@missstar489 and @shadowaccio6181
Maul and Bo-Katan fight. The darksaber goes flying off a cliff. Cody picks it up while in a running firefight like ‘damn it Obi-Wan AGAIN.’ By the time the pissed off wannabe Mand’alors get to the bottom of the hill, Cody is long gone and the trail is hopelessly confused.
The 212th is looking for their General, who’s imprisoned somewhere nearby, but instead Cody ends up stumbling upon Satine and a group of kidnapped children imprisoned by [mumbles because this is an au and I still haven’t seen clone wars] Death Watch.
Satine yells at Cody for killing her kidnappers, something Cody is vaguely used to and alright with after serving with Obi-Wan and his gradually deteriorating moral code and other Jedi’s somewhat stricter no-killing thing. Satine is carrying the kids so there’s not much time for him to even think about dead weight or hypocrisy because children.
Cody turns a corner and kills some guards with the darksaber while Satine is coaxing another orphan out of a cell. She’s pissed when she finds the bodies but does not see that he’s using the darksaber and doesn’t have time to yell about gratuitous violence or moral high ground because children.
Satine: [crouched behind a crate and ripping her dress to make bandages/shoes for the children’s feet] “So is the ‘Grand Army’ equipping everyone with laser swords now?”
Cody: [in an inadvertently non-lethal stalemate, laying down superior suppressing fire at idiots in Beskar]“No, General Kenobi just can’t hold onto his kriffing weapon.”
Satine: “Still? You know his old Master used to say—”
Together: “—This Weapon Is Your Life!”
Cody (still firing occasionally): “...You must have some good stories about the General as a shiny, huh?”
Satine (smiling): “Capture and incapacitate until we get out of here and I just may tell you some—give me a little more time and I might even be able to rummage up a holo or two of him with that force-forsaken haircut.”
Cody: “Well I was planning on interrogating a few guards for our Jedi’s whereabouts anyway...”
A few key aspects of this encounter are caught on silent security holo:
Cody using the darksaber and looking badass
Cody and Satine saving children together
Satine placing a hand on Cody’s elbow
Cody sparing Death Watch lives after said hand/elbow incident
Needless to say, by the time Obi-Wan is found, the holos have begun spreading amongst select disgruntled Death Watch members.
By the time the 212th battalion and rescued prisoners manage to escape Death Watch territory, Satine and Cody are reluctantly but thoroughly charmed by one another (For very different reasons, they both remind the other of a younger Obi-Wan).
By the time Obi-Wan is able to stand upright, the three of them have fallen into easy banter over the polyerotic tender bandaging of wounds.
By the time the GAR has to depart Mandalore, holofootage of the Duchess & new Mand’alor-contender’s escapades have just begun to leak to the public.
By the time Obi-Wan is coherent enough to realize that a) ‘that’s not my saber’ and b) ‘that’s the darksaber, why do you have the darksaber,’ the 212th is well outside of Mandalorian space and unlikely to return anytime soon.
By the time they realize that Bo-Katan and Maul are chasing after Cody, Satine’s public approval (and the Death Watch defection rate) has skyrocketed to such an extent that she is seriously forced to grapple with the political advantages of marrying her ex’s dashing young boytoy who happens to be Marshall Commander of the Republic’s army and is also a clone of Jango Fett.
By the time the Republic has to weigh the temptation of their highest profile clone trooper’s sudden claim to a semi-foreign throne against granting clones the most basic amount of sentient rights necessary to capitalize on said throne claim, Obi-Wan has gone through, like, five sexual and existential crises.
