The end of the gold wire was lower than the iron ones, because they were all the same length, and Toon had wrapped it around them at the bottom. That was alright.
Toon still wasn't exactly sure what he was making, but he wasn't about to stop.
The thinner sheet of metal was made of iron, and the thicker of copper. They had approximately the same blockage percentage, which was interesting. With the iron, he could bend it by hand, but if he wanted the copper modified, he would at the least need to heat it for a while.
He looked around the room, and there were two large furnaces burning on either side of the room. He frowned slightly at not having noticed them before. His attention had been distracted by the materials in front of him. He stood up with the copper sheet, moving towards the side of the room. Along the way, he almost tripped over someone going the opposite direction, managing to right himself by catching himself against them before continuing. Xavier surged slightly, but the mild annoyance faded quickly as Toon refocused himself on his goal.
He picked up a pair of tongs sitting beside the furnace and used them to distance his hand as he dipped the copper in. After silently counting out fifty seconds, he removed the copper and, setting the tongs aside, bent it carefully into a 'U' shape, then made his way back over to their table, bumping into someone else on the way there, though he was able to fall against a table this time, so Xavier didn't push him.
Once he was back at the table, ignoring the buzzing of conversation somewhere near him, he tapped the crystal and drew the power from it into himself, storing it temporarily, then he set the crystal near one end of the long, open-topped tube he had created. Without power, it was inert.
Toon wound two wires around the tube, twisting them together at the top, then turned it upside-down. The spherical crystal stayed, cradled by the two wires. He rolled the thinner iron sheet into a tube, then removed the crystal and pushed it into the top of the tube, forcing it to widen until it enveloped about half of the crystal.
He carefully threaded a gold wire into the center of the newly-created iron tube, pushing it in until it touched the crystal, then he bent the end of the wire out and flattened it against the iron tube. That done, he set it aside and, taking three more copper wires, he made a harness of sorts around the crystal, with one around the center and the other two perpendicular to it and offset from the middle, dividing it into sixths. With the other ends of the copper wire, he attached the iron and gold wire contraption, the end where the gold was wrapped around the iron pressing against the crystal's faceted surface. This would draw energy up and out the other end of the gold, though it would currently also shine out along the side of the gold wire that wasn't surrounded by the iron.
Toon frowned, then slid another iron wire into the formation, and bent all four of their ends back onto themselves, letting the gold wire poke out from within them. Satisfied that the energy would follow the pathway he had created, he began to assemble the entire thing.
Toon placed the harnessed crystal in the indent at the end of the iron tube, creating a long rod of energy transfer, then he slid it into the copper 'U', settling the crystal between the two wires where it would be supported once turned upside down.
He looked over the remaining wires. There was one iron, and also seven copper, not counting the one he had made a spiral at the beginning.
For the single remaining iron wire, he wrapped it in a spiral around the end of the iron tube where the gold wire was pressed, capping it off and covering most of the exposed gold wire, leaving less than an inch showing near the end of the tube, then he bent the tube downwards from a place in the middle, giving the crystal some space, and moving slowly and carefully to ensure the construction didn't fall apart in his hands, or worse, the gold wire at the end didn't get pulled out of contact with the crystal, so he would have to dismantle it anyway to fix it.
Once it was a few degrees short of perpendicular to the copper U, he stopped.
Theoretically, it would work now, but it wasn't quite done.
Toon twisted the ends of two of the copper wires together, then repeated it on the other side, creating one roughly three times as long as each individual wire. Then he wrapped the center around the iron tube at the place where it bent, flattened it against the inside and bent it out and around the top, and twisted the ends together, running the excess wire back along the opposite side and bending it under the itself near where it ended. If this stayed, it would keep the end together.
There were four wires left.
Toon thought for a moment, then did the same with the front wire construction, locking it in place.
One wire left.
Technically he might get more merit if he had something left over, but he wasn't sure.
Besides, Toon wasn't about to waste anything, especially since having only one left was bothering him more than it would have if he had had to recreate the entire thing.
He simply didn't know what to do with it. He didn't need anything else.
On a whim, he bent the end into a hook and carefully attached it to the iron tube where the crystal sat, then he bent it up about an inch from where the iron tube was bent down, and slipped the other end, after forming another hook, around the iron wire that capped the end of the iron tube, twisting the very end into itself so that it stayed wrapped around it.
Then Toon remembered the spiral.
He had just created the thin handguard in the style of the raiding thieves that came from the sea, just to use up all of the wires, and there was still one left.
Now he had to use it. But he still didn't know what to do. Toon turned the construction over in his hands. There wasn't a spot that would fit it well enough. All around, it was closed off.
Except for the front. The thing that he would be pointing away from himself, of course. Toon looked down the front, into the copper 'U', past the gold wire and around the iron ones.
Right at the crystal.
The target could see the heart of it.
So Toon took the spiral and slotted it into the front, letting the central rod of wires poke out from within like a spire in the center of a fortress, barely peeking over the end of the copper that surrounded it.
There was only one problem now. Toon looked at his construction skeptically as he gripped the exposed part of the iron tube and slid his finger down it to the gold wire, then pushed all of his power into it. He didn't store any, and he was too different from the others to draw on them. The only other power he could access was Gensa's, and he had never even had the chance to generate any.
That meant that all he had was the excess that they stored, which wasn't nearly enough for what he wanted, plus the miniscule amount that was already in the crystal when he had received it.
To no surprise, all it did was shed a weak light from the other end of the gold wire.
There wasn't enough pressure to force it out.
Gold didn't always draw power along it, but it created a channel. Some of the power was brought along it, but only as much of it as what flowed freely. To create a better transfer, he could link it up to another crystal, but he didn't have one, so he was forced to use pressure. By pumping energy into it, he could force some out the open channel of the gold.
However, he didn't have enough energy for that. So someone else had to do it.
Toon released control of the body.
Hashim didn't want control, in case he was forced to go up in front of the room, but he wouldn't let Xavier take over. That only left Jake.
Jake was thrust into control, disoriented from Toon's clinical detachment. He held the construction, tentatively prodding at it. It was sturdy enough, but probably couldn't handle much.
"Hashim!"
Jake looked up.
Professor Inteugo was frustrated again. Jake bit back a sigh. Everyone else was making him angry, and Jake had to try to deal with it.
He stood up and walked forward.
"Care to show us what you've made?" the professor asked with a tight jaw. He was trying hard not to yell, Jake could tell.
I'm sorry, professor. But we have to be above you.
Jake raised the construction, pointing it up, and slid his pinkie down to touch the gold wire, just as Toon had done.
When he did, a flash sounded. Jake activated his ability instinctively, and the world around fell into dead quiet. He heard nothing, not from his classmates or from outside. It was as though they were trapped in a grey world of light. Nothing was more than a dark outline in his eyes.
Then the moment passed, and time snapped back into motion, a pressure crashing down on his chest as a massive amount of power left him. He looked up, and noticed the residual shocks dancing along the outside of Toon's construction.
And the gaping hole in the ceiling.