Chapter Text
“We thank our young Jedi friend here for all the help he has provided our planet.” The lord raised his bronze stein before tilting it to the right, allowing some of the crimson liquid to spill out and splatter onto the tiled floor below.
Obi-Wan bowed his head in polite acceptance at the gesture, strange though the Gasenian toast was. The entire feast had been a little over-exuberant for his tastes. He had simply come here to do a job. A feast in his honour was just an overindulgence.
His mission had been quite straightforward. The lord’s headstrong daughter had gone missing and the purple-skinned man had instantly panicked, blaming his rivals for a kidnap attempt which was threatening to quickly turn into something nasty.
But once Obi-Wan had arrived he’d quickly managed to find a trail leading to the bustling planet of Daiyu, a planet that was overflowing with distractions for a teenager with privilege and easy money. It was only a short voyage and Obi-Wan was back with the daughter, safely returned to her parents, within two days.
It was the early hours of the next morning when the feast finally ended. Obi-Wan politely said his goodbyes to the ruling family and they only let him go after pushing bundles of leftovers into his arms for his journey back to Coruscant.
Of particular note was the wheatcake that was a speciality of the Gasen and the kitchens had laid out plate after plate of the stuff at the feast. It was just the sort of thing that Qui-Gon would enjoy, similar to the Uj’alayi they had encountered on Mandalore. So Obi-Wan had wrapped up a few pieces in food cloth to take back to the temple. A small gift from his padawan after successfully returning from a solo mission.
Obi-Wan suspected he was getting close to the end of his apprenticeship, that maybe in a year or two he would finally be deemed ready to face the trials. It was expected for a senior padawan to undertake short missions without their masters to show they were ready. This mission was a precursor of what was to come.
As a fully-fledged Jedi Knight, he would be taking solo missions out into much deeper parts of the galaxy.
He hoped that he would be able to pay back some of the faith his master and the council had shown in him.
Upon entering his small transporter craft, he dropped the food with the rest of his supplies and headed to the cockpit. As soon the ship left the planet’s atmosphere and entered orbit above, he prepped the nav computers for the jump to hyperspace and commed the temple to let them know the mission had been completed successfully and he was just departing Gasen.
He planned to write up the full mission report whilst the ship travelled through hyperspace.
Preparations complete, he entered the calculations into the ship’s computer and activated the hyperdrive.
He braced against the familiar feeling of a ship being thrust into lightspeed, slightly clenching his hands around the ship’s steering vane.
But nothing happened.
Slightly baffled, he double-checked the calculations on the nav computer and ran through the coordinates that had been set. They were all good.
He tried to activate the hyperdrive again and ended up with the same result. The ship was still, the engine lifeless.
From the computer readouts, the hyperdrive appeared to be offline.
Strange. The ship wasn’t that old. The mechanics that serviced the Jedi’s ships at the temple were generally deemed to be amongst the best on Coruscant. And he hadn’t picked up any damage during the mission.
Obi-Wan sighed. The best thing to do would be to turn back towards Gasen and land the ship there. No doubt the lord would offer assistance, and it was always easier to fix a ship on the ground than floating in orbit.
Decision made, he pushed forward on the throttle, in preparation for manoeuvring the ship around. But this time the ship didn’t react, and he found himself mystified for a second time in a matter of minutes.
This was starting to become more than just a hyperdrive failure. He activated the ship’s comms, hoping to send a request for help down to Gasen’s planetary traffic control, but even these were unresponsive. The system readouts stopped generating.
And then the ship’s lights went off.
Sitting in the inescapable dark, it dawned on him that this probably wasn’t a catastrophic ship malfunction at all.
It was starting to look like someone had spliced into the ship’s systems. Had waited for him to leave the planet before taking control of the ship away from the young Jedi.
But why? If they were after the daughter surely the best time to strike was when they had just left Daiyu. Now she was back on her home planet they would have a much harder job of getting access to her.
He switched to the emergency backup generator in the hope that the jolt to the ship’s electrical systems would trigger it into action. But it had no effect.
Pulling the emergency blanket from under the pilot seat, he cloaked it around himself. No power meant no life support systems and a quickly dropping temperature. He would have to conserve his oxygen.
The ship was too small to have an emergency escape pod.
His only hope lay in the unknown forces that had disabled his ship. They must come quickly or they would have gone to a lot of trouble for the sake of one dead padawan.
Curled up in a corner behind the cockpit, he tried to count numbers in his mind, anything to keep the fuzziness at bay. But he couldn’t shake himself of the lightheadedness that was overwhelming, and the feeling of nausea that grew.
The padawan had fallen unconscious by the time the unknown forces finally entered the ship.
---
The first thing Obi-Wan noticed was the smell. It was harsh and synthetic, something that reminded him of industrial kitchens and bio labs.
Bright white lighting claimed the drowsiness from his head, and he blinked his eyes open. He was lying in a small white room with a curved ceiling on a sturdy bed. The inactive FX-7 droid and the beeping monitor on a stand to his left told him it was probably a medical room of some sort.
Strange. He didn’t recall being injured. He searched his memories, but the last thing he remembered was leaving the planet Gasen on board his ship.
Had something happened? Had the ship somehow crashed?
Well, at least he wasn’t dead. That was something.
Propping himself up on one elbow, feeling the familiar brush of his braid on his naked shoulder, he rubbed the sleep from one eye and quickly found that his hand was heavily bandaged. Both hands. He frowned at them as if he was surprised they belonged to him. Had he been injured, only for someone to bring him to a medical facility?
Now more awake, he tried to push up from the bed into a seated position, to better check himself over. It was far harder than it should be. Then he realised with a start he couldn’t feel his legs at all.
After a few moments of struggle, he managed to prop himself upright, using his forearms to take the strain. Pulling the thin blanket down he was greeted by the sight of his unclothed torso, and further down...
The sight of his legs was unexpected. They had been bound together, tightly in some silvery wrapping.
He reached down to stroke the material, it was smooth and warm under his touch. It looked almost like metal the way it caught the light, but the way it dimpled under the pressure of his fingertips and its thinness showed otherwise.
He’d never seen anything quite like it before.
It covered the entirety of his legs and feet, wrapped around his thighs and up to just under his belly button.
In curiosity, he tried to peel the topmost ridge away. But it was stuck firm to his skin. Not even a fingernail could get under it. He tried to flex his legs just a little, but there was nothing.
He gave up and turned his attention to the FX-7 droid nearby. These models did not have vocoders, but if he could somehow get it to wake up, then maybe it would bring someone to the room and he could try to get answers.
“Hello?” He asked tentatively, though feeling a bit ridiculous talking to a lifeless droid in an empty room. The droid continued to sit there impassively.
“Hello?” He asked again, a little louder this time.
Still no response.
He let gravity pull him back down into the bed. Patience was the only option left.
With a sigh, he brought his hands up to his face, inspecting the bandages.
They were wrapped in different material, a more basic-looking fabric gauze. His fingers poked out from the top. He could still wiggle them. They didn’t hurt.
The last thing he remembered was leaving Gasen. Had his ship crashed? He didn’t remember being injured, or the ship colliding with anything. Maybe he had hit his head and simply couldn’t remember, and they had brought him to a hospital in the capital city.
If so they would have informed the temple, his master would know where he was and would probably be on the way at this very minute.
With little else to do, he simply lay there patiently. After what felt like hours had passed the door to his room finally slid open, and a tall dark being striding through.
“0273 appears to be awake.” The voice was deep and gravelly and Obi-Wan looked up to see a person with dark blue leathery skin, its folds set in patterns around its facial features.
A delphidian, Obi-Wan’s mind supplied as he watched him approach the FX-7 droid first, checking over its settings.
“Hello. Could you possibly tell me where I am, and why I’m here?” Obi-Wan asked as he struggled again to sit up.
The being ignored him and instead turned to the monitor on its stand to check the screen.
Obi-Wan briefly bit his lip before trying again. “My name is Obi-Wan, I’m a Jedi padawan. I was leaving Gasen after a mission on behalf of Lord Canning.” Still no response.
Seemingly satisfied with the monitor, the delphidian retrieved a scanner from the tray underneath, before coming over to the bed.
Firm hands pushed Obi-Wan back against the mattress. Part of Obi-Wan wanted to struggle back, but delphidians were strong beings and Obi-Wan didn’t think antagonising what appeared to be his medic would get him any closer to answers. The man checked into his eyes first, and Obi-Wan stayed silent, staring back up into the dark blue face that loomed over him.
“Can you tell me what happened, why I’m here?” Obi-Wan asked as the delphidian moved over to his lower half, activating the scanner and running it up and down his bound legs.
“Good.” The medic finally grunted. “The process appears to be progressing well so far.”
Obi-Wan felt anxiety spear into his core. Process? What process? He was not a process.
“Was I injured somehow? What process?” Frustration stole the politeness from his words.
The delphidian simply returned to the monitor, taping on the screen. “Looks like we can prepare for stage two.” He muttered to himself.
Not to Obi-Wan. The whole time it was like Obi-Wan wasn’t present in the room at all.
The medic returned the scanner to its storage tray and then swept out of the room without another tray.
“Hello?” Obi-Wan called after him, annoyance twisting inside.
Something was off about this entire situation. Call it a bad feeling. Delphidians were normally found on the other side of the galaxy. It wasn’t impossible that some had settled on Gasen, but Obi-Wan had not seen any during the time he was on planet.
The Gassenians had been attentive hosts. From what he had experienced of their culture they would not have left him completely alone in a med centre, seemingly without any way of contacting the temple.
As his mind questioned, he was distracted by the sight of hands once more. The bandages were a different material to the wrappings of his legs. It looked like he could pull them apart if he tried.
He didn’t remember being injured. He didn’t remember anything happening to his hands.
His curiosity grew to the point that he ignored the part of his mind that preached caution.
Maybe if he could see the injuries for himself it would trigger the memories that had been lost.
Propping himself up once more, he pulled at the fastening of one bandage, until it came loose. The discarded material pooled in his lap, unwinding it from his hand, untucking it from between his fingers.
There was something between his fingers.
He froze, eyes going wide as his heart quickened in his chest.
Splaying his hand wide, he pulled the last of the gauze free.
Between each finger was pale thin skin, running up to the middle joint.
“What the kriff?” He muttered.
Already fearing the outcome, he quickly turned to the other hand, tearing the bandage off as fast as he could manage.
It was exactly the same.
Every other thought melted away as he stared down at his newly webbed hands.
He poked at the new skin between his fingers. There was some sensation there. The skin was part of him, not merely grafted on. How was this possible?
---
Throughout the whole night he slept in short bursts. There were too many questions rattling around his head.
Under closed lids, the shape of his disfigured hands still lingered in front of his eyes.
By the time morning came he had resolved that he would try and leave, find out who was in charge. In his heart, he didn’t think he stood much chance with his legs unusable. But he was a Jedi. He wouldn’t give up without making an attempt.
He had no idea when the delphidian would come back. He presumably would at some point.
But Obi-Wan simply had to try.
When the lights slowly came on indicating the start of a morning cycle, he pushed his torso up from the bed again and used his arms to try and angle himself, allowing his legs to be pushed off the bed.
“C’mon.” He hissed through clenched teeth, tensing his abdominal muscles and bracing one hand against the side of the bed to give himself leverage and pushing with the other.
He managed to tip his feet over first which made it easier for the rest of his bound legs to follow. Eventually, with his arms starting to ache from overuse, he managed to get himself sat upright.
Now he needed to think through the next part. He had no idea if his limbs were capable of taking any weight.
Presumably not. But there was only one way to test the theory.
Concentrating hard, he reached into the force, grasping what little he could. He had tried to draw on the force since he had awoken in his bed, but now he tried to reach out something felt off. It was still there but seemed faded, a little fuzzy around him.
With his arms taking his full weight, he pushed away from the edge of the bed lowering himself downwards and using the force to supplement his strength.
With no sensation in his lower half, he had to judge by eye when his feet touch the floor, and slowly he pushed away from the bed so that his weight was transferred over his legs.
And then he let go, putting his trust into the force.
And for a fraction of a moment. It worked.
Heart racing, he stood upright, supported in the force.
If he could stand, he could walk. If he could walk he could try to escape.
And then the force slipped from his control and his legs collapsed and he went crashing forward, smacking his face off the hard floor.
He lay there silently for a moment, a few tears streaking down his cheeks from frustration and pain. There was something wet running down his chin. Blood, he realised when he put his hand to it.
Feebly, he tried to kick his legs once more, but they didn’t move.
Part of him wanted to close his eyes and stay there, lying on the floor of that room for the rest of time. But eventually finding the position uncomfortable, he managed, with some effort, to flip himself onto his back.
As he did so, his eyes alighted on the medical monitor.
While he was here, maybe he could at least try and get information off it. Try to get a better idea of what was going on.
With a new goal in mind, he set off, dragging himself across the floor with his forearms, his shoulders aching, trying to ignore thoughts of how pathetic he must look.
The device on its stand stood above him like a pillar. Arriving at the base he wrapped his webbed hands around it and used it to haul himself upwards, dragging his useless legs with him until he manoeuvred himself into a position where the machine took his weight, and he could see the screen.
The terminal didn’t appear to be locked by any passcode. It suggested that whoever was running this place thought their external security was tight enough to not warrant such an action. Obi-Wan filed the implications of that away for later.
Unsure exactly what he was looking for, he started to scan through the recorded data on the device. Readouts of his stats, heart rate, blood pressure, a schedule of planned surgeries and forecast recovery times.
Although the surgery timeline had no details as to what they were for, it was marked that he’d had the first one already, presumably for his hands, and whatever was going on with his legs.
There was no further personal information forthcoming, so he started checking through miscellaneous files that he found, hoping to see some sign of communication with the temple of Qui-Gon. He chanced upon a data document that detailed the use of a particular type of nanobot used in bioengineering. It seemed this high-end technology could be used to tear down skin and muscle, and rebuild it in a new form.
As he read further, his morbid fascination turned to slowly churning horror. It seemed the technology had initially been developed to help replace and rebuild missing limbs. But some had started using to to improve their features, grafting themselves better noses, changing the shape of their ears. In theory, it was possible to completely rebuild a creature’s body.
Obi-Wan sagged against the machine, releasing his grip and sliding himself back down to the floor.
He looked at his hands in front of him, both familiar and horrific at once. Did they use those nanobots to do this? But he still had no idea why.
And then a flash of panic turned his attention to his legs. What if they weren’t injured after all?
He swallowed down his fear temporarily and placed both palms on his waist where the strange bindings started. Applying pressure, so he could try to feel for what lay underneath, he slowly ran both hands down his legs.
They felt normal as far as he could tell, from the shape of his hamstrings down to the boney caps of his knees. Stretching down his length, he could reach for his ankles, never before being so delighted to feel the bony joint there.
To conclude this self-examination, he ran his fingers down the middle of his bound legs, feeling the strange fabric dip slightly where his two legs met.
Still absorbed in his physical investigation, he failed to notice when the door slid open.
“What happened here?”
Obi-Wan’s head snapped up to look at the owner of the voice. Another delphidian, but this one female.
Behind her tottered an RQ protocol droid, its platings a medical white, carrying a tray with what he suspected to be a food container on it. Obi-Wan felt his stomach rumble as he caught sight of it. He didn’t remember the last time he’d eaten.
A strong pair of arms scooped him up from the floor before Obi-Wan had the chance to ask any follow-up questions, and the delphidian slung him back on the bed.
“We can’t have you injuring yourself now can we?” She chided.
Oh. The blood on his face from where he fell.
“Sorry.” He muttered, not really sure why he was apologising when he still had no idea who these people were or why he was here. At least she seemed to be addressing him and not just ignoring him like the last medic.
Tilting his head up between her dark fingers, she quickly assessed the damage before turning to a small supply cupboard and returning with simple first aid supplies.
“No harm done.” She said once she had applied a smear of bacta to his nose and wiped the blood away with a small medical towel.
“This is RQ-39. He will assist you during the duration of your stay, bring you food and anything else you might require. Now - ” She stooped under the bed, clearly looking for something, before straightening up with a small remote device in her hand. “- this is for the bed. You can raise it or lower it like so.”
She turned the remote to demonstrate the button that made the top of the bed rise, propping him up into a seated position.
Well, at least he now had a solution to the one problem he’d been having.
Finished with the demonstration, the medic slotted the device into one of his webbed hands.
RQ then approached and placed the food tray in his lap.
“It would be good to get some solids down you before the next procedure starts.” The medic talked as she ripped the lid from the food container.
“Procedure?” He asked quietly but either his question went unheard or she deliberately ignored him as she turned to the monitor to look at the screen readouts.
Obi-Wan peered down at the container to see skinny fillets of some sort of white meat. Taking the spork from the tray he eagerly brought the first one to his mouth and took a bite.
Fish. He was no great lover of fish. He would never willingly choose it for himself. But he wouldn’t turn it down if he was hungry.
Once he finished, he wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and reached for the silvery carton that lay on the tray.
After the first sip he nearly spat it out.
“What...what is this?” It tasted vaguely sweet, in some ways like milk, but also strongly not like any milk he’d ever tasted at all.
The delphidian put her hands on her hips. “A nutrient shake. Drink it all down. It contains a lot of nutrients your body needs.”
Obi-Wan frowned at her a little, but he was still thirsty, and the drink wasn’t unpleasant, just a little strange. He took one hearty swig from the container.
“Can you tell me where I am? I asked the other medic, but he ignored all my questions.”
“Ahh.” She smiled at him. “I’m afraid my brother has a terrible bedside manner. Don’t worry too much about it.”
“Okay.” He tried to keep the note of scepticism out of his voice. He had plenty to worry about, thank you very much.
“You are at a private medical facility that me and my brother run.”
“Who brought me here?”
“Your master did and he paid for all your treatments. In full.”
Was he dreaming? Qui-Gon brought him here? That didn’t seem right. Surely Qui-Gon would have been to see him if that was the case. And why would he pay for medical treatment, rather than have him bought back to the temple?
“Can I speak to him? Is he here?”
The medic turned to the monitor again, taping on the screen a few times before speaking. “We’ve been given instruction not to contact your master until your treatment plan has been completed. He must be a very busy man.”
“He wouldn’t mind if I commed him, I know he wouldn’t. He’s my master after all.” Dull alarm sounded in Obi-Wan’s head. None of this was adding up.
“Shhh, it’s okay.“ The medic turned back to face him, putting the back of her dark hand to his forehead in a soothing gesture. “For patients undertaking large modifications, some confusion is expected.”
Modifications? “Please, I just want to know what’s going on. Was I injured? I remember being on the ship...and then...I woke up here.”
“You need more rest I think. More sleep. Don’t worry RQ will be here to help you with anything you might need.”
She picked up the tray from his lap.
“Just call my master, tell him to come please.” Obi-Wan begged, starting to realise that whatever he said would not be listened to as she left the room.
---
His dreams were strange. He dreamt he was lying in an ocean. Floating. He could feel the movement of it, the way it lapped at his body, the liquid changing colour. A kaleidoscopic light show that kept him enthralled seemingly for hours.
When the lights faded and died to a dull grey, he knew that he must be waking up.
Blearily he opened his eyes to the same room, the same walls
He allowed himself to lie there, awake but not wakeful. Only when the door slid open and the heavy iterative footsteps of RQ followed did he finally reach for the bed control and raise himself upward.
The droid placed another food tray on his lap.
“Thanks.” Obi-Wan muttered. He hoped it wasn’t fish again. Nobody wanted to eat fish when they first woke up.
“Good morning patient.”
Obi-Wan glared back at the droid. At first, he had tried to ask him for more information, either on his treatments or how he came to be here. But the droid just answered that he was programmed only for his comfort, and that information was not deemed part of the droid’s remit.
Desperate to quench his thirst, he reached for the carton first. As he drank down the same peculiar taste, he casually scratched at his neck while his eyes drifted.
His legs were still bound. They would be painfully stiff, he reasoned, if he had any sensation there at all.
Visually they didn’t appear any different, but there was something off. Call it intuition or a feeling in the force.
Putting the carton back down and pushing the tray back at RQ, he reached out with his hands again, fingers splaying wide, reaching towards his limbs, his brain telling him everything was fine while his heart drummed a beat of fear.
His fingertips connected with the strange fabric. Underneath was the familiar muscular structure of his legs, wide at the hips, tapering off towards his knees.
Exploratory, he stretched down, his fingers brushing over his kneecaps.
The hard boniness he expected to find wasn’t there.
His heart lept into his mouth.
Desperately he prodded and poked, digging his fingertips into the material, harder than he possibly could if he still had sensation there.
But all he felt was fleshy, muscle. His knees had simply disappeared.
Slightly coming round from his shock, he went further, groping towards his feet, despairingly trying to rub his ankles.
They were seemingly wiped out of existence.
“RQ. What are they doing to me?” Obi-Wan choked out the words, feeling the dampness well in his eyes.
“I’m sorry patient. I am only programmed for your comfort.”
Sorry. RQ was always just sorry.
He checked his face, his chest. They were changing his body, and he was seemingly powerless to stop it. Back to his legs and he choked back a sob when he realised the space between his thighs was now smooth.
To further compound Obi-Wan’s misery, the door to his room slid open and the delphidian brother entered.
“What have you done to my legs?” The time for civility was over. Obi-Wan knew his rising anger was not befitting of a Jedi. But in the moment quite frankly he didn’t care.
True to form the male medic ignored him, pulling out the scanner from the tray before using a control override to flatten the bed out.
Obi-Wan thumped back into his pillow.
“Hey. I asked you a question.” Obi-Wan glared upwards, observing the dark blue hand holding the scanner as it drew lines in the air up and down his body.
The hand hovered over his own and Obi-Wan seized the medic by the wrist.
Dark eyes snapped to his own, and Obi-Wan swallowed.
“0273 is turning violent.”
“I’m not being violent.” Obi-Wan protested. “I just-“
He was pushed roughly down into the bed, pinned by muscular arms.
Obi-Wan wriggled trying to twist out of the delphidian’s grip, but there was simply nowhere for him to go. He needed another plan.
Letting himself go lax instead, he noticed the comm device on the delphidian’s belt. If he could acquire the device he could try to comm Qui-Gon, or the temple.
There was an emergency frequency that was used if a Jedi got into difficulty and needed assistance.
“I’m sorry. I…overreacted.” He mumbled, yawning a little, trying to convince the medic he was no longer a threat and to go back to his duties.
The medic seemed to soften, until finally releasing his hold before going back to busying himself with the medical monitor.
As stuck as he was in his current state, Obi-Wan just had to wait for the right opportunity to present itself. The force was muddy. Unreliable. He could only make a move when he was one hundred percent sure he could snatch the device unseen.
When the delphidian returned with a small light to check his eye dilation, Obi-Wan was finally presented with that opportunity.
The medic leant over where he lay, tilting the padawan’s head up. Obi-Wan let him.
Determinedly not looking for the comm, but endeavouring to keep a sense of where it was.
Trying to stay as still as possible, the fingers of his left hand inched towards the device. Slowly. He hooked an index finger over the side of the comm, his webbed palm positioned underneath so that when it finally slid free it would drop noiselessly into his palm.
But just as the comm started to slide off the medic’s belt, the delphidian shifted on his heel, and the comm fell at an angle. In his panic and seeing his chance quite literally slipping through his fingers, he snatched wildly at it. But he had already extended his reach, and the device dropped out of his fingers along with his hopes.
The comlink bound off the floor with a loud crack. Obi-Wan oggled at the spot, heart in his mouth. He must be the only being with augmented hands who could still fumble a catch.
Thick fingers wrapped around his outstretched wrist, and Obi-Wan looked back to the deplhidian with a face like thunder.
“The 0273 has displayed violent behaviour.”
Obi-Wan frowned. Had he not noticed the comm? He tried to twist his wrist free, but the blue fingers held tight.
“No I...” He didn’t finish, as the medic knocked him back into the bed for the second time, forcing the air from his lungs.
“Please. Let me talk to Qui-Gon. He won’t blame you if you do.” He wailed, as he fought back against the medic’s bulk, pinning him in place.
The medic merely grunted and trapped underneath him. Obi-Wan couldn’t see what he was doing until there was a pinch in his arm and a hiss that implied a hypo spray had been injected.
“No.” He managed to mumble deeply, before losing consciousness.
---
His neck was stiff. He rolled it to try and alleviate the ache but realised that it had been slumped on his chest, because he was no longer lying flat but at more of an angle.
He wanted to rub at his eyes but his arms wouldn’t move. As he opened them he could see thick metal restraints closed around his biceps and forearms. Alongside thick straps running across his chest they were holding him up, strapped to a strange table.
He was not in his usual room either. The table was in the centre of a round chamber, suspended above a shallow grating, through which milky liquid had pooled. Squinting down below him, it looked like the same liquid he had seen changing colour so often in his dreams.
Below his waist his deformed legs were hanging limply below him, unrestrained.
As Obi-Wan hung there, restrained and helpless, a sadness grew within him. The Jedi didn’t know where he was. Qui-Gon wouldn’t be coming.
He hadn’t even been able to put in much of an attempt to save himself, paralysed as he was.
And now he had the feeling that it had all been building to this moment. That he’d reached a point of no return.
And a part of him just wanted to shut down and wait for it all to be over with.
The sound of machinery powering up drew him out of his lament.
“Well, it’s taken a while but today is the big day.”
Obi-Wan recognised the voice of the sister before he saw her. Her blue-lined face loomed up at him from the shadows.
“Uhhh.” His throat seemed tight and dry. It didn’t seem to want to work for him. He swallowed and realised something had been wrapped around his neck too. Something else to add to his list of problems.
Reaching up, she patted a bit of the exposed skin of his forearm.
“You just relax there for a moment. This part will be over soon. I bet you’re excited.”
No, he wasn’t excited. He wanted this to stop whatever it was.
“No.” The word came out feebly, the sound crumbling as it dropped from his lips. The fact they acted like he wanted this was maddening.
“Let’s begin.”
She held up a tool to the liquid-like material under his navel and started to cut. It was a bit like a knife but had a curved blade and was in no way sharp.
Obi-Wan watched transfixed, as it started to cut through the material, for a moment forgetting it was happening to his own body. Rather than falling away in pieces as he would expect the material to act, the shiny material shattered into tiny fragments, falling heavily into the milky liquid under his feet.
And then his attention fell away to horror as what lay underneath began to be exposed.
Instead of his pale skin, lay a pattern of tiny grey angular ovals.
Obi-Wan shook his head slowly, repeatedly, indifferent to the ache in his neck.
Scales. He was looking at scales. Scales that seemed to be growing out of his own skin.
More and more of the material fell away. And Obi-Wan could only groan as the sight grew worse.
The scales continued to stretch down, covering his hips. Below those it became clear that his suspicions were right and he no longer possessed a pair of legs. Just one solid mass of scales.
Further down his knees had been erased.
The deplhidian reached the final section of the material, where his feet were and as it fell away, a large forked fin emerged.
And then the medic stepped away to turn off the floor machinery and Obi-Wan was left hanging there limply looking at his new body. His tail.
He wanted to be sick.
He would never walk again. Never fight again. He’d been turned into some kind of freakish experiment.
Would he even go back to the temple again?
The braid that still hung by his ear felt like it burned with mockery.
The delphidian let out a gasp of delight. “I think this is some of my finest work to date.”
She ran her dark blue hand down the length of Obi-Wan’s tail. He shuddered under the touch, realising for the first time that dim sensation had returned to his lower half.
“The scales are the last to grow in so the colour will still need time to develop into a lovely sheen.”
Oh thanks, he was really worried about that.
She unclipped a tendon hammer from her belt and tapped at areas underneath his waist.
He could feel each knock against the new flesh, his new muscles contracting involuntarily against the strikes of the hammer. His tail twisted and coiled where it hung, as if it was merely an instrument played by the delphidian for her entertainment.
“Reactions seem good. Shall we get you down from there and set you up somewhere more comfortable?” She asked although from her tone it was clear she wasn’t expecting Obi-Wan to reply.
She moved to the control panel at the side table, using its controls to extend the table under his tail and rotate the angle to a horizontal position. By the time it was fully flat and he was lying on his back, she had been joined in the room by her brother.
With a clunk, the mechanical restraints around his arms unlocked, and the brother undid the straps around his chest before scooping him up, one arm under his tail, the other under his shoulders.
He was carried to another room in the facility, this one looking much more like a bathroom with its fixtures and fittings. Obi-Wan understood why. In the centre, sunk into the floor was a bath, filled with clear water.
The medic lowered him down, tail first.
It was thankfully warm, and it felt strangely soothing against the monstrosity that was below his waist.
Duty discharged, the dephidian left him to it.
The tank was only about 3 feet deep, enough to cover up to his waist. They weren’t giving him the option to swim yet. Just enough to get used to being in the water.
He tried flexing. It. The tail.
It responded sluggishly and Obi-Wan moved between nauseating dread to the strangeness of the sensation returning to his lower half.
---
For the next week, he was left to his own devices. RQ was all the company he had, the droid bringing his food once a day, making sure he hadn’t drowned himself when no one was looking. Slowly he became accustomed to the water he had been dumped in, figuring out the way his new body moved, swishing the tail through the water and despairing at the sight of it.
He decided to make the most of his newfound mobility, partly as an attempt to stave off insanity. A daily routine of exercise, adapting lightsaber forms for his new body, focusing on the arm movements.
He was glad nobody could see. It was foolish. He would certainly never wield a lightsaber again. But the repetitive motions gave him something to focus on, something to quiet his mind and soothe his heart.
The padawan braid still hung behind his ear and with every passing day he grew more resentful of it. Each brush of it on his neck, the way it swung round when he turned his head.
It belonged to another person. Not the creature he was now.
Any hope of being found by Qui-Gon or another Jedi had long since fled. In fact, the longer he lay there in his tank, the feeling grew that it was better this way. He didn’t think he could bare it if Qui-Gon saw the freak he had become. If there was any justice in the Galaxy, Qui-Gon would believe he was dead, and move on with the rest of his life.
“RQ, would I be able to cut my hair?”
“I would not be allowed to provide you with any sharp tools for safety reasons.” The droid responded, as useful as ever.
Obi-Wan leant on folded arms over the side of the bath, looking up at RQ from the floor.
“Well, could I request a haircut instead?” He wanted the braid gone. If they could completely re-engineer his body surely they could also stretch to a haircut.
“I will allow your request to be submitted.”
It was the next day when he was practicing a series of shi-cho arm movements, that the female medic entered the room. He quickly halted his exercise, not wanting to reveal himself to the delphidian.
“Good day, 0273. You seem to be doing well.”
Obi-Wan stayed silent in the water, mainly out of childish spite. They never listened when he talked anyway.
She tapped on a switch on a control panel on the wall. He startled as he felt the water level start to drop, draining away through a square grate in the bottom of the tank.
She was taking his limited mobility away from him, leaving him helpless and unable to do anything but sit on the bottom of the tank.
“RQ said you wanted to cut your hair?”
“That is correct.” He muttered. Freshly exposed, the air irritated his scales and he was fed up with being made to feel so vulnerable.
“Well you’ll be glad to know there is nothing in your file that prohibits cutting your hair, so I’ll be happy to take care of it for you.”
The medic moved to kneel by the side of the tank, removing some scissors from her belt as she did so. Obi-Wan sat back against the tank wall to give the medic access to his head.
“I want the braid gone.” He stated firmly, fixing his eyes on the tank floor in front of him.
A pair of strong fingers pressed into his scalp, tilting it to the left before there was a tug on his braid. A snip sounded by his right ear.
“It’s gone.”
Obi-Wan raised a hand, brushing it over the space where the braid once was and feeling the emptiness there. A heaviness had been lifted from his chest. The last remanent was gone. He had nothing to grieve over anymore.
“Shall I neaten up the rest of it?” The medic asked.
“Go ahead.”
---
He woke again to find himself suspended. This time in a bacta tank. Or he thought it was a bacta tank, only there wasn’t any bacta in it.
The male delphidian had visited him and shoved a hypospray in his neck. Trapped in the small tank, Obi-Wan had nowhere to escape to.
A harness wrapped around his torso and shoulders leaving his tail free.
He tilted his head to the side, stretching the muscles in his neck. Something pulled at the skin.
The ache in his neck had grown worse in recent days. His throat had felt swollen. He wondered if he had got a cold. Being dragged in and out of pools of water would have that effect.
Carefully, he raised two fingers of his left hand up to his neck, gingerly placing the tips on the skin just under the corner of his jaw. Fearing what new nightmare he would find, he stroked them downwards with just the barest of touches.
When his fingers brushed over folds in his neck, his heart froze. His brain told him what they were even if his heart didn’t want to believe it.
On the other side of his neck, he felt folds there too.
Three. On each side of his neck.
Distracted by his discovery, he startled when he felt something wet touch his tail fins. His eyes darted down to see water had started to fill the bottom of the bacta tank.
That was okay. Water was a better environment for him these days, he thought bitterly.
The tank was wide enough for him to flex his tail out as the water climbed up his body towards his chest. He swirled it through the water, enjoying the wetness on his dried scales.
Only when the water level was at his shoulders did he realise it wouldn’t be stopping. When the water hit his untested gills he gasped. The liquid pressed down on his skin, working its way under the flaps, drawn towards the delicate membranes he hardly knew were there.
Presumably, they had grafted him functioning gills. His tail worked well enough.
But as the water started to inch over his mouth and nose he was struck by the thought that gills were surely harder to bioengineer than a muscular fishtail. And then, even if they did work he had no understanding of how to use them.
As he was finally fully submerged he panicked. He kicked his tail trying to propel himself towards the top opening of the tank but the harness kept him in place.
He thrashed against his binds. They wouldn’t let him drown now. They’d spent so much effort on his modifications.
He concentrated on calming his racing mind, trying to think clearly. The harness wrapped around his shoulders. If he could undo the clasps, he could slip free and swim for the surface.
Kicking his tail for buoyancy, taking weight off the chest harness, he worked his webbed fingers against the clasps, until they finally loosened.
Wiggling himself free he kicked towards the surface.
His lungs seared from lack of oxygen.
The water rushed past.
And then his head collided with something hard. And he staggered backwards, water flooding into his nose and mouth as he gasped.
He pushed his hands against the hard surface, realising with desperation that they had trapped him in the tank to drown.
As his strength dwindled, he threw the embers of it against the tank covering, scrabbling at it with his fingers. Anything to open a gap and let him breathe in sweet oxygen.
Dizziness started to descend. Blackness lingered on the edges of his vision. His strength ebbed away, his desperate flailing stilling.
His heart hammered in his chest. He was still alive, he wouldn’t go down now.
Gathering his remaining strength, one final shove was all he had.
Kicking furiously, he thrust forward, his aching arms straining against the hard durosteel that was locking him in the tank.
And then in his desperation, his final moments ticking by, he took in a breath. Water rushed into his lungs. Choking and burning.
His body reactively tried to cough it up, but it only resulted in more water being drawn down his throat.
He sank heavily, barely feeling when his tail bumped against the bottom of the tank.
His eyes fluttered shut.
A few moments of darkness passed.
Something was fluttering. Drawing in water. And then his consciousness stirred.
The darkness started to recede and his eyes cracked open.
He wasn’t dead or dying.
The gills. His gills. They were working.
For a moment his panic left him replaced by amazement at being able to breathe underwater.
It was a curious sensation. A little like he was drinking out the sides of his neck. His chest no longer rose and fell in line with working lungs.
He place the palm of a webbed hand against the wall of the tank and said a silent goodbye to the air on the other side of the transparisteel.
If he was crying then his tears were lost to the water that blanketed him.