Chapter XIII
Foster tried his best hiding in the barn from the Dawsons so he could work on the light saber. It was difficult to accomplish though; he tried thinking everything through. He knew for a fact he would try putting the orb from his parents into the hilt for the energy source, but then came questions like "What if I use too much or too little energy?" and "What if the hilt can't hold the orb for a long time and what if it can't contain its power?" and the most used question of all time "What if the project fails?" There was a lot of "what ifs" in Foster's mind, but he would still keep trying to make it work.
From the farm tools, he tried stripping them of their metal to bend and weld them so he could create the hilt. He figured he would try using some other piece of metal to hold the orb down into its place so the energy wouldn't try to explode from its position. As soon as he would flip the switch, the energy would come out, but would it come out as a thin blade or would it jump out as just a detonation of strong energy? That's where he was stumped.
"Foster!" someone called. The sparkling tried hiding his science project in two different baskets and told whoever it was that they could come in. The barn door opened and the all-too-familiar policewoman came in.
"Andrea!" Foster cheered. "Long time no see!"
"Same here. Gimme a hug!" The 'bot ran up to her and jumped up to hug her, arms placed around her neck. "Anything interesting happen while I was gone?"
"Eh, not much. Except for two psychos trying to take over my body." He noticed the confused but shocked expression on her face. "Henry will give you the story."
"Um…speaking of Henry…" Andrea put Foster down and placed her hands on her hips. "I'm not sure how to say this…"
"Is he alright? What happened?"
"No, no! He's fine! He's okay, it's just…Promise not to tell?"
The green robot crossed a finger over his chest and nodded.
"I…think I like him."
Foster's optics went wide. "Wait, you…like Henry? As in the like like, or friend like?"
"Double like," she said with a shy smile.
"I knew it!" the sparkling cheered, jumping up and down in one spot. "I knew you two had to like each other! I knew it! Andrea, I won't lie to you, but do you remember Valentine's Day?"
"Y--Yeah, he gave me this ring," she said, holding up her right hand to show a diamond ring on her pointer finger.
"He loves you! Can't ya see?! He loves you! He told me himself that he did!"
Andrea's cheeks went red. "He…does…?
"What, you think he didn't?" Then he noticed her eyes and could tell what she was thinking. "Come on! Just because you guys are different ethnicities doesn't mean that he can't love you and you can't love him."
"Sorry, I've just been around my grandmother so much, her telling her the old stories, and I just thought--"
Foster tugged at her pants leg. "Well stop thinking and start doing," he said. Then he scrambled back over to the work desk.
Andrea's curious head tilted a bit and pointed to the covered up baskets. "What are those?" she asked.
"Uh…" Foster exchanged looks from the baskets and back to her. "You can keep a secret right?"
"No one outside this house knows about you, Foster," she smiled. "I can keep a secret."
"Okay, come over here." As Foster scuttled the baskets over to the desk, Andrea's head was echoing with the question "What is he doing?" and was all too eager to know the answer. Foster was finished arranging the baskets and looked at her with trusting eyes.
"Don't be freaked," he said. Andrea nodded and watched as he uncovered the baskets to show a sci-fi looking hilt of a sword and some blueprints in another basket.
"What the heck…?" she started out as she grabbed the prints. The woman studied them for a few seconds and realized what he was doing. "Is this…a sword?"
"A light saber, to be exact," he corrected.
Andrea put the paper down and put a hand on her hip. "Why, and excuse my French, why the hell are you building something that's made-up from a movie? I told those men not to give you so much TV!"
"No, Andrea, you don't understand! You, see…" And he continued with his story, from when Megatron claimed his body, to Frenzy and Rumble's ambush, all the way up to Starscream's possession. "And I want to make this light saber just in self-defense. Please! I know what's going to happen if they take the orb and when they do there's going to be Hell! I won't let that happen to this planet."
Andrea's face changed and she half-smiled. "You're really determined, aren't you?"
Foster nodded. "Stop thinking…"
"And start doing."
* * *
Andrea stood by Foster and watched in wonder as he worked out the hilt and the measurements of the inside and of the orb so he could make the blue sphere fit. Every now and again Foster would ask her to hold something or to put pressure on something, just so she didn't feel as if she was useless.
"Hey, you two," said Daniel, walking in. Andrea turned around and slightly held up her arms to hide the project while the sparkling ran around trying to put back in the baskets. "What's happening over here?"
"Nothing!" Andrea said, eyes getting wide.
"It ain't nothing if Foster's acting like that." He pointed to the robot. "You can't lie ta me."
Andrea looked down at Foster. He nodded slightly and she turned her head back to Daniel.
"Foster said it's secret, so it's secret," she snapped. Daniel kept looking at Foster and Andrea, then repeated the sequence.
"Alright, then," he said after a while. "Then I didn't see anything. Dinner's on the table if you want some." And he walked out.
"It's dinner already?" Foster said with a tilt to his head. Andrea laughed and picked him up.
"That was close," she sighed.
"A little too much. If I told him, they'd get scared."
"And over protective."
* * *
He had orders straight from Prime to go to Earth. Although he hated the idea of leaving Cybertron, he had no choice but to go. Optimus said that he received an urgent message from his son (through the orb) and ordered Jazz to go immediately. The white mech thought it was strange that he had never heard of Optimus Prime's sparkling before (and was curious who he had gotten with to get the sparkling), but he was filled in as he got into the pod that would take him all the way to the other side of the galaxy to Earth. He was also ordered not harm anything or anyone while he was there to protect him, and he going to try his best to keep his word.
* * *
The sparkling tried spending the night in the barn with the dogs to keep working on the saber. He didn't want to waste any time on it, given the fact that a Decepticon could come by at any time. He was still having trouble of what would happen if he tried to activate the sword. He didn't have any other kind of power that could keep it at the length it was supposed to be. He groaned out loud, making the dogs jump back at the unexpected sound, and slammed his head onto the desk.
"Why does this have to be so hard?!" he grunted. It came quick to his thoughts that you can't just hope and dream for something. Usually you have to make it happen. "Stop thinking and start doing." He stood up from the desk and took another look at the hilt. Staring at it helped him think of how to contain the power.
He jumped out from his work space and tried to find every piece of glass he could. He took them all, shaped them to be three feet long and only half an inch in diameter. He gave it a hollow form and kept the top of it shaped smoothly into a semi circle like it was a very long test tube. Then Foster focused his power onto the glass and it soon began to glow, brighter and brighter. After a while, he figured it was enough power and placed it vertically on the ground in front of him. He took a few steps back and pointed an arm at the glass.
"Cross your paws, boys," he said to the dogs. He fired an energy blast at the glass, but the result was want he wanted.
It deflected the attack.
The glass didn't fall over from force, it didn't shatter, it just stood still, glowing lowly of a light blue. Foster smiled, trying to hold in a victorious shout, and walked back to the glass.
"Sword: seventy-three percent complete," he said to himself. "Now, for the finale." He walked back to the desk and dug into a basket. He pulled out the orb given to him by his dad and prayed that his hypothesis would work. But he was interrupted as he heard an explosive thud coming just two miles away from the house.