Test

I stood up from my seat as our descent stopped and the lab slowly illuminated by LED lights. On the left wall are a bunch of monitors and my office chair, along with a long and narrow table under the monitors where my keyboard and a whole lot of other things are put. In front of me is my worktable, still messy with assorted metal parts and tools, and beyond that is a wall where my tools are supposed to be put after usage, and where my other equipment is placed. As you might have guessed, the tool racks are almost empty, for almost all the tools are on my table. Some of my power tools are hanging on top of my work table, already connected to their wires, so that I'll just pull them down when I need to use them.

And finally, on the right is what I like to call the "Danger Room" (another pop culture reference), which is where the XPB (short for "eXperimental Plasma Blade'') is currently in and where I test all of the things I create. The Room's walls are made of tough materials, and its glass door, which allows the room to be observed from the outside, is made of high quality tempered glass, to prevent the outside of the Room from being affected in case something explodes inside, which happens quite often. I walk forward as I greet my trusty, but often sarcastic, AI lab assistant, Athena, who is appearing as a holographic version of herself, a woman wearing a pair of glasses and a lab coat, black hair flowing freely down her back, sitting down in front of the wall of monitors.

"Good morning, Athena!" I said in a cheerful manner.

"A good morning indeed, Vince, because my calculations were precise this time and the XPB didn't explode for 6 hours, a new record." She spun the chair around and she sounded more cheerful than usual.

"Correction, it was our calculations," I replied.

"Yeah, yeah, okay," she says.

"So have you tried moving it already?" I ask.

"Err...not yet. I was waiting for you."

"Why? Wanted me to do it so I'll fly away again in case the plasma containment field explodes?"

I remember the last time we thought the plasma blade was already stable. The blade exploded when I swung it down, because it turns out it still wasn't stable enough for sudden movement. I flew backwards 10 feet away towards the glass door and fell face first to the floor. I still remember the feeling to this day.

"That's one of the reasons, yeah. And so that you'll have firsthand observation of the experiment, of course," she says. "What? You thought I just wanted to see you hurt yourself?"

"Yeah, okay, let's start already."

I put on my safety suit and go inside the Danger Room. The XPB is sitting on top of a short metal pedestal. Slowly and carefully, I reach for the weapon's handle and take hold of it. I can feel Athena and Stryfe looking at me through the glass as the tension inside me escalates.

"Okay. I'm moving it now." I told them outside.

I slowly lifted the weapon from the pedestal, with my face as far away as possible. I waved it around slowly with caution, and when I'm sure it's not exploding anytime soon, I relaxed my position and let out a sigh of relief.

"Great, I haven't exploded yet," I say.

"Okay, now do the swing test," Athena replies.

"Okay. Wish me luck." I said, slowly praying inside.

I lift the weapon slowly to the top of my head. Gripping it with both hands, I take a deep breath and close my eyes. Please, please don't explode.

I swung the weapon down and braced for impact. I can imagine Stryfe closing his eyes and facing away, and Athena looking on more attentively just in case I get blasted. But a few seconds passed and when no explosions had blasted me away, I opened my eyes and looked at the weapon in my hands. It's still intact.

"Hah! HAHAHA!" I start to laugh as realization dawns me. It's working! The plasma blade's finally stable!

I swing it around more and my laughter grows louder. Outside, I saw Stryfe drop the clipboard he was holding, put his hands over his chest, looking relieved, while Athena was simply smiling, satisfied with our progress. I looked at the weapon and tried some of the moves I learned while practicing with a non-plasma blade version of the weapon, and I'm still not being blasted away. I swing the weapon this way and that, and before I can stop my hand and say "Oh shit!", I hit the metal pedestal with the weapon's plasma blade.

For a second I thought the blade would explode from the impact, as we have never tested the cutting power of the plasma, but when I looked at the pedestal, I was shocked and amazed at the same time. The pedestal was cut all the way through from where it was hit, and the edges of the metal were glowing a dim orange, melted and scorched

"Umm guys…" I called Stryfe and Athena.

I look at them. They stop what they are doing and look at me, and then at the pedestal.

"Holy…" Stryfe begins to say.

"...shit," Athena finishes what he says.

"I know, right?" I said to them as I started to smile.

Stryfe opens the glass door and proceeds to stare at the pedestal.

"Athena, it worked!" I say.

"I know!" She sounded prideful and happy. A very rare occurrence, actually. "Finally, after almost a year of constant revisions and upgrades, we've created a contained plasma blade!" Athena exclaims as if we have just conquered the whole world.

"In short, we've created the world's first lightsaber! Only, it's not actually that cool, but cool, nonetheless," I reply.

"Still, sir, this blade is incredibly powerful! It actually cut through a half-meter thick steel pillar with minimum resistance! Meaning it could potentially cut through common objects found in the city, like concrete walls, fire hydrants, and quite possibly... Taco Bell's kitchen door."

Me and Stryfe look at each other with mischief in our eyes, imagining breaking down the doors of Taco Bell and grabbing all the Seasoned Beef Doritos Locos Tacos we could, then dashing out of the resto. Ahh... think of the possibilities.

"Ahem," Athena interrupts our thoughts and calls our attention, "since we might as well skip the cutting test, as we already saw the blade's cutting power, let's move on to the most important test of all."

"Which is?" I ask her.

"The Battle test."

"Oh riiight," I've been wanting to do this since we started creating the weapon.

"So Vince, shall I commence Battle simulation?" Athena asks.

"Hell yes," I say as I take position.

"Good luck, sir." Stryfe says before leaving the Danger Room.

The lights above me slowly dim to a level of brightness that's only enough so I can see my 'enemies', which are some simple androids programmed to attack me, just like a simple fight. Hidden doors on the walls of the Danger Room open and the pedestal in the middle of the room descends to the ground.

The droids walk out of the walls and take position around me. There are around 12 of them, all of which are holding out their fists, which can discharge a high enough voltage of electricity to knock me out. During the times that the XPB is still not available for usage, I have used a metal replica of the weapon, minus the plasma blade. I can say I'm already comfortable with using the weapon, so when one of the droids on my right started to attack, I was ready.

I duck down to avoid the droid's punch, and drive the plasma blade down its middle. It penetrates the metal body of the android as easy as slicing cheese. I slash the blade in front of me, slicing two more droids on its path, one in the middle and one in the neck, severing its head. I face around, put my left leg behind me and lean back to avoid a mean right hook from a droid behind me. I sliced its legs off first before aiming at its head.

I catch another android's fist with my gloved left hand as it's about to hit the side of my face and go under the droid's arm while holding the blade towards it, slicing the android in half. I stand for a while, pointing my weapon at the androids, so I can breathe for a moment and resume fighting. The moment I was ready, I clutched the weapon with two hands and charged forward towards another.

I change my direction as the droid throws a punch, which narrowly misses me, and slices him from the middle. I turn around and duck as another one throws a jab at me, which I impaled the weapon on its back as he passed by.

I turned around and kicked an android at the feet, causing it to fall sideways, and when he did, I wasted no time and stabbed him. I swung the weapon upwards, slicing another one, and changed my grip on the weapon as I cut down another one on my right.

Only two androids are left now. And they both come from in front of me. We charge at the same time, and I kick one of the androids away, the other one facing me again as I look at him. It throws an uppercut at me, which I dodge with a quick lean to the right, and slice him upwards. The last one came charging at me, but he was still far away, so I aimed the weapon at its head and threw it.

I walk towards the last android as the lights start to brighten, and pull the weapon from its head while surveying the fight I have just survived without a scratch.