darkforcerising | (no subject)

(no subject)

Who: Canon Anakin, Canon Obi-Wan, AU Earth Anakin
What: The universe fucks with everyone
Where: Aboard the Resolute
Rating/Warnings: Swearing

Anakin stepped off the train car and expected the hard concrete of the platform of the station closest to Ahsoka’s apartment – the Ahsoka who lived in his universe. The purpose of his trip was a certain red-bladed lightsaber he was carrying in his backpack. He intended to do something to fix that red blade. And it was secured next to his other lightsaber and three bags of different kinds of candy and his meds he always carried with him – he had priorities.

With ear pods in and his focus on the phone in his hand, it was the smell that alerted him that something was off. Or rather, the lack of a certain smell – the offensive mixture of human sweat, urine, and the awkwardness of pubic crowds that was unique to American train stations.

And then he noticed nothing felt right. He looked up and stopped.

To every side were consoles manned by individuals who all looked the same – who were now looking at him. All work seemed to have come to a halt all at his fault. And everything, the computers, the people, the backdrop of the planet hanging in the viewport, was so familiar to him – only in dreams.

But the proof this wasn’t a dream was standing in the center of the room.

In the center of the room was a circular console, displaying a hologram of scattered ships and a planet. And around the display, were some very familiar faces. But none more so than his own.

“Ah! C’mon!” he exclaimed, not taking out his ear pods or even the sucker out of his mouth.

The Universe was fucking with him again.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"And," Obi-Wan pointed out with his trademark calm, "understandably wary. What would you think in our place?"

"Uh," Anakin said. "I am in your place. Figuratively and literally. Before I looked up, I was in a train station, on a planet that lacked FTL interstellar flight capabilities. In a completely different galaxy. But I'm not trying to out maneuver you."

He was open to the Force, ready to call on it if needed. Though, that wasn't the same as trying to out flank the two Jedi.

Anakin noted all of this - his biggest question was how someone who looked like him, who was trained in the Force, he wasn't missing the prepared stance or the feeling of the Force around his double - ended up on a planet like that. "And yet, here you are. And offering none of the answers asked for or promised." He was getting impatient, wanting to close the distance and shake answers out. But Obi-Wan's stance and steadiness held him back, even as his mouth drew into a line. His ship yes, his suggestion to flank, but he was allowing Obi-Wan to lead.

"I have made exactly zero promises," Anakin quipped back.

Obi-Wan smiled faintly. "Then tell me what you meant when you said there was a perfectly good explanation for this," he encouraged.

"What? huh?" Anakin looked genuinely confused for a second. Not because he didn't remember saying that, but because the meaning Obi-Wan and his twin had gleaned from it was different from his intent.

"Oh!" Comprehension dawned. "You think I meant I knew what was going on. I didn't - I don't know what's going on or why... But!" he added quickly. "I can think of-" He mentally counted. "Three? possible explanations off the top of my head."

Anakin wondered how Obi-Wan felt, having two people who looked and must have felt so much alike in front of him. He wondered if it was like being with their Clone Troopers or if, due to the Force, it was different. He could certainly feel the confusion in his Other, and the confusion more than anything is what caused him to take a step back, body posture easing just slightly into something less tense.

"We'd like to hear them." Having the misunderstanding was not something he was used to - he and Obi-Wan. Well. He knew they annoyed some, because they tended to speak to each other with a combination of body language and communication through the Force totalling at least fifty percent when they spoke to one another. Miscommunicating with someone wearing his face. He might. But Obi-Wan? It threw him a little.

“Okay,” Anakin relaxed a fraction of a second after his twin did, taking this moment to finally take his iPods out and pocket them and his phone. Everything was both vastly more quiet, but louder at the same time - all those emotions from everyone else screaming at him through the Force.

He took a breath, gearing up for a lengthy explanation. “First thing that comes to mind,” he held up a robotic finger. “Is there’s been a glitch in the simulation and we just have to wait for the programmers to do hard reset- if Simulation Theory is accurate. Second,” another finger. “This is a classic case of time travel, I’m back here in this time. Third,” and another finger. “We’re from parallel universes, and I’ve somehow crossed over into yours. For the second and third options, the simplest explanation would be this is the Force’s doing- or Pal-uhh Sidious’ doing. Or!”

Anakin’s face lit up. “I caused it ‘cause I got my temporal-spatial teleportation powers back- that’s what I call them. I’m not sure really what other people call what Force Ghosts do.”

He focused on one his empty hand and tried to make himself wink away. But nothing happened.

“Uhh, Nope,” he shook his head. “I didn’t do it. So the Force or Sidious is my bet.”

It wasn't dealing with two people who looked so similar that made this strange for Obi-Wan. The problem was dealing with two people who felt so similar. Anakin was a beacon in the Force and Obi-Wan could sense him miles away. For the first time since he'd met the child on Tatooine, someone else felt like that.

They both felt like Anakin.

"Why would either the Force or Sidious be interested in this... prank?" Obi-Wan asked.

“Why does the Force do anything?” Anakin started, seemingly cryptic, but finished with a shrug and moved onto irreverence. “It’s an amorphous asshole that defies reason and explanation. The fucker does what it wants... Sidious? He’s just been obsessed with me- us,” he gestured slightly between him and his twin. “Since he thought of my- sorry, again, our existences. If he’s behind it, it’s some elaborate scheme to destabilize the Jedi, bring about the Order’s downfall, and tempt us to the Dark Side.”

No big deal, just that.

The talk of Sidious being obsessed with them, him, made him deeply, deeply uneasy, and his face pulled into a grimace as he shifted his weight. He was uneasy enough to let off the 'thought or our existences' without comment. Too many people wondered about his origins for him bother commenting.

"But...why would. It'd be better if you didn't...know anything about?" Or as little as Anakin himself knew. His twin seemed to know a lot more.

"Anakin, the language. Honestly." He didn't know those words, but from the context there was little else they could mean. "Tell me more about Sidious. You seem to know things about him that we don't."

"I didn't even-"

Wait a minute.

"-You're going to have to be far more specific over which one of use you are speaking to, despite the rumors, I can't actually read your mind."

"But I am curious in what he knows." But perhaps not in what Obi-Wan was, and not in something he'd ask here.

Anakin was prepared to move on without addressing Obi-Wan's admonishment, probably with dropping a few more swear words, but his twin beat him to it. He'd let them hash out who could use bad language, problem solved for him.

"My twin has a point- about Sidious." Surprisingly, he found he wasn't jealous about the easy, fun camaraderie between the two. His Obi-Wan was... gone, for lack of a better word. Gone because he'd pushed him away, fought him, killed him, and that was all buffered by two lifetimes of experience. Maybe he was sad to see it displayed in front of him again, there but out of reach for him, but there were somethings, things you personally altered, that you couldn't get back.

He moved on. "Sidious wouldn't want me here, for my aforementioned wealth of knowledge about him." He didn't elaborate. "So I think this is the Force's fuckery. But I don't know how much I can tell you- we haven't established if my being here will tear this universe apart yet. If I say what I know, will it destabilize everything? I'll wholly admit I thrive on chaos, but we should really figure out if it's safe for me to say more first."

"I see."

He glanced at his own Anakin before looking at the new one in total seriousness, which he probably knew was Obi-Wan's default expression even before the war.

"If even you think you might pose a danger to the entire universe, what - exactly - do you think we should do with you until we find out? And how do you think we might find it out?"

It was a look he knew well. Privately, he made a mental note to do something to make his Master laugh before the next day. But then the conversation was heading into directions that needed his attention and he knew he should mull over-

-"No." Anakin spoke without thinking - which wasn't terribly uncommon for him.

"No he doesn't feel dangerous to us. There is danger around him. But it's not aimed at us." Anakin tuned his body towards Obi-Wan. "Can't you feel it?"

Anakin tensed, again. For a beat, He looked between the two, and then said, “Of course theirs danger around me. We’re in the middle of a war.”

But he had opinions about what they should do with him. “Clearly we aren’t matter,” he gestured at his twin and then at himself, “and antimatter. It seems we can exist in the same area as each other. So let’s not get stabby with your laser pointers, okay? I just mean, I don’t know what me being here will do, so maybe you should ask the Force?”

"The Force doesn't work that way, Anakin. You know that."

It didn't hold question and answer sessions; if any Jedi could just ask the Force what it wanted, Yoda would have a lot less sway over how things went at the Temple.

"If you think the Force brought you here to help with Darth Sidious, then what would be the point of that if you telling us would tear reality apart?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only