Curse of the Orbs

Obi-Wan quickly steps out of the room again, closing the doors behind him before making his way back to the apartment level to find Anakin and Ahsoka. They're the only ones he's even sure how to begin explaining the situation to. Besides, considering the whole alarm scenario, this is all Anakin's fault, so they'll have to help him clean up the mess.

"Done with the meeting already, Master?" asks Anakin with a smirk as Obi-Wan steps into the room, eternally grateful that they are not four-year-olds as well.

"In fact, in my absence, it appears that a group of younglings has taken charge of the Jedi Order," Obi-Wan explains hastily.

"Excuse me?" Anakin exclaims incredulously.

Ahsoka raises an eye marking. "What do you mean?"

"All the Council members who are currently on Coruscant – except me – seem to have regressed to being four-year-olds." He gets straight to the point.

Anakin stares at him for a moment before saying, "You need to go back to bed." Does he? That's a far more desirable option than trying to deal with six de-aged Jedi Masters, but they need to take care of the situation before it gets out of control.

"I'm serious," he retorts, "It looks like a youngling playground in there." He's pretty sure he'll never be able to unsee Yoda jumping up and down on his chair.

"So, assuming I believe you, how would such a thing have even happened?" Anakin demands.

"I don't know," he states flatly, "But we need to get down there before a further disaster ensues."

"I'm not sure if you're pulling a very bad prank or have gone completely insane but let's get going," advises Anakin.

"Well, if something really did happen, it's probably a good thing Master Anakin turned off your alarm clock. At least you didn't become a toddler too," Ahsoka replies with a smirk. He decides not to comment that if he had been there, this may never have happened in the first place.

***

Feeling more than a little disbelieving, Anakin and Ahsoka follow Obi-Wan to the Council chambers. Really, what Obi-Wan is saying happened doesn't even make any sense. The door slides open again, revealing complete chaos. Five of the six younglings present are running in circles around the room. And yes, Ahsoka knows exactly Obi-Wan means now, as much as she wishes she didn't.

With a squeal, Plo suddenly runs over to Ahsoka, wrapping his arms around her leg as he tries to hug her. She shifts uncomfortably as she stares down at the little child who was once a sort of father figure to her. How is someone even supposed to react to this?

She extricates herself as quickly as she can from his grasp before kneeling down in front of him so that they're at a similar height. "Plo? What happened?" she questions, carefully neglecting the 'master' part of his title. It would seem completely inappropriate to call a four-year-old that, and she really has no idea if he even remembers anything from his former life.

"Big bad ball," he mumbles unhelpfully, his eyes wide as he points towards the orb at the center of the room, "Scary."

"That's what I thought," Obi-Wan murmurs.

"You understood that?" Anakin asks, "Because it sounded like nonsense to me."

"We were supposed to be discussing the Sith artifact we found," Obi-Wan explains. "Since I was late, they must have begun investigating without me. But the artifacts did not react anything like any of us were expecting."

"I can see that," Anakin replies dryly.

"Only I don't know how to undo it," the Jedi Master concludes.