The Trash King

"Gonna punch a raccoon," Steve was muttering to himself as he burst into the room and gagged at the smell. "Brah. Air freshener. Windows. Not collecting garbage."

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You know what? Considering the past year or so of Grogu's life, this whole thing was just par for the course.

Which was why he innocently blinked this big ol' eyes at his surroundings from the floating pram.

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Well, Anakin was just the galaxy's best babysitter and therefore Grogu had to come with him into a potentially violent situation.

Shhh, it was absolutely how they trained Jedi.

"Right," Anakin said, taking a good look at...all of this...and focusing in on the head raccoon. "Get off of our island. Now."

Could you tell he was a trained negotiator? No?

He got that a lot.

Edited Date: 2021-07-12 05:30 pm (UTC)

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As they reached the center of the room, in front of the trash pile, a cage shot up from the floor!

It was built by and for raccoons. So it was like, knee height on Steve and Anakin.

The lights in the office came up, along with several glowing television monitors hung around the King's throne. He gazed down at the three of them, unimpressed.

"Hi," he said, holding up his pickle-jar'd hand. "Want a pickle?"

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The smell of the whole vibe the Trash King had going was strong enough that Steve wasn't sure he'd eat that day.

His nose wrinkled up. "Pass. Give us our people back and get out before we make our own catapult and use it on you."

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Oh yeah, you heard the very tall guy! They'd totally do it!

...but that pickle was heckin' tempting. Anakin, stop him from reaching for that pickle.

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"Grogu, don't eat the pickle," Anakin said quickly. "A raccoon touched it."

That was probably not a compelling argument to a kid who ate pedicure toe plastic, but he had to try!

He glared at said raccoon. "And he'll be leaving soon."

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"What are you doing with these nerds, kid?" the Trash King asked, ignoring both the humans. "You've got star potential. I can tell. Picture this: full time employee status. Company stock. The company will take care of everything for you. They'll even wipe your butt."

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Steve looked at Anakin. "Can I punch the raccoon?"

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The raccoon did take away his bodyguardfriendparent. So.

Grogu looked from Steve to Anakin to see where he'd fall on the threat of violence here.

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Anakin shrugged. "I'm fine with it."

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"I see how it is," the Trash King said, shaking his head sadly. "I invite you here, in good faith. To negotiate how to share in this island's trashy bounty. But the only language you humans understand is violence."

Outside, the sound of rotors kicked up. Very large rotors. Like a couple military choppers were coming in to land.

"I WILL SICK THE KING QUADCOPTER ON YOUR ENTIRE TOWN!!!!"

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"You started it," Steve yelled, 300 percent done with all of this.

How big were these copters?

"Give us back our people!"

Edited Date: 2021-07-12 08:36 pm (UTC)

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Grogu looked between Steve and Anakin again before closing his eyes and reaching one clawed hand out at the Trash King and squeezing like the most adorable lil' Jedi who was totally force choking a raccoon.

So, that's where he was at.

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Sithspit, the kid shouldn't be able to do that!

"No!" Anakin said, reaching out in the Force to give Grogu a little hand smack. "No choking!"

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“How’s he do that? Is there an app for it? My holes have an app.”

One by one, the donuts were vanishing from the hallway behind them.

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Steve glanced at the weird green floating frog kid and gave a mental shrug. He had no idea.

"I heard about the app from your stooge," he said instead. "The frog's not using an app."

It was a frog, right?

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Grogu gave Anakin a look that implied a good force choke was just what the situation called for here. He was super sure that Din would agree.

Yep.

A-okay with the force choking.

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"Not yet," Anakin said, which was not the same as no.

Anakin was bad at this.

"Let's give the--" sigh, "talking raccoon time to explain himself first."

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“Explain what?” the Trash King asked. “That I’m a business genius? If you’ve got the app, you can earn points for a catapult like the rest of these losers.”

The hole in the hallway was almost upon them.

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"By catching useless shit, right?" Steve said, reaching into his cargo pants pocket and retrieving a grenade (thanks, Annie's friend! He had some normally, but these were pretty sweet). "What if I destroy your useless shit? Do I get a bonus catapults because you're in charge?"

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Grogu hovered a little further away from the grenade because that guy was not joking around there!

And he'd definitely seen enough explosions to know.

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"Or we could do that," Anakin said, giving Steve a side-eye as he adjusted, taking a Force grip on Grogu's pod just in case he needed to throw the kid out of a blast radius. Then he cast around for something shiny and pointless--the nearest TV screen would do--and yanked it out of position with the Force before chucking it with a casual handwave into the hole that was approaching.

"We have been extremely patient," he said icily. "Now it's time for you to leave. Well past time."

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“What is that, an ugly pineapple?” The Trash King asked. (If he knew it exploded, he’d update his description to a “spicy pineapple”.) Then he grimaced and glared at his vanishing shiny thing. “Hey! That’s my trash!”

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"It was ours first," Steve said, popping the pin off of the flash-bang grenade and tossing way back towards the hallway so it bounced along the ground a few times before getting to the hole.

He had no interest in accidentally hurting anyone down in the hole or causing massive structural damage to this giant pile of trash with, well, probably no structure. But he did want to make his position clear. "Give us our people back!"

The grenade exploded in a huge flash of light and noise.

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Grogu thrust one clawed hand up in solidarity of that sentiment. But his adorable little shout was covered up by the explosion sound.

Yeah! Burn it all down!

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When Anakin Skywalker was the responsible adult in a room, you were in trouble.

He pulled two more screens off the wall and hovered them over the hole. "Please," he added sarcastically.

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The Trash King let out a squawk of “spicy pineapple!!!” at that explosion, and was still too blinded and deafened by the flash-bang to notice Anakin’s sarcastic reasonability.

“You guys suck!” He flailed around with his pickle jar. “Do you know how much work it’d be to bring people back up? I’d have to build a huge catapult!”

Cry them a river, Trash King.

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"You should probably start now," Steve said, pulling out another grenade.

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Grogu did his part by concentrating real, real hard on pulling down one of the trophies to chuck across the room telekinetically.

Suck it! He was gonna destroy the system and bring about anarchy before his naptime!!

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"Excellent control, Grogu," Anakin praised.

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“You guys suck!” the Trash King said, groping around for his tablet. The hole behind them vanished.

Outside, the rotor noises turned into a trash-rattling explosion. The Trash King groaned. There went his quad outer.

“Attention all raccoons!” he sent over the PA. “Call off the holes! A bunch of whiny nerds want their trash back!”

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"We want our people back," Steve snapped.

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Grogu totally shared that sentiment with another trophy getting hurled. But he was getting pretty sleepy from all this.

Curse his tiny, tiny, rage filled body.

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Anakin crossed his arms over his chest. "Tell them to start on that catapult."

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"Ugh!" the Trash King said again. "Fine, geez, you guys are so needy."

He picked up the tablet again. "All construction raccoons: begin working on a big-ass catapult to send all the whiny little nerd babies back up to the surface!"

He rolled his eyes. "Are you happy now? Will you leave the rest of my trash alone?"

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"I feel like I could still blow some things up," Steve admitted, "so I'd work faster, if I were you."

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"And don't forget the buildings," Anakin added with a glare. "We want this place to look like it did before you arrived."

Or at least close. That ice cream shop was probably a disaster.

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