Break Through!!! (Open to JaK!)

Once again, Scope could be found on his desk, messing with his latest project: a wrist gun! Honestly, he really didn't want anyone in the team to really know about it because, other things that he has tried to make didn't really turnout like he expected. From his elementary school volcano being a dud, to a robot in science class going crazy and trying to attack the teacher (which may or may not have been part of the plan). Again though, Scope was staring back and forth at his blueprints that should have been working and adjusting the wrist blaster with his screw driver.

"Let's see...energy core in place and active..." he muttered, extremely sleepy, "...retractable barrel..." he pressed the button on the side that popped the tube in and out of the device, "...check...but why doesn't...it...shoot..." he dozed off as he randomly turned screws and adjusted circuits in his sleep, when suddenly.

VRUM!

The wrist rocket came to life as it glowed bright blue through the cracks in the metallic plates. With it, Scope jumped up in amazement. "No way!" Scope yelled, now completely awake. The wrist rocket seemed to be exactly what he dreamt of! What luck!

Spoiler:

Well, maybe a little less professional than he imagined, but did it really work? He jumped to his feet and clipped it on his own wrist and spun around to shoot the blue energy ball at his dart board. A beam seared through the air and burnt the dart board to a crisp. Scope's mouth widened in amazement! "It works! It works!" he yelled as he ran around his room very animatedly.

"Well, half of it works..." he muttered, now a little more fearfully. This was when an inventor had to take a big chance. Scope walked over to his timed gun, aimed it towards his own wrist as he sat and held his breath to see if the wrist rocket's second feature worked. He quickly tapped the button to shoot the sniper and the bullet zoomed straight at his wrist. He squeezed his eyes closed but realized that he was completely fine a moment later! He heard a twang and opened his eyes to see the bullet bounce off the wrist rocket and fall to the ground.

"Yes!" Scope jumped with joy and did his own little victory dance. "This will be perfect for me in fights and..." he trailed off. He just thought about when he had spoken to JaK last. They seemed to have a sort of heart to heart and he said that he'd watch Scope's back, so, as Scope looked down at his newest invention, he decided that, maybe this was his chance to watch JaK's back.

He turned on his orange light on his lamp so that he could make his way around the corner and out of his room. He sprinted down the hall and to the door of the great JaK Sage! He rapidly knocked it until the door would open, not even considering that JaK would be asleep at three in the morning. He was just too excited about his very first break through! He'd been looking for a way to help the team and he may have finally found one!

"Er...sorry if I'm interrupting something..." Riley said as he scratched the back of his head awkwardly, his face turning red as if slightly embarrassed. It seemed like JaK had just gotten out of the shower and Scope had just now realized that, being in the middle of the night, JaK might have been sleeping.

Scope quickly shook the thought and his state of awkwardness and replaced it with a goofy mad scientist grin. "I don't know if you know, JaK, but lately, I've been trying my hand at inventing and, well, I think I've really come across something special!" he said confidently with his arm behind his back, trying to hide his invention from sight.

The suspense was building. He couldn't wait anymore! Suddenly, Scope's arm jolted out in front of him, revealing the wrist blaster that he had made for JaK. "Well...Merry Christmas!" he said with a satisfied smile.

"I made it for you...uh...for Christmas! I figured, you could use a boss weapon...er...not that you can't handle yourself but...uh...here ya go man! Check out my handiwork!" he said, a little scattered brained because he was so excited!

Scope slipped the gauntlet off his wrist and held it out with both hands as if it was a delicate jewel, ready for JaK to accept. He really hoped he liked it! He'd been working on it every night for the past month or so. Really, he'd been working on it since he joined the titans...

When JaK took the wrist laser off and handed it back to Scope, his mental jaw dropped. He had spent every night for the past month. THE PAST MONTH! All to develop this stupid thing! He had NO IDEA what he was doing from the beginning and yet, he still found a way to develop something special and JaK honestly had the nerve to say it wasn't good enough!? Scope thought about screaming at JaK! He thought about smacking him across the face with his stupid gift! He thought about running out of the room and even out of the tower right then, never to return! But...he didn't. All that came out of his mouth was a, "Sure!" followed by a small smile.

The truth was that Scope really had to much respect for JaK...or maybe he just had no backbone...he didn't really know, but, he really didn't want to his sort of leader and only real friend on the team outside of Toji right now. "I guess that shouldn't be too difficult...now that I know how to get the charges right and what metals sustain it correctly...yeah...shouldn't be much of a probably..." he said, not hiding his disappointment very well, as he trailed off for a moment.

"Actually...now that I think about it...I think I have some extra gun barrels from what I had left to cut out the first one..." he examined the innards of the watch-like device for a moment to see how he could enter some sort of rotating to structure to alternate between the strong blast and the minigun-type effect.

Suddenly realizing that he really didn't want to get in that apologetic situation if JaK noticed that Scope thought he was being kind of rude, he decided to change the subject. "Yeah, I can get that done by tomorrow probably," he said quickly.

"So??..." he said with a smirk. "Whatcha get me for Christmas???"

Although a little surprised that JaK invited him in, Scope followed silently excited. Sage was one of the Titans that he heard a little about when he was a normal kid just earlier this year. He never really thought that he'd get to even meet these famous teens and now he's being invited in! "I didn't think you were one for Christmas tradition, JaK. I guess I found a soft spot, huh?" he said with a sarcastic smirk.

Scope was surprised to see what was inside Sage's room. A fridge, a couch and a random cactus were the most prominent things that stuck out to the new Titan. No battle plans on a desk, no intense training technology and nothing that even closely related to a map that leads to an ancient buried treasure. Sometimes it was easy to forget that, although the Teen Titans were amazing heroes, they were still just kids, with their whole future still ahead of them.

"So, this is the Sage estate, huh?" he meandered around, admiring JaK's cactus mostly. "Alright...I approve!" he said with another sarcastic smile. With turn, Scope took a seat on JaK's couch and tried to make himself comfortable, however surreal the situation was.

"So, can I guess what you got me?"

As the Titans roamed down the hallway of their tower, Scope tried to keep as quiet as possible since it was still very late at night and he really didn't want to wake up everyone while he really didn't know them all that well. Scope pondered what a kid like Jak would get him for Christmas as it seemed that they were going to one of their storage rooms, or at least what he thought was one of their storage rooms. They were so far from his regular stomping grounds that he didn't think he could find his way back to his room!

"Alright...I bet you got me..." he began carefully. He knew that Jak wasn't a big fan of Christmas so it probably wasn't anything very spectacular or well thought out. Scope supposed that he probably got everyone the same thing, actually, so it had to be something universal. "Err...did you get me food, err...maybe a watch?" he said albeit not very confidently.

They finally made it to the correct room and Jak flipped on a light switch to reveal a rather dusty and odd assortment of miscellaneous objects. Screws and nails, screens and saws, and some random pieces of technology that Scope barely recognized. They walked up to a white tarp and the Titan motioned for Scope to unveil it himself. With a smile, he threw the tarp aside.

"Ah! Wicked!" he exclaimed, his face lit up with excitement. The tarp revealed what seemed to be a kind of hoverboard! A month ago, he had only read about these things in comic books! He never thought they even existed, and now it was his!

"Ah, man! Where'd you get this!?" he asked while scrutinizing the board. It was perfect! In just every way! He needed a way to get around for sure and this was absolutely perfect!

"Wow, you know you really didn't need to get me anything did you? Thanks so much man!" he said very gratefully.

"Wow! This is an awesome prototype! I really can hardly tell what's wrong with it...really, thanks a lot!" he said enthusiastically.

"Let's see how it rides..." he wondered aloud as he sat the board down and allowed it to hum to life. The lights on it lit up to emit a strong light blue color, lighting up the room even more. The hum wasn't nearly as loud as the wrist blasters but Scope could still feel the power as he stood on it.

Scope could feel the awkwardness as JaK kept scratching the back of his head and wished him a Merry Christmas. Why couldn't this guy just lighten up a bit? "Yeah, Merry Christmas to you, too." he responded with sort of half of a smile. Most of his attention was still on the board that started hovering about a foot off the ground.

"Alright, so what kind of kick does this have..." he thought aloud again as he pounded his foot down on the front tip of the board caused him to dash straight forward and collide with the nearby wall with a huge crash, although, he somehow was still on the board.

"I might need a little practice, huh?" he asked with a moan and a smile as he gently allowed himself to drift back towards the fellow Titan.

"Oh, right, sorry to keep ya." he said quickly. "We need to cut the late night excursions..." he said with a smirk, scratching the back of his head.

As JaK made his way out Scope yelled after him, "Alright, I'll get your wrsit shooters back to you as soon as possible!"

With a wave and a half smile, Scope found himself alone again, staring over his unfinished wrist shooters, not having much of an idea on how to fix them...Just how he liked it! If the world was filled with all the answers one needed, then life would be quite dull...

Curiosity like this was what made Scope stay a little longer, rifling through all of the random Titan's parts. What kind of amazing history must each piece have? How amazing was probably every piece of "Titan's trash"? Maybe some of this helped defeat Trigon when he first came to Jump?

As he tinkered with the various pieces of metal, Scope felt him eyes grow heavier and heavier. His imagination started to blur together with reality and, eventually, he fell asleep, clutching onto his new hoverboard and JaK's wrist shooters. He slept as peacefully has he really ever would with the Titan's...

(Fin! Another fun thread JaK! Thanks!)