I own nothing except a few characters and the plot.

STAR WARS REBELS

The New Spectres

Meet The Carpenters

NEW YORK - PRESENT DAY

"Did you hear what Kanan said about Darius a few months ago?" Ezra asked Sabine at lunch.

"Jacen told just about everybody. I think someone said something to Thrawn and Eli about it. I know I heard the part about him being related to Mace Windu from somewhere." She replied.

"Who said what about Darius?" Phil Tate asked.

"According to my Jedi Master, ten years from now he's a teacher in Philadelphia with his own family. He puts out that album everyone who knows him wants him to along with a movie about that incident he and Lucy have been researching the backstory of for the past eight months, married her, and had a kid who's named after Kanan. We also found out about a week ago just how far his father's side has fallen. Darius is a descendant of Jedi Master Mace Windu and probably just as powerful. From what Master Kenobi told me about this, Darius threw a bunch of gang members across a street and then he put Steven Abernathy who has not gotten the message that Mekya Fanes is sending him by throwing him in jail every night in a choke." Ezra explained.

"I'm guessing he's not teaching for the money."

"Not from what I was told. Kanan, save it for later or show it to Jacen."

"What?" Sabine asked.

"A vision of Darius and Lucy in the future." Ezra replied.

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA - FALL 2030

"Where are they?" Darius Carpenter asked one of the students in his classroom.

"Where are what?" The student asked.

"The rubber band shooters you said you was bringing today. Your choices are giving them to me and there's no paper trail, going down to Mr. Washington's office and giving them to him, or my wife's troops can come here and take them along with you." The student gave up the contraband items in his bag.

"Life is all about choices. You made the right one giving these to me. I'm sure your parents would rather get these from me then have to go get you from the Remnant's facility at the Navy Yard or somewhere else after someone called the police on you because you waved these around on the street and somebody thought they were real." Darius explained as he locked the items up in a closet.

"My mother made a bad choice when she was your ages. She had me at sixteen. She kept making them for the next sixteen years. Make a long story short, she's still got about ten years to go in a Federal Prison because my 11th Grade teachers saw something in me and weren't about to let me be anymore of a victim of her bad choices then I already was. She made one more bad choice, moved another bum with a record in days after my father-in-law sent his troops to come drag the last one out in handcuffs." The rest of the day went by without incident. After school, he left the building to find a man selling loose cigarettes to anyone with a couple of dollars. Darius had seen the man before and had asked him to stop or take his business elsewhere.

"Wanna buy some loosies?" The man asked Darius.

"You don't want to sell me loosies." Darius said and waved his hand.

"I don't wanna sell you loosies."

"You want to go home rethink your life."

"I wanna go home and rethink my life." Darius watched as the man ran off. Satisfied that there would be no one selling loose cigarettes or death sticks near the school, Darius made his way to the neighborhood elementary school so he could pick up Caleb. Caleb's teacher met Darius as he walked in along with Caleb.

"Hi Daddy." Caleb said.

"How was school?"

"Can we talk privately?" The teacher asked.

"About what?" Darius asked.

"It's a rather complicated matter. Perhaps, I should schedule a meeting with his mother instead."

"You can tell me. I work for the same school district you do and might end up having this same conversation with a parent myself one day." Darius told her and showed her his staff ID.

"That explains why Caleb is ahead of the rest of the class in basic reading ability."

"I got skipped ahead in Middle School and his mother graduated a year early. It's a very long story that you probably don't know unless you got the album or the movie and read all the insert materials and everything else that was put out."

"We'll figure something out." The teacher said and smiled. Darius walked Caleb home stopping at a corner store to pick up a couple of things.

"Thought you was in some sort of trouble already." He said as he prepared dinner. Lucy came home a couple of hours later with R9-D2 and found the two watching The People's Court where Judge Ryan Pratchard was hearing a case involving a car crash.

"First of all, even if she was going a little bit over the speed limit, she was in her lane and she had insurance unlike you who was driving drunk and without insurance which makes the crash entirely your fault because you had no business driving if you were drunk let alone driving around without insurance. Therefore, I find in favor of the Plaintiff for the full amount requested $5,000 because you doubled up on being negligent in not only driving drunk but also by driving without insurance." Ryan said and banged his gavel.

"I hear Junior's doing well in his endeavors. Ryan's letting him take a breather before he starts off on his next adventure." Lucy told Darius. R9 beeped something as he rolled out of the kitchen.

"I got dinner cooking, it's probably ready." Darius told her and got up. A few minutes later, Darius told them that dinner was ready. Caleb ran to the table followed by R9 and Lucy.

"How was everyone's day?" Lucy asked.

"Gave the kids a lecture on choices. One of them decided to bring rubberband shooters to school and didn't know I overheard them talking about it yesterday. Kid gave them to me after I told him his choices were me, the Vice Principal, or your troops. Caleb's teacher caught me and said that he's ahead of his class in basic reading ability. I think she wanted to tale to you about it until I told her that I work for the same people she does."

"That runs in the family. Ty's working out the dates for Scared Straight and Reality Check. Once he has them, he'll let the schools know. It'll be for Grades 8 through 12 unless the kid is ordered to attend by a Judge or Probation Officer and based upon student behavioral records. Which means that when he becomes old enough to, Caleb or any students who are like we were won't have to go." She told him as Caleb used The Force to play with his food.

"Caleb, don't play with your food and The Force is not for your personal amusement despite what your Uncle Josh might have shown or told you." Darius said to Caleb as a tone was heard from the television. R9 went to see what it was about and returned beeping something to them.

"What?" Lucy asked the droid who beeped a response.

"R9, tell BB-8 to tell Josh to stop calling us during dinner. We don't need to hear his terms for his customers or about whoever Noah and Tori threw out of the soup stand today and why over dinner." Darius said to the droid.

A few hours after dinner, Lucy gave Caleb a bath and put him to bed while Darius graded some papers.

"What's this?" She asked him.

"English. There seems to be a growing disconnect between proper English and street slang." He replied as Lucy pulled a cake out of the refrigerator.

"Want some?" She asked as she cut two slices off of it.

"Maybe." He replied as R9 brought the phone into the kitchen.

"This better be important." Lucy took the phone from the droid.

"Hi Dad. I put Caleb to bed about a half-hour ago. Only Josh does that. Ezra said Caleb has it, but he and Darius have a better sense of what it's to be used for and personal amusement was never on that list. Everything's fine here outside of Caleb's reading ability. He's ahead for his age group, but that could have something to do with us more then anything. You know I got my brains from Mom. I think R2, the dryer, and that asteroid field you flew the Pride into would disagree with that. Mom didn't drop it yet either. You can come down this weekend? Darius, I know what you're trying to do and you're having as much luck with it as Josh. He's trying to use the Jedi Mind Trick to convince me not to ask you to come visit this weekend. We have nothing planned anyway. Who's on call for when somebody crash-lands a ship in the middle of New Jersey because they decided to play Fast and Furious with the fleet? Nothing to worry about then. See you Saturday. Bye, Dad." She ended the call and gave the phone to R9 for the droid to hang up before taking the whipped cream out.

"I think I have things to do Saturday." Darius said to Lucy and waved his hand.

"No you don't." She told him.

"I will be busy on Saturday." He said and waved his hand again.

"No you won't. Now, stop trying to do that to me."

"This worked on the guy who was selling loose cigarettes by the school until I convinced him earlier today to hopefully make a better choice with his life."

"It never worked when Josh tried using it on me. Why would you think that you would be able to use it on me?"

"Worth a shot. I am a bit stronger in The Force then Josh."

"Well, I'm not some weak-minded hustler trying to sell death sticks or loose cigarettes to anyone getting off the subway at Olney that's willing to buy that junk."

"I never said you were weak-minded or a hustler."

"You implied it." Lucy said and whacked him on the back of the head.

"As I recall, you did that to me and Josh after we got back from vanquishing The Emperor for good seven years ago." He told her.

"That was for him going off and doing the craziest thing he's done since I've known him and you for following him."

"The voice in my head told me to do that. Emperor's face looked like one of the customers that Josh either insulted out of the shoe store or Noah threw out of the soup stand when I switched on my Lightsaber."

"Eat your cake." Lucy said and sprayed some whipped cream on the other slice.

The next morning, Lucy took Caleb to school where his teacher was waiting.

"Hi." Lucy said as she walked Caleb into the school followed by R9.

"You are who exactly?" The teacher asked. Lucy was taken aback by the question, but then remembered that Darius dealt with Caleb's school more then she did.

"I'm Lucy, Caleb's mother. Caleb is General Felth's grandson."

"I'm sorry Mrs. Carpenter. I had no idea you were white. The paperwork only lists names." The teacher said. Lucy moved in closer to the teacher.

"Now you do. I catch another whiff of anything racist from you and we will have a parent-teacher conference in a room where I work at the Navy Yard and I hope the paperwork on your car is in order and on you or you'll be having fun getting it back from the PPA after you get it released from Traffic Court. Got it." Lucy said in a menacing tone.

"This will never happen again. Come on, Caleb." The teacher said and led Caleb away. Lucy noticed Caleb's look of discomfort and turned to R9.

"R9, stay with him and if there's any further problems including your presence, record it and contact me at once." R9 beeped a response and headed off to find Caleb. Lucy pulled out her comlink and called Darius on it.

"You realize I'm in the middle of something." Darius said.

"Important and about Caleb."

"One minute. I'll be right outside. I hear anything that sounds like trouble, the person starting it gets an automatic zero. Now, what's going on?"

"Caleb's teacher just gave me the same attitude she gave you yesterday. I'm leaving R9 with Caleb today, so if you hear anything about a problem relating to a droid at a school. You know which droid it is and why."

"I told Mr. Washington about it this morning. He'll probably cut her off at the pass."

"Okay, see you tonight." Lucy said and ended the call. By lunchtime, Lucy had gotten a call from Caleb's principal who was an overweight woman named Ms. Bellamy about an incident between R9 and Caleb's teacher who Lucy found out was named Donovan that required her to come to the school which she was more then happy to do with a pair of Death Troopers.

"Mrs. Carpenter, were they necessary?" Ms. Bellamy asked as she led Lucy into her office.

"First of all, it's Major Carpenter. Secondly, my encounter this morning with Ms. Donovan and the look Caleb gave me made me decide to not only leave my droid here with him, but to bring them along since you called me at work. Finally, my husband works for the school district provided that Ms. Donovan didn't tell you that already and he spoke to his principal too."

"The droid has been disrupting the class all morning." Ms. Donovan told Lucy.

"How?"

"It gets defensive whenever I come near Caleb."

"Which is what R9 is supposed to do. If you prefer, I can take R9 with me and leave these two here." Lucy said and indicated the two Death Troopers.

"Is this a preview of coming attractions from Caleb?"

"It's something I got from my dad to be difficult with difficult people. The coming attraction from Caleb will probably be the floating of objects in classrooms. His father is a Jedi."

"I object to the rolling Trash Can, so I certainly object to Ugly and Stupid in my classroom." Ms. Donovan said with a nasty tone.

"I object to armed commandos in am Elementary School much less in a Kindergarten classroom." Ms. Bellamy added.

"I can have regular Stormtroopers here tomorrow." Lucy told them.

"I object to that also."

"I'll be taking Caleb with me today and making other arrangements for him until this matter is resolved. You two can expect a visit from a Remnant Major named Hochster. If you think I'm difficult, you're gonna love dealing with him. Also, these two will be with him when he visits. Standard procedure for Remnant Security Bureau agents to have an armed escort." Lucy told them with a smug grin and left to collect Caleb and R9 followed by the two troopers.

That afternoon, Darius stopped by Lucy's office to take Caleb off her hands and found his son playing Checkers in the kitchen with General Typher Marlion.

"Hey Ty. How many games did he beat you in?" Darius asked.

"At least six." Typher replied.

"Lucy around?"

"She's talking to Major Hochster about something."

"I know what it's about. We have to teach Caleb how to play Chess one day." Darius told the retired TIE Pilot and walked into Lucy's office.

"Jedi Carpenter, your wife has regaled me with the details of your son's educators and their color commentaries." The Major said.

"I filed a complaint against the teacher myself about what happened yesterday. She's as good as fired. He beat Ty in at least six games of Checkers."

"What did she do?" Hochster asked Darius.

"Insinuated that I was poorly educated ghetto trash until I told her otherwise. I think she wanted to insinuate that I wasn't Caleb's father, but Caleb stopped that before she could even go there."

"I will leave no stone unturned in my investigation of this woman and her superior. There is nothing about anyone that the Remnant Security Bureau can not find out." The Major said.

"Getting that beached whale of a principal fired would be a bonus. I didn't care much for her attitude or her thousand layers of cellulite either. She's lucky I didn't say that to her face." Lucy told him causing Darius to hold back a chuckle.

"Josh would have said that to her. He probably has said it to a customer already."

"Who promptly stormed out and went to Noah's only to be kicked out of there for holding up the line or screaming at him about Josh."

"I swear Josh rubbed off on you and you're the older one. Thank you Major." Lucy said as Hochster left her office.

"I told the whale we were going to make other arrangements for Caleb until this is settled. By the School District and by here. Now, neither one of us can really work from home or take days off and this is really no place for him to be long-term. Granted, suspects aren't dragged in here like they are up in New York or out in Dallas."

"Dad's coming down this weekend, so Caleb comes here for rest of the week and then we figure something out for next week. Besides, they might be out of that school by the end of the week between what I put in the complaint and whatever the Major finds out about them. I don't think Justin would mind watching him and if I had to choose between your brothers, I'd rather it be Justin then Chris. For the record, Caleb's principal called to talk to me too. All she got from Greg Washington was that he already knew about yesterday and today, he thought the teacher's comments were disgusting and uncalled for, a reminder that I could file a grievance against the teacher for unprofessional behavior, and a dial tone." Darius said as Lucy got up from her desk, came over, and put her arms around Darius.

"I totally forgot about that." She said and kissed him.

NEW YORK - PRESENT DAY

"Just who exactly are they planning to assign Darius to for a master?" Hera asked Ezra that afternoon.

"It's between me, Jacen, or Master Skywalker, but that last one might be a joke given the strained relationship he had with Master Windu. Kanan said Darius is way more powerful then Josh. I mean if Kanan can talk to me and Jacen then Master Windu can certainly talk to Darius about how to use his powers properly which Darius seems to be doing." Ezra explained as Jacen joined them.

"They want me to do what now?" He asked.

"Master Kenobi might assign Darius to you for formal Jedi training." Ezra replied.

"To add to all the other things I have to do on a daily basis. Some of which I don't need to hear the details of. I'd rather read one of Thrawn's extremely detailed narratives then hear about where Sylvia's latest tumor is. Today, she found one on her butt after hearing that her grandson decided not to be a doctor or a lawyer. Don't ask. After which, I left her at a buffet and told her to call me when she wanted to leave or was thrown out while I picked up three of the four kids and their droids to take them to the office. I'm guessing she's still at the buffet. Who took Darius to work today?"

"Jeremy did." Hera replied.

"Why hasn't that suggestion been made yet?" Jacen asked Ezra.

"What suggestion?"

"Having one of the Khaymans train Darius."

"You'd have to ask Master Kenobi." Ezra said. In The Bronx, Darius worked unaware of the three Force Ghosts watching him. Kanan and Bryan Khayman had been joined by Mace Windu.

"He looks so happy." Mace said.

"A marked improvement from a year ago." Bryan told Mace.

"And he has a bright future ahead of him." Kanan added.

"Who's going to be his Master?" Mace asked.

"It's a toss-up between Ezra, Jacen, or Anakin." Kanan replied.

"Skywalker? I'm gonna make it clear, I do not want Darth Vader training my bloodline in The Force. I'd rather it be Marcus or one of Bryan's kids then Vader." Mace told them sternly.

"Except that Marcus is in Chicago and I spent years nudging him about letting Milo find his own way. As for my kids, it would be a Jeremy job since he and Darius have already spent time together." Bryan explained.

"Ezra already has a Padawan and Jacen has a small issue with Darius that I'm trying to convince him to let go of." Kanan said.

"I'm hoping Master Kenobi makes the right choice."

"I think he will. Darius doesn't use The Force to crush his son's teacher's windpipe after she makes those comments about him in that vision Kanan shared." Bryan reassured Mace as the three ghosts disappeared.