May the Fourth Be With The All Skate

[jedi_interrupted]

The bar shifts, or it changed when no one was looking, and now resembles a certain cantina popular with the villainy and scum, as well as more upstanding folks. The air is dryer than usual, and a taste of grit and sand just hangs in the air. It just makes you want some blue milk doesn't it?

Has your character changed? Perhaps...who can tell? The Landlord I suppose but they aren't talking.

[ooc: HI and Welcome to a Star Wars themed All Skate, the best way to celebrate May the Fourth! Party style post. You do not have to interact with any of my characters to play.
The Rules are simple:
- This post, and any post with the subject heading ALL SKATE are open to everyone.
That means old characters, new characters, retired characters, doubles of characters, original characters, non-canon compliant characters.
- We will all play nice and adhere to Wheaton's Law: Don't be a dick.
- Gratuitous behavior, either of a violent or sexual nature, will not be tolerated in the Comm. Take that to an OOM, and then Content Warning the hell out of it before you link it.
- Communication is paramount. Everyone's keyed up, let's just have some fun.]

Comments

[acertainpov]

Kenobi, of course, isn't interested in his usual goal of winning, although his desire to get this over with as quickly as possible is as old as the stars. But he brings his lightsaber down to meet the slash, stepping quickly to the side as he does. Keep moving, keep safe. Eventually even Anakin's going to run out of steam.

[forceimbalance]

Anakin might; Vader is certain he does not have Skywalker's pathetic physical limitations.

Feint outside, parry high; he remember the rhythms of their fights.

Fight.

still burning

He keeps his momentum up. He's stronger, literally, physically, than Kenobi. If he can just bear down hard enough... "And all your failures will be complete," because Kenobi has to be reminded that his destiny is to fail over and over and over again, "when the Force brings my son to me."

He lets his saber slide off Obi-wan's to circle back up lightning-fast and bring it down in a powerful overhead slash.

[acertainpov]

Any watcher may not be able to fathom how a man pushing 60 like Obi-Wan, and looking older, would be able to move fast enough. Especially as he doesn't move lightning-fast, it's just that the saber is in the way again.

He hasn't fought for a long long time. He hasn't done anything mcuh other than commune with the Force, and that changes a man.

"He is not your son, Darth."

He says it simply, surely. The most true thing he can say.

"His father - Anakin Skywalker - is dead. Or do you not remember?"

He has to put all his strength into his push to get the red saber away from him.

[forceimbalance]

Something wonderful has happened.

Nope.

Every glass in a thirty-foot radius shatters. Most of the furniture gets flung away from its looming black epicenter, too. Some of the less durable chairs snap under it.

Ani, I'm pregnant.

Vader snarls wordlessly. He uses the momentum of Obi-wan resisting that slash to slash backhand, which should leave him wide open, except that it's a feint. His left arm snaps forward to hurl Kenobi against a wall, his hand open.

"You do not have the right." His hand begins closing. No, no, it isn't satisfying enough. He stalks forward, intent on getting his hand literally, physically on the old man's neck. His lightsaber drops behind him, ready for whenever he has decided precisely how he'll kill Kenobi this time.

He will not lose the boy, not like--

The Force tightens as he gets closer.

padme

"The boy is mine."

[acertainpov]

Obi-Wan Kenobi says nothing.

He couldn't say anything if he had anything to say, because he's flown backwards against the wall of the bar, hard enough to break ribs he's been too old to break safely since before his last fight with Anakin. The air is forced out of his lungs and then there's the pressure closing around his throat to stop any of it getting back in.

His lightsaber drops to the ground, closing as it does.

Obi-Wan goes limp, waiting the glove to close around its target, and he closes his eyes, ready.

(He knows he's not going to have to wait long.)

[cute_bruiser]

"Gentlemen."

Oh, Molly is not impressed.

There is a woman between themn protecting Kenobi. A woman with a silver badge on her shirt and a shield on her arm; badge and shield and woman all afire with pink light.

"Enough."

Vader wants anger? He can have it.

[forceimbalance]

Vader is just angry enough not to care.

With Kenobi is in no state to be a threat (good, he can take his time this time), Vader cares far more about ridding himself of anything standing between him and Kenobi. So he drops his grip, not caring how hard or not the old man hits the floor, and takes a swing at her shield with his lightsaber before shoving at her with the Force with the power no longer focused on Kenobi.

"No."

[acertainpov]

Obi-Wan Kenobi slides gratefully to the floor, the air rushing into his lungs as his body slumps, broken on the floor.

He then uses the first flush of oxygen to say “not a moment too soon” as he lets Molly handle it.

[cute_bruiser]

Yes, well, sometimes it takes longer than a girl could like to get her work gear on, and she has a feelibg that this time she's going to need it.

Molly is braced solidly against the floor, when the shove comes; she flicks her wrist, retracting the shield into her gauntlet again just as the saber comes slashing towards it...

...And takes advantage of Vader's change of balance to grab barehanded for the lightsaber's plasma, yanking it forwards and bringing her free fist up and across in a punch.

[forceimbalance]

Kenobi never knows when to just stop talking.

Not Vader's problem right now; he'll attend to that later.

His problem right now is that almost no one ever punches him, no one punches him with that kind of strength, and no one grabs the blade of a lightsaber. (Well. He does, rarely. Skywalker may have taught his apprentice how to, if dire straits called for it.)

The respirator stumbles as Vader flies back. Taking his lightsaber from him is not okay. With his focus freed up further, more of the furniture (booths included) rips itself free to hurl themselves in quick and continuous succession at Molly.

Quietly, in the middle, the lightsaber clicks off. Under the distraction of the barrage, it starts flying back towards the hand that made it.

(Maybe a couple chairs and a table throw themselves at Kenobi's head. Vader really wants him to shut up.)

[acertainpov]

He stops talking.

Obi-Wan slowly breathes in, filling his lungs with the air he’s just lost, and closes his eyes again slowly as he breathes out.

Some of the objects flying at Molly just stop, lose their momentum and drop to the floor. Others slow down considerably in their trajectory.

Obi-Wan himself grimaces in pain and rolls to the side as a chair smashes where his head was seconds ago.

[cute_bruiser]

"I got it," Molly tells the old guy, gritting her teeth; she can ignore what's being rained on her, but her concern is that no civilians get hit in the process. "Try to mind everyone else."

(But the space he gives her gives her chance to grab the saber handle before it can return to its owner.)

She is inexorable; she might not be the quickest, but she won't be stopped. Never mind the lightsaber blade - the thing she'll grab next is going to be Vader.

[forceimbalance]

Kenobi gets another table hurled at his face for his trouble in keeping Vader's lightsaber away from him.

Beneath the helmet, he smiles. 'Try to mind everyone else?'

He can work with weakness.

Molly certainly two more booths thrown at her face (he's considering yanking something more structural) but not consecutively. The Rebel who has been watching him has his blaster out now, which Vader considers more than provocation enough. between the first and second booths--and in direct line of fire for the second one--Cassian Andor gets flung bodily towards Molly's midsection.

(It is not Vader's fault the foolish Rebel was closest at hand.)

[acertainpov]

Obi-Wan sits up,with physical difficulty despite his ability to ignore the pain. From his seat against the wall he throws out his hand, and catches the boy in mid air, just long enough to stop his flight.

Though when he has to dodge a table, the boy is dropped.

“Vader." He says it loudly, weighing it down with just enough Force to get his attention, because Obi-Wan's not sure he has the oxygen to shout.

"It's me you want." He struggles to stand, to face him. Maybe if Vader can finish Obi-Wan, he'll stop destroying the bar.

[cute_bruiser]

"Oh, we're playing those games?"

It's not the first time she's had to fight a telekinetic.

(It probably won't be the last.)

In all the time she's spent at Milliways, Molly has thrown only one punch that used her full powers. Then, she'd had one thing on her mind, and one thing only: that she would break her arms, her legs, her neck - if she even could - before she let anyone else get hurt.

This time, though, she doesn't punch: what Vader gets, instead, is the full force of her slamming into him like an avalanche. It's not exactly rage: it's too cold for that, too icy; she's almost grinning, but there's no humour in it.

"In my bar? You want to hurt people in my bar?"

And then she is punching - both hands, like a boxer - and all of her is afire with pink light, until she finally manages to get into range and rams her head into that mask.

"And you think that would make me stop? You think that would ever - ever - make me stop?"

[acertainpov]

And that, it would appear, is that.

As soon as Vader goes down, Obi-Wan stops trying to get up, to interfere, and just slumps back, with a very audible groan.

He'd quite like to have a lie down, if that's okay?

[cute_bruiser]

Suddenly, everything seems to have gone very quiet.

Molly... takes a long, deep breath.

"All right, then," she says, very mildly, and looks down at Vader, slumped on the floor at her feet.

She's pretty sure she hasn't killed him: she hadn't meant to kill him, although if he'd actually managed to hit her with Cassian it might have ended differently.

Her powers stay on, but she forces herself to unclench her fists before she stoops over him, examining him as best she can through the crumpled remains of the mask. The grinding whoosh-whiish of his respirator is very loud - louder than before, or so it seems to her - against the backdrop of relative silence.

"You are a mess, dude."

[acertainpov]

"The armour keeps him alive," Obi-Wan's voice rings out, clear and helpful. He's breathing slowly and deeply, one hand on his own midsection where he's interrupted his own attempt at force-healing his own injuries.

"It would not be a good idea to attempt to remove it."

It's not always obvious - people walk around in armour they're not cybernetically and alchemically dependent on all the time.

[cute_bruiser]

"Duly noted," Molly says, sounding uncharacteristically dry.

"I'm mostly trying to figure out if he needs a medic. And if there's a medic he won't kill if he wakes up. You able to tell me if I can just chuck him in the cells?"

[acertainpov]

"On that I can tell you he almost certainly will."

Obi-Wan stands up, shakily, and makes his way over. His slowness is less to do with his injuries now and more to do with making it absolutely clear that he's not about to start anything.

"But I might be able to help before that happens, if you'll let me?"

[cute_bruiser]

She considers Obi-Wan for a long moment; the pink fire that had lit her whole body a few short punches ago is slowly abating, though it still glows through her hair and eyes.

"Cells first," she says, eventually.

She shoves the lightsaber in her hoodie pocket, carefully scooping Vader up in both her arms before she stands. (There's a lot of him, and she doesn't particularly want to do him any further damage at this point; on the other hand, she's carried big men in capes before.)

"I don't need him coming round and starting Round 2."

And if the other guy is prepared to follow her, it occurs to her that it will be a great way to cell them both with minimal opportunity for objections. And minimal people to get hurt if there is.

[acertainpov]

Obi-Wan is perfectly willing to follow her - he doesn't want to let Vader out of his sight until the bar is safe, in any case.

He does, on his way, reach out one hand to his own discarded lightsaber - that shoots right from where it's been lying and nests perfectly in his hand.

He puts it right into his belt.

Even as he follows Molly, he reaches out in a different way - through the Force to his old padawan and brother. Even unconscious, his presence hurts to feel.

(He's so sorry, Anakin.)

[cute_bruiser]

Molly raises an eyebrow when Obi-Wan calls the lightsaber to him, but doesn't intervene; when he puts it away, she nods.

"I see a blue light, it's gonna end badly," she informs him, but leaves it at that, and turns for the cells.

"Baby, darling, did you miss me?" she calls out as they enter, but even her humour still has an edge to it. "One cell, if you don't mind - and leave it open til I say."

The cell front opens up as requested, and she puts Vader down on the bunk as delicately as she can before standing back to look at Obi-Wan.

"All right, dude, do your thing."

(Her powers are still on; she's not in the mood to take chances.)

[acertainpov]

Obi-Wan calmly kneels beside Vader's body. It's taking a considerable amount of effort at this moment, to keep his own emotions in check, to hide every particle of regret and betrayal and love and just be... well, Ben Kenobi, calm and kind and knowledgable.

"This isn't my area of expertese," he remarks cooly, "and I can't work with the armour. He will need to go to his home to have that fixed."

And now he places a hand on his padawan's chest, takes a deep breath and closes his eyes.

It's such a mess. All of it. The mechanics, the Sith alchemy, the swirling anger even when unconscious. And the remnants underneath: scorched, broken, piecemeal even after all the healing Sidious must have done to him back then, and since.

And Obi-Wan is not a healer.
But he's much stronger at the particular type of Force use since he stopped training as a warrior and turned to meditation.

Force healing works by using the life-force of the healer himself. It's exhausting and it's dangerous and it saps your own vitality, and when you're already only barely upright, even more so.

But Anakin Skywalker is the third most important person in the entire Galaxy to Obi-Wan, and he would definitely give his life on this, if it wasn't needed for Luke back home.

He sits there, seemingly doing absolutely nothing for a long minute.

Then he keels over sideways.

[cute_bruiser]

"...oh what the fuck now."

Molly doesn't swear much, as a rule, but she's just about at the end of her tether at this point; she blinks, and suddenly the wide eyes staring down at Kenobi are an entirely human green.

"Baby, split the cells now." She kneels by Obi-Wan, touching his shoulder as Baby splits the single cell safely into two. "Dude, are you okay?"