InsaneJournal

Who: Anakin and James Potter
What: James is going to shoot Anakin with a blaster, Anakin is going to ~try~ to stop the blast with his mind
When: Backdated to last July
Where: Top of Anakin’s warehouse apartment building
Rating/Warnings: No one will suffer lasting damage
Status: Complete


“Okay,” Anakin said as he was adjusting some settings on the blaster. They were standing on top of his apartment building roof. Right under the blazing sun.

“I’ve set it to stun. So if I fail, then you won’t get charged with murder.” He then held it out to James.

He nodded to the middle of the roof. “I’ll go over there, enough room for me to get shot and fall without going over the edge.”

***

Out of everything James was good at, and he was good at quite a lot thankyou, thinking about the consequences of his actions had never really been included. In fact, until this moment, he hadn’t even thought about what would happen if Anakin had failed to stop the laser gun. All he had thought about was the fact that he would get to fire some sort of wicked space weapon at his friend and it would a great story to share with their friends later. Lily would get a kick out of it. Or, well, maybe he’d get a kick out of it if he told Lily, literally. Either way, it would be totally worth it.

Up until now, he hadn’t even thought about the possibility that Anakin might actually die, and he was suddenly very glad that the blaster even had a stun setting. “It’s a pity there isn’t a stun option on most of the weapons here,” he said, holding up the gun with both hands and looking through the sights like he was in some sort of cop film. Very cool. “So, I just have to pull the trigger when I want to fire, right? Should I give you some sort of warning?”

***

“Ya. The trigger isn’t a chore to pull. But it’s not an automatic refire either. You have to pull it every time you want to make a shot.”

Anakin was backing up as he was talking.

He gave that last question a moment’s thought and then decided, “Ya, give me a warning this first time.”

***

“Deal,” James said. Never in his life had he shot an actual gun before. He was pretty sure as far as things went, getting to shoot a laser gun as his first actual weapon was loads better than what most people experienced.

“On three,” he said. “One, two,” he gasped suddenly. “Oh wait!” He lowered the gun and took one of his hands off the handle so he could dig in his pocket. “It would be a real shame if we didn’t get a recording of this.” He glanced around, looking for a good place to set up his camera, and finding an old vent intake decided that was as good as any. He glanced at the screen to make sure that Anakin and himself would be in it, and then took his position again.

“Alright, we’re good to go. One, two… three!” he said, pulling the trigger.

***

Anakin reached the spot where he planned to face down the laser bolt. He calmed his mind, centered his thoughts, all the things he practiced with Ahsoka when he trained with her. He knew he could do this in his dream universe. He just had to do it here, too.

Though here, he wasn’t as powerful as he was in his dreams.

Anakin didn’t oppose them filming this, mostly because even if he did something foolish, he was willing to laugh at it. Almost every one of his posts to the Network were indirectly a knock about himself.

So he just got ready again. He planted his feet, held up his hand and focused entirely on the gun in James’ hands.

He didn’t quite know if time literally slowed for Jedi or if they just saw things slower - maybe that was the same thing. But he saw the burst of energy start to leave the gun. He felt it, like he did all things in the Force, it was there, a tangible thing. He saw its trajectory, towards him, James’ aim had been true. He started pushing against the enormous, tightly packed bundle of energy the moment it exited the gun.

It progressed as a bolt of energy would, all the way across the distance between them, unchanged, until about two meters away from him when he felt the front end of the bolt started to stack up against the invisible wall he’d created. That point in the air grew brighter and bigger as the rest of the bolt caught up with the front, the energy pooling together and building on itself.

He had it for just a few seconds.

And then it became too much, too slippery and Anakin lost the focus and skill to maintain contact on the bolt of energy. It overwhelmed him, and all at once, the bolt of energy crashed into him and he fell backwards to the ground.

***

There was a moment there when James was almost sure that Anakin had managed it, that he was able to reflect the blaster ...beam or whatever it was that these things fired, but then, something happened and it broke through and Anakin collapsed.

James’ victory cry turned into a dismayed “Anakin!” and he quickly put down the blaster rifle and ran over to Anakin’s side, dropping to his knees at Anakin’s head. “Hey, mate, you okay?” he asked, gently patting Anakin’s cheek.

***

Anakin wasn’t out for more than a second, but he was disoriented for much longer. It was hard to tell if his head was spinning because of the blast, the fall to the ground, or both. But with each second the world was shifting back into place. He blinked a few times before he felt he could sit up without tipping over in the other direction.

He batted away James’ hand but found himself laughing. Because while he’d wanted that to go differently, things weren’t bad. Being Force-sensitive had its perks. Like, no serious injury after being hit with a laser blast.

“I almost had it!” he said, choosing to be optimistic.

***

James couldn’t quite help the relieved sigh that escaped him when Anakin batted away his hand. “So close!” he agreed. There really had been a second there when he thought for sure that Anakin had had it. “Want to go again?”

***

Without hesitation, Anakin said, “Yes!”

He should have hesitated because what they were doing was questionable at best. But the gun was on stun, being stunned didn’t hurt as much as being killed. Or at least it didn’t hurt as much as losing his arm did.

“Yes,” he said again as he was standing up. “How else am I going to master this.

***

“Brill,” James said. He’d hoped that would be Anakin’s answer. As scary as it had been when Anakin had first collapsed, it had been a lot of fun to shoot Anakin with the blaster. Especially knowing that Anakin hadn’t been injured from the blast.

Confident that Anakin was steady on his feet, James retook his place. “Just tell me when!”

***

Anakin closed his eyes and took a deep breath to calm his mind. Just like he did when practicing with Ahsoka. He’d keep his eyes closed this time.

He held up his hand and said, “Shoot me.”

***

Now that James knew that Anakin wasn’t likely to get seriously hurt, a lot of the nervous energy he’d been filled with before had dissipated. There was still a current of excited energy running through him, one that was almost nostalgic. It made him realize how much he had settled down since moving across the pond; this was the kind of stupid thing he and his mates had gotten up to nearly nightly when he’d been at bording school.

He wasn’t sure if he should shoot Anakin when his eyes were closed like that, but that was Anakin’s choice. So again, he counted down, “three, two, one!” and pulled the trigger.

***

Having tried to grab ahold of the blast once before he had the shape of it in his mind already. This time, when James fired the blaster, expectation gave Anakin an advantage. Though it was a mere seconds long advantage, but he was learning that that could be an eternity for a Jedi.

This time the bolt of energy stacked up in front of him, the same as it had before. But Anakin got a few more seconds to look at that swirl of supercharged particles. The scientist in him wanted to reach into it, to touch it, even if that would defeat the point. He was also thinking of possibilities, different experiments. If he could do this, what useful ways could he use the Force in experiments. And there were other experiment ideas – all these thoughts flew through his mind quickly.

However, he would have to learn to perfect this skill because while he get a handful of seconds more this time, the energy of the bolt became slippery in his gasp once again and overwhelmed him.

It struck him and he went down.

But when he came to this time, he said, “Can your magic block a blaster?”

***

Once again, Anakin went down and James trotted over to his side, fairly sure he’d be okay but wanting to check anyway. He offered Anakin a hand to help pull him back to his feet.

“You know, I actually don’t know,” James said, a little surprised that he hadn’t thought of it before. “There’s a shield charm, of course,” one that he had recently been taught in his dreams, but he was a quick learner in both his dreams and in real life and thought he was pretty skilled at it - not that he’d had much chance to practice it in this world, “but it blocks physical and magical attacks. I don’t know if it would be very effective against energy like this. If you’re ready for a break, we could test it out.”

***

Anakin laughed and shook his head. “Just a thought right now. I’ll need to tweak the blaster a bit so it isn’t as powerful. You’d be out for an hour if you got hit by it right now. It’s a Jedi thing.

“But we should try it when I do alter it!”

This was a plan that was getting out of hand, possibly. But Anakin felt that he’d already added enough moderation to make it safe.