Work Text:
The Geonosian sun was mercilessly beating down on the arena sands and Obi-Wan was wondering what was holding up his execution. He’d rather like to get on with it.
The answer, unfortunately, came when Anakin and Senator Amidala were dragged in and chained to their own posts. Obi-Wan’s own hands were starting to tingle from being chained over his head without access to the Force for so long. The Geonosian guards were quick, efficient, and stayed outside Obi-Wan’s kicking range. Not that trying it would have helped, as Anakin was also in Force-suppression and Padmé had been stripped of (obvious) weapons. They were all heavily outnumbered.
“Anakin,” Obi-Wan asked as the Geonosians scurried out of the arena, “what are you doing here?”
Anakin gave him the shameless grin Obi-Wan just knew was going to precede something insane. “We came to rescue you, Master!”
Obi-Wan slowly looked up at the cuffs pinning him to the pole, then over at Anakin’s. He shook his head and went back to watching the gate into the arena. “Great job, Padawan.”
“Aw, c’mon Mas—”
“Shush,” Obi-Wan said, squinting at the gate, unsure if it had started moving, “I need to focus and get three of us out of here instead of just me.”
The grinding of the gate cut off whatever Anakin was about to snark back with. The crowd roared as three clumps of Geonosian handlers emerged, heavy chains or electric pikes in hand. A low-slung, four-eyed, four-legged beast with three wicked claws per foot charged ahead of the handlers (who quickly retreated back behind the gate). Its tail whipped back and forth while the quills along its spine flared upright.
“Look Anakin, a nexu!” Obi-Wan said. A reasonable choice for an execution, they were predatory animals afterall and frequently used in gladiator matches. Anakin’s groaned. Given the nexu’s light builds, Obi-Wan assumed the other two animals would be the heavyweights of this encounter. He was right; not a second later, a reek charged past its handlers with an acklay hot on its heels.
The reek’s smell reached them before the reek itself was halfway across the arena; Padmé gagged and Anakin was obviously trying to stifle his own reaction to the smell. Obi-Wan wasn’t enjoying it much either, but he had other things to deal with.
One of the reek’s handlers hadn’t let go of the chains in time. They were being dragged across the sand, at least until the reek spun on its back legs and tossed its head. One of the cheek tusks caught the unfortunate handler; their shriek was cut short.
The acklay didn’t slow down, charging past the reek directly towards Obi-Wan, wonderful. It scuttled forward, its six limbs making short work of the distance towards them. Its carapace clacked as it reared up, the hardened claw on a front limb slashing out as Obi-Wan dropped into a crouch. The claw snagged on the stretched out rope holding Obi-Wan up. It darted its head forward and razor-sharp teeth sheared through the rope like it didn’t exist.
“Oh good boy,” Obi-Wan murmured to himself, rolling forward. Coming out of his roll underneath the acklay’s rear, Obi-Wan noted the stubby tail giving a couple of tentative wags. It was nice for confirmation once again that animals liked him even without the Force. The acklay shifted a hind leg closer and Obi-Wan took the offer: the backleg ridges were just the right shape to pop open the latch keeping his Force-supression cuffs closed.
The Force filled Obi-Wan’s senses again. Let’s see now. Padmé was up above the ground, she must have climbed her execution pole somehow. She’d certainly grown into an amazing woman. Anakin was still on the ground, the nexu was zig-zagging towards Obi-Wan while dodging the reek, and the reek was stomping the unfortunate handler’s body further into the sand. That handler must have really pissed the reek off—that was ‘this is my territory’ behavior.
Obi-Wan grabbed the acklay’s tail, shoved a boot in the gap between the nodules making up its leg, and scrambled up. He noted that while the acklay screeched and waved its two forelimbs, the rear one he was climbing was rock steady. Obi-Wan quickly clambered over the acklay’s back.
“Good boy,” Obi-Wan said, sitting where the neck joined the main body and giving the acklay’s body a few solid thumps of heavy pressure. A small rumble coursed through the acklay. Obi-Wan looked back around the arena.
Dooku and the Geonosians hadn’t sent any new animals in the arena yet, good. Padmé was eyeing Obi-Wan; with a couple clicks and an image pressed from Obi-Wan to the acklay, it scuttled towards Padmé’s pole. Anakin was still chained the pole they'd started at, attempting to pick the cuff’s lock. Padmé gingerly swung herself onto the acklay and sat down behind Obi-Wan. The reek had swung back around, territory successfully defended, and was now ambling over towards Obi-Wan. The nexu took a running leap and landed on the reek’s back. Obi-Wan felt the reek's annoyed resignation as it trotted over and alongside the acklay.
Obi-Wan ignored Anakin’s gagging at the reek’s smell as he worked the pin latching Anakin’s cuffs closed out with the Force as well as leaning over to pat the reek. “Oh poor baby, they’ve been feeding you all wrong, haven’t they?” Obi-Wan cooed at it. He Force-lifted Anakin up and plopped him at the reek’s neck, letting the cuffs fall off as Anakin flew.
The reek grumbled and whined before leaning in for more pats.
“Yes I know you can have some meat,” Obi-Wan said, “but no plants at all? That’s not good for herbivores now is it? Let’s see what we can do about—”
The evacuation of the reeks bowels was loud, long, and lived up to its name’s association with awful smells. Anakin’s gagged even harder and some Geonosians in the stand began retching.
Obi-Wan looked over at Anakin pulling his shirt over his nose at the smell. “When are you going to practice that filtering technique I’ve taught you, hmm?” They ran into animals every mission after all.
“I don’t smell anything,” Padmé said.
Over his shoulder, Obi-Wan tossed, “I’m filtering it out for you.”
“Thank you,” she said primly. The nexu headbutted her shoulder; she started scratching behind its eye ridges, paused in surprise, then went back to it.
“Master!”
“Filter—”
“I can’t! I just can’t get it! Why can’t I ride with you?”
“Too much weight,” Obi-Wan said, shifting his attention back to the non-sapient member of their expanded party.
There was a pause in the stream the reek was letting out, then a burst of air, followed by one last evacuated piece of poop. It could be worse, Obi-Wan reflected — at least reeks didn’t have liquid evacuations.
“There you go,” Obi-Wan cooed at the reek, “that’s better now isn’t it?”
The reek rumbled and (carefully) rubbed its head on Obi-Wan’s leg. The acklay shifted uncomfortably but didn’t move far.
Obi-Wan pressed an image to all his new friends of them leaving. He rather liked the look of that one spot in the arena wall — seemed slightly more flimsy and was far enough away for everyone to build up some speed. The nexu started to grumble at being left out of the fun since he was to light to barrel through, at least until Obi-Wan added the image of it running ahead and clawing up any of the Geonosians who hadn’t run away yet. The reek started pawing the ground, building up to charge.
A screech of metal ratcheting up interrupted them. The acklay spun towards the gate, Padmé tightening her grip around Obi-Wan. The gate slammed up and open, the metal bouncing off the upper beam. Anakin gagged on the wave of cold-Darkness and rot pouring out the opening; Obi-Wan’s shields reflexively tightened.
“What is that?” Padmé gasped as spindly legs pulled a round, fuzzy torso dripping black gooey hairs lurching into view.
“Sithspawn,” Obi-Wan breathed.
Anakin’s head whipped around. “Obi-Wan!” he cried, scandalized.
Obi-Wan felt Padmé’s arms tighten around his waist. “No, Anakin, that is literally a Sithspawn creature!”
Eye-stalks popped up and swiveled towards them.
“Split up!” Obi-Wan yelled, urging the acklay forward.
The Sithspawn scuttled after Obi-Wan and Padmé, Anakin on the reek charging away in the opposite direction. The nexu was crouched low on the reek’s back, hissing and whining as they went.
As fast as the acklay ran, the Sithspawn kept closing the distance.
“Bloody Force-eaters,” Obi-Wan muttered, looking for somewhere the acklay could climb. Plenty of places for the nexu, if it wasn’t too terrified, but not so much for the acklay and them or the reek.
“Literally?” Padmé shouted over the cheering crowd. “Why the haran isn’t it going after Anakin?”
“The history books said they were constructed to hunt down Jedi but would eat Fallen or Dark Force users too, including Sith,” Obi-Wan shouted. They both dropped, flattening themselves against the acklay’s neck; thick, gooey blackness sailed over their heads to splatter against the arena walls. “I don’t know why—”
Obi-Wan’s stream of information cut off as the Sithspawn lept in front of the acklay. The acklay made an unfortunate noise between a scrape and a screech as it began backing up towards the arena walls. It didn’t respond to Obi-Wan trying to direct it, both physically and with the Force, fear overriding everything else.
The Sithspawn pawed at the ground, much like the reek earlier. That– that wasn’t noted behavior in the books Obi-Wan had read. More thick, gooey blackness flew towards them — neatly bracketting the acklay on either side.
Oh. Oh dear Force.
Obi-Wan lowered his shields a smidge.
An image slammed into his brain, tarry and tacky but clear: the Sithspawn (ever-hunger, what an apt self-image) wanted Obi-Wan to give it a boost at the apex of a leap.
Oh, they were right below Dooku’s box weren’t they? Well then. Obi-Wan did briefly wonder if ever-hunger was just this individual or all of its kind, but that wasn’t really relevant right now. A short countdown between them and Obi-Wan did as ever-hunger wanted, sending it an image of Dooku with a red lightsaber in warning as well. A sense of flicking aside an annoyance came back, along with the sounds of a lightsaber turning on, a jetpack firing up, and blasters letting loose. A sudden flare of fear in the Force had Obi-Wan cursing; who the haran brought a child to an execution? Obi-Wan’s control wasn’t as good when he couldn’t see what he was pulling, but —
Dozens of Force-signatures flared as numerous Jedi stopped hiding. Mace’s wrapped around the child (Boba, that was their name) and landed in the sands in front of the aklay. Who was much calmer since ever-hunger had left.
“Sithspawn, Obi-Wan, really?” Mace drawled, a rough hug in the Force showing his worry.
“I didn’t know! It’s not like I’ve run into one before!”
Mace passed Boba up to them, nearly a throw, before running over to the reek circling back towards them. Obi-Wan pressed an image of the arena wall closest to the ‘port to everyone, sapient and non-sapient alike. Even ever-hunger. It was their best spot to retreat through. Mace pressed back agreement as he grabbed one of the reek’s cheek horns and swung himself on, behind Anakin.
“Uh…” Boba squirmed in his perch in front of Obi-Wan. The acklay charged after the reek, barrelling towards the wall, slamming Boba back into Obi-Wan. Everyone let out an ‘oof’, even Padmé, but Obi-Wan didn’t try to stop or slow anyone down. He wanted out of here just as much as everyone else.
All the gates to the arena flipped up and lines of droids marched out, blasters blazing. The other Jedi Obi-Wan had sensed jumped into the arena, running alongside the parade of former executionary animals, batting away the blaster bolts. The entire population of Geonosians in the sands devolved into a screaming, panicking mass.
“We’ll drop you off at your father’s ship,” Obi-Wan shouted to Boba, grabbing the lightsaber Master Kolar threw out of the air. “You should be safe to wait there.” He returned a number of blaster bolts to sender.
“You’re not kidnapping me?”
“We don’t do that!” Obi-Wan was really tired of that particular slander.
The reek slammed into the stands, scattering Geonosians in front of itself every which way. The fortunate ones were scattering under their own power. Obi-Wan was fairly sure Mace and Anakin had contributed to the structural weakness of the walls.
Boba squirmed. “Would you kidnap me though? Please?”
Padmé and Obi-Wan just stared at him. Good thing the acklay was following the reek on its own.
“What? I want to see the Jedi Temple!”
“You mean get your father, the bounty hunter known for his ability to kill Jedi, intel on the Temple.”
Boba slumped, pouting radiating in the Force.
“No.” Obi-Wan returned several blaster bolts to sender with more oomph than strictly necessary. “Nice try though.”
Bobs remained quiet as the acklay charged through the hole the reek made, after the reek carried Mace and Anakin through. Obi-Wan was glad for it as droids swarmed towards them. Enough droids were bunching up ahead of them to slow the Jedi’s group down, even with the reek still plowing through the droid. The droids entering the arena were plugging up the exit hole faster than Jedi could pick them off. Obi-Wan grabbed at a droid’s blaster, surprised when it actually flew over to them, doubly so when Boba snatched it out of the air and began accurately firing back. With a mental sigh and apology to the Force for child endangerment, Obi-Wan grabbed another one and handed it off to Padmé. She too seemed happier fighting back.
There were quite a number of Force-presences above, moving quickly through the atmosphere.
One of the Jedi in the rear guard went down with a scream.
Master Yoda was up there. Obi-Wan had to focus on the here and now, he couldn’t keep speculating whether Master Yoda would get here in time.
Obi-Wan grabbed the Jedi who’d gone down before the droids stomped over them. Obi-Wan drapped them—oh, Force, they were a Padawan—over the acklay; once Padmé got a good grip on them, Obi-Wan pressed an image to the acklay of following Mace insistently and then kicked off to take the Padawan’s place in the rear guard.
More and move of the Jedi were starting to take injuries, blaster bolts they could no longer completely dodge or redirect. The circle was closing in on them.
“Anakin, Force-wave!” Obi-Wan shouted.
There was no response from Anakin. His bond was still there and open, he wasn’t downed.
Mace landed next to Obi-Wan. “Cover me.”
Obi-Wan shifted slightly, his Soresu form the best cover he could provide as Mace concentrated.
Like a stone dropped in a still pond, a strong wave centered on Mace rippled out, bowling droids and only droids over. The whine of a large number of spaceships broke through the clouds. The sides of the ships were open and waves of blaster bolts lanced out, riping through droids both downed and still marching.
The clones had arrived with Master Yoda.
The ships further ensured droids wouldn’t be getting up by landing on the ones Mace had downed. Clone soldiers hopped out in formation, taking up defensive stances around the Jedi.
A larger soldier, with armor slightly more remeniscent of Mandalorian armor than their siblings’, marched up and saluted Mace. “This is your extraction, sirs.”
“Did you bring any demolitions?” Obi-Wan asked rather urgently. He was afraid he’d shaded into demanding.
The large soldier looked him up and down, his helmet tipping bare centimeters. “You have coordinates?”
“Yes, the factories for these droids.”
A sense of a rather large water predator with too many teeth spotting slow, weak prey came off the soldier. His voice was still perfectly flat though as he said, “With me, sir.”
“Go,” Mace said, “I brought others who can handle the animals.”
Startled screaming reached them from the side closest to the arena and a large number of blasters all trained in one direction.
“Hold fire, hold fire,” Obi-Wan shouted, more for the soldiers’ sake than ever-hunger’s, as he ran for the front of the line. If it had survived against Dooku and Fett… It was standing several meters past the defensive circle when Obi-Wan arrived. “It’s with me,” he said, absently noting Mace and the large soldier had come with.
The soldier hissed several expletives wrapped around wondering what it was. He made an abortive grab for Obi-Wan as Obi-Wan walked towards the Sithspawn, but Mace stopped him and began explaining.
“Hello there,” Obi-Wan said, pushing past a number of soldiers radiating deep unhappiness as well as wanting to protect him. Obi-Wan really hoped none of them jumped the blaster, that would make this whole thing quite messy.
Ever-hunger’s eye-stalks shot up and its center mass bobbed up and down a couple times. It rocked backwards and forwards a couple times, then a huge glob of inky black tar-like substance came out, splattering on the ground. Its eye stalks definitely swivelled towards Obi-Wan and he could swear its backend (or at least the end away from him and the clones) waggled.
“Oh… uh… than—” Obi-Wan cut off as the tar rapidly peeled back from two lightsabers and disappated in whisps. Obi-Wan stepped closer for a better look. “My goodness, thank you,” he said, the last remnants of tar evaporating as he picked up both his own saber and one he didn’t recognize. Quite possibly one of the injured Jedi’s, maybe even the Padawan he’d swapped places with. He looked up at ever-hunger. “Thank you, this is very special to me.”
Ever-hunger was definitely wagging its rear end. Then it began rocking backwards and forwards again. Obi-Wan hastily stepped to the side. Another ball of inky black tar-like something came out. There were two more lightsabers in there, Obi-Wan could feel screaming coming off of at least one of them. The stuff didn’t peel off this time. It was sloughing off, yes, but much much more sluggishly, leaving behind tendrils wrapped around the handles. Oh, osik, also a blaster with part of a hand still wrapped around the stock. A blaster that looked just like Fett’s.
The tar finished disapating, as much as it was going to, Obi-Wan would wager. It clung most around where the kybers were sitting inside the handles, but Obi-Wan could recognize them now.
Dooku’s and Anakin’s.
Mace gently pulled him back by the shoulder as he stared at the ‘sabers. “Go,” Mace said softly. “You know where the factories are. I’ll take care of this,” he said, wrapping the ends of his sleeves around the saber handles. His brows contracted briefly as his shields pulled tighter. Mace nodded at ever-hunger. “You’re the only one can handle this helpful gentlebeing.
Obi-Wan looked up at ever-hunger, furiously wagging its rear, and with a deep breath, set it all aside for now. With an image in the Force, ever-hunger agreed not to eat anyone in the armor or shining like Obi-Wan and tucked in behind as Obi-Wan sprinted for the ship the large clone from earlier was gesturing him towards.
As they lifted off to hopefully nip off this war in the bud, Obi-Wan couldn’t help but think again about the tendrils wrapped around Anakin’s lightsaber. They had been snuggling up against the case outside Anakin’s kyber as tightly as those on Dooku’s. What had Anakin done?