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"If you strike me down, I shall become--" And Obi-Wan jolts, eyes going wide as he stumbles back, escaping Vader's blade by sheer luck. He crashes against the wall, eyes wide, blade up in a reflexive defensive.
"What," he rasps, voice trembling slightly, eyes wild, and it would all be very satisfying if his gaze wasn't clearly pointed somewhere over Vader's shoulder. "What..." His breath hitches. "What the fuck."
And Vader--Vader does not look, because he is more professional than that, and because he is still recovering from the comeback clusterfuck, and because his heart is full of Endless Rage and Hate. But he does kind of tilt his head, ever so slightly, to better follow Obi-Wan's gaze.
What he sees is a crowd of troopers making their rather ungainly way towards them from the other side of the hanger. And striding at their head, firm and confident with his rifle raised high, a figure whose red-and-black armor whose Force presence, Vader has to admit, is rather distinct even after all those years under the chip.
"Oh," Obi-Wan says with a strangled squawk. "Oh, shit."
Okay, Vader can work with this. Wave Obi-Wan's poor long-lost lover in front of his face (hold on, were they lovers or just fuckbuddies? Ana Vader could never really keep track of these things on the spectrum between Satine and Hondo Ohnaka), see what I've turned him into, blah blah blah.
But Obi-Wan doesn't look heartbroken. In fact, his back is straightening a little, a bit of clarity coming back into his eyes, his hand steadying on his saber. He looks younger, somehow, than he did just a minute, to the point there almost seems to be more red in his hair.
"You absolute fucking bastard," he says, crisp and precise as he's ever been, and a blaster leaps into his robes to land in his free hand.
Now, blasters, as Obi-Wan has said many, many times throughout Anakin Skywalker's strange and troubling youth, are quite uncivilized. But when you have lost pretty much everything and everyone you cared about and are hiding in the desert with only bantha fur to sob into for comfort, the "uncivilized" no longer seems like quite so alarming a prospect. And besides, even the kookiest of old kooks can't bust out a saber for defense all the time.
So, blasters. So, fight-to-the-somewhat-intentioned-death being derailed. So, Vader gawking rather than showing off his rather impressive Sith magic to deflect the several blasts Obi-Wan fired into his chest. Not enough to be lethal, but enough to make several circuits very unhappy and leave him sprawling into an undignified tumble.
So, things took a bit of a turn that day.
"Ben?" the blond boy calls, and PT-2224 wonders idly why said boy looks rather like a certain long-dead Senator. "Be--holy shit!"
Lord Vader goes flying (good) and PT-2224 rounds his blaster on the strange hooded figure he had been ordered not to shoot at before, deciding that mission parameters have shifted now that His Tall Dark and Whiny's capacity for drama has bitten him on the metal ass yet again. Perhaps once everyone is dead, PT-224 will be free of this strange headache he's been getting on and off ever since the rebellious princess was dragged on board.
To his surprise, he peers through his sights to find the hooded man bolting towards him at a dead run, eyes wild with an expression of pure joy that PT-2224 has not seen on anyone save the Emperor, Glory Honor to his Name and Long Be His Fingernails, for a very long time.
"CODY!" the stranger screams, loud and jubilant as a war cry.
PT-2224 blinks, finger stilling on the trigger for a heartbeat. The chip sends an angry pulse through his head that whispers fire, but the normally fluid motion hitches now, caught in place by the echoing name.
"Who the hell is Cody?" he mumbles, almost to himself.
"Sorry, dear," the man calls, and waves his hands. PT-2224's eyes roll up in his head and he falls, with just enough time to think At least I won't have to sit through one of those godawful performance reviews again before the world goes black.
Perhaps Luke should have expected something like this. Old Ben had certainly gained the reputation of being an eccentric individual in his time, and just because he was suddenly revealed to be a wise and fearless Jedi knight didn't mean that that had to change all of a sudden.
But. Still. Being a wise and fearless Jedi knight had never before brought the image of Old Ben sprinting across the hangar with an unconscious Purge Trooper slung over his shoulder like a bag of grimly fashionable potatoes, lightsaber whirling around his head as he deflected the panicked blasterfire from the crowd of stormtroopers behind him.
Through the closing hangar doors, Luke can glimpse Vader attempting to stagger upright, fearsomely growling something that sounds suspiciously like, "Knew the old bitch would think with his--"
"START THE FUCKING SHIP!" Old Ben shrieks, waving at Han. "START THE FUCKING SHIP, JACKASS!"
Normally Han would bristle at that, but the atmosphere suggests that it is, indeed, time to start the fucking ship. So he leads the charge into the Falcon and launches into the pilot's chair with an almost balletic grace, the rest of the motley crew on his heels. Obi-Wan brings up the rear and Force-slams the door closed behind him with a bang.
He collapses to his knees as the Falcon hurtles towards the exit and lowers the Purge Trooper to the ground with surprising gentleness. "Fuck," he breathes. "Fucking hell, that fucking bastard, I'm going to put him on a fucking spit next time--"
"Ben, what the hell--"
"Not now, Luke," Ben says absentmindedly "We need to get out of here before your father gets another chance to take away everything I have."
"Wait, what--"
"Princess, I'll assume you'll be manning the guns? I'm going to try and find the tracking chip. If Cody's here, then they might have actually had the foresight to give us one. And I'll need to comm Ahsoka and Rex, ask about that surgical droid they've been using..."
Luke suspects Leia would usually be quite enthusiastic about manning the guns, but at the moment she and Luke are gaping down with twin expressions of shock. "General Kenobi," she breathes, "That's a Purge Trooper--"
"Indeed," Old Ben says, reaching up to undo the clasps of the trooper's helmet. "And in his own way, as much as prisoner of that dreadful station as you were, my dear." R2D2 beeps enthusiastically in agreement, rolling up to peer down at the Purge Trooper with what appears to be fondness.
The clasps come free with a hiss, exposing a brown-skinned man with his eyes closed, breathing gently as if he's getting his first good nap in a long while. Ben brushes a lock of curly black hair out of the man's eyes, exposing a jagged scar running down one side of his face.
"Hello, there," Ben says softly, reaching down to squeeze the Trooper's hand. "I missed you."
He scoops the Trooper up again and rises to his feet, smiling brightly at Luke and Leia. "Well? Come along, children, we have fascists to blow up."