Obi-Wan Kenobi opened his eyes to find himself staring at what he strongly suspected to be Anakin's butt.
It looked like Anakin's butt—well, his pants, anyway—through it was thoroughly impossible for Obi-Wan to be certain, since he had never before had the occasion to examine Anakin's butt upside down, which it currently appeared to be, nor from this rather uncomfortably close range.
And how he might have arrived at this angle and this range was entirely baffling even as he shifted to try and get himself out of said angle and range.
"Easy," Anakin's voice said as Obi-Wan continued shifting and he felt something holding him around his abdomen tighten, his friend's voice sounding rather tense. "We're in a bit of a situation here."
So it was Anakin's butt after all. He supposed he might take a modicum of comfort from that. Looking up he discovered Anakin's legs, and his boots—and a somewhat astonishing view of the Supreme Chancellor, as Palpatine seemingly balanced overhead, supported only by a white-knucked death-grip on Anakin's ankle.
"Oh, hello, Chancellor," Obi-Wan said midledly. "Are you well?"
The Chancellor cast a distressed look over his shoulder, "I hope so...."
Obi-Wan followed his gaze to find a shaft that continued into nothingness....
And then the Jedi Master finally realized he wasn't actually looking up after all.
At least he was coming to understand where he stood.
Well, lay. Hung. Whatever.
"Did I miss something?" he asked.
"Quite a bit, actually," the dry voice of Count Dooku responded. Obi-Wan looked to the side to find Dooku's face a little less than half a meter down and to the side of him hanging from his collar with handless arms crossed. The strange girl who had appeared from nowhere was holding him up with one hand while her other was hanging onto a cable to keep the two of them aloft. Considering she didn't have the benefit of a prosthetic hand latching on for her, Obi-Wan momentaily wondered how in Force's name she was managing it at all.
"Well, now that he's awake, we may actually have a chance of reaching the door," the girl noted. "Would you care to pitch in as well, Tyranus? My hands are getting tired."
"Don't you dare let go, girl!"
Before Obi-Wan could ask where this mystical door was, there was the distinct sound which his still idle mind quickly created an image of turbolift breaks unlocking in response. The accuracy of his imagination was confirmed when Anakin swore colorfully as a downdraft filled with the odor of burning metal swept towards them.
"Uh.... Artoo?" Anakin called, presumably into his comm.
"Too late," Obi-Wan responded, glancing up—the correct up this time—noticing the bottom of the turbolift rushing at them. "Jump."
"Jump?" Palpatine questioned, laughing shakaly from below. "Don't you mean fall?"
"Um, actually, yes. Anakin?"
Both he and the girl let go, and they fell. And fell. And fell until the gravity vector shifted a few degrees and they were sliding down the quickly ending shaft.
"Artoo! Open the doors! All of them! All floors!" Anakin yelled into the comm as the slide started coming to an end. One door had the luck of opening while they were all on top of it, sending the five of them crashing onto the opposing wall just as the turbolift screeched downwards overhead.
The group gradually managed to untangle themselves and stand back up struggling to keep up with the ever shifting floor. Anakin helped pull the Chancellor to his feet even as Obi-Wan and the girl, who had flipped her hood back over her head, hauled up Dooku.
"Are....all of your rescues so...." Palaptine began, gasping breathlessly, "....entertaining?"
Obi-Wan gave Anakin a thoughtful frown. His friend only shrugged.
"Actually, now that you mention it, yes," the Jedi Master responded. "Though, I must say this isn't the best plan we've ever had."
"This was a plan?" the Chancellor repeated, sounding appalled. The girl looked as though she was trying to hold back a laugh behind her mask.
"And you wonder why I improvise. There's no difference between actually planning and improvising," Anakin stated. Obi-Wan rolled his eyes at his once padawan.
"Yes, well, there is a reason I am the Master, and you are the hero, Anakin. Let's see if we can find something in the hanger bay that's still flyable," he responded.
Anakin gave him a nod of agreement, even as he drew out his comm once more. "Artoo, get down here, we're leaving." With that he grabbed Dooku from the girl—it seemed she'd become the Sith's personal guard while Obi-Wan had been unconscious—before allowing the older Jedi to lead them through the halls to the hanger bay where hopefully their escape awaited. The girl silently followed at Anakin's side as they went, and Obi-Wan was hit with the realization that he still didn't know her name or how she'd gotten there nor, now that he bothered looking, the reason behind the lightsaber swinging on her hip. He assumed she was at least on their side—Anakin wouldn't be acting fine with her presence if he thought she was dangerous, let alone allowed her to watch Dooku.
They continued through the halls until the girl suddenly stopped walking. Just as Anakin was pausing to ask what was wrong, blue light sprang down from the ceiling, enveloping the group.
Obi-Wan blinked in momentary shock before turning to his partner.
"Rey shields. How did this happen? We're smarter than this," he stated.
"Apparently not," Anakin responded with a sigh. "Oldest trap in the book and we walked right into it.... Well, you walked into it, I was just trying to keep up."
"Oh, so now this is my fault?"
"Hey," his friend responded with a wicked grin, "you're the Master; I'm just the hero."
"Joke some other time," Obi-Wan muttered. "It's the darkside, our instincts still can't be trusted. Don't you feel it?"
"Or, you know, it could be that knock on the head," Anakin offered.
"No. Everything keeps going awry. How could they even locate us so precisely? Something is definitely wrong—"
"If you have a taste for mysteries, Master Kenobi," Palpatine interrupted pointedly, "perhaps you could solve the mystery of how we are going to escape?"
Obi-Wan sighed. "Ideas?"
"Perhaps," the Chancellor began thoughtfully, "we should simply surrender to General Grievous. With Count Dooku's as hostage, I'm sure you two of you can....negotiate our release."
"I say patience," Anakin said after a moment. Obi-Wan looked at the man as if he'd suddenly stolen the skin of his best friend.
"Patience?" he repeated.
"Yes," Anakin agreed. "We'll wait for Artoo or a security patrol....or," he added, glancing to the side as his eyes landed on something, "Eclipse could just deactivate them."
"Who's Eclipse?"
"That would be me," the girl stated. Obi-Wan turned around to find she was safely standing on the other side of the blue haze behind them, silently watching their banter. "You may not be smart enough, but I seem to be quite fine. As for how they found us, the Chancellor has a beacon, does he not?"
"....Am I allowed to vote for Option 2?" Dooku asked.
"You're our prisoner. No," Anakin responded with a frown.
"I'm for Option 3," Obi-Wan stated, before turning to his friend. "Did you deactivate the beacon?"
"Well....no. Chancellor?"
"....It slipped my mind," Palpatine slowly muttered, realizing in partial horror that he was the reason they had now been trapped.
"I'll deactivate it now so we can get off the radar as soon as we're free," Anakin muttered, shaking his head.
"Excellent plan," Obi-Wan agreed, before notice Eclipse still hadn't moved. "What are you waiting for?"
"Are we going to finish voting?" she questioned.
"Just do it," Anakin responded.
"As you wish," she muttered, walking over to a nearby control panel, even as Anakin glanced at her with a frown. She hadn't even made it there when Artoo came screeching into the hall and smacked into the opposing wall in front of them.
"See? Two out of three in less than ten seconds," the younger Jedi commented to his companion. "No problem."
Obi-Wan rolled his eyes. He would have responded, if it weren't for the fact two drodicas rolled in right after the R2 unit while a few other doors opened to reveal several squads of other droids followed by two of Grievous's personal bodyguards.
"Eclipse, stand down," Anakin hurriedly ordered even as Obi-Wan heard the sound of an activating lightsaber from behind them. His friend looked at him and sighed. "Okay, fine. It's the darkside. Or something. You're off the hook for the rey shield trap."
"Regardless, do you have a Plan B?"
"The Chancellor's idea is sounding really good right about now," the Jedi responded, pulling Dooku closer to his chest and holding a now lit lightsaber—Obi-Wan was stunned to note it was ruby rather than blue and wasn't even shaped like Anakin's saber—at the Sith's neck threateningly.
"I wouldn't suggest that," one of the MagnaGaurds growled as Force only knew how many guns primed—aimed at Eclipse on the other side. "Release the Count and hand over your lightsabers."
"I can take them," Eclipse called from outside of the rey shields.
"I think I'll have to disagree," Obi-Wan muttered, shooting Anakin a look. The Jedi sighed, agreeing with his friend's assessment and reliquisioning his hold on the Count.
"Fine," the Jedi muttered as the droids deactivated the rey shield.
As the droids came forward to bind their wrists, fit Artoo with a restraining bolt, and take away their weapons while Dooku walked forward as gentimlanily as he could manage considering his current state of affairs, Obi-Wan noticed something.
"Oh, Anakin," he began, with the sort of quiet, pained resignation that would be recognized instantly by any parent exhausted by a trouble prone child, "where is your lightsaber?"
"It's not lost if that's what you're thinking," the Jedi responded, not meeting his old Master's eyes.
"No?"
"No."
"Where is it then?"
"Can we talk about this later?"
"Without your lightsaber, you may not have a 'later.'"
"I don't need a lecture, okay? How many times have we had this talk?"
"Apparently one less time than we needed to."
"He has it," Anakin responded with a sigh and an eye roll, nodding to the droid that had just added Eclipse's lightsaber to it's growing collection now that he had four counting Anakin's, Obi-Wan's and Dooku's—the Sith couldn't really handle a saber at the moment considering his hand challenged circumstances.
"He does?" Obi-Wan asked. "And how did this happen?"
"I don't want to talk about it."
"Anakin—"
"Hey, he's got yours too!"
"That's different—" Obi-Wan hastily started, only to be quickly cut off.
"This weapon is your life, Obi-Wan!" Anakin said, managing to pull off a rather credible impression of the Jedi Master's voice that both Palpatine and Eclipse—and maybe even Dooku—had to smother their snorts at. "You must take care of it."
"Perhaps," Obi-Wan began as the binders were clipped over their wrists and they began to be led away, "we should talk about this later."
Anakin intoned severely, "Without your lightsaber, you may not have a—"
"All right, all right," Obi-Wan said, surrendering with a shake of the head and a rueful smile. "You win."
"I'm sorry?" his friend asked, clearly grinning. Obi-Wan suddenly remembered why he rarely permitted Anakin to win their little arguments. "What was that? Could you speak up a little?"
"It is not very Jedi to gloat, Anakin."
"I'm not gloating, Master," Anakin responded. "I'm just....savoring the moment."
"I'm sure you are."