Scour

[in_extremis]

WHO: Tony and anyone who wants to suffer
WHERE: The forge, Temba
WHAT: Tony's finally back from Not-Temba, and doing some housekeeping
WHEN: Mid-august
WARNINGS: It's a Tony post. It's safe so far, but watch your step.


The forge was rarely quiet.

Even in Tony's absence, the place hadn't been entirely empty; he could see traces of Catra's visits in the little messes she had left around, like he might not notice among the mess he had left behind himself. The D.A.T.A. unit struggling to manage its awkward limbs, still under development, followed Tony from its watchful crouch at the top of the door to display exactly how useless it had been in trying to pick up after either of them in the meantime, kicking a bolt across the floor in an effort to grasp it and stumbling like a baby deer after it. Tony sighed as he watched it slip on the rotting skin of some fruit that some trespasser had been eating from the meagre store he kept at the back of the room. At least it hadn't gone to waste. Evidently, there wasn't going to be any relaxing done here until someone cleaned this place up.

It was a large building, but the space inside was dominated by the furnace that Tony coaxed back from its constant, low smoldering to a hungry crackle that belched sparks and thick plumes of colourful smoke from the chimney high above him as he tossed garbage and glitter into it alike to clear the floor. Circling around behind the fire was a shivering, metal staircase that led up to a series of catwalks overhead, where Tony had to balanced to try to knock the fur from the beams and walkways where Catra liked to lounge the most, and scare the spiders out of their cobwebs and try to bat them directly into the flames with his broom. Beneath him, the worst of the dirt fell to coat his workbench, making him roll his eyes as he bent to peer over the railing. The bench sat in the path directly from the door, facing the fire, equal parts wood and metal bolted to the floor and then built up in a scaffold that reached all the way to the catwalk above where its weight looked like it might threaten to drag the whole thing down. It was laden with works under construction; more D.A.T.A. units, a handheld vacuum, a bronze ape's skeleton, a myriad of gloves, boots and chestpieces, and buckets full of heart-shaped glitter. Closest to the bench were places for Tony to hang his larger tools, that he had to scavenge around his own shop to find, dust and replace. In between all of these pieces were rare scraps of paper, pinned between the tools and crafts without obvious reason; a treasure map, a drawing that looked like someone was trying an impression of the still in the Deep End, a love letter with a three-eyed smiley face. There wasn't any other paper to be found in the forge; drawers and baskets under the bench were full of nails and wires, broken glass, and what looked kind of like the Mandalorian's helmet. Behind the workbench hung bodies.

From the catwalk above and braced by loops of wiring, some glowing faintly and others trembling at too much movement like they were on the verge of falling apart, suits of armor in various configurations hung for access. Most were decapitated in some way, arms and legs hanging separately, and some pieces appearing entirely alien to the man that most of them were meant to fit. With an irritable instruction, the D.A.T.A. unit clambered up among the wires to begin releasing some to clatter riotously to the stone floor, a crashing and racket that continued as Tony hauled the dark curtains the made up most of his bedding outside to shake out in the fresh air. It wasn't much more organized out here, but there were more wires looping from a window around the back of the forge to another bench that had been set up in among the larger pieces of scrap Tony had claimed and left languishing in the grass until they were needed. He hung these linens over the wires, shooing away a brightly coloured parrot that squawked a complaint, and gladly returned to settle comfortably on the fabric as Tony went skulking back inside. There was a bucket of black water sitting still next to where he hammered by the fire to cool the metal, and he kicked that across the floor to start sweeping the water and the grime it picked up with it out the door. A glint of gold caught his eye at the edge of the sunlight, stalling his energetic sweep to pluck the chain up out of the dirty swill and consider it thoughtfully in his palm before he was throwing it carelessly onto the workbench and retreating with a decisive slam into the small bathroom at the back of the forge.

The D.A.T.A. unit obediently pushed one of the discarded armor pieces across the slick floor, struggling to balance and shove it up the low wall with a scrabbling of delicate legs, and fell back triumphantly as it tipped the armor over into the mouth of the forge and greedy lick of the flames. For a moment, the fire sputtered, with a crackle of bright sparks as the D.A.T.A. unit toddled to its feet again.

In a deep, rumbling boom that made the stones on the dirt road outside skip, a great, black plume poured out of the forge's chimney. Inside, the D.A.T.A unit was thrown back against the wall, and the room was coated with sizzling soot and flecks of orange embers.

Comments

[in_extremis]

It kind of sounded like Cal was apologizing for that enthusiasm to put their skills to the test, so for that Tony shook his head slowly, then tipped it onto his shoulder to study the softness still in Cal's cheeks as he muttered, "You were a kid." Of course they looked forward to those battles. And it didn't sound like they had much of a choice, the battles were coming whether they wanted them or not. Someone was dropping the bombs.

Tony straightened with a sharp breath, where he could juggle the wrench again as he stared out toward the fire and admitted, "I still get excited after a good fight. When it all goes well, and--nobody drowns." With a brief smile, he glanced rapidly to Cal then back to the fire. Cal probably didn't really need to be told as much, they had seen enough action together by now. "When it's a bad one, though..." He gave an exaggerated shrug, and figured Cal didn't need to be told that either, because he'd had his fair share of his own bad fights. "It's really bad," he sighed. "The kids--you know, Billy and Tommy, and their friends back home--for me, they're, like, 15, and they've got these getups, and they've got these powers, and when we try to tell them to slow down--Listen, you've met them, you see how that works out. And its because they think that we're worried that they're not strong enough, that they're going to get hurt. And--we are, of course we are, but I'm not worried that Wiccan can't--" Tony snapped his fingers and waved a hand, magic, make a city out of nothing. Then his shoulders dropped again, and he frowned, contemplating the tool he still twisted around. It was hard to hear that no one was thinking of the kids like Cal the same way, but Tony gave a dry laugh and said, "You probably wouldn't have listened to me, either."

[out_of_order]

In that, Cal could agree. His smile flickered into existence with Tony's, perhaps lasting just as long. Tony returned his attention to the fire and Cal to his arc welder, adjusting the output a little.

He understood well enough. His master was trying to prepare him as best he could, but once things suddenly went all wrong, it was like Cal had no idea what he was doing. "I don't think it was quite the listening part that I had trouble with." He'd wanted to do things right, and under controlled circumstances, he could get it. "I wasn't prepared for my allies to suddenly turn on me and my master. I still can't help but think about the things I could have done differently, if maybe I'd been more careful or more alert... I could've helped my master and he wouldn't have..."

Cal closed his eyes, sighing as he moved to stand away from the bench again. "...but things didn't go that way. And I know I was only so old then, but I know I still had a responsibility." He tested the arc welder, gently turning the D.A.T.A. unit so he could begin to reattach those legs. "It just took me long enough to really accept that. I can't change the past, but...I can try to be better so I can be there for people when they need me."

[in_extremis]

"No, listen, that's exactly what I..." Tony tried, but he only had this wrench and not the tools he needed to properly express himself, so he trailed off with an irritable frown at his own hands before he could try to put the pieces together. "That's not the kind of lesson you should be learning already. You should be figuring out how to talk to girls and what you want to major in and how much you like--painting, or whatever, and if you can help some people out along the way, that's great, but it's not your responsibility. No one's death is your responsibility." Telling Cal that didn't mean much now, his heart was already broken and that was one thing Tony still didn't know how to fix no matter how much he tried, he was just frustrated that he even had to explain that to Cal in the first place. "And--it's not that I wouldn't rather have you there with me the next time some plant tries to eat us."

[out_of_order]

The concepts Tony spoke of made more sense to him now than ever. He had memories of that sort of childhood that seemed to be what normal consisted of in the world Tony was from, vague experiences of going to school, of adventuring in the local neighborhood with Merrin as kids. But he knew even in that world and in fake ones that there were still chances for things to go wrong, something drastic to happen. Just maybe not so drastic as the path he'd had to go down.

"...it might not have been my responsibility, but I was my master's. What happened then was like everything was saying I wasn't ready. And I know I was still in the process of learning, and that things were out of my control, but that didn't make me feel like any less of a failure to my master."

The sparks from the arc welder began to blur slightly in his sight, so he switched it off, closing his eyes for a moment, taking a slow breath. Just because he'd accepted things didn't mean it wasn't difficult speaking of it. He'd made up his mind to move forward, but there'd always be those glances back.

"Being a Jedi has its own responsibilities. There's access to a power that can easily be used to do terrible things if we aren't careful. But I won't hide what I am anymore either."

[in_extremis]

That feeling was what Tony thought was the real system overload, what had killed more Avengers, figuratively or literally, than any bullets or all consuming forces of nature, and that Cal was aware of that didn't really fix the fact that his brain chemistry was already locked into a dire path because of it. Tony raised his eyebrows apologetically, sorry for continually driving Cal back to this conversation and still without any solutions, then quickly turned away to studiously consider his hands again as Cal took his steadying breath.

When he finished, he sounded like one of those Earth heroes again, not just a child soldier. Cal did have this power, and there was a whole universe of people who's lives could be changed with the slightest brush against it. "Do you ever with you weren't?" Tony asked, still looking to his hands.

[out_of_order]

Did he? Cal was pointedly focused back on his work again, letting the silence save for the faint snap of electricity fill in after Tony's question.

"...I'd be lying if I said I didn't. Being anything other than a Jedi once everything changed? Sure looked really appealing to a kid who didn't know what to do or have anywhere to go, or anyone to turn to. But I wouldn't know where I would have been otherwise, and on what side of the war. And even if I wasn't actively fighting for one side or the other, what happens after it all looks like it would probably still affect me one way or another." He shrugged. "Maybe I'd end up fighting against the Empire with less means." Or would he have been recruited? There were too many possibilities to think about.

with? WITH??

[in_extremis]

It hadn't really occurred to Tony that Cal would be fighting anyway, most of his conceptualization of this Empire revolving around their resentment of the Jedi and a single, core-shaking vision of the obliteration of planets in Poe's head. That wasn't the kind of brutal power a kid took on. Poe did, though, he realized. And it was hard to imagine Cal keeping his head down when someone needed help.

"I'm having a hard time picturing what the other side would be offering to get you down that path. All of you that have come here--unless they've seen the writing on the wall and are keeping it under wraps, all of you have been the underdog, should be in the minority by all accounts, but you're all still on the same side. Even the--even Echo, who should be pissed at you, he's not picking ideological fights."

when you with upon a thar~~

[out_of_order]

"That's not true. There were two Imperials here," Cal said, lifting his head from his work to glance back at Tony. "Eli was one. I'm not sure if you met Thrawn, but he was the other. But I think they've chosen that side for their own reasons. And honestly, I know it's difficult to think that there's anything to be offered on that side, but I know that one of the Inquisitors that's been on my tail was a padawan under the former Jedi I'm currently traveling with. And the other Inquisitors are possibly former Jedi too."

It wasn't out of simple offerings, he was sure. But he didn't know all the details of Cere's experience and Trilla's turning to the Dark Side. That was an different can of worms entirely, however.

"I'm glad no one's thought to pick up a fight here. There really wouldn't be any point to it anyway. There might be some wrinkles to smooth out here and there though. I had to mediate between Master Kenobi and Echo just to make sure no one got accidentally killed." That had been pretty tense, and ironically the only situation he'd found himself caught between a blaster and a lightsaber here.

[in_extremis]

This was a series of surprises to Tony, who had met one of those men and while he hadn't spent much time with Eli, hadn't even been under the impression that he was even from the same place as Cal. Maybe life did genuinely get better for some people without Jedi around. A bunch of kids separated from their families and trained for war had more than enough reason to take the first out they were offered.

More immediately, Tony didn't know that there had actually been that kind of tension after Echo's arrival after talking to Cal about it the first time. He seemed like he had it under control then, and wasn't worried--and Obi-Wan generally seemed unflappable. Echo was the one that Tony knew had killed people on Coruscant, so he narrowed his eyes then wiggled his fingers to ask, "Nobody mind-controlled him, did they?" That seemed like the opposite of smoothing a wrinkle, but would explain why Cal thought there was no point in picking a fight if that was how they were ending them.

[out_of_order]

It was too convenient to label things so black and white. Even after the Empire had taken power, after the clones had seemingly turned on their Jedi allies, Cal had had enough time to realize that even they had been used in a grander scheme of...something. He hadn't found out exactly what that something was until he'd gotten the chance to speak to Obi-Wan.

The question Tony chose to ask confused him a little. "Who?" he asked, brow arching as he looked up from his work on the robot. Almost done. Just one more leg. "I had to warn Master Kenobi- Obi-Wan, that there was an ARC Trooper here. He was coming from an even shorter time after the Purge than I had. I arranged for us to meet up with Echo, but I guess Obi-Wan felt the need to arm himself when he saw Echo arrive with a blaster."

[in_extremis]

Cal had just told Tony that some of the people they were talking about were capable of 'influencing minds', and the other had been those people's canon fodder, so Tony pursed his lips and raised an eyebrow back to insist that Cal really didn't have to sound so baffled. It probably didn't feel like it to Cal after the life in hiding that he had described to Tony, but part of recognizing the responsibility of the power he had meant recognizing the power he had over people, too. That one could be just as fraught as a bad fight.

"That's a fight you picked," Tony pointed out. "So some things are worth fighting over. You could have let them duke it out, not your problem."

[out_of_order]

"Not something I can do," he said with a frown in response to the look back. Obi-Wan was supposedly good at such things, but it still wasn't a simple matter. "I think it only works on weak-willed minds." That definitely didn't seem to be a case with anyone here, if that was what Tony was concerned about.

"Not my problem, maybe. But it's not something I was going to leave alone either. There weren't any other Jedi aside from me at that point, and Echo's a friend. Jon did the same thing for me when he found out there was a clone trooper here. It only made sense for me to make sure we were on the same page when Obi-Wan arrived."

[in_extremis]

It didn't look like Tony was entirely convinced by Cal's claim, but he slowly nodded and slouched back on his hands anyway, not about to make that a head on fight nor either to find out what Cal might have meant by 'weak-willed'. Maybe Ezra wouldn't notice if Tony tried to check in about how well those mind-powers interacted with Extremis, just in case.

What he really didn't mean to do was make Cal try to defend his choice to intervene, so he rocked the heel of his hand on the table to wave that off with a lopsided smile. "I didn't mean to suggest that you shouldn't have. You just said that there's no one picking fights, and we're picking our fights every day, just that usually we agree that its more worthwhile to let that go to get another pair of hands working in the diner."

[out_of_order]

Cal breathed out a laugh at that. He'd been fixated on the idea of a literal fight that it took him a second to realize what Tony was getting at. "Yeah, I guess so. But that's probably for the best," he said with a nod. It seemed pointless to be holding grudges here. And yet he wondered if there would have been a tension between Jedi and Sith if Altair had still been here. Obi-Wan and Ezra had personal experiences with the Sith back home, and the Jedi master hadn't seemed all that convinced when Cal had said that Altair had behaved more like a Jedi than otherwise.

His smile was rueful but not completely forced as he looked at Tony, shutting off his arc welder. "Didn't think our conversation would go the heavy route again. I meant to ask about things for the other city," he said with a chuckle before holding up the D.A.T.A. unit. "Think he's ready to go. Hope the connections are good."

[in_extremis]

Tony opened his mouth like he might insist it wasn't all that heavy, Cal was just taking him too seriously, then thought better of it and shrugged a shoulder with carefully averted gaze again in coy apology for always looking for Cal's pressure points. Maybe he could be satisfied when he knew no one else could reach them, either. "Ask and ye shall receive, mi tesoro," he welcomed as he accepted the D.A.T.A. unit for examination. He raised it up curiously to watch each of its legs work, testing one after the other, before it gave a whir and its aperture blinked open curiously, peering around to get his bearings. The robot ran the same test, curling up each of his legs, then all of them at once, before stretching restlessly to be let down. Tony set him back on the bench, where he crouched cautiously before testing his balance.

[out_of_order]

Cal gave his arc welder a spin in his hand, keeping it out for the moment should he need to make adjustments as he watched the D.A.T.A. unit test out its shorter appendages. "How's that working for you, little guy?" he asked. BD-1 wandered over towards the robot once he was set back on the bench, head tilting as he echoed Cal's question in binary beeps.

"The network," Cal said then as he rounded back to the other subject he had in mind. "I'm heading over to the other city to see about getting the power up and running so we can establish network connection between the cities and see what all else we might find that requires some functional power there. But I'm assuming we'll be needing some kind of relays or something set up, maybe even somehow along the train route. Thoughts?"

[in_extremis]

The robot bounced in place a few times, then swivelled its camera toward Cal, then BD-1, clearly not entirely sure what either of them were saying to him until he rolled his head all the way back to look to Tony and his wry smile. After that communication, he looked back to BD-1 to give a series of more enthusiastic bounces, until one foot lifted off from the bench in his energy and he went tipping over onto his side.

Tony didn't seem particularly troubled by this development and was already scratching at his beard thoughtfully, considering the problem of the network. It would certainly be nice to have a connection while he was over there and not feel like half of his brain didn't work. "Something is blocking us from just walking into that tunnel," he started, which was just the beginning to the problems they might run into if they were to try to set up relays, and a good symbol for what those problems felt like; a wall between them and any control over their environment. "If you don't think the solution could be local, then you might be better off helping Beck get his satellite off the ground."

[out_of_order]

BD-1's antennae flew up in mild alarm as the other robot toppled over, skittering around to his other side to try helping nudge him back up again. A chuckle escaped from Cal as he watched the little robot's enthusiasm and its resulting, but he trusted his own droid buddy to have things handled.

"But the train still works," he pointed out. "So power itself isn't being blocked, at least along the rail line, if not the train itself. True that a satellite might be the best bet. I haven't talked to him about it since I'd offered him scraps to use."

[in_extremis]

"Yeah, he seems to be doing that on his own..." Tony mused, looking slightly troubled by the idea, but that might have been directed at the robot flailing its legs out to reorient itself, only to overcorrect and tip the other way, sending it rolling off of the bench. With his hand splayed open and lips pursed, Tony looked to Cal to clearly ask if Cal saw what Tony had been dealing with as the D.A.T.A. unit bounced across the floor.

"There's a broken window on the train," he continued, waving his hand then like he had no idea how that might have happened, then gripping his wrench like a gun as he continued, "We could make something to bolt some equipment right into the wall and off the tracks." That could have literally been throwing work out the window if the signal was just being blocked, though, so Tony dropped his hands with some irritation and asked abruptly instead, "What's your read on him?"

[out_of_order]

"It has been a while since then. I wonder how progress has gone. I'll see about asking him," Cal said as he watched the robot totter almost drunkenly about. He grimaced as it fell right off the bench, giving Tony a sheepish half-grin. Well, he tried?

"Broken- yeah, I saw that," he said as he stooped down to check on the robot before setting him on his feet again. He did wonder about that broken window, but he figured that maybe it was like that when it came in. Then again, it was kind of an odd place for a broken window. "That's a possibility." He'd considered something along those lines. True, there'd be a risk and potential waste of material if it didn't work out, but they still had to try. "Have we tracked how far before the connection cuts?"

Cal remained half-kneeling on the floor, glancing up as BD-1 jetted down from the workbench to circle the D.A.T.A. unit. "On who, Beck?" the padawan asked as he looked over at Tony. One had to hop and skip back and forth in conversations with this guy. "He seems all right. I haven't really spoken to him outside of offering parts for the satellite, but he was eager to see what he could do with them."

[in_extremis]

The D.A.T.A. unit likely would have found a way to fumble around no matter the stability of his legs; this clumsiness appeared to be inherent in his design, generally unintended for mobility and unaware of his own limitations. For example, the way he watched BD-1 navigate easily down to him while he was turned over with his new legs waving in the air like a turtle, clearly led him directly to the incredibly ambitious hop he attempted well before he properly had his balance again, like he thought he might jump like that, too. He ended up on his side again, camera eye rolling around the room.

"I've only been on the train a couple of times myself," Tony admitted, so he wasn't the most well versed in its peculiarities. "If we can get any of those ships over there running, we might have a better chance of taking some measurements. They got there somehow, obviously. There's steps to retrace." Meanwhile, he was tapping his chin, looking concerned, not convinced that what Cal had to offer Beck was limited to satellite-application. Just as before, Tony clearly thought there was an easy logical path for Cal to follow him to, "How is it that you kept those two from killing each other, exactly?" Maybe a little mind control wasn't so bad, given the right circumstances.

[out_of_order]

BD-1 stopped his circling as the robot took another tumble, once again stepping over to try nudging him back into an upright position. Cal had to smile at that, getting to his feet again as he let BD-1 handle herding the D.A.T.A. unit.

"Same," Cal said in relation to his own train experience. Testing out the communication range hadn't exactly been on his mind then either. "That would be pretty helpful. It'd be nice to see what all was in between here and there, and from a different point of view." You could see a lot more from above. The trip would likely be faster too. Well, hopefully.

He caught the look on Tony's face, unsure what to make of it, and he arched a brow at the man in an unspoken query. Instead he got a question back, and once again he had to jump mental rails to retrace that earlier part of conversation. "I talked them down?" he said with a bit of a frown. "I was also standing between them- not a very ideal place to be, but at least I didn't think Echo would shoot."

[in_extremis]

"Ships might even have their own relays. We could still make a call in space," Tony mused, still tapping at his chin like he was considering the weightier problem of Cal putting himself in line to be shot. "Power first," he decided, because that was going to change the landscape anyway, and either reveal some helpful tools or offer them options to build their own, so it might not have been worth exploring the options yet. And he clearly wasn't interested in debating that decision, because he quickly continued, "What if he did? Shoot. What's the move?"

[out_of_order]

That was a good point, which Cal had to nod at. "I wondered about that. So theoretically if those new ships found in the other city are functional, they'd act as receivers." From what was still the question. But he could agree that powering on things in general was an important first step.

"He wasn't the one I was worried about attacking." Which was true enough. Cal trusted Echo. He'd been the one to get him out of the crystal caves by the beach. Cal's intent in having Obi-Wan and Echo meet wasn't so much for Obi-Wan's as it was for Echo to ensure nothing happened to him from misunderstandings.

"...and if for whatever reason that did happen? If it wasn't aimed at me, then I'd still be having to stop two people from killing each other."

[in_extremis]

Tony finally slipped from the bench to join the synthetics on the ground, where the D.A.T.A unit had calmed enough to be slowly testing his balance with one leg carefully lifted at a time, potentially from watching BD-1's birdlike balancing, and giving a wobble for some stress. This process was interrupted as Tony offered, "Have you checked it out yet, you need anything to get the lights back on?," and scooped up the robot, not holding him out like a wet cat this time and tucked in the crook of his arm, but Tony still added, "You could take him. I can't guarantee that will make your life any better, but it could improve mine."

Okay, maybe Tony was stalling a little bit, because he didn't really want to ask, "Listen, but if that did happen, that thing in Echo's head went off and he wasn't going to be talked down, whatever, what's the move? Because we don't have the kind of manpower to dedicate to sitting on someone in a jail cell, and its not like we can just leave someone in a locked room somewhere because--who knows, the walls could cave in, or another storm could hit, or we could all wake up on the ships and they're stuck there and starving."