be at this for more than a few hours. Maybe even a few days."

"If anything goes wrong, here's the emergency power killswitch," she says, and points at a big red button next to the console (where faded permanent marker has been scrawled on the concrete with 'Gar DO NOT Touch!!!' along with arrow and a frowny face). "And if you need help with any of the equipment, page me or Vic, or Nadia if she's around."

Madison Evans has posed:
    "Oooo... A great big threatening button. A great big threatening button that must not be pressed under any circumstances..." Madison remarks, because of course she can quote Doctor Who. Nerd.
    She gives Caitlin a brief glance and a nod before returning her gaze to the monitor. "I'm good here," she promises. "...and it won't be purple. I'm sure of it." After all, in the new canon - you attune to your crystal, and that's what determines the color. Right? ... right.

Victor Stone has posed:
    "Don't push the button, Fulcrum," Vic says, all-too-casually. It may not be the first time anyone else has used her codename, but it's the first time /he/ has. She's a Titan now! For real! So, codenames.

    "I'll check back in with some snacks and stuff in a while. I'd say good luck but--a Jedi doesn't need luck." He winks at her, and then grins at Caitlin.

    "I think we did good," he says softly, as he prepares to head on out of the lab to let Madison focus.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin smiles at Vic and gives his good arm a squeeze, leaning against him for a few steps with a walking hug for the big-hearted cyborg. "She's a good egg," Caitlin agrees with Vic. "She's gonna do well here. *Continue* to do well," she agrees.

A few beats pass. "But if we're gonna start putting her up in front of the cameras for the PR people, we might need to convince her to dial back the Star Wars a bit. It's really hard to take someone seriously if they end their media interviews with 'May the Force be with you'."

She laughs. "Then again, I'm pretty sure I've heard Mr. Stark say a *lot* worse, so maybe it's not so bad!"