AN: Alright guys, I did it. I broke my wrist. Typing is pain. Everything is pain. Pain pain pain. Which means turning out chapters is going to be limited by hos fast I can hunt and peck with two fingers. Because, you know, not writing bothers me. I do have a great idea for this next chapter, and for the next chapter of Blood of Mandalore, so I'll be writing those...sort of simultaneously, I think? Also, spring break means LOTS of work, so...I don;t know, expect an update Friday or Saturday? Maybe earlier, if I can. I hope I can. Alright, my hand hurts. Enjoy, lovelies!
Chapter 17: The Growing Circle
Despite the additional danger that came from being openly associated with a Lord of the Sith, Kanan was excited to have Obi-Wan around as a more permanent member of the gang. When he thought about it, it was...unsettling. Obi-Wan defied nearly everything that Kanan had been told about the Sith by the Jedi the more he got to know about the man. It was true that the Sith keep things close to his chest, but through their training in the days that followed the disaster on the asteroid, Kanan managed to glean quite a bit about Obi-Wan as a person.
He was quiet, isolated, a man that mostly kept to himself, given his own devices. He'd sit in meditation with his holocrons, the red pyramids open and spinning in the air, whispering in a low, seductive hiss in a language that Kanan didn't understand, but it made his head swim, made him dizzy, his mind fuzzy like he was being drugged, or like he had indulged in one of his drunken binges. It felt...good, and he craved more, was overcome by the impulse to just sit and let the smooth words slink into his ears and surround his mind, but something deep inside him dug its heels in and resisted the call, snapping him back into himself with a startled gasp of how easily, how sweetly the Dark Side could draw one in, only to tear them open and feast upon them.
But not Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan sat in that poisonous mire and drank it in like water, and the acrid effect of it only served to corrode that which held back his potential. True, it did contaminate him, but he was so far gone, so deeply ingrained in darkness that venom pulsed through his veins like blood. He was one with the Dark Side, and the price for the power he grasped in his hands had already been paid in full many times over. It had made him cruel and cunning, his vast intelligence and way with words turned to vile, sinister purpose. He had no morality, no sense of what was right and wrong, good or evil. All any person, any action was to him was a tool, useful or not, a toy, fun or broken, and were anything to stand in the way of what he wanted, they would be handled in a way that suited him. In this, he was exactly like the Sith the Jedi had warned about. Power with no constrictions, resulting in something monstrous.
But then there were the times when Obi-Wan thought nobody was looking, the times he trained with lightsaber and staff and blaster, the times he sat in meditation in front of one of the viewports of his ship or out in the rugged nature of Lothal. In those times, Kanan could see his thoughts wander, and those golden, corrupted eyes grew distant and dull like he was somewhere else, or with someone else, and his presence in the Force shivered, and though Obi-Wan's actual presence was difficult to detect, the waters around him rippled with grief so profound, it was as if the wound was fresh, and Kanan could feel the waters of the Force run red with blood that poured from the Sith's torn heart.
Kanan had come to realize that Obi-Wan was...just a man. Violent at time, cruel often and murderous on occasion, but he felt emotion deeply. Grief and loss he could never let go, never forgive, never forget had turned him bitter and hateful, but it was pain none the less. He took care not to show it, choosing instead to hold it close, as per the demands of the Dark Side, and it had over time knifed through him, old tragedy continuing over time to turn everything inside of him into bloody ribbons.
The other morning, Kanan had heard the names on the Sith Lord's lips, names like a mantra he said over and over again the way a Jedi may chant the Code. Satine. Quinlan. Padmé. Luminara. Others, many, many others, some Kanan recognized and many he didn't, all said softly, lovingly, over and over again as he sat beside Cody and the rancor, the clone's hand gently on the hunched man's back. It was one of the most human things he had ever seen. Kanan was certain that Obi-Wan had seen him, but if he did, he didn't say anything about it. Whatever it was exactly that turned Obi-Wan into Darth Lumis, whenever the exact moment was, the man before him was driven by grief over the loss of love and friendship, two things that weren't of the Dark Side. Perhaps the man he once was simply would not be so easily extinguished, a testament to the resilient Jedi he could have been.
What struck Kanan hardest, though, was the stray, dark thought that crossed his mind as he watched Kenobi shiver with the cold that the Jedi knew was the grasp of the Dark Side. If Kanan had lost everything, if he had survived to see the deaths of his friends, Zeb and Sabine, of his student, Ezra, of his lover, Hera...he wasn't so sure he would behave differently. He'd have nothing to lose, and pushed to that length, Kanan wasn't so certain he wouldn't reach for darkness as well. Such a thing would make anyone dangerous, but his connection to the Force made it much worse. Pain in exchange for power was enough to keep the ambitious practitioners of the Dark Side alive, but Kanan wondered if Kenobi had been without the Force to convert his grief to god-like powers if he wouldn't have just taken his own life.
When Kanan had been found staring stupidly at the Sith, Obi-Wan had simply rolled his golden eyes and told Kanan that training was at first light, and his apprentice was to join them in the afternoon. It wasn't a demand, it was an invitation, one that Kanan thought would have been warm and friendly had Kenobi not been in clutched in the hands of grief. He saw the Sith Lord in a new light. One that was haunted by ghosts that he desperately clutched for, both in his best and in his worst moments. Their touch was all pain, but Kanan swore he could see pale, ghostly hands tightly clutching the Sith Lord's, and though it hurt, Kenobi would never let go. It was the true difference between Jedi and Sith. The Sith felt, embracing deep and unrelenting passions, from the highest joys to the deepest pain. The Jedi rejected it, sacrificing feelings of love and joy in exchange for shielding themselves from pain.
Kanan wouldn't reject the offer, and so he had told Ezra to be ready for the next day, and he retreated himself for the night, a grateful Hera joining him in his bed when Obi-Wan had out of the blue requested the other Spectres accompany him to pick up supplies in the nearby town Kothal and to scout out Imperial troop movements near the local garrison for Fulcrum in order to compare them to the data provided by the Rodian. True to his word, Obi-Wan was good to what he considered his, and the Spectres were undeniably in the Sith Lord's circle. And when the kids were returned back to the ship safely and not drunk as Hera had expected, even the difficult to please pilot begrudgingly admitted that, at time, Obi-Wan wasn't the second worst person in the galaxy.
Kanan rose early that morning, packed his lightsaber and his holocron, the only two things he had left that connected himself with his old life, and he headed out of the ghost into the canyons of Lothal, the Ghost and the Umbra parked in large, open caves opposite the other in the winding corridors cut through the rock. The sun had yet to rise, and the sky was still dark, only the faintest hint of the coming dawn visible on the horizon, and breathing deeply, Kanan took in the feel of the warm, dry air, the sounds of the wildlife scurrying through the canyon, the feel of the creatures in the Force, and through it all, his superior ears could hear the faint sound of blaster fire and the thrum of lightsabers, and in the Force was the familiar feel of one of millions, a feel he had come to fear and despise.
Kanan sighed heavily. It was the clone. Kenobi was already up.
Following the faint hum of the lightsabers echoing through the canyons only led to him getting turned around and lost, the sounds seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. It was a terribly clever way to conceal one's presence, Kanan thought, which was why Obi-Wan had been so hard to find, both for the Republic and the Empire. Though...he could suspect no less from a man that was trained by Emperor Palpatine. The unassuming Senator had gone unseen by the Jedi for...Sith Hells, how long had it been? When did Palpatine become a Sith Lord? When did he begin hiding from the Jedi in the shadows, quietly seeing his plans come to fruition, subtly moving his pieces into place? And how could the Jedi not have known?
There was no reason to doubt Obi-Wan. Even though he was cruel, violent and had killed billions of people, there was something about him that rang true to Kanan. His dedication to the destruction of the Emperor was undisputable and highly personal, and Kanan had no doubt that Kenobi wouldn't stop until Palpatine lay dead, or he did. And more than that, his vision of the world after Palpatine was dead...it made sense. It made lots of sense, and Kanan couldn't help but feel that maybe, maybe, under Obi-Wan, under Emperor Kenobi, perhaps the galaxy could settle into peace.
Or they would have a new, powerful enemy when the Sith brought his army down on a fledgling New Republic. One of the two. It was worth the risk, in any case. From what he could tell, it took a lot to push Obi-Wan into being disloyal, and if they managed to forge a bond of friendship, Kanan thought it would be difficult to break it.
Instead of listening with his ears, Kanan listened to the Force, opened himself up to its feel and reached for Obi-Wan, and slowly, like a faint tug upon his mind, he felt him, calm, collected, commanding, and answering the Jedi's call. Kanan knew exactly where to go. Allowing the Force to direct him, Kanan made his way through the long, twisting canyons, climbing his way up the cliffs when there were placed for his hands and feet to gain purchase in the hard stone, and he finally reached one of the mouths of the many caves that dotted the mountainous region, the sound of humming lightsabers and blaster fire growing louder.
Not far back from the entrance stood Obi-Wan, a strip of black cloth tied over his eyes and red and blue lightsabers in his grasp as he effortlessly swung them, the blades twirling and spinning in his deft hands as he deflected rapid bolts of plasma shot at him from a wicked looking rifle in the hands of the red droid, an HK unit, if Kanan remembered correctly. Behind Kenobi stood the clone, fully clad in his red and black Mandalorian armor and gripping a blue lightsaber in his hands, which he brought to bear on the Sith Lord he served. Obi-Wan spun out of the way, ducking and dodging both blaster fire and lightsaber as the swiftly moving blades blocked and deflected everything he could not simply avoid.
It was...stunning to watch. Beautiful and captivating, the sabers tracing patterns of light in the air and moving so fast the blades could not be seen through the brilliant, bleeding colors. He moved by feel, by instinct, as if he were seeing every bolt, every blade where it would be, and was positioning his blade accordingly. His body moved in perfect harmony with the present, in the moment, but it seemed as though his mind was always two steps ahead, plotting and planning, careful and methodical. His smooth, even motions only changed when the droid needed to prime more charges, the Sith Lord flipping high into the air and grabbing the HK with the Force and pushing it back against the wall, tearing the blaster from its hands. His attentions on Cody, the Sith moved swiftly, slipping between his guard and spinning out of the way when the clone immediately moved to counter it.
Kenobi's blades moved at blinding speeds, the weapons striking against Cody's blue lightsaber and keeping a persistent shower of sparks flying from the weapons, The clone didn't have the Force, so Kanan was uncertain how the man could even stand against such a flurry. He was good. Very good, but against someone with the Force, someone who could connect to the crystal within the hilt, it just wasn't possible to be s good, even with training, and certainly not as good as a master of lightsaber combat. But still, the blades struck, and when they didn't, he managed to somehow just avoid the blade's point. Then, without warning, Kenobi made an error, a hole in his perfect defense appearing for fraction of a second as his foot slipped slightly. It was...impossible, Kanan thought as he watched the clone take note and drive his blade through the Sith's defense, the blue plasma piercing the Sith's chest, and with a hiss, Obi-Wan jumped back, switching off his lightsabers and clipping them to his belt as he took the blindfold off. He was grinning.
A slow smirk spread across Kanan's lips as he understood. He had done it on purpose. All of it, not just creating a flaw in his guard. The rapid attack, the blows that always struck blade, the swings that just barely missed the clone, all done to train, to teach.
He wondered when the Sith Lord would ever be so kind to him.
"Well struck, Cody," Obi-Wan said softly, rubbing at his chest and laughing softly as the clone removed his helmet, a proud smirk on his face as he sauntered toward the Sith Lord.
"Our enemies won't be giving me openings, brother," Cody said softly, and Kenobi's grinned widened.
"They won't be giving you openings on purpose," Kenobi corrected. "But they will give you openings. The Inquisitors are nothing special. Children with fancy tools, but they are little more than blunt instruments trained only well enough to carelessly hack through their opposition. They never needed to be more." He grinned. "Until now. Right, Jarrus?" Obi-Wan turned to face the Jedi, and a faint, wry smirk crossed over Kanan's face.
"You ever going to give me an opening, Kenobi?" The Sith Lord scoffed.
"Not a chance, Jarrus." He shrugged. "You have the Force. You are always armed, and you always have the advantage."
"Not against you," Kanan said, and the Sith Lord slowly nodded.
"No, not against me..." he quietly confessed. "Though that could change at any moment. There's no telling which way the Force will flow. Even against a stronger opponent, the Force may, for just a moment, favor you above one with a stronger command." The high whine of a blaster being charged echoed around them, the origin of the sound coming from behind Kanan, and the Jedi's eyes widened as he looked at the glowing golden eyes in the dim light gleaming with amusement. "Then again...there isn't any advantage to be had against that."
"Exclamation: well done, Master! Did you bring this meatbag to practice with? Are we going to execute it?" The HK's vocal modulator groaned with satisfaction, and Kanan paled considerably. "Oh, Master, did you bring one for me as well?!"
"Not this one, HK," Kenobi drawled. "That isn't just your average meatbag. That's a Jedi."
"Jedi!" the droid exclaimed excitedly. "Master, this is a fine opportunity to practice hunting the Jedi!" Its circuits whirred in a low hum. "Thoughtful: the Jedi are tricky opponents, Master."
"There aren't any Jedi left, HK," Kenobi said softly. "The Sith killed them all." The droid turned its visual receptors on Kanan.
"Statement: not all of them, Master."
"You would think the stormtroopers you slaughtered would be enough for a short while," Kenobi hissed. "You've the temperament of a psychopath."
"Correction: Master, I have the programming of an assassin." Obi-Wan rolled his eyes and draped his arm over Kanan's shoulder, leading him out toward the mouth of the cave, his eyes on the sky as it began to lighten as the sun rose.
"Your training today has entirely to do with your student. I can't bring you to the one that can help him, but we can bring him here." He paused, his jaw clenched tight in frustration. "In a sense..." He exhaled sharply and refocused himself. "If we can find a place strong enough in the Force. Lucky for us, Lothal happens to be home to a Jedi Temple." Kanan's jaw dropped.
"Wait, it is?!" he cried, wincing when he heard his voice echo through the canyon. "Where?" he asked, much quieter this time. "Does it still exist? The Empire is all over this planet, if one was here, they must have destroyed it by now."
"It exists," Kenobi said, his eyes closed as he felt through the Force. "But the location is clouded to me, as I believe it may be clouded to all those that walk in shadow..." He sighed heavily. "So you're going to find it. Open yourself, reach through the Force and...what are you doing?" the Sith asked, interrupting himself when Kanan dropped the pack on his back and began rummaging through it. "A holocron?" Obi-Wan asked when the Jedi pulled the cube from the pack, the device floating into the air before the Jedi and slowly beginning to spin as it opened, flooding the cave with soft blue light. "Kanan, what does a holocron-"
"There's all kinds of information on this," he said quickly. "Luminara's message to the Jedi when the Republic fell, lectures from Masters, and data from the archive." He grinned as light spread around them, shaping to form the image of the galaxy projected around them. "Including a map of the locations of Jedi Temples."
"...that's cheating."
"Is it?" Kanan asked with a crooked smile on his face. "I call it utilizing my resources." Obi-Wan grumbled, but raised no further objections. Instead, he stepped forward into the light of the projection, his eyes roving over the information presented before him. This was...not the same map as the one in the Archives of the Jedi Temple. Something as simple as a galactic map wouldn't be stored in a holocron so...what was this map doing here? What was different about it?
"The Empire has access to all the records in the Jedi Archive," Obi-Wan muttered. "Do you believe they have access to this?"
"I thought that as well," Kanan said, sinking to his knees and sitting back on his heels, his hands on his thighs, and as the Force swirled around him, the map shifted and changed in response to him, and to Obi-Wan, it looked...hazy. The holocron was preventing him fro accessing the information. "It's why I've been hesitant to look into any of this," Kanan said, a twinge of sadness in his voice. "If the Empire knows..."
"Then the Temples serve only as a way to trap the Jedi that return," Kenobi finished. "It's what I would have done." He watched the hazy map as it twisted and formed, his eyes consistently drifting back to the Jedi, who seemed to see it clearly. "There's a reason the Empire chose Lothal," Obi-Wan whispered. "Perhaps they saw the Temple on the map. Perhaps it is merely the kyber crystals present in the ground, the reason the Temple exists in the first place. Regardless..." He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. "I can feel it. It's here."
"I see it," Kanan said, a smile on his face becoming a wide grin when he felt the Force well inside him. The Temple was there. It was still there. The Empire hadn't found it, or they didn't know it was there. "I don't have exact coordinates, but I have a general area. I can find it."
"I know you can," Obi-Wan said quickly. "But you won't. Your student will. Consider this the first part of his trial."
"Do you really think this can help Ezra?" Obi-Wan nodded.
"If there is to be any helping him, yes, this is it. You, on the other hand..." the Sith said as the Jedi recalled the holocron to his hand. "You need more training. You have trials you must face as well, Padawan."
"You really just want to beat me senseless with a lightsaber, don't you?" Kenobi grinned wickedly.
"Oh, that's a given, Jedi scum. But that's not it, not this time. This isn't about a lightsaber, it's about the Force." He knelt down, dragging his finger through the dirt on the ground as he drew small pictures and symbols. "There aren't many trained Force users out there anymore, but the ones that do exist are better than you with a lightsaber. There's no making up for all your years of never touching your blade."
"It's not like I had a choice, Kenobi..."
"I'm not blaming you," the Sith quickly cut in. "And I can train you to make you much, much better, but no amount of training is going to make up for the fact that those we face have had very good teachers, and they have been training tirelessly." He pointed to one of the drawings on the ground, one that Kanan instantly recognized as the image of the Grand Inquisitor, and he frowned when he saw that Obi-Wan had drawn a heart around his image. "But their powers are weak," he growled. "Blunt instruments left untempered by their neglect in their training with the Force. They are fearsome, yes, in the way Grievous was fearsome. But our advantage lays in our connection with the Force, not with the blade in our hands."
"...I understand," Kanan said, looking at the drawings as Kenobi pointed to them. "So,,,what are we dealing with?"
"The Inquisitorius..." he mumbled, pointing to the drawing of the Grand Inquisitor, and another that represented the organization of dark Force wielders to which he belonged. "With intensive training, I believe that you can overcome them."
"...Kenobi, they swept the galaxy and hunted the Jedi down," Kanan said, his voice tight with caution and the touch of fear, and he felt the Sith Lord ease, his shoulders relaxing.
"Yes, at a time when it was very bad to be a Jedi. Don't forget, the best of you fell when the clones betrayed you, and many more fell into traps like you nearly did with Luminara." He paused, his eyes downcast. "...like I nearly did with Luminara..." He was silent for a moment, his finger casually adding detail to the other three drawings on the ground, one which Kanan recognized as the Imperial insignia, but the other two faces he had never seen before. Slowly, the Sith began to draw two more faces, human, from the look of them, and one Kanan recognized instantly.
"Grand Moff Tarkin?" the Jedi asked. "He doesn't have the Force, does he?"
"No, but that doesn't make him any less dangerous." He pointed to the two new drawings. "Tarkin and Thrawn...not sensitive to the Force, but no less dangerous than one who is. They are exceedingly clever and very well defended. It will take more than just the Force to even have a chance to get near them, and I suspect even then, they will be difficult to defeat."
"Even for you?" Kenobi laughed at that.
"Yes, even for me. I had a chance at Tarkin before, but I let him go to move pieces into position, a move I don't regret. But Thrawn..." He ran a hand through his hair as he looked at the image of the Chiss he had drawn, a likeness that he had found within the Inquisitor's mind. "If I had a chance at him, I'd have taken it by now. I'm drawing closer, but he still evades me..." He pointed to the other three images. "That leaves you, Kanan, with three foes that are far beyond you. The Emperor, Maul, Darth Vader..."
"Darth Vader?" It was the only one he hadn't heard of. He knew about Maul from his time with the Jedi, the legend of their fallen hero Obi-Wan, a Padawan that had overcome Maul, a Lord of the Sith. He had inexplicably survived, though, and Kanan wasn't surprised to hear that the creature was alive still, back in the service of his Master, Sidious. Palpatine. But the other...
"Darth Vader..." Kenobi repeated, staring off into the distance at seemingly nothing at all. He looked back quickly to the Jedi when he felt the expectant silence between them. "My...replacement," he said slowly. "I beat him and left him for my Master when I found out he meant to replace me with him."
"So you are stronger?"
"...perhaps." He sighed heavily. "I haven't seen much of him since the Republic fell. Fifteen years of training under Sidious is nothing to joke about. I did cripple him in our last confrontation, but when I won, it wasn't because of my skill with a lightsaber, it was because the Force tore itself open to rush to my aid. He...may have been better with a blade than I was, and he is certainly better than you." Obi-Wan ran his fingers through the dirt, ruining the drawings. "The longer the fight, the better I get, but not everyone had the defenses I do, and Vader from what I hear has been trained to end fights quickly and brutally. You are no match for him, and I can't train you to be. You see him, you run."
"I'm not worried," Kanan said casually, smiling at the Sith Lord. "I mean, you'll be there for us, won't you?"
"...you can't rely on me to always be there." Obi-Wan was silent for a moment before he grinned at the Jedi. "Which is why we're training, yes? We still have some time before we are to meet your student. Shall we begin?"
Ezra was late. Hours late. The sun was swiftly heading toward the horizon when the boy showed up, running across the canyon floor toward where Kanan and Kenobi stood sparring, blades blazing as they clashed, the Sith periodically stopping the fight with swift cuts to the Jedi's arms so that he might correct his form or instruct him upon a technique to be used in specific situations. Ezra watched them for a moment, eyes wide and excited as he watched the two furiously fight, ended when the Sith Lord swept low and took Kanan's legs out from under him with his foot, the red blade stabbing into the prone Jedi's chest as he fell.
"You're an asshole..." Kanan groaned from the ground.
"I find pain to be the swiftest teacher."
"Not for me, apparently, since you keep beating me senseless." Kenobi shrugged.
"What can I say, I like hurting Jedi, and there are so few of you left..."
"Well, in that case, I'm honored," Kanan said, rolling his eyes as he pushed himself to his feet and looked at Ezra. The boy just smirked.
"Sorry I'm late, Kanan, I was with Sabine."
"Oh, forsaking the Jedi to run off with a Mandalorian?" Kenobi lazily drawled, smirking when the boy turned a fierce shade of red. "Sounds familiar..."
"You don't say..." He sighed. "I don't think you're taking this seriously." Ezra rolled his eyes.
"Aw, come on, I-"
"No!" Kanan snapped, harsh and frustrated, and any words, any excuse that the boy had suddenly flew from his mind. "You don't see the importance of this, Ezra, you don't see, and that's the problem! You made a dangerous connection on that asteroid, and now I have to know if-" Kanan stopped and took a deep breath, running his hand over his hair as he calmed himself, but his heart would not stop pounding. He was nervous. He knew he felt something in Ezra, something great, something good and deep and empathetic, but...but Obi-Wan had sensed something too. Something much, much darker. Fear. Anger. A drive for justice that would not be satiated until every slight had been corrected, and that was a dangerous thing.
"I have to know if you're ready," Kanan finally said, calmer than before.
"...ready for what?" Ezra whispered, his voice shaking and nervous, the bluster and bravado at least temporarily taken out of him.
"A test," Kanan said, stepping toward his student. "One that can determine if you were meant to be a Jedi." He paused. "Or not."
"W-wait, you said I was a Jedi!" Ezra argued. "Why else would you be training me unless-"
"I never said you were a Jedi, I said you have the potential to become one!" Kanan said quickly in mild annoyance. "But you lack focus. Discipline. Hours late for training because you'd rather spend your time with a girl doing what you want to do isn't behavior befitting a boy that wants to be a Jedi!"
"Wait a minute!" Ezra snapped, stepping up to the Jedi and drawing to his full height, which was a full head shorter than the towering Kanan. "You and Hera-"
"We have never put what we have before anything else!" Kanan snapped, his temper quickly rising. "Everything comes before us! You, Zeb, Sabine, our mission, your training, everything, everything comes before us!" He growled and turned away from the boy, breathing deeply in an attempt to calm himself. "...as much as I wish it could be otherwise..."
"Kanan, I..." Ezra started, but he quickly swallowed his words, his eyes cast to the ground in shame. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize..." The Jedi put his hand in the air and the boy stopped talking, his ears burning and feeling sufficiently scolded.
"I chose you, Ezra, because I saw something within you." He pointed toward the Sith Lord, leaning against the wall of the cave, his arms crossed over his chest, his body relaxed, his eyes observing Master and student very carefully. "But so did he. Fear, impatience, anger, all these things lead to the Dark Side, and that isn't a path you want to walk. It is cruelty, and more importantly, it is pain. It's a cycle of pain and power that never ends, Ezra. I see it in Obi-Wan every time I look at him." He looked at the Sith Lord, unflinching when golden eyes met his. "Everything he once was is dead, changed and corrupted by darkness and cruelty, and there is nothing but pain inside him." The Sith's glowing eyes dulled, and he tore his gaze away from the Jedi. "...I don't want that for you, Ezra."
"I-I'm not used to all these rules, Kanan, you know how I grew up..." Ezra quietly explained, inching closer to his teacher. "I want to become the Jedi you see in me, I do! I just...I don't know how."
"Which is why you need discipline," Kanan said softly, laying a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Being a Jedi is much more than being sensitive to the Force and wielding a lightsaber. There are lots of Force sensitive people in this galaxy, but not a single one of them is a Jedi."
"Except for you," Ezra said proudly, and for a moment, Kanan's face fell.
"Kenobi says there's another. But yes, the Jedi as I knew them are gone." He sighed and looked down at the ground. "And I'm hardly a Jedi myself. I do my best, there are so many rules, so many parts of that life I abandoned after the Purge..."
"You're better for it," Kenobi said softly, drawing the attention of both Master and student. "The Jedi of old died for a reason, and when I destroy my Sith brothers, the Order will be mine to change as I see fit. The old ways are dying. We need a new way."
"Jedi and Sith, working together..." Kanan muttered. "I'd never have thought such a thing was possible."
"...we'd better go," Obi-Wan said quietly. "I don't want to waste more time than we have already. As it is, we'll be lucky if the one we're meeting is even there at all." He smirked at the boy, the light back in his eyes. "Thanks, kid."
"Hey, don't call me kid!"
"I'll stop when you stop acting like one, you child," Kenobi drawled as he strode past the boy and ruffled the irritated Ezra's hair. "Perfect, beautiful Hera said we could take the Phantom. Come along, Jedi."
"Why you gotta talk about my woman like that, Kenobi?!" Kanan asked as he followed the Sith Lord up the ramp of the Ghost, followed by a laughing Ezra. "Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you noticed, but when you say it, it make it sound like you're up to something."
"I am up to something, Jarrus..." Kenobi said, sweet and smooth, and said no more, leaving the flustered Jedi to hound him all the way to the Phantom.
Ezra walked around the large, smooth rock formation protruding out of the ground. It was massive, taller than some buildings he had seen and wide enough to put the Ghost and the Umbra inside with room to spare, if he could only find the entrance. This was it. He knew it, could feel it through the carved stone beneath his fingertips. This was the Jedi Temple Kanan had told him about, the Temple that he had been told to guide them to, even though he had no idea where it was. But he opened himself to the Force, cleared his mind, and he could hear it call him, pull him, and soon enough, they were there.
Too soon, it turns out, since Kanan had been flying the Phantom right over it. Kenobi told him so after they landed that it had taken the boy four passes before he could feel it. He also told Ezra that he was hopeless and he should just give up, but...well, the man was Sith. He didn't get to where he was by being nice.
Of course, the Temple wasn't a Temple so much as it was just stone. No doors, no cracks, no sign of an entrance at all. It was no wonder Kanan and Kenobi believed the Empire hadn't found this place. It was just a rock. And yet, he could feel something, something deep, something calling to him, telling him that the path would reveal itself to Jedi Master and Padawan. He just didn't know how. He peeked around the stone toward where Kanan sat cross-legged in meditation and Obi-Wan laid upon the ground, drinking deeply from a bottle. Ezra snickered. He supposed that was the difference between Jedi and Sith. One say upon these sacred grounds with gravity and respect. The other simply didn't give a shit.
"Hey, Kanan!" Ezra shouted from behind the stone. "I don't see anything!"
"Don't see, Ezra, feel!"
"Gods of the Sith, you Jedi are so trite..." Kenobi drawled beside the Jedi, Kanan glaring at him as Obi-Wan closed his lips around the bottle's mouth and turned it upside down.
"You got better advice, oh great and mighty Lord of the Sith?" Kanan asked, glaring at the man as Ezra approached, and Kanan stood to meet his student.
"He alright?" Ezra asked, pointing to the Sith Lord on his back, and Kanan just rolled his eyes.
"Apparently, it's Sith policy to be completely blasted before dealing with Jedi." He pointed to the stone formation. "What did you feel?"
"Nothing!" Ezra said, frustrated and running a hand through his hair. "I just know that you and I need to enter together, it didn't tell me how." A slow smile spread across Kanan's face.
"In the only way there is, my student. With the Force." Kanan stood, his eyes closed and his hand out before him, and Ezra quickly followed suit, the two focusing through the Force, feeling the flow through the stone of the Temple and far beneath the earth. Slowly, the ground began to shake, gently at first, and then with greater force as the stone monument before them twisted, unscrewing itself from the ground and raising even higher into the air, the entrance revealing itself and locking into place before them. Ezra stared wide eyes at the structure, taller now than before and the entrance revealed, just as he had felt.
Walking carefully beside Kanan, Ezra followed the Jedi toward the door and peered inside, a long, narrow corridor of steps leading deep into the earth. Exra swallowed hard as he felt the chill of the air pour out of the doorway smelling stagnant and old, like it had been sealed for ages.
"How long do you supposed this Temple's been sealed?" Ezra asked his Master, and the Jedi shrugged.
"There's no way to tell. Though...it's possible this place has been sealed since before the Jedi Purge."
"This feels...off," Ezra said, shaking his head. "I thought we were supposed to meet someone here? How can the Temple be closed for so long if this Jedi was supposed to meet us inside?"
"Oh, you have so much to learn..." Obi-Wan drawled, patting Ezra's shoulder as he walked past him, descending deep inside the Temple and drinking from a completely different bottle from before. "Come on, Jedi...nothing to be afraid of, just ghosts down here." They could hear his laughter as he disappeared from view. "Oooh, spooky..."
"Hey, Kanan," Ezra said as he looked down inside the Temple. "It feels like he's mocking us..."
"It feels that way because that's exactly what he's doing..." Kanan sighed. "Come on, we can't let that Sith bastard think we're afraid."
"But I am afraid, Kanan..." Ezra whispered, gluing himself to Kanan's side as he walked down the steps into the cool, old air, the Temple shuddering as the entrance behind them slid closed. The boy whimpered. "Obi-Wan's never afraid..." the boy grumbled, looking around as they stepped into a huge, circular room filled with pillars that held up a high ceiling. "Hey, do you think he's brave because he's drunk?" Kanan rolled his eyes.
"First off, he's not drunk, not yet," he muttered, watching as the Sith stood in the center of the room, drawing a large circle in the sandy ground with the toe of his boot. "Secondly, he's not brave, he's fearless. There's a difference. Bravery is being aftrai, but going through with it anyway. And lastly-"
"Holy shit, is that a skeleton?!" Ezra shrieked, his voice cracking and high as he backed away from the ghostly visage of a withered, age-worn corpse in the robes of a Jedi. Kanan knew instinctively what they were. Jedi Masters, long dead, waiting for Padawans to return from their trials, still waiting for their Padawans to return. There was peace here. Silence, any spirit that may have once existed long since passed on, released into the Force and accepting of their fate. Kanan watched the Sith down another bottle, wavering slightly on his feet. He was bothered, clearly, and Kanan wondered if it was the peace of the tomb or the supposed Jedi they would be meeting that was driving him to hit the bottle so hard. Maybe Obi-Wan would be more at peace if the spirits were restless, just as his own ghosts were. Peace could, to the right people, be painful.
"You must focus..." Kanan said to the jumpy boy.
"Dead guys are distracting!" Kanan rolled his eyes.
"In here, you'll have to face your fears and overcome them, and if a couple of long dead men distract you, you will not succeed in there without me."
"...wait, without you?!" Ezra cried, looking up at the Jedi severely concerned. "Kanan, I can't do this alone!"
"You can and you will." The voice echoed from behind them, sounding almost hollow in the open space of the Temple, and both Jedi turned to see Qui-Gon standing before them, and Ezra screamed, hiding behind the Jedi and grabbing for the parts of his lightsaber that hung disconnected from his belt.
"Ezra, stop it!"
"Ghost!" the boy shrieked, reaching for Kanan's blaster when the Jedi took his lightsaber out of his grasp. The spirit just stood, his hands folded into the arms of his robe.
"It's a Force Spirit, you big idiot!" Kanan snapped, prying Ezra off of him and pushing him forward. "Of a Jedi Master, one of the bests. Have some respect!"
"Is this what Jedi have to put up with?!" the boy asked quickly, looking between the ghost and the Jedi. "...is it too late to take up that Sith thing?"
"You can't be Sith..." Obi-Wan said from his spot on the ground, his voice slurring slightly. "There's too much fear in you. The Sith are without fear." Embarrassment burning his cheeks, Ezra straightened up, giving the skeletons and the spirit a quick once-over before clearing his throat and calming himself.
"So, uh...when do we begin this trial?" Ezra ventured, trying to sound braver than he felt.
"Not we," Kanan said. "You." Ezra's jaw dropped, and the Jedi gave him a ressuring smile. "Don't worry. Thousands of Jedi have gone through tests like this. I went through one as well."
"And what will you be doing while I'm in there, huh?" Ezra asked. Kanan pointed to the skeletons.
"Waiting with them. Masters of students who failed."
"...you just said-"
"Success is never a guarantee, Ezra!" Kanan swiftly interrupted. "But I have faith that you will return."
"Great." Ezra kicked at the sand. "So, when does this test begin?"
"I don't know," Kanan said, turning to Qui-Gon. "When does the test begin? Kenobi said he had a Jedi that would be testing him. He wasn't talking about you, was he?" Qui-Gon shook his head.
"No, I'm afraid not. But he won't be long." Kanan nodded and laid a hand on Ezra's shoulder.
"Try and calm yourself, alright?" The boy nodded, took a few deep breaths, and Kanan walked slowly over to Obi-Wan, the Sith Lord just beginning to crack open his third bottle. He pointed to the pack beside the Sith as he drank. "You got an endless supply in there?" Obi-Wan laughed softly and shook his head.
"Endless, no, not endless. But when dealing with Jedi, I've learned to be prepared."
"You deal with this Jedi often?" Obi-Wan looked at the ground, slowly swirling the alcohol in the bottle.
"More often than I'd like..." he muttered. "But less than what's really necessary. It's complicated." He held the bottle out to Kanan. "You might be joining the dead here today. I don't think he'll pass. You have lots to drink about." Laughing softly, Kanan sat beside the Sith Lord and took the offered bottle, closed his eyes, and drank deeply.
"Such little faith have you, Obi-Wan?"
It came back to Kanan like a harsh, crashing wave, memories flooding him and showing him images of himself as a very young child in the Jedi Temple, attending class with a large group of other younglings and practicing the basics of lightsaber combat with the Order's most distinguished Master. He didn't need to see him to know who that raspy voice and that particular manner of speech belonged to.
The alcohol that was in Kanan's mouth was spewed upon the ground.
"Oh, come on!" Obi-Wan snapped, grabbing the bottle out of Kanan's hands as the bottle tilted in his loose grip and began spilling its contents upon the ground. "This is expensive, you little shit! I may be made of money, but I absolutely care that you're wasting it!"
"Master Yoda!" Kanan gasped, his mouth suddenly dry and unable to form words as he stared wide-eyed at the tiny Master. He was just as Kanan remembered him. But something was...off about the soft smile, the kind gleam in his eyes. He seemed...unstable, as if he weren't really there, like he was a hologram or a projection or...or a ghost. Kanan looked over to Qui-Gon, the Master kneeling beside the tiny creature, and while there was a real difference between them, Yoda seemed to be made of the Force, just as the spirit was.
"Caleb Dume," Yoda said softly after examining the gaping man for a moment. "Warms my heart, it does, to see you live. Well, you have done, to survive in this galaxy. Unkind to Jedi, it is."
"You're dead..." Kanan said in barely a whisper. "You're dead too..." Yoda simply smiled.
"Death, there is not. Only the Force. Remember the Code, do you?" Kanan absently nodded. "Dead, I am not. But discuss this later, we can. A student, you have, yes?"
"T-that's me!" Ezra said, rushing forward, his hands clasped before him, then behind him, and then the boy began fiddling with his fingers, uncertain what to do. "I-I'm supposed to be tested..." Yoda hobbled over to the boy, squinting his eyes as he peered up at him, a soft growl in his throat.
"Much anger there is in you. Much fear. Prey to the Dark Side, you have fallen."
"Surely it's not too late!" Kanan cried, scrambling to his feet and starting to rush to the Master's side, only to swiftly stop when he thought to keep a respectful distance. "Master, there is so much potential in him!"
"See this, I do. Obi-Wan." With a groan, the Sith took a long swig from the bottle. "Too late, is it, for Ezra Bridger?"
"How should I know..." he muttered, turning away from the Jedi. "For him, I think so. He reminds me of Skywalker, if Skywalker had been talentless." Silene hung heavy among them, though Ezra didn't know why. He'd never heard of Skywalker, and couldn't decide if this was a good thing or not. He looked to Kanan for guidance, but the Jedi seemed just as confused as he was.
"Talent, he has, Obi-Wan," Yoda finally said. "Strong in the Force, he is. Great potential for good there is inside him." He frowned. "But anger and fear, darkness there is, and touched it, he has."
"It's not too late!" Kanan said swiftly. "It can't be! Not after once, I just don't believe that!" He laughed sharply and pointed back to Obi-Wan. "I don't even think it's too late for you, Kenobi! I don't think it's ever too late! The Dark Side is strong, yes, but we are stronger! Not as Jedi, as people!" Obi-Wan looked over his shoulder at the Jedi, so desperate, so afraid for his student, and he felt a twinge of sympathy for the man.
"...it is too late for me, Kanan," Obi-Wan said softly. "It was too late for me the moment I touched the darkness. There is no atonement for me, no salvation, no forgiveness, not for all I have done."
"...test your student, I will," Yoda said softly, gesturing with a three fingered hand toward an open door on the wall. "Wait, we will, for your return," Yoda said to Ezra, and swallowing hard, the boy steeled himself, nodded, and stepped through the door. "May the Force be with you," Yoda said, and with one last look at his Master, Ezra walked inside, the door slamming closed behind him.