UNKNOWN REGIONS, TWENTY FOUR HOURS AFTER THE BATTLE OF LOTHAL

When the Purgill had told Ezra that they couldn't carry the weight of the Chimera any farther, Ezra had understood. This was what he was meant to do. Thrawn however, panicked when the space travellers departed. He looked like he was screaming, but in the vacuum of space, no sound was made.

Ezra knew he was going to die here, but he couldn't shake the feeling that in his death, he would give rise to something terrible, something worse than Thrawn, and the force was moving differently than it was supposed to when a Jedi's end was near, different than Kanan described. It continued on, like he was still meant to live. This was deeply concerning, if he died, something worse that Thrawn could rise in his place. And without the coordination and brilliance of the admiral, the Empire will get desperate, and in that desperation, they may turn to a man they may not fully understand.

It was as someone once told him, introduce a little chaos into the established order, and everything becomes chaos. Then he had another thought, if he was gone, it was entirely possible that one of his old demons would emerge, one from his other life. If that happened, more of them would soon follow, and no one would be there to stop it. Some would hit Sullust, some would hit the rebel alliance on Yavin. But one, only one, would go to Mandalore. The worst would go there, order, honor, loyalty, Mandalorians lived and died by those rules. What was scary about that thought was one, because if the one he was thinking of went there, they would show them what chaos can do to a people who live by such strict rules and guidelines. Honor, loyalty, it would all be thrown out the window. And if Mandalore ever fell because of one singular person, the entire galaxy would know that if Mandalore fell, the planet with the best warriors in the galaxy, what chances did other's have? Ezra knew exactly who would take pleasure in burning Mandalore to the ground. And two, there was Sabine. She would race to her family's aid if such an event happened, and the force gave him this hunch that it would.

But what happens when they met someone who had no rules, who didn't have a plan? A man who only wanted destroy, torture, and burn? Ezra knew exactly who that was. So in one last, desperate action, he reached out into the force, into the darkness, hoping, praying for the call to be heard.

And the darkness answered. He answered.

LOTHAL, SIX YEARS BEFORE MEETING KANAN

When Ezra's parents had been taken he'd had no one, nothing. That was why he'd run from the city and taken up residence in a tower, the comm tower. He would venture into the city only to get food and sometimes credits. How he earned said credits was the shady part of his life. There was one such time did so to get fruit and water, but the shop he usually stole from was shut down, due to his mischief. So he had to go into the supermarket, which he tried to avoid, since Imperial police liked to be sure nothing was stolen.

Now, keep in mind that this market also sold blasters, mainly to the Imperials. Ezra had taken fruit from a shelf and shoved it in his pack. When he was making his escape, an Imperial in unusual armor spotted him. Ezra didn't go back to his tower, instead he ran far out into the fields, and hid behind a large cone shaped rock. The young boy, not knowing how to use force powers yet, thought he had lost the man. When turned around however, he was tower above him, lightsaber in hand.

It was only later that he would discover this man was an Inquisitor, "I was under the impression that all the younglings were killed during Order 66," The man had said to him, "Shame, now I have to explain the screaming to the authorities." The force user raised his blade above Ezra's head, he was going to scream too, but then something happened. Ezra heard the Inquisitor's blade swipe down as he closed his eyes, but the end didn't come, the heat of the blade never entered his chest. He opened his eyes to see the Inquisitor pulled into a dark corner, a hand covering his mouth as he was dragged into the darkness.

The cries of the Inquisitor were heard for a moment before being silenced almost instantly, along with the crack of a fist against a skull. Ezra got to his feet when the area was completely and utterly silent, and started moving his way toward the dark area. And as he got closer, he could feel something he would only ever feel in two other individuals. The anger, the hate... the cold. But there was something else, something different- vengeance. When he was mere feet away from the corner, a dark shadow consumed him from above, and carried him up into the afternoon sky.

After a moment the ascend stopped and the shadow around him unwrapped itself from him, but instantly dragged him over the side of a rock, and grabbed him by the collar of his jacket, and dangled him over the side of the large stone that Lothal prided itself for, "Who are you?" A gruff, terrifying voice yelled, "Why was he trying kill you? Answer me!"

"I- I don't know!" Ezra stuttered out, not daring to open his eyes, "I was just trying to get food from the market! Please, I did nothing wrong!" Then he felt a strong tug at his collar, pulling him closer to the shadow, so close he could feel it's angry breaths on his face.

"Except steal from a local supermarket," The man said, throwing him onto the solid part of the rock. This was when Ezra opened his eyes, to see a dark figure, in a helmet with long sharp ears, and armor that looked like some form of metal, and made to be terrifying. And in the center, a large bat emblem, a symbol that he would one day wear, a symbol that he would one day use to protect his family, "I'm going to call the authorities, have you kept safe."

"No!" Ezra shouted, "That man belonged to the government, and the police here belong to the government, you put me under their care, they'll send me to another man like him!" The caped figure regarded him coldly, similar to the way Mandalorians would look at him in the future. Ezra would be on his hands and knees begging if he weren't so scared of this strange man who had carried him up onto a fifty foot rock in the middle of nowhere, and threatened to throw him off if he wasn't honest.

"Then at least tell me about this government, then I'll consider it." The man said, and Ezra told him everything he knew about the Empire, which wasn't much, aside from what the Emperor would always claim on the Holonet, "If you don't know," The man said, "Maybe he does." Looking down into the dark corner. The man brought Ezra back down to ground level with him, and pulled the semi-awake Inquisitor from the dark.

He seized him by the shoulders and got in his face, making the Inquisitor wake up fully, "I want you to tell me everything you know about whatever division you work with in the Imperial government, you hear me?" The Inquisitor kept quiet, he looked terrified, but stayed silent, "DO YOU HERE ME?!" The man yelled again.

"I'll never talk to you, you evil piece of- what in the name of the force?" The Inquisitor trailed off as part of his arm started to turn to dust, as it floated away in the air. Slowly his entire body began to crumbled to dust, as the wind took it away, and soon the man was only holding air as the entire being turned to dust and floated away.

The man looked around, "What the hell?" The only sound that could be heard was blowing of the wind, and the rustling of the grass. A week later the Empire released a statement claiming it was a plague that killed over half the population on the planet, "We need to get out of here." The man grabbed Ezra's hand and led him off into the fields.

"Where are we going?" Ezra asked the strange man.

"You want to be safe from those monsters?" He asked back.

"You're going to keep me safe?" Ezra asked, hopefully.

"No, I'm going to teach you," The man said, turning back to Ezra, "I'm going to teach you how to fight them, to stand up to them and protect yourself and everyone else from getting hurt again."

"Will I come back?"

"Do you want to?"

"Yes."

"Then you will, when the time is right," The man said, leading Ezra back into the field, "But as of right now, there are some people I'd like you to meet."

"I don't even know your name." Ezra pointed out.

"What's yours?" The man asked.

Ezra was hesitant at first to answer that, knowing what other people had done with his name, but this man saved his life, the least he could do was give him a name, "Ezra," He stated, "Ezra Bridger."

The man rose from the crouching position he had taken to meet Ezra's eyes, and the words that came next were the words that would change millions of lives, and some of those were the people Ezra would grow to care about, "I'm Batman." The man then continued walking in the direction he had came from, those words were also something for Ezra and a few select others to tease the masked hero about, but it was the beginning of Ezra Bridger's other life, his other name. And there were few others he would entrust with the lives of his friends, but now, floating through space in the middle of force knows where with Thrawn, he was calling out to the Batman from across the cosmos, from a different universe, to come and protect those who he loved most.

Hera.

Zeb.

Ryder.

Rex.

Sabine.

And as he floated toward his destination, he could feel Bruce accept his request as his presence entered the galaxy where Ezra grew up, where his friends were. And he had a knew reassurance that they would be safe in his absence, under the watchful eye of a hero they didn't know was there, a silent guardian, a watchful protector.

A Dark Knight.

LOTHAL, ONE DAY LATER

The crew of the Ghost loaded cargo onto the ship, as Hera and Zeb prepared to leave for Yavin 4, Sabine gave them a final farewell hug, and promised them she would keep in touch.

"Ezra said he was counting on me, to make his planet safe, and to protect while he was gone." The young Mandalorian said, as she watched Captain Syndulla's face change.

"And there's no other reason?" Hera asked, raising her eyebrows playfully, "There's no other reason why you would stay here and keep all of this the way it is now? At peace, exactly the way Ezra wanted?"

Sabine blushed a little, but her smile wavered a little, "Goodbye, Hera."

The Captain of the Ghost pulled the Mandalorian into a hug, "You stay safe, you hear?" Her voice cracked a little, "I've lost to many of my family here, I don't want to lose anymore."

"You won't lose me," Sabine promised her, "I give you my word."

Hera pulled away and nodded, as she and Zeb boarded the Ghost, followed by Chopper, as the ship took off and flew into the horizon. Sabine looked down at her feet as the ship flew off, and wiped away a few tears at her family being separated, for good this time. She turned and walked away, toward Ezra's tower, but she felt eyes on her, not the kind that admired any particular feature of her's, but someone keeping watch to be sure she was okay.

Guardian angels, She thought, Thanks, Ezra

She chuckled at the thought and dismissed it, but as she made her way to her tower, she didn't see that on a skyscraper above, a dark figure stood by watching, silent as always, but never unfocused. His cape flapped in the wind as he looked over Lothal as night began to fall. His dark form contrasting from the orange sky as he watched Sabine move toward Ezra's old tower. He owed Ezra his life, and now the young boy he had trained had grown up, started a new life, but because of this feeling that he supposedly had, that there would only be more death and destruction in his absence, he needed the Batman too keep his friends, and in many ways the entire galaxy safe.

He had arrived here using Barry's interdimensional treadmill, which the speedster would use to send people into other universes and timelines. And he put Nightwing in charge of Gotham until he returned. As Sabine entered the tower's elevator, he knew she had found a home. But he would keep track of her, Zeb, and Hera. If a problem arose that threatened them to an extent that they wouldn't get out of without help, he would be there, he owned Ezra that much. And after this war with the Empire was over, he would find Ezra. If Sabine didn't beat him to it.

Although, while he was here, he couldn't help but spot crimes, the average type, like muggings, thefts, even some murders. Those that went unsolved or unnoticed by the police or Sabine herself, he would address himself, and after a while, as they had when he had first started, rumors of a bat creature started to circulate. The police, government, and lawyers dismissed them as just hoaxes.

However, there still were somethings that even Bruce worried about. He had done some digging into the plague that the Empire had claimed taken over half the people on Lothal, the one that had clearly been a cover-up for something else entirely, the cover-up of what actually happened to that Inquisitor all those years ago. When he infiltrated the Imperial Archives on Coruscant, he had found that there was no known reason for what happened to those people, other than that they turned to dust within seconds, and gone just as fast. But there was a star chart, one that mapped everything known about the space outside of the universe where the Jedi once lived. Apparently the disappearance was caused by a massive surge of power on one "World 616".

After he'd returned to Lothal, a ceremony for the liberation of Lothal was held, the remaining crew members of the Ghost were there, even the droid known as Chopper. But the ceremony was also held to honor the two who'd given their lives in the battle for the planet, Kanan Jarrus and Ezra Bridger. Bruce listened in on the ceremony via the earpiece in his cowl, it went very well, and was similar to the ceremony that was held back on Earth when the Justice League was formed. The Batman himself, the most stoic person on his entire world perhaps, even caught himself smiling as the heroes were thanked by every grateful citizen. It only went sour when they called the names of the dead... and Ezra Bridger was among them.

It was hard enough for Bruce to hear that name called. He had only lost an ally once, he wasn't going to make that mistake again. Sabine Wren however, was much more vocal in her thoughts. The Mandalorian stepped out of the line that was formed by Garazeb Orrelios, Hera Syndulla, and former clone trooper, Rex, "What did you just kriffing say?" Batman smirked a little, he'd never met a Mandalorian, but he was getting a good sense of what they were like from this girl, and then the speaker thought it was a good idea to tell her she was disrespecting Ezra's passing by interrupting.

Bruce watched watched Captain Syndulla purse her lips just before the young Mandalorian threw punch that made impact right in the middle of the speaker's nose. He could almost hear the cartilage snap. Miss Wren proceeded to yell insult in a different dialect, likely Mandalorian, at the speaker until security pulled her away, however the other rebels did nothing, they just stared straight ahead. Safe from the big purple creature, he stared right at the speaker looking like he was about to do the same thing. The thought had crossed the Dark Knight's mind that maybe he should intervene, but that wasn't why he was here. He was only in this galaxy to keep a watchful eye on the rest of the Ghost crew, as per Ezra's request, especially Sabine, he suspected it was because there was a connection between his former student and Sabine Wren. One he would do his best to conserve- as in, not let the former be permanently harmed or killed.

Interestingly enough, the con artist wasn't charged with any accounts of assault, as the victim had accused her of. That could be for multiple reasons, the most likely one being that she was a key part in the liberation of Lothal. In the time Bruce spent on Lothal he saw Sabine do three things, paint, work with the new government to improve Lothal, and beat the living hell out of anyone who threatened the people who lived on the planet. However, he was almost one hundred percent sure that Ezra didn't mean for her to stay and protect Lothal when he said he was counting on her, but he didn't have the heart to tell her that, and he almost didn't have the guts.

About a year after Ezra's disappearance, he had set up a base of operations in a cave system that went from under a rock field and below the capitol city. It was perfect, he stole a bit of equipment from Imperial shuttles, radios, radars, holomaps, everything he needed to keep an eye on the galaxy. But no sooner was he tapping into transmissions mentioning a super-weapon capable of destroying planets. He left Lothal on the Batwing, which had been outfitted with life support for space and the best technology STAR labs and Lucius Fox had to offer. The Dark Knight had left to gain intel about the super weapon, so he headed for Sullust, the center of weapon manufacturing for the Empire's Stormtrooper divisions. But there was an unexpected factor there as well, and when he entered the atmosphere of the planet, he didn't find Star Destroyers or TIE fighters waiting for him, which wouldn't have been a problem for him.

What he encountered was much, much worse- Hera Syndulla.

Okay, I've been gone for a while now. Some people may have read the original versions of this story, which are currently still up, under Star Wars Rebels/Batman crossover, but I decided to do a rewrite. I wasn't proud of it at the time, but this I think will be much better. And keep in mind this is an ALTERNATE UNIVERSE, so I'm going to bend the cannon a little, no major events will be affected. This will be a more detailed story than the first, and this chapter was a prologue, it was establishing why Batman was there, and what he had been doing. The next few will have more action, dialogue, and will deal with Ezra's disappearance more. Please write a review and let me know if you enjoyed or not, it helps me to know what you liked and what you didn't like.