AN: Well helllllo...I'll make this quick. WELCOME BACK! This is the sequel to a whole mess of stories, but most of you will be here from my previous work, From Darkness, I Rise. The last one, In Chaos, I Thrive, is something of an extended interlude and CAN be skipped, if you want and if you don't mind just accepting that fourteen to fifteen years pass between stories, and a lot of character things happen in that time.

This baby here is going to be covering a great deal of Star Wars Rebels, a show I love, but...well, we'll be adulting that show up, for your reading pleasure. Hope you like it when things get messed up, because it's gonna get messed up!

Alright, let's get this party started!

Chapter 1: Awakening

Ezra Bridger sat in the cold, drab cell, his hands folded before him as he considered his situation. These Imperials weren't anything like the Imperials on Lothal. For the eight years since his parents were captured by the Empire, Ezra had turned messing with and avoiding the local Imperial authority into an art. As a thief and something of a con artist, Ezra stole technology and resold it on the black market, by far the most profitable enterprise for a young...entrepreneur, and that often put him at odds with the Empire. After all, on impoverished Lothal, it was the Imperials that had the best stuff.

He was very good at getting away from them, which is why he was still around, and he seemed to have something of extreme luck when situations got very bad. Making jumps he didn't think he could make, sudden bursts of speed, the...feeling that he needed to go somewhere, do something that had allowed him to avoid capture for all these years. Ezra never questioned it. Once you started questioning luck, it had a nasty habit of suddenly leaving you.

Of course, none of that mattered now. Now, he sat in a cell on an Imperial Star Destroyer, and as of right now, there was no good way out. His throat was sore from yelling, vain attempts to get the stormtroopers on guard to open the door for him, grandson of the Emperor himself, wouldn't you know, but...they didn't seem to have bought it. He didn't buy it himself. As far as lies went, it wasn't a convincing one, certainly not one of his best. He always found it easier to lie to someone's face anyway, and behind sealed prison doors, he was struggling to figure out the right things to say to secure his release.

Or at least get the door opened. He could work with that.

But that was the trouble, wasn't it? The Empire hadn't imprisoned him for anything he'd done. No, he was there as bait. A lure to draw out the rebels that he had accidentally fallen in with. Ezra thought the plan was a stupid one. People didn't stick their necks out for others. They never did, and those that believed there were people like that...well, those were the types that Ezra conned out of their stuff. If anyone should have known that, it was the Empire, the undisputed kings of selfishness and self-interest. But they didn't. They thought these rebels would return to save him, a boy they just met. A boy they didn't know. A boy they had already betrayed. He wouldn't have been captured at all if it weren't for them. He served as a way for them to get away clean, and that was all. They wouldn't risk their lives walking into an obvious trap to save him. Especially since the leaders of their little gang had already caught him snooping around their rooms and stealing their stuff.

He reached into the pouch on his belt and pulled out a cube, the gold and light blue device fitting snugly in the palm of his hand. When the Imperials searched him and took his things, he had been lucky they hadn't found this. He hadn't the faintest idea of what it was, but he had found it on the rebel ship on a whim, a lucky find, to be sure, since it looked like it could be sold for a high price. It looked valuable, at the very least. It had to be, since it was well hidden in the room of the man he had stolen it from. He just...knew where to look for it. There was something else in the secret drawer where the cube had been found. Something he couldn't explain. Something he had certainly never seen or heard about. A...sword. Or something. But instead of an actual blade, it sported a blue beam of light. A laser, maybe. He wasn't sure, but he knew he wanted it.

He didn't get to keep it, of course. The man it belonged to had caught him with it, demanded it back, and Ezra was forced to leave the room, but not without the cube in his possession. The man hadn't seen him take that, and Ezra planned on keeping it. He didn't owe these rebels anything, especially not since his imprisonment was their fault. Their Twi'lek pilot had been the one to convince him to stick his neck out, board the Imperial ship to let the rebels know that the slave ship transporting Wookies to Kessel was a trap. And it had been their big, purple cat...thing that had thrown him at the Imperial agents to secure his own escape, trading Ezra's life for his. It was exactly the sort of backstabbing selfishness that Ezra had come to expect from literally everyone. That was just the sort of galaxy this was. So no, he wasn't going to feel bad about keeping the little cube, worthless as it was to him in the situation.

Still, he couldn't be too mad at them, mostly because their other crew member was a girl. A beautiful girl. A Mandalorian girl that Ezra just so happened to be smitten with the moment he saw her. True, experience had taught him to avoid Mandalorians. They were agents of the Empire, and not the bumbling, undertrained soldiers that comprised the stormtrooper corps. No, they were dangerous, and if you saw one, there was nothing to do but run far and run fast. They were either there to enforce order, or they were bounty hunters, which was almost worse. Lawless Mandalorians were almost as bad as the ones that enforced the laws. They were no less likely to shoot someone, but the bounty hunters were a bit more random about it. But he didn't get that feeling from the rebel on the ship. She was dangerous, yeah, but she felt...right. Just. Noble. Something that Ezra rarely felt from anyone. Yup, he was going to marry that one.

If he ever got out. He frowned, looked at the cube in his hand, and carelessly tossed it to the side, watched it as it clattered and rolled across the steel floor, and sighed when it came to rest. He was on his own, and he needed a plan. A good one, and it wasn't anything that pacing and yelling could solve. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath to calm his mind, his fingers pressed to his lips as he thought. He was...bait, but that didn't mean he needed to be alive. As soon as they figured out that the rebels weren't coming for him, they'd come for him to kill him, most likely. He had been caught aiding the rebels, after all, and he'd already been questioned about who they were. He actually told the truth about that one. He didn't know anything.

But when they came, when the door opened...that was his chance to slip out. It was a small window, and it would be a harried escape for certain, but he'd been out of tight spots before. He knew that one day, his luck would run out eventually, but he was still alive, so he suspected it hadn't yet.

So deep was his concentration that Ezra had barely heard the faint click. Then another. Then another, followed by a smooth, clear humming, like the sound of a small repulsor. He tuned it out. Something frm above or below or outside his cell, some machine brought to life, some droid going about its work. Something, but nothing that would help him.

"This is Master Luminara Unduli," a calm, soft, female voice said over what sounded like a holorecording. "The Republic has fallen, and the Jedi Order has come to an end, with the Empire, a thing born from the Dark Side, rising in their place." With a sigh, Ezra slowly opened his eyes, looked out before him, and gasped, eyes widening in shock as he found himself staring at the cube that once sat motionless upon the ground and now lay hovering in the air, the gold trimmings detached, the cube opened as the light blue of the glass shone brilliantly, casting the entire cell in a ghostly light. Above the floating, glowing device was projected the image of a woman, her face calm and serene, a large, crescent headdress upon her head, her thin body clad in long, black robes. Ezra leaned in, his eyes fixed intently upon the image, as if looking away for only a moment would cause it to fade.

"From this moment on," the woman continued, "the Jedi Order as we know it is over, lost to Sith treachery and ambition and...our own shortsightedness." Ezra felt a stab of pain within him, though he wasn't sure why. The woman seemed...immeasurably sad, heartbroken, like her life was over, and yet she somehow still seemed strong. Brave. Like she had a mission that meant more than herself. "But that doesn't mean it is the end," she said, stronger this time. "We will be hunted. We will be killed. Our extermination is the goal, but in this, they have failed. Avoid Coruscant. Avoid detection. Trust in each other, and above all else, trust in the Force. It may come to lead you places you do not understand, lead you to allies you...may not expect," she said, a soft, wry smile on her face, like she held a secret that she couldn't share, "but to follow its will is the path to victory, and we will prevail. May the Force be with you, my friends. Always."

The image flickered as it disappeared, and with a gasp, Ezra dove forward, moving his hand through the air as if he could grab the image, bring it back, but it was already gone. The golden pieces of the cube, floating out around the pale, blue glass suddenly snapped shut around it, the cube not quite reforming correctly, the vibrancy of the blue lost, and Ezra caught it in his hands, staring at it in disbelief. What was this thing? Who was that woman? And why did that rebel guy have it? The Jedi? Ezra snorted. The Jedi were a myth, a legend that people with way too much time believed in. There were no such thing as Jedi, fabled superheroes that roamed the galaxy, righting wrongs and triumphing over evil in all its forms. If such a thing really existed, than the Empire would never have come to power, and even if they were real once, they were all gone now, wiped out by the Empire, so the stories went. Some heroes they turned out to be.

And the Force...he shrugged. He never heard of it.

But he did hear new voices outside the door, the whirring of the door mechanisms as an identification cylinder was inserted, the beeping of the console as the door unlocked, and Ezra dove behind the small set of stairs that led into his cell, and he grinned when the harsh, clinical lighting of the Star Destroyer's hallways filtered in, and two oblivious stormtroopers entered. He gripped the cube tightly in his hand. It seemed his luck had returned.

Ezra sprinted across the fields and plains toward the abandoned LothalNet com tower that had been his home since his parents were taken away by the Empire, the coveted, stolen cylinder clutched tightly in his grip. Turns out, the cube was missed, and Ezra had been forced to return it, but had swiped the...that thing from the man as he left. That man. Kanan.

A Jedi.

A real, live Jedi. Ezra wouldn't have believed it if he didn't see it for himself. It was...amazing. Like every story ever heard, just as miraculous a thing as anything in the galaxy. Stormtroopers had shot at him, but nothing could hit him, like he saw everything before it happened, like he knew exactly where every blaster bolt fired would be, and he simply...stepped out of the way, a slight tilt of his head causing shots to narrowly miss, but miss all the same, the precise moves of his...laser sword thing not just blocking the shots fired, but deflecting them away from him and back at the people shooting. Kanan had transformed before his very eyes, his posture, his attitude, everything Ezra knew him to be faded away into cold, intense focus, noble and proud and unreal. He was stunned, and he couldn't look away. He was a Jedi, a thing that meant nothing to him before, and in a moment, it suddenly meant everything.

Ezra...was wrong, which was difficult to admit. The rebels had returned for him, had rescued him from the Star Destroyer he was imprisoned on, and with little time to spare to save the actual imprisoned Wookies, Ezra found himself tagging along on the mission That's when it happened. When Kanan revealed himself. When he stepped out of hiding and showed the Empire that he was a Jedi, a thing, he gathered, that was expressly forbidden, nothing more to the Imperials than something to hunt, like a rare and valuable beast. And it had saved them all. And it was amazing. And helping the Wookies, saving them from the Empire...it felt good. Even if it was only a few of them, even just a handful fewer to stand among the millions enslaved, hardly even a thing of note to the Empire, each one was a life saved, each one a person, unlike him and just like him all at once, and Ezra knew that each life saved mattered. It mattered more than he could say.

And then it was over. The mission was a success, and it was time to go home. It...didn't feel good. He was bitter, and he was angry, but he had no place there with them, had stolen from them, wasn't meant for a life where he would sacrifice his own life for someone else, even if it felt as good, meant as much as helping the Wookies did. So he stole Kanan's miraculous weapon from his belt as the ship jolted when it landed, and when the Jedi had confronted him about his theft, he returned the cube and ran before the man could say a word, could notice that his laser sword was gone. And that was the end of it.

Ezra entered his home high above the outskirts of town and looked around at his belongings, the few gadgets he kept, the valuables he had decided to keep instead of sell, his collection of Imperial helmets along his wall that he kept as trophies after he had managed to acquire them, either through besting them or stealing them off their heads or from their barracks, or...anything, really. As long as he had them. They felt like defiance. Like rebellion, his own small victories against the Empire that had taken his family and destroyed his life. It wasn't anything like saving Wookies from slavery, but at least it was his.

He held the stolen weapon in his hands as he looked at his collection of Imperial things and felt it just...didn't belong there. This thing was different. This thing was...well, he didn't know what it was, but he felt something. Something...behind him, something that the weapon almost seemed to be pulling toward.

"What's the Force?" Ezra asked, knowing the one that could answer, and would answer, was standing behind him.

"The Force," Kanan said softly, "is everywhere. It surrounds us, penetrates us, binds us all together." Ezra turned to look at the man, the weapon held tightly, defensively in his grip. "And it's strong with you, Ezra," the Jedi said, looking at the boy pointedly. "You wouldn't have been able to open the holocron if you weren't." Ezra's eyes narrowed suspiciously at the man. He had so many questions. How could he have the Force? What did that even mean? Who was the woman he saw? What did any of what she said mean? Did Kanan know he had stolen the cube? Did he allow it? Was it...was it some kind of test? Ezra didn't like that at all. And how had he gotten up here so quickly, so silently, especially when he hadn't heard anyone following him. But he settled on the most important question of all.

"What do you want?" he asked coldly, but Kanan seemed unaffected by his frosty demeanor, his hand on his hip as he leaned back against the doorway.

"I'm here to offer you a choice," he said softly. "You can keep the lightsaber you stole, let it become just some...dusty relic of another time on your shelf, or you can give it back and come with us." Kanan took a deep breath. "Come with me. Be trained in the ways of the Force. You can...learn. What it means to be a Jedi."

"I thought the Empire wiped out the Jedi," Ezra drawled, rolling his eyes. He could almost not believe what he was saying, but he had seen crazy things today, things right out of the stories of his childhood. If the Jedi were real, than maybe all the other stories were too.

"Not all of us," Kanan said with a carefree smirk, and Ezra looked down at the weapon, the lightsaber he held in his hands. It was crazy. This whole thing was crazy, all of it. Going with them meant abandoning his old life, a life that admittedly wasn't much, but at least it was his. It meant doing things to help, sticking his neck out for others, and that meant getting hurt. Getting betrayed. It meant things going wrong, it meant that his life would be in danger. But it also meant making a difference, even if it was small. It meant learning about the Force, this mystical thing he didn't know existed until this moment, until today, when everything he knew had changed. But even still, he couldn't give it all up. Not now. Not without knowing more. He took a deep breath, a hundred questions on the tip of his tongue and...

Kanan was gone.

How? Ezra ran out of the tower to the balcony that surrounded the domed transmission hub, and he gripped the railing, looking far beneath him for sign of Kanan, but he was gone. No sign, no trace, no nothing. Ezra shut his eyes tight and pressed his fingers to his temple. Had he...imagined the whole thing? He couldn't see how it was possible, none of this was possible. Could...the Force have made him see things? Could the Force even do that? He didn't know. Kanan would know, but...well, it was possible that the rebels in their miraculous ship were gone.

There was a sound from behind him coming from inside his home, a scrape as things were moved, shifted, and Ezra swiftly turned looked inside, his hands on the edges of the doorway to stop any possible escape by whatever it was that was going through his things, most likely a wayward Loth-cat, which happened with some frequency. Instead, Ezra's eyes widened and his breath caught in his throat as he looked at not a creature, but a person, a young, handsome blond man with a neatly trimmed beard, clad in fine black robes and a tunic with seams lined in red. In his hands was one of his collection, a jet black TIE Fighter helmet, a recent acquisition that Ezra had been particularly proud of.

"Ah..." the man said with wonder, observing the helmet. "This is a fine collection you have, but I think this is your finest piece. How did you manage to obtain it?" Ezra ground his teeth together as he felt his temper flare, even though the smooth, clipped accent of the man was somehow...soothing. It wasn't enough.

"What are you doing in my house?!" Ezra snapped, taking the lightsaber in his hands and turning it on, the blue blade extending with a hiss, and the blond man's eyes snapped to look at it with glowing, golden eyes, and Ezra could feel his chest tighten, his limbs shaking with a sudden chill. "How did you even get up here? How did you even get in here without me knowing about it?!" He gripped the saber tighter, his teeth chattering from the sudden cold. "I-I'm warning you, I'm armed, and I'm not afraid to use this!"

The man placed the helmet upon the table, one hand still resting on the polished black surface, and with his other hand extended, fingers splayed, the lightsaber in Ezra's hands was torn from his grasp, the blue blade retracting as the hilt spun toward the man's palm, and his fingers delicately closed around it. Ezra stared at the man in disbelief, unable to move from his spot as he watched the intruder almost reverently examine the lightsaber in his hands. Swallowing hard, Ezra looked the man over, his eyes drifting over the almost predatory elegance of the man, and saw that on his belt, hung not one, but three hilts just like the weapon Ezra had stolen from Kanan. Lightsabers.

This man was a Jedi.

"Who are you?" Ezra gasped, clutching his arms as he walked cautiously into the house, and the man indifferently tossed the lightsaber back to him.

"Who I am is of little consequence," he said softly, those strange, glowing eyes fixed with Ezra's, and the boy stared defiantly back.

"Well it's of consequence to me!" he snapped. "Who are you?"

"My name is unimportant," he said, soft and calm, without emotion or expression as he gently passed his hand through the air, and Ezra sucked in a sharp breath, his eyes narrowing in sudden focus and-

"Your name isn't important..." Ezra mindlessly repeated, and the man smiled and patted the dazed boy's cheek.

"There's a good boy..."

Air rushed back into Ezra's lungs, suddenly slammed back into himself as if he was simply...out of his body for a time, and he shook his head, watching the intruder carefully as he took the TIE helmet off the table and replaced it upon the shelf, all without touching it at all. "I don't understand..." he said slowly. "Are you...a Jedi?"

The man smirked, his gold eyes lighting with amusement, and Ezra couldn't help but wonder what exactly he was. No human had eyes like that. They felt...dangerous. "A Jedi...no, but I am...something like that." He straightened up. "But there was a Jedi here not too long ago. Kanan Jarrus." Ezra kept his mouth shut. He wasn't sure he trusted this guy, and he didn't want to endanger Kanan. The golden eyes simply rolled. "Oh, come now, I know he was here. If I wanted to go after him, I would have. I saw him as he left, and without his lightsaber, so if killing the Jedi was my goal, I would have already done so."

It...made sense, but Ezra didn't move anyway. The man scoffed and rolled his eyes, took one of the lightsabers from his belt and lit it, the blade filling the room with soft blue light, the same as the one that belonged to Kanan. This man said he wasn't a Jedi, but...well, Ezra was usually pretty good at telling if someone was up to something, and while this guy was definitely up to something, it didn't feel...wrong, or dangerous, or anything like that. At the very least, he had a lightsaber, had moved things without touching them, and maybe, just maybe, he could answer some of the questions that he had. Ezra had a big, life changing decision to make. He wasn't going to go into it uninformed.

"You know Kanan?" Ezra ventured carefully, and the man nodded, the blue blade hissing as it shut off and he attached the hilt back to his belt.

"I do. Very well, as it so happens."

"And he knows you?" A sly, devious smirk crossed the man's lips.

"Oh, he most certainly does..." Disbelief and suspicion flashed across the boy's face, and the man leaned in toward him. "Your name?"

Ezra crossed his arms over his chest. "Jabba the Hutt." Gold eyes widened, his face hard and focused for a moment before he grinned, chuckling softly under his breath.

"You'll need to come up with a better lie," he said, amused. "I know Jabba, and you look very little like that oversized, corpulent, lascivious slug." He paused to look the boy over. "...however, you smell very much the same."

"Hey! I've been around a Lasal all day, it's not my fault!" He paused. "Wait, you know Jabba?" The man rolled his eyes.

"Everyone knows Jabba. Get a new alias, Ezra Bridger, you aren't fooling anyone." Ezra's jaw dropped and he stared in disbelief at the man, gaping and gasping as he struggled to figure out if he somehow knew this man from somewhere.

"How-"

"With the Force," he said, smirking, "anything is possible." He drew closer, and Ezra was too stunned to move. "The Jedi. What did he want?"

"H-he wanted me to come with him. So he could train me as a Jedi, to teach me the ways of the Force." Ezra frowned. "He says I'm strong in it."

"He's right," the man said softly. "You are. Stronger than some, in any case."

"But I don't even know what the Force is!" Ezra cried, becoming increasingly frustrated. The man just smiled.

"Did he not tell you?"

"Well, sort of, he said it was this...thing that binds everything together." The man scoffed and rolled his eyes.

"Oh, how like a Jedi to speak in riddles." He shrugged. "He's not wrong, of course, but to put it simply...the Force is life. The Force exists in everything, and those who have the ability to sense it, to feel its flow, those who are sensitive to its call like you, like Kanan, like me..." He stood up tall. "There is where true power lies."

"...power to do what?" Ezra asked, and a faint, almost cruel smile tugged at the edge of his lips.

"Anything," he whispered. "Anything you could possibly want, if you just have the will to reach out and take it." Gold eyes searched him, and Ezra tried to back away, but found he was rooted to the spot. He couldn't move. "There's so much...anger in you, Ezra. So much fear. It's a wonder the Empire hasn't found you with the way you have made yourself vulnerable to the Dark Side." The man sighed and drew away, and Ezra was released, breathing fast as his lungs burned with rushing oxygen.

"Why would the Empire be looking for me?!" Ezra asked, but he had his answer before he had even finished answering the question. "The cube," he muttered, and when he felt those unnatural eyes burning upon him, he looked back up at the man. "The holo...something."

"Holocron."

"Yes! I saw a woman, she-"

"Luminara." Ezra looked at the man curiously and nodded, a low, hungry growl in his voice filled with desperation and...something else that Ezra couldn't place. "...I came because I sensed her, but I thought..." He hissed. "I thought the Jedi had found her, I thought..." He ran a hand through his hair and turned away from the boy. "Why. I can feel her, just out of reach, she's so close..."

"Look, I don't know what you're talking about, but that woman? She wasn't real. It was just a recording." The man looked over his shoulder at him, carefully appraising him, and the chill returned worse than before. Ezra put a hand to his head. He was starting to get a headache.

"Your friend Kanan has made an error," the man said softly, his eyes closed and his voice distant like he was somehow...lost. "He's exposed himself. He's shown the Empire that the rebel cell that has been such an irritant the past year is being led by a Jedi. It's only a matter of time before the Inquisitors show up. Perhaps...it is this I have been waiting for..."

"Does that mean he's in danger?" Ezra asked, far more worried than he thought he would have been over someone that was a stranger. A wonderful, miraculous stranger.

"Perhaps..." he softly drawled. "But I think, perhaps, you will be in danger as well. With an Inquisitor on Lothal, they will almost certainly sense you within the Force. They will find you, they will capture you. For you, without training, there will be no escape."

"W-well, you can teach me!" Ezra said, desperate and nervous, a cold chill suddenly gripping him. "You have this Force thing, don't you?! You could teach me!"

"...I could," the man confessed. "My knowledge of the Force is extensive. You could grow powerful under my guidance." He stroked his beard thoughtfully. "I wonder..." He was silent for a long while, those strange eyes distant as he looked beyond where they stood, and slowly, he shook his head. "The finest art is made from the purest material. What I have to offer you would drown you. You would be consumed and torn apart. I don't know what path will be yours to take. Your future is clouded, uncertain, and if you are to walk my path, you will come to me." He touched the lightsaber in Ezra's hand, and the boy tightened his grip around the object. "But not now. Not yet. You already have a teacher, in any case."

He did? He...did. Ezra looked at the lightsaber in his hands, his path suddenly clear, his wants and desires converging on a singular point. He wanted to train with Kanan. He needed to, and for the life of him, he couldn't figure out when he had made the decision. It was almost like it had happened without him. He smiled at the blond man, that strange, powerful being that had stepped into his home completely unnoticed, the same as Kanan had so effortlessly stepped away.

"Thank you!" he said enthusiastically, shoving his few essential belongings into his backpack. "I was conflicted before. I don't know how, but you helped me find clarity."

"Mm, I did nothing of the sort," he said, an amused smile on his lips. "Your answers came from within, not from me."

"Well, thanks anyway!" Ezra said swiftly, turning to rush out the door, but was stopped when his feet left the ground and he found himself suspended in the air by the collar of his shirt. The blond casually strolled up to the irritated boy and smiled.

"Will you give Kanan a message from me?" he softly asked, and before Ezra could answer, he leaned over, whispered something in his ear, and a moment later, Ezra's feet were on the ground, grabbing the ladder and sliding down to the ground below, so quickly that he didn't see the blond man step back into the shadows and melt into them, vanishing from sight.

He ran as fast as his legs could take him, hoping that the ship was still where it landed, and to his relief, he could see the vessel slowly come into view as he ran up the hill. On the boarding ramp sat Kanan, as if he was waiting for him. When he saw Ezra, he quickly rose and walked out into the field to meet the out of breath boy. Gasping, Ezra took the lightsaber and held it out to him.

"Please," Ezra said softly. "I want to learn. I want you to teach me about the Force. About being a Jedi." With a nod, Kanan took his lightsaber back.

"I'm glad you decided to come back," Kanan said, twisting the lightsaber and hanging the two pieces off his belt.

"Yeah, well..." Ezra rubbed the back of his neck and smiled sheepishly at the Jedi. "I had a little help from a friend of yours." Kanan arched an eyebrow and looked at him suspiciously, a sudden sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"Friend?" he asked. "What friend?"

"You know, the other guy like you!" His smile dropped from his face when Kanan showed no signs of recognition. "You know...the guy. Your age, blond, beard, wore black, yellow eyes." This time, Ezra did get a reaction out of Kanan, but not the one that he expected. The Jedi's ruddy skin went positively ashen, and he staggered back, his hand on the hull of the ship for support. "C-come on!" Ezra said, trying to be light but suddenly very, very nervous. "He said you knew him very well. He said he knew you."

"N-no..." Kanan whispered, slowly shaking his head. "That isn't possible, he couldn't-"

"He had a message for you," Ezra said . "But I didn't understand it." Kanan said nothing. He just looked at the boy, his teal eyes wide with fear that Ezra could feel in the air. "He said the Sithkiller says hello."

"Obi-Wan," Kanan whimpered, his hand trembling as he felt tightness grip his chest, cold and unforgiving. "It can't be. It can't, he's supposed to be dead! The Empire caught him almost a year ago, they publically executed him!" Kanan looked up into the sky, the sun setting behind them as night slowly began to creep across the sky, and in the twilight, Kanan thought he could see a ship flying low, a sleek, beautiful thing of jet black and red, and deep within him, Kanan heard a smooth, aristocratic drawl calling his name.