(SHATTERPOINT) TRIAL AND ERROR

Anakin knew what he was doing was reckless and dangerous, maybe even delusional.

Without the Force, without its constant presence guiding his instincts and sharpening his reactions, he was just a man. A veteran, yes—a master of war and machines, and a tactician honed by a thousand battles—but still, just a man. And right now, that man was hunched over the makeshift metal workbench in the rusted-out boxcar, trying to recreate one of the most powerful weapons in the galaxy with little more than scavenged scrap, a few salvaged power tools, and sheer stubborn pride.

But since when had risk ever stopped him?

There was no Jedi or Sith code to adhere to, no galactic laws to obey, and no voices in his ear telling him what he should or shouldn’t do. 

He stared at the power cell again, cradling it between two gloved hands. Shockingly stable, he’d already used one to power the surveillance droid now patrolling the perimeter. And though its output wasn’t on par with the cells he was used to, it was more than enough for what he had in mind.

He could make a crude approximation of a lightsaber. 

After all, at its core, a lightsaber was simple: energy from a power cell, focused through a series of lenses and amplifiers, stabilized by a magnetic containment field to form a self-sustaining blade of plasma. In theory, it was nothing he hadn’t done before.

In practice?

He’d spent the last three nights cannibalizing old refractor lenses from broken cameras, melting and re-shaping them with improvised heat tools, and trying to align their curvature with the necessary angles. It wasn’t a kyber crystal, no, but it should have worked. On paper, it almost did.

It didn’t.

The first prototype overloaded on ignition. A flash of blue light flared for less than half a second before the homemade amplifier ruptured with a pop, scalding his hand and leaving a black streak across the workbench.

The second attempt fared better, in part due to his injury. The blade that sprang to being had stabilized into a weak, flickering rod of plasma, more akin to a welding torch than an actual weapon. It sputtered, hissed, and then collapsed inward, frying the superconductor and nearly taking three of his fingers with it.

By the fourth iteration, frustration had long since hollowed out into resignation. Failure was no longer a surprise; it was the expectation.

He sank back in his chair, injured hand resting on the cooling edge of his workbench, breathing hard. His face was streaked with soot, and the stale air inside the boxcar was thick with the scent of ionized metal and burnt plastic.

“This isn’t working,” he muttered aloud.

He closed his eyes, remembering the lightfoil. It was a duelist’s weapon—boasting a one-handed hilt and a slim plasma blade—used by young nobles of the Tapani Sector. It had largely fallen out of use among the Jedi, but it was a mass-producible alternative, albeit with reduced functionality. More importantly, it could be created by individuals without a connection to the Force.

But even the lightfoil required parts he simply didn’t have, or the materials to build: no cycling field energizer, and no blade emitter capable of maintaining a looped plasma stream.

He gritted his teeth. With the Force to guide him, it was never about how. It simply was. All he needed were the right components, or at least substitutes, and it would be a trivial matter to build a functional lightsaber in the middle of a battlefield, half-asleep, or even blindfolded.  

But now? Now he had to think and second-guess every action, solder every part carefully, and keep his hands steady with muscle memory alone. There was no precognition to warn him of any imminent explosion, or intuition to guide the right wire to the right port.

He cursed under his breath and slid the half-finished prototype aside. A hairline fracture split the focusing lens down the center. Useless.

The droid chirped from the far corner of the car, gliding in through the open door. Its single optic flared blue as it hovered silently for a moment, as if watching him with judgment, then it chirped again and resumed its patrol.

Anakin exhaled and ran a hand through his sweat-damp hair. Maybe he’d been going about it wrong. Instead of mimicking the lightfoil exactly, maybe it was time to adapt, to take the principles and forge something new. Something that worked within the limits of this world.

A blade with a monomolecular edge. A plasma torch with an extended flame. Or even a blade that could vibrate at high frequencies, reinforced by a powerful alternating current for enhanced penetration.

It wouldn’t be a lightsaber, but it would still be a single-bladed weapon. 

If he couldn’t forge the weapon favored by force-sensitives, he would make his own. A blade born not from tradition or faith, but necessity. One suited for this savage, lawless world, and familiar enough that it wouldn't take long for him to adapt to it. 

But not tonight.

Tonight, he’d failed. And that was fine.

Tomorrow, he would try again, and eventually, he would succeed.