Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“I don’t like The Resolute.” Cody declared as he and General Kenobi walked down the halls of that very ship.

“And why is that my dear?” Obi-Wan asked his Commander with a soft smile.

Cody shrugged. “I’m not sure, boss. It’s just not a nice ship.”

“It’s the same model as The Negotiator.” Obi-Wan reminded him.

“I know,” Cody shrugged. “I just don’t like it.”

General Kenobi laughed. “Well, it’s a good thing we’re leaving tomorrow then.”

Cody sighed, imagining it. “Home sweet home.”

As the pair came up to their destination, a meeting room they were about to commandeer for a night of flimsiwork and caffeine, Obi-Wan hesitated.

“What is it, sir?” Cody asked, continuing to key his entrance code into the room’s lock.

The Jedi pursed his lips. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

Cody opened the door anyway, not to dismiss Obi-Wan’s prophetic warning, but instead just because his hand was on autopilot.

Obi-Wan was certain that something was about to happen, and that he couldn’t let it happen to Cody. Which is how, as he pushed his Commander out of the way, General Kenobi fell victim to a bucket of damp sand being dumped over his head.

From the floor, where he’d been pushed, Cody heard Obi-Wan let out something akin to a squeak as he stood in shock, unsure what to do and covered in sand.

“You alright?” He asked with worry.

Obi-Wan closed his eyes and gulped, recovering from his shock as he answered. “I’m alright, just sandy.”

Cody couldn’t help the small chuckle that escaped him as Obi-Wan began brushing himself off.

“Cody.” The General scolded and his eyes snapped to the Commander as he stood up.

“I’m sorry.” Cody said quickly. “Here.”

He ran his fingers through Obi-Wan’s hair to try and get some of the sand out of it, and they both tried to ignore the potential intimacy of the act.

“this,” Cody began pointedly. “Is why I don’t like The Resolute.”

“Because it randomly expels sand on people?” The Jedi asked as he shook the last of it out of his hair.

“Because it’s full of pranksters.” Cody corrected, grumbling more than anything. “This kind of osik would never happen on our watch.”

“Yes, well, I believe we we’re not the intended recipient of this prank.” Obi-Wan said, folding his hands into his robe. “Anakin hates sand. Most likely, this was for him.”

“Well put together.” Cody commented, looking at the contraption that had dumped sand on his General with curiosity.

Obi-Wan hummed. “It would have worked quite well, had we not got here first.”

Cody snorted. “I would’ve loved to see the look on Skywalker’s face.”

That drew out a chuckle from General Kenobi and Cody smiled at him. “Yes, I do suppose it would have been funny.”

“Is there a way to reset it?” Cody started poking around the mechanics.

“We shouldn’t, Cody.” Obi-Wan warned.

“Don’t think we could, anyway.” Cody huffed, disappointed. “Unless you want to spend hours getting this sand back into that bucket up there.”

Obi-Wan looked up to the bucket his Commander had nodded at and then back down to the sand. He dropped his folded arms and reached out with his hand.

Cody watched, feeling an odd sense of mundane awe, as each grain of sand collected itself off of the ground and regrouped in the bucket. “That’ll never not be weird.”

“You’d think you’d have gotten used to it by now.” Obi-Wan said, smiling.

“I haven’t.” Cody looked back down to the ground, trying to prove to himself that the sand was really gone and noticed a piece of flimsi.

The Commander laughed to himself. “They’ve left a callsign! What?”

General Kenobi returned the bemused laugh. “I don’t know if that’s really egotistical or just polite.”

“Oh, egotistical definitely.” Cody said, reaching down to take the . “We’re talking about Skywalker’s men here.”

“That’s true,” Obi-Wan acknowledged. “Who was it?”

Cody frowned at the note. The ink was smudged and he couldn’t read it. “It must not have been dry when they put it in the bucket, who uses flimsi nowadays anyway?”

“All of my notebooks from studying as a Padawan were flimsi.” Obi-Wan told him and Cody rolled his eyes.

“Let me guess, back in your day, holopads weren’t even a thing?” The Commander teased and Obi-Wan hit him on the shoulder.

“I’m not that old, the Jedi are just paranoid over new technology.” General Kenobi insisted.

“Right,” Cody smiled, then turned back to the note. “Well, if we’re going to leave this for Anakin-”

“Which we shouldn’t.” Obi-Wan interrupted.

“But we will,” Cody said, not looking up from the note. “We need to leave someone’s name.”

Obi-Wan sighed in defeat, it sounded like they were doing this. “We should leave ours, we’re enablers of this prank, we should take responsibility.”

“But!” Cody countered. “We don’t want to take credit for someone else’s work.”

Obi wan sighed. “True. So, who would be most likely, on the Resolute, to both know Anakin well enough to use sand and also be stupid enough to do this?”

They looked at each other for half a second before chorusing, “Fives.”

Cody scribbled it down and Obi-Wan floated the flimsi up into the bucket. They closed the door to the booby-trapped meeting room, sealing their involvement in Anakin’s bane.

Chapter Text

Fives stood stoically as Rex screamed a reprimand at him. “This behaviour is completely unacceptable! And if you don’t start to realise that your actions have consequences, you’ll be suspended from duty for re-conditioning! Do you understand me?”

“Yessir.” Fives responded. This happened a lot to him and the ARC trooper knew how to handle a lecture. He’d practically had this exact one before and it sort of lost its force when he figured out Rex was never going to make good on his threats.

“Or maybe, I’ll just ship you off to Cody!” Now that was a scarier though, but Rex would be bored without him. “He and General Kenobi only just headed off, I could call them back and you could go with them!”

Fives couldn’t quite remember what he’d done recently to deserve this lecture, but it was quite possible something he’d gotten away with in the past had finally been discovered. Like, maybe Rex finally found that rude message he wrote on the underside of a table in the mess?

Suddenly, the door to the room was kicked open (how do you even kick open an automatic door?) and a very angry, very sandy 501^st General stormed into the room like a hurricane in a desert, shaking grains everywhere. “Good, you found him.”

Oh and that anger was directed at him. Fives gave a salute. “General Skywalker.”

“Oh, don’t you General Skywalker me,” He scowled, very quickly approaching Fives like a wild beast. “I’m gonna kriffing kill you, you little-”

Rex reached out and placed a hand on Anakin’s chest, settling the man. As much as he was angry at Fives, he didn’t want to see the man murdered. Or well, he didn’t want to see it enough to go to jail as an accomplice. “Don’t worry, sir. I’m talking to him.”

“Okay,” Anakin took a breath, trying to calm himself. He glared daggers at Fives but the Jedi felt less like using actual daggers so that was an improvement. “Fives, where did you even get this much sand?”

“Sand?” Fives asked, finally figuring out that they thought he’d done whatever had happened to the General. “I haven’t done anything with sand.”

“What?” Rex turned to him. “That’s what I’ve been yelling at you for!”

“You yell at him a lot.” Fives told him with a shrug. “These things blur together.”

Rex threw his hands up in the air and the General scoffed. “You’re telling me you weren’t the one to set up a contraption to dump sand over my head?”

“Yes!” Fives said. “I mean, no it wasn’t me!”

Ahsoka entered the room just at that moment to see a very stressed Fives, a very tired Rex and a very… covered in sand Anakin. She gasped at her master, eyes sparkling.

“Not a word snips!” He raised a hand at her. “Fives if you didn’t do this, why was your name all over it?”

“Just because it was a prank-”

“No, literally, you moron.” The Captain snapped at him.

“Rex!” Anakin scolded. “Language in front of the kid!”

Rex rolled his eyes. “She’s heard worse.”

“Listen if my name was on that prank, I’ve been framed!” Fives tried to convince them. “Check the security footage!”

Anakin looked over to Rex who sighed. “We didn’t think about that.”

“I’ll go get it!” Ahsoka chirped, bright and quick, before running off.

“Huh, well look at her being helpful for once.” Anakin said, apparently pleased. Rex narrowed his eyes, that had been… suspicious.

Ahsoka knew exactly which data stick to grab from the wall of them in the tech room and she immediately jammed it into her holopad. She rewound the video to late last night, watching as the video showed her setting up the prank.

The Commander knew she should take the fall for the prank, like she’d intended to do, but why bare the fault when someone else could?

Ahsoka edited the clip away and watched on, waiting to see who had interfered with her prank and replaced her taunting note with Fives’ name. She was pleased to find a hilarious video of the trap being set off my Obi-Wan and Cody, which she saved to her personal holopad.

The Commander watched as Obi-Wan and Cody talked with each other before resetting the trap and writing a note. So they’d farmed Fives, had they?

Ahsoka edited away the part were the 212^th leaders became her victims and left the part where they reset the trap, chuckling to herself as she did so.

Then she took it back, announcing to the boys as she burst into the room. “Look what I’ve found!”

Anakin gasped as he watched his master set up a sand trap for him and Commander Cody frame one of his favourite troops.

“I can’t believe they blamed me!” Fives was furious. “What did I ever to do them?”

“What did you do?” Anakin asked. “What did I ever do to deserve this?”

“I guess we’ll never know.” Ahsoka said with a solemn shrug.

Rex shook his head, sometime he really did think he was the only one of them with a brain cell.

“We need to teach them a lesson!” Fives demanded, still furious.

“Control yourself, trooper.” Rex warned.

Anakin shook his head. “No, he’s right. We both deserve payback, and I know the best way to do that.”

Chapter Text

Obi-Wan was suffering. His limbs ached and it felt like he couldn’t hold himself up for one minute longer. Something had gone wrong with the 212^th restocking forms and all tea and caff had been omitted from their order.

The Jedi hadn’t known just how depended he’d become on the almost electric hit of caffeine until it was gone.

Worse than being completely exhausted, Obi-Wan was surrounded by men who were notably not exhausted. Something in his soldiers’ tampered biology meant that having no caffeine was somehow making them more energised. They were ungrounded and, Obi-Wan would even go so far as to say, wild.

Crys was practically vibrating, giving General Kenobi a report in a meeting room on The Negotiator, whist Obi-Wan barely kept his eyes open.

The Jedi dismissed Crys half way through the report and he ran out of the room so quickly you’d think the man’d had six cups of caff, not been deprived of it.

Obi-Wan sighed and closed his eyes, just resting them he told himself, as he leaned against the holotable in front of him.

Cody burst through the door to the meeting room he knew he’d find Obi-Wan in, absolutely buzzing. He saw, but barely processed, the way the man jumped up from the table liked he’d been asleep and looked at Cody like he’d been caught.

“I’ve figured it out!” The Commander announced, pulling his board of findings into the room.

“What?” Obi-Wan asked, squinting to try and see Cody more clearly, as well as the mess of red string and images that he’d brought with him. Force knew where he’d gotten that display board.

“The caff situation.” Cody reminded him, a manic look to his eyes that General Kenobi had never seen before.

Obi-Wan sighed. “Cody, we must have just forgotten to put it on the list. There’s nothing to figure-”

“I am Marshal Commander CC-2224 CODY.” Said person yelled at his General. “I do not get things wrong, I am above that!”

Obi-Wan sighed. “Okay.”

His Commander slammed a hand against his board. “I have been through every detail of our supply run I have access to!”

General Kenobi just blinked slowly at the board as Cody went on. “I know the names and designations of every trooper who packed, transported and unloaded the order.”

“Was that…” Obi-Wan waved a hand around, looking for the right word. “Helpful?”

“Absolutely not!” Cody said, turning back to his board and pulling off ID photos of different troopers. “So then I went digging into the order itself. Everyone who’d ever added to or subtracted from it. Anyone who’d looked over it or even had it pass over their desk and do you know what I found in the document’s history?!”

“No.” The Jedi said, sounding bored out of his mind as a result of how bone deep exhausted he was, having gone without caffeine for four days.

“Skywalker.” Cody growled at the board, and Obi-Wan tried to ignore what that sound did to his sleep deprived mind. The Commander violently circled a picture of Obi-Wan’s old Padawan.

“What?” The General asked, suddenly far more interested as he processed the name.

“Yes!” Cody turned to point his pen at him. “And I checked the report before and after that menace got his grubby little hands on it.”

“And?” Obi-Wan asked. “What did you find?”

“I can say without a doubt sir, that General Skywalker was the one to remove tea and caff from our stock order.” Cody said, and anger in his face that was typically reserved for the battlefield. “He has declared a war on us, sir. A prank war.”

The Jedi squinted. “Didn’t we start it when-”

“Irrelevant!” Cody interrupted him, moving to stand to attention. “I have assembled an elite third of a squad to take the role of our official 212^th Prank Team.”

“Third of a squad?” Obi-Wan asked.

“Three men.” Cody clarified. “Wooly, Waxer and Woil- I mean Boil.”

The Commander ran a hand over his face. “I’m sorry sir, I’m very tired.”

“As am I Commander.” Obi-Wan started. “And I say the person responsible for this has another thing coming. Call in the Prank Team.”

Within moments of Cody summoning the men they were in the room, looking confused.

“Why are we here, sirs?” Waxer asked the pair. “We received-”

“We got promotion notifications.” Boil interrupted him. “But it didn’t tell us what for?”

Wooley hummed and ran a hand through his mohawk. “It just said, speciality team? What’s that about?”

Cody cleared his throat and Obi-Wan marvelled at how that one sound got all three men to snap to attention. “You have been selected for this team, based upon your expert and innovative solutions to unique problems. In addition you are loyal to the 212^th, something of utmost importance to your mission.”

Waxer, Wooley and Boil glanced at each other.

“This team will be involved in the planning and execution of revenge upon those responsible for our lack of caffeine.” General Kenobi told the group.

At that, all three men seemed to gain interest. Boil turned to Obi-Wan. “Do we know who did this to us sir? Was it Dooku?”

“Or Ventress, or Maul?” Wooley jumped in.

Waxer shook his head. “No, no I bet it was Bane.”

“It was Anakin Skywalker.” Cody announced. “And he has got one hell of a storm coming for him.”

Chapter Text

“Good work snips,” Anakin said over the comm in Ahsoka’s star fighter. “That was some impressive flying.”

The Commander grinned to herself. “Thank you master.”

“Okay coming in for landing now.” The General said as he directed his own fighter into the hanger of The Resolute.

It wasn’t until every ship in the squad had landed that it happened. That, Anakin would later think in retrospect, was probably by design to ensure the safety of his troops.

What it was, was glitter bombs. Glitter bombs that burst from the control panels of every single one of the eleven star fighters returning from battle and covered their pilots in shimmering orange micro plastic.

Ahsoka was surprised to be suddenly covered head to toe in glitter. The Padawan was more surprised to actually be able to hear her Master yelling in anger through both of their ships.

She opened the hatch to her cockpit to free herself from the glitter, only for it to cascade down the side of her ship like an orange waterfall.

“What’s going on?!” Rex yelled up to the Kid as she exited her star fighter a different shade of orange than she went in.

“I’m not sure!” Ahsoka yelled back down to him and the Captain watched in horror as ten more ships full of glitter emptied into his hanger.

Anakin stormed up to the pair, sparkling in the light. “This was Obi-Wan.”

“Do you think?” Ahsoka asked. “This doesn’t seem like the kind of thing he’d do.”

“You don’t know him like I do snips.” The General turned to look at his troops. “Look at this mess, what was he thinking?”

“You know what this is, right Master?” The Commander asked.

“Don’t say it-” Rex started to warn her.

“A prank war.” Ahsoka finished and her Master cackled, a little bit manically.

“If it’s a war he wants, it’s a war he’ll get.”

“Can I advise against that, sir?” Rex asked, looking upon the carnage that had already occurred.

Anakin slapped a friendly hand on the Captain’s shoulder. “No, you can’t.”

Rex pulled a face at the glitter now decorating his armour, transferred from his General’s hand. He regretted his expression immediately as he saw the kid clock it.

“You know, I don’t think it’s fair that we’re covered in this stuff and Rex isn’t.” She said, beginning to smile.

Anakin returned her look. “I completely agree Snips.”

“Hey, hang on a minute-” The Captain began backing away, hands raised in caution.

But he was too late, and within milliseconds Rex had two Jedi charging at him and tackling him to the ground, smearing orange glitter across his armour as the did so.

Then a voice, that sounded like it belonged to Hardcase, yelled out “Glitter fight!” and the hanger descended into chaos.

Handfuls of the shimmering orange were tossed violently at their victims, exploding in clouds upon contact. Teams formed and broke down, alliances were made and allies were back-stabbed. Throughout it all though, laughter filled the flamboyant battlefield.

Until a stern, angry voice called out. “What is the meaning of this?!”

General Skywalker grimaced as he turned to see Mace Windu, standing furiously in the entrance to the hanger with Ponds next to him staring at the mess in shock. Anakin might have forgotten the battle had been a joint effort mission.

“General Windu-” He began.

“I didn’t want to hear it.” Mace interrupted him.

Anakin pulled a face. “But you just asked-”

“Do you know how long this will take to clean up?” The Jedi asked him. “Why, for the love of the force, did you orchestrate something so incredibly childish?”

“The glitter fight was Ashoka’s idea-”

“Your Padawan came up with something childish because she is a child.” Mace continued his lecture. “You, however are not. I expect you to be more mature that this.”

“Obi-Wan was the one who set the glitter bombs!” Anakin continued to defend himself. “We’d have had to clean this up anyway!”

“Now, why don’t I believe you?”

“It’s true!” Ashoka’ piped up, coming to her master’s defence even if he did throw her under the buss. “We think it was in retaliation for…. The thing we defiantly didn’t do.”

Rex slapped a hand to his head, accidentally drawing attention to him. Ponds levelled him with a look. “You are better than this.”

The Captain dropped his head in defeat, not arguing as he knew better than his General. “Yessir.”

 Mace sighed, then raised his voice to the rest of the deathly silent hanger. “You are all better than this. Did no one think this was inappropriate?”

“I did!” A voice called and everyone turned to see Dogma with his hand raised. “I told Tup not to get involved!”

Mace tilted his head. What a suck-up, he thought, but obviously couldn’t say that. “Good man. Everyone else will stay here until this mess is cleaned, understood?”

The room echoed “understood” back to him and Mace turned to take his leave. He hesitated just as he was almost out the door. “I will speak to Obi-Wan, to understand his part in this.”

“Thank you Master.” Anakin said. He waited until the  doors snapped shut behind Mace and Ponds to turn to his Captain and Padawan. “We need to prank him.”

“No!” Rex said immediately, turning to walk away. “I am not involved in this!”

Fives ran up to them. “I can be!”

“Same.” Ahsoka nodded.

“Excellent,” Anakin grinned. “Anyone got some good ideas?”

Chapter Text

“It was irresponsible and ill thought out and you should have known better.” Mace told the little blue hologram of Obi-Wan on his desk.

“I know, Mace.” Obi-Wan sighed. “We weren’t thinking clearly.”

“Well, you should have been.” The Jedi declared. “Are you seriously telling me that one messed up shipping order derailed your entire taskforce?”

“Well, no.” General Kenobi started hesitantly. “Only the flag ship was impacted.”

“You have two other ships.” Mace reminded him. “Why didn’t you split their resources?”

“We didn’t want to take the risk of transportation for unnecessary supply.” Obi-Wan defended.

“Well you’ve just established that caff is necessary because without it you decided risk eleven star fighters and the lives of the pilots inside.” Mace scolded.

Obi-Wan scoffed. “I hardly think that’s a fair statement, we made sure the glitter didn’t go off until all star fighters had landed.”

“And if something had gone wrong, malfunctioned?” General Windu leaned forwards. “This prank could have been the difference between life and death for those men, if something had gone wrong and it went off prematurely.”

“But it didn’t-” the Jedi hesitated. “But I understand that it could have. I am sorry for this lapse in judgment, it won’t happen again.”

“I know Obi-Wan.” Mace said, more softer now that he saw the look of regret in his old friend’s face. “I know you didn’t mean to put anyone at risk.”

Obi-Wan sighed deeply. “That doesn’t change the fact that I did, though. I will disassemble our Prank Team and insure unnecessary risks like this do not happen again.”

“Thank you.” General Windu said with a nod.

Obi-Wan smiled. “Thank you, Mace. You are a voice of reason I find myself and others can often benefit from. I appreciate your judgment on this, and I’m glad you raised your concerns to me.”

“Well, that’s very kind of you.” He acknowledged.

Obi-Wan nodded as he went to disconnect the call. “Nothing like this will happen again, I promise you that.”

And then the call disconnected.

“It was a little bit funny though.” Ponds said from across the room and Mace looked to him.

“I mean,” the Commander smiled to himself. “A high Jedi General cover the hanger bay of his Padawan’s ship in glitter.”

Ponds started to laugh and Mace couldn’t help but smile at him. “I just can’t believe they pulled it off.”

Mace shook his head fondly. “It was quite ridiculous to see Skywalker’s men like that.”

He began to chuckle, thinking back to it. Then let out a laugh as Ponds continued to giggle.

“What were they thinking?” Ponds asked.

“I couldn’t tell you,” Mace laughed. “Obi-Wan hasn’t behaved like that since he was a youngling.”

“I’m surprised Cody endorsed it!” The Commander said and the two laughed together for a bit.

When they calmed down, Ponds sighed. “I’m going to get some food before I start on these reports.”

“I’ll join you.” Mace said standing and moving to the door.

When he keyed in for the door to open, Mace suddenly had a feeling that something wasn’t quite right. However, it was too late to act on his instinct as the automatic door slid open and a mountain of white foam tipped into the room.

Mace grunted as the was suddenly covered in the stuff.

“What the kriff?” Pond asked.

“Sirs!” A trooper yelled from somewhere in the cloud of white that had become of the corridor. “We’ve been trying to reach you, this stuff is coving half this level!”

“What is it?” Mace yelled out to him.

“Shaving foam, sir.” The trooped responded. “We’ve got people saying it just started pouring from the vents.”

Mace turned a furious look to ponds, but the Commander knew the anger wasn’t for him. “This is ridiculous!”

Ponds looked his General up and down… and burst out laughing. He couldn’t help it. Windu was absolutely covered in the foam and he had the expression of an angry kitten.

“Do you find my suffering amusing, Commander?” Mace accused.

“Yessir,” Ponds answered honestly through his laughter.

Mace eyed him and the clone starting to think he’d made a mistake. He didn’t get long to consider it before Mace had a hand out and the foam was flying at him.

The force knocked Ponds to the ground and General Windu just laughed. “You’re right, that is funny. Anakin shouldn’t have done it though.”

“You’re sure it was him?” Ponds asked, coughing as he stood up.

“Positive,” Mace nodded. “Obi-Wan is much less prone to childishness when he had his caffeine.”

“We have to get them back for this sir.” Ponds said, a plea in his eyes.

“That would make me a very hypocritical man, Ponds.”

“You told them off for being disruptive and dangerous.” Ponds reminded him. “What if we do something that’s neither?”

“Go on.” Mace urged, intrigued.

“I’ve got an idea for something… personal. Something that will hurt them where it counts but also won’t impact their war effort.” Ponds smiled devilishly.

“What do you have in mind?”

“Something purple.”

Chapter Text

I’m really sorry to say, but I’m going to be putting this fic on hold for the foreseeable future, potentially forever.

I overestimated how well I’d be able to cope with the pressure of updates. Even if I hadn’t set myself a daily goal, I don’t think I would have been able to finish this.

I struggle a lot with executive dysfunction as a person with ADHD and on top of my other responsibilities, this fic has become too much self-inflicted pressure.

I may choose to continue this in the future, but it is unlikely.

I’m really sorry RandomAutisticGirl, I really did love your prompt but I apparently can’t handle multi chapter fics. This was my first attempt, but I can see myself trying this sort of thing again.

Sorry again.