Chapter Text
Obi-Wan was too much a Jedi to actually hate someone, but he would at least admit to really, really disliking Count Dooku. He was also too much of a Jedi to use that dislike to power the Force telekinesis he was using to try and break the damn shield generator keeping him and the 212th away from where the man and a large amount of droids were doing something with the ancient temple they’d run across him at by pure kriffing chance.
Really, they’d been stopping by what should have been a completely normal, completely ordinary farming planet as a stop gap on their way to meet up with Anakin and the 501st after that debacle with Ziro the Hutt, and had run smack dab into the man’s ship.
And of course given his luck, Talasea had some type of ancient temple hidden in its damnable mists and Dooku was trying to do something that would probably be bad for the greater galaxy with it. The heavy fire both of their cruisers had poured down on the area, combined with all the various explosions from their respective munitions had burned away a good chunk of the surrounding forest and fog, but it kept creeping back into the edges of their battle before something cleared the air again.
“You’re too late Kenobi!” The man crowed from some type of altar at the front of the temple. “With this, we shall-”
A light burst from the dias that Dooku had been standing before, releasing a shockwave that knocked the man back, though unfortunately not down.
In the heartbeats before the shockwave that hit Dooku reached him, two figures fell onto the altar from thin air, one that looked remarkably like a Mandalorian in unpainted, polished armor, and the other a slim youngish man in black. He couldn’t see much of the young man save a mop of dirty blonde hair given that the Mandalorian was practically wrapped around him taking the brunt of their fall onto the stone, but Obi-Wan felt…
Something.
Then the shockwave hit him and he bit back a curse as it lit up his senses, blew him back, and overwhelmed his mind with light.
“General!” Cody shouted next to him, grabbing him to stabilize him. He shook his head, trying to knock loose the overwhelming pressure pressing into him from the Force in the wake of the impact.
The shockwave hadn’t touched any of the droids or the clones, Obi-Wan realized. It had been a blast purely through the Force and he and Count Dooku had been the only ones actually impacted.
Count Dooku laughed as he regained his feet, practically glowing with dark joy. Obi-Wan grimaced, bracing himself and igniting his saber in a guard position covering himself and Cody. Anything that made a Sith that happy couldn’t be a good thing.
“A Sith Lord from the height of their Empire! Just as was promised!” Dooku laughed. The young man twisted on the altar, both of the new arrivals quickly pushing themselves up, heads moving to take in the situation.
“Sir?” Cody asked, and Obi-Wan hissed. He couldn’t get a good grip on the Force signature of either of the new arrivals, the Force too turbulent and shaky from whatever had brought them here. He didn’t think the young man felt like any of the Sith he had run across, but he couldn’t be sure.
“Join me, fellow Lord of the Sith!” Dooku called out, raising the hand not holding his lit lightsaber towards the young man in invitation. “Together we shall crush this Jedi and all those who stand against us!”
The young man’s gaze snapped to Dooku, done assessing whatever he needed and rose to his feet, lightsaber in hand as the Mandalorian moved to a crouch, blaster appearing in his hand.
Suddenly the blonde smirked, raised a hand, and the shield generator Obi-Wan had been trying to shred earlier was yanked into the air and crushed like it was flimsiplast even as he ignited his lightsaber.
Green.
It was green.
“I’m not a Sith,” he snapped, and before Obi-Wan could blink he had launched himself at Dooku. The Mandalorian started firing at the droids with the type of determination that seemed rather personal, but Obi-Wan wasn’t going to complain.
“Charge!” He screamed to his troopers, even as he shot forward, slicing his way through droids in a desperate push towards where the young man was dueling Dooku. Cody blasted a battle droid out from in front of him, and Obi-Wan lost himself to battle. He had to get to the battling pair. Dooku wasn’t one to be underestimated, and Obi-Wan didn’t know what was going on, but he could feel that he didn’t want to see the young man hurt the way Anakin had been when he faced the Sith.
He finally broke through the lines, trusting Cody and the rest of Ghost company to keep the droids off his six as he leapt up the stairs, using the Force to chuck a downed droid at Dooku, pressing him back enough he could slide in next to the mysterious Force user, dropping into a ready position.
The young man suddenly breathed in sharply. “Obi-Wan?” His name sounded like it was punched out of him.
He glanced over at him, fairly sure he didn’t recognize him even if he felt oddly familiar in the Force even through the chaos his arrival had brought. He didn’t get the chance to reply before the young man’s eyes suddenly widened and he threw up a hand, barely pushing them both out of the way of a blast of Force Lightning. Obi-Wan rolled with it, using the recoil momentum and a push with the Force to throw himself at Dooku.
It all slid into a blur after that. Quick Force perries, attacks, and regroups…
Obi-Wan tried multiple times to move into one of the standard pair formations taught at the temple with the blonde, but he didn’t pick up on the queues. In fact he moved… oddly.
Not entirely in a bad way, just…
“What are you?” Dooku practically growled at the young man over their crossed lightsabers. “There’s no way a half trained, slip of a brat like you should be keeping up with me!”
Oh. That was it. That was why he moved so differently. There were bits and pieces of forms and structure in his dueling, but otherwise… Otherwise it was like every move he made was guided purely by the Force rather than any specific skill or training. The technique had openings that would have left anyone less in tune with the Force in pieces than the blonde.
By all proper accounts, he shouldn't be keeping up with Dooku, or even Obi-Wan who for all he could hold his own was not afraid to admit that Dooku outclassed him in a one on one fight. Yoda had even had to let Dooku go before.
Instead the kid slipped easily into supporting Obi-Wan’s attack patterns and was a very effective swordsman, if not in a way Obi-Wan was used to.
The Force user smiled at Dooku, something oddly peaceful but more than a little taunting at the same time. “I’m a Jedi like my Father before me.”
Dooku practically roared, punching out and throwing the blonde with the Force across the dias, over the altar and slamming him into the side of the temple. Obi-Wan heard the Mandalorian call something from where he was still laying down covering fire, and had just enough time before he had to parry a blow from Dooku to spot him popping off a rocket from his forearm, giving the man enough time to switch positions to where the blonde was shakily pushing to his feet already.
Obi-Wan stilled, the strike felt… Weaker… Then he’d thought it would be. There was no way such a short fight would have in any way exhausted Dooku. Unless… The blonde, for all his bravado and power, had been a bit pale. On reflection, he’d been part tense, part dragging with no wasted movements like a soldier pushing himself past the point of fatigue because the mission still needed to be completed and needed to make every action count.
Now that he was looking closer, Dooku showed the same signs.
Could whatever Dooku have triggered caused some type of Force exhaustion in the both of them?
Obi-Wan narrowed his eyes in determination, sinking as deep as he could into the Force, re-focusing on the now, on this chance, no matter how slim. He launched himself forward, going on the offensive, slipping into Dooku’s guard, and pounding away with everything he had.
And Force be good, he forced Dooku step by step, inch by painstaking inch, back.
Suddenly, the blonde was by his side, pushing the offensive just as hard, pulling Dooku’s attention, and with an opportunity seen crystal clear in the Force, Obi-Wan had an opening.
Obi-Wan slashed downwards, right through Dooku’s guard, and in a blink, he sliced through the Count’s saber arm.
Dooku screamed in rage and pain, and a powerful concussive burst through the Force tossed both him and the blonde back. Dooku disappeared in a swirl of robes with droids covering his back. Obi-Wan darted forward to chase, barely stopping to swoop down and grab his saber, only for a call from Cody to stop him up.
“Sir! They’ve called for bombing coverage for a retreat!” Obi-Wan scowled, searching around sure enough, the remaining droids were all pulling back in the direction Dooku had raced towards.
“Sithspawn!” The blonde spat from where he crouched, the Mandalorian by his side again. He tried to get up only to falter, practically slamming into the Mandalorian’s chest as he stumbled.
“Force exhaustion?” He asked the man who scowled and nodded.
He tried to stand himself only to have to brace against a wave of dizziness as well. Even with the war, it had been a long time since he’d so thoroughly thrown himself into the Force like that. “Kark it,” he spat. “Cody! Pull our units back to the forestline! Try to intercept the bombers to buy us time!”
After that it was a mad dash to clear themselves out of range of the bombers, and they weren’t quite successful, though Obi-Wan thanked the Force for the speeders that arrived in the knick of time to get him, Cody, the blonde, and the Mandalorian out.
He tiredly kept track of the status updates called out on his comm as he watched the fighters and bombers engage over them, watching his men scramble to keep out of the way of falling debris, thankfully mostly from Separatist ships.
By the time the bombers and the last of the aerial battle was over, Obi-Wan wanted little more than to go back to his bunk and sleep for a week. Unfortunately, there were casualties littering the ground, a farming settlement to check on, two mysteriously appearing men, and an odd temple he needed to take care of.
He still took a moment to catch his breath in the quiet in the wake of the bombers. The animals in the forest and the fog hadn’t started making noise again yet, and the field medics hadn’t gotten to the point in their triage where they’d begun yelling orders about the injured. He had just a few moments before he had to deal with the aftermath of everything.
“Those were Separatist droids,” the Mandalorian finally said, breaking the silence a bit before Obi-Wan was ready for it. The blonde made an almost inquisitive sound, glancing up at him before locking his gaze on Obi-Wan. “They looked new.”
“Yes, CIS battle droids,” Obi-Wan said. “As a Sith Lord and Separatist leader Dooku would definitely have some fresh off the assembly line.” Neither of them looked like they recognized the name. “You told Dooku you were a Jedi,” even if he mentioned his father, which was impossible given the code. “Where are you both stationed?”
The two looked at each other, before the blonde raised a gloved hand to wave it back and forth in the way Anakin did when he meant ‘kind of’ in the way that really meant not at all, but he was trying to be nice. “Nowhere, really. We’re more what you’d call an independent unit. Are you Obi-Wan Kenobi?”
He blinked. “Yes, I’m General Kenobi. This is Commander Cody, of the 212th,” he added, hoping it would spur introductions from the two.
Unfortunately that wasn’t the case. “Hmm,” the blonde said, leaning back in the Mandalorian’s firm grip so his head rested on the man’s pauldron. “That temple had at least 7 distinct languages on it.” Obi-Wan stared at him, he’d noted the various engravings, but hadn’t had a chance to get a closer look. “Initial dating showed it to be at least 7,000 years old.”
Obi-Wan started. He’d known it was old, but… “That puts it in the Pre-Manderon Period, possibly at the time of the Second Great Schism.”
The blonde tilted his head, a bright smile that Obi-Wan would generously call practiced on his face. “Sorry, I’m basically bantha fodder when it comes to history.”
He raised an eyebrow. That tone was exactly like Anakin’s when he wanted to prod something. “Oh, I don’t know if it would be widely covered. The Jedi order broke in two and it was followed by the Hundred-Year Darkness, where Jedi fought Jedi.”
The blonde met his eyes dead on, before making a slight noise of agreement. “Yes, something like that from 7,000 years ago feels very niche, not surprised I hadn’t heard of that.” He sighed loudly. “It does give me a clue about how we ended up here at this time though.”
Obi-Wan took a deep breath and applied all the patience he had learned as Anakin’s master. “And that is?”
The blonde gave that same odd smile again, “oh, you know, the usual whenever something weird happens.”
“Crazy Force osik,” the Mandalorian sighed, while a short, strained jolt of laughter burst from not just the blonde, but half of Ghost Company behind him.
Obi-Wan sighed.
“Sir,” Cody said. “We might want to handle this after the clean up.”
That was quite true. “Agreed. Cody, once the casualties are taken care of, get a unit cataloging the temple-”
“No.” The blonde interrupted him. He turned and looked at him. He was still practically limp in the Mandalorian’s arms, definitely almost passed out and looking like it wouldn’t take more than a stiff breeze to knock him down, but that practiced smile hadn’t left his face. The Mandalorian on the other hand, while he looked a bit dusty, was standing as sure and strong, just as steady as Cody did at Obi-Wan’s own side.
“No?” He asked.
The blonde nodded, smile finally fading leaving him looking almost sad. “We need to destroy the temple.”
Obi-Wan blinked. “Say again?”