AN: HEY GUYS! Long time no see!
Few reasons for the delay on this one. First off, wrist is ouch, writing slow. Secondly, spring break means work work work. Third, and this is the big reason...Thrawn, and Star Wars Celebration.
Thrawn is a really big part of this story, and the book is, first of all, amazing and you should all go and read it NOW instead of reading this garbage. And secondly, it's given me a lot to think about, which means things in this story get altered to accommodate new information. I needed a few days to retool. Also, Star Wars Celebration means Rebels information, and Season 4 is going to be the last one. I have NO IDEA how long this story is going to be, but if I can integrate the new season, I'm going to. I might get this out so fast that I catch up, in which case, I'll end the story where I was planning on, but with my secondary project, Blood of Mandalore (psst, shameless plug, go read it...) and busy, work filled summer coming up, that seems unlikely. Anyway, we'll see.
Apologies for the delay, but you can see there's a lot going on. I haven't forgotten about this one, never you fear. It's still my primary project, and I have the next two chapters already planned, so expect that this week.
This chapter's a little different than the others, but I think it turned out pretty well. A bit longer since you guys had to wait. Just for you, my lovelies! Enjoy!
Chapter 18: Path of the Jedi
Ezra followed Kanan through the tunnels of the temple, a spring in his step as he followed his Master. Of course Kanan came for him, of course he changed his mind and decided to follow. Kanan wouldn't allow him to face this alone when he was as scared as he was. All Ezra needed to do was stay close, and everything would be fine. Kanan rushed forward, rounding a corner ahead when he heard something, and Ezra followed, only to hear the thrum of a lightsaber as it struck on, and the corridor filled with glowing red light.
He skidded to a stop right before he ran into the tall, intimidating form of the Grand Inquisitor, his double bladed lightsaber blazing, and Kanan rushed to stand between them, his blue blade in hand. Ezra gasped, stumbling back and falling, paralyzed with fear as he watched the Jedi strike blades against the Inquisitor, defending his student for all he was worth. With a wicked slash, the Inquisitor knocked Kanan's blade to the side, and spinning quickly, he thrust the lightsaber behind him, impaling Kanan Jarrus upon the wicked blade.
Eyes wide, a sharp gasp in his throat, Kanan sunk to his knees as the blade was withdrawn, and he fell sideways, tumbling down into a black, endless abyss. Ezra watched in horror, in fear, in despair as his teacher, his friend, his hero fell, dead at the hands of unstoppable evil, the Inquisitor's eyes laying on him next as he slowly advanced.
Ezra ran.
"No, you listen!" Obi-Wan slurred into his comlink, the Sith Lord laying flat on his back in the center of the dusty room, the bottle in his hand empty. On the other end of the device, Cody sighed heavily. "I need you to come here with more...with more..." Kenobi laughed drunkenly, staring with unfocused eyes up at the tall ceiling. "The bottles are empty, you clone bastard! And I need you to bring me my woman, I've never defiled a Jedi Temple before! It's time for it!"
"Is there anyone else there I can talk to, sir?" Cody asked in a weary voice. "Kanan didn't go with the kid, did he? You said the trial is meant for him alone, so..."
"Hey, Cody," Kanan said, leaning against the nearest pillar and staring warily at the Force spirits as they sat cross-legged on the ground, their eyes closed in meditation. Like they were alive or something. He didn't trust this, and talking to a clone and a drunk Sith Lord was preferable to dealing with whatever this was.
"Jarrus, I'm going to need you to make sure that Kenobi isn't driving that shuttle of yours back."
"You kidding me?" Kanan scoffed. "I let him drive and Hera will never forgive me. Can't afford to piss off the missus. You know how it is."
"No, I don't..." Cody drawled. "Shaak Ti wasn't just my lover, she was my slave, she did as I commanded."
"...wait, Shaak Ti?!" Kanan shouted. "As in, Jedi Master Shaak Ti?!"
"Do you know another?" Cody asked, and from his place on the floor, the ghostly shape of Yoda looked up and frowned, a low, displeased growl on his voice that echoed through the air. Obi-Wan lifted his head up and glared angrily at his comlink.
"Hey! She spread her legs for me too!"
"You enslaved her too?!" Kanan shouted, his chest clenched tightly and his stomach churning. He didn't know Shaak Ti, but he knew of her, and that was enough. "So, what, did you corrupt her before you killed her?!"
"Don't you dare judge what you know nothing about, Jedi," Cody snarled. "She may have been our captive, but we treated her well and I loved her." There was silence in the air, heavy and awkward for Kanan, especially when the ghostly forms of Qui-Gon and Yoda stood and drew closer. Kenobi put the empty bottle to his lips, slipping his tongue into the bottle in an attempt to lap up any lingering drops. "For the record," the clone said, "she was killed by Vader. Not that it matters, does it."
"Matters, it does not," Yoda softly rasped, and Kanan nearly jumped when he heard the tiny Master down by his feet. "One with the Force, Shaak Ti is."
"He can't hear you, you wizened old troll," Kenobi lazily drawled, attempting to throw the bottle toward one of the pillars, but he released far too early and it dropped uselessly out of his hand and landed beside him. "He doesn't have the Force. You need the Force to hear spirits, dead or not."
"When dead I am," Yoda said, standing over the intoxicated Sith Lord and looking down at him, "haunt you, I will, Obi-Wan."
"Oh, come on!" Obi-Wan brought the comlink to his lips. "Cody, come quick. The ghosts are everywhere. I'm not drunk enough."
"Negative on that booze delivery, sir," Cody said. "I'm inviting Hera over. I hear she likes older men."
"Wait, what?!" Kanan shouted, his face flushing in anger, and the Sith Lord shot up to a sitting position, his eyes narrowed and angry as well.
"No sex in the Umbra! And if she likes older men, I get to ride her first!"
"You most certainly do not!" Kanan snarled, snatching the comlink from the Sith Lord's hand. "Clone, you better make haste on that booze delivery, because I'm not drunk enough for this conversation!"
"Better bring Hera too," Obi-Wan slurred, grabbing the Jedi's arm and yanking him to the ground so he could speak into the comlink. "She and the Chiss can pleasure me together..."
"Can I have a day off from you Force sensitives?" Cody asked. "It's very difficult playing the sane man to the likes of you, and I was really enjoying my nap before you called."
"I like the droid better than you, clone," Obi-Wan spat, and Cody just laughed. "Have K2 bring the Umbra here."
"I'll see what I can do, brother," Cody said, his voice laced with sarcasm, and a burst of static signaled that the call had been cut. Obi-Wan closed his eyes and drew circles in the sand, trying in vain to drown everything out.
"Everywhere I go..." Kenobi drawled. "Jedi, Jedi, Jedi." His lips curled up into a sneer. "And here I am, waiting for another to overcome trials to become a Jedi as well. He won't succeed, you know. Ezra is doomed to fail. I have seen it."
"If that were true, we wouldn't be here now," Qui-Gon said, and Obi-Wan simply laughed harshly.
"We are here because Padawan Jarrus fights the inevitable. Bridger's already touched the Dark Side, Yoda. What chance does he possibly have?" Kanan looked over to the tiny Master when he frowned, his ghostly little three fingered hands clasped tightly together.
"Dangerous, the Dark Side is," Yoda said. "Know this well, you do, Obi-Wan."
"Ooh, dangerous, the Dark Side is," Obi-Wan mocked. "Powerful, the Dark Side is, Yoda. Infinite power, as much as you're willing to take."
"In exchange for suffering that will rip the heart out of you," Qui-Gon said softly. "Was it worth it?"
"I don't know, could I have saved Satine if I didn't fall to the Dark Side?" the Sith Lord snapped, cold and vicious and pained, and Kanan looked at the man carefully, trying to gauge what was in his head, hoping that in his intoxicated state, the Sith would be easier to read. He wasn't. It was far more difficult. Kenobi scoffed when Qui-Gon said nothing. "Of course not...Maul would have gone for her whether I fell or not, because I traded her life for mine by achieving victory over that scum that day on Naboo, so yes, it was worth it. Were I a Jedi, I would have nothing and she'd still be dead! At least now I have power!"
"And suffering," Qui-Gon added, and the Sith Lord's hand tightened around the sand on the ground, and the grains began to smoke as they started to melt in his grasp, arcs of static surrounding his fist.
"Which is no less than I deserve for failing her, now is it!?" Kenobi threw himself back on the ground and turned on his side, his back to the Jedi as his shoulders heaved with pain turned physical. "What should have changed, what should have happened differently...I should have split him down the middle. I should have separated his left from his right. I should have aimed higher and taken off his vile head!"
"Deeper into darkness, you would have gone," Yoda said softly. "Followed your path, suffering would have. Saved her, you could not." Obi-Wan slowly turned his head, his golden eyes blazing so bright Kanan could almost not look at them.
"Don't you dare tell me what could have been!" the Sith Lord snapped as he leapt to his feet. "You know nothing, you have always known nothing! We sat beneath your Temple and infected your Order for thousands of years, so much so that you were all blind! All of you, every single one of you, is a failure as a Jedi." He pointed at Yoda. "You. Grandmaster of the Jedi, you produced Dooku, Darth Tyranus. You." He pointed to Qui-Gon. "You made me and..." He trailed off, his eyes drifting to Kanan. He waved his hand dismissively. "And you're not even a Jedi. And let's not even talk about the collection of rage and fear that is Ezra Bridger, the Sith Lord you will train." He glared at the Jedi. "The brightest spots in the galaxy, and look what you have produced. Nothing but darkness."
"That's enough, Obi-Wan," Qui-Gon said softly, and the Sith merely scoffed in response and slowly lowered himself to the ground, using one of the pillars for support.
"You're right, it is," Obi-Wan hissed. "I'm far too sober for a conversation with you Jedi." Qui-Gon sighed, and Kanan looked at him carefully and saw nothing but sadness and pain on the spirit's ghostly face. There must have been a reason he was haunting the Sith Lord. Maybe the Jedi had been wrong about the Dark Side. Maybe somehow, Obi-Wan could still be saved.
Kanan is dead.
It was the only thing running through Ezra's mind as he wandered the halls of the Ghost in a haze. He didn't know how he got here, he just knew he did. How was he going to tell the others? How was he supposed to tell Zeb that when he should have fought like him, like a warrior when his friend needed him, he was instead paralyzed with fear. How was he supposed to tell Sabine that when he should have bravely stood down evil, he ran like a coward. How was he supposed to tell Hera that the man she loved was dead...
How were they supposed to continue on after that?
He could hear them speaking in the cargo hold they converted into a lounge, and instead of entering, instead of going to them and telling them that Kanan, their fearless leader, was dead, all he could do was stand, filled with despair, and listen as they spoke about him. About how Hera had taken him on only because she felt bad for him. About how Zeb thought it best to leave since he only got in the way. About how Sabine asked them not to be so hard on him because he was just a kid.
He was useless to them, and they were right. Kanan was gone, and he could do nothing to help him.
Ezra retreated from the Ghost, and his fear gave way to hopelessness as the wicked thrum of a lightsaber filled the air, followed by the screams of the Spectres.
"So..." Kanan asked, shuffling his feet as he approached the ghostly form of Yoda, having finally gotten the nerve to speak to the Jedi after nearly half an hour of silence. The tiny Master patiently looked up at him. "You're not dead, then?" Yoda chuckled and shook his head.
"Surprises you, does this?"
"Uh, yes," Kanan said before he thought and shook his head. "Well, no...I don't know. What surprises me is that there are things that still surprise me. Ever since I got hooked up with high and mighty Sith Lord over there, nothing has made sense." He thrust his thumb in Kenobi's direction, but refused to look at him. He knew what Kenobi was doing, knew he was sitting upright and just staring, his fading intoxication driving the drunk Sith Lord into the embrace of seething anger. "See, the thing is..." Kanan continued when the Jedi said nothing. "You sort of look like a ghost."
"Dead, I am not," Yoda calmly explained. "But here, I am not. On..." He frowned and looked over at the Sith Lord, the man's entire body tense with warning, the hazy gold of his eyes suddenly shining bright through his inebriation, and Yoda nodded slowly, as if something unspoken had passed between the two. "Traveled, my consciousness has, through the Force."
"So, what, you're in hiding somewhere?" Kanan said in disbelief, and he laughed bitterly. "The great and mighty Grandmaster Yoda, the most powerful Jedi of the Order, is hiding?"
"The only thing to do," Yoda said. "Time, it was not, to stand against the Sith. Powerful, the Sith Master is. Patient, he was. Careful." He frowned. "But also ambitious. Greedy, was he. Planted the seed of his destruction, he did," the Master said, gently indicating towards Obi-Wan, the Sith Lord still and unblinking and furious as he looked at them. "Allow it to grow, we must. Right, the time is not. But soon."
"So, what..." Kanan asked, a confused look on his face. "You're just going to sit there and do nothing while Kenobi runs around? I thought you'd have...you know. A mission." He laughed harshly. "After the Purge, I was so sure I was the only one left because directions never came, and I never heard about any other survivors. I thought..." He huffed. "I thought that if you were alive, you'd have a mission. A task, something you were doing to help destroy this evil!"
"Hmm, think, do you, that nothing, I have done?" A mischievous smile came to the tiny Master's lips, one that spoke of secrets and cleverness, one that said to Kanan that not only was there a plan, but Master Yoda had been deeply involved. "Teaching, I have been."
"Yoda!" Obi-Wan snapped from his place where he sat glowering on the ground, the thick haze of drunkenness momentarily parting to give way to his fury, and the Jedi frowned.
"Dislike secrets, I do."
"That is kriffing bantha shit, and you know it! You love secrets! You Jedi love them so much you speak in riddles."
"Trust Caleb, do you?" Yoda asked, and Kenobi glared at him.
"Not at all," he snarled, and Kanan held his breath, his eyes narrowing in anger as he looked at the Sith. "I don't know Caleb Dume." He sighed, the fury in his eyes dimming to a dull, muted yellow, his shoulders slumping against the pillar he leaned against. "But I do trust Kanan Jarrus." His lips curled up into a faint snarl when he felt the Jedi looking at him. "Tell him what you will, but remember this. He is being hunted, and my record in protection is quite frankly abysmal. When they probe his mind, consider carefully what you want them to see."
Yoda nodded and closed his eyes, the faint glow of the ethereal body seeing to waver in the air for a moment. Kanan didn't realize he was holding his breath until his chest began to ache. There was so much he didn't understand. Why was Yoda, Grandmaster of the Jedi Order, working with a Sith Lord? And why was that Sith Lord working with him? For that matter, why was Kenobi working with anyone? He had helped bring about the end of the Jedi. He had been personally responsible for the deaths of many, including Masters that sat on the Jedi High Council. He had no reason to work with any of them, and yet, there they were. Working with a Sith Lord.
He was far too sober for any of this to make sense.
"Warned the Jedi, Obi-Wan did," Yoda finally said. "Too late, it was, to save everyone. Too late, it was, to stop Darth Sidious." He smiled, soft and enigmatic. "But saved the future, we did."
"What does that even mean?" Kanan asked, his frustration slowly rising as he remembered what it was like dealing with the Jedi. His Master always used to speak in riddles as well, or in proverbs where the meaning was never quite clear. Fear not being out on a ledge, one of them said, for soon you will be off of it. Which, so far as Kanan was concerned, could mean one of two things. That safety was just up ahead, or...that you were falling off of it. That was the problem with the Jedi. They always seemed to assume things would turn out for the best. No wonder the Jedi all got killed.
"Leave it at that, Jarrus," Obi-Wan muttered. "Nothing good ever came from digging too deep."
"We spoke about this before," Qui-Gon said softly. "The first time we met. Do you not remember?"
"I was really drunk at the time," Kanan muttered, his hand running over his hair. "I don't remember much of that day." He paused, lips pursed for a moment before he suddenly understood. "Wait, are there more Jedi out there? Did the Order survive?"
"Gone, the Jedi are," Yoda said. "Soon, the last of the Jedi, you will be." He smiled softly. "But survivors, there are. Saved many, did Luminara and I." He pointed to the glowering Sith Lord, and Kanan stared at Kenobi in wonder. "Because of Obi-Wan. Many lives, has he taken. But many he has saved. Compassion, mercy, these things once in Obi-Wan lived. Twisted, corrupted, the Dark Side has made him. Evil, his actions have been." He shook his head. "But good as well. Within Darth Lumis, Obi-Wan lives."
Kanan stared at the Sith Lord, his face cold and expressionless, almost bored, as if he had heard this tired assertion before, but to Kanan, it made a great deal make sense, and it explained a lot about what had been happening. Why Luminara, Master of the Jedi Order, remained close to a Sith Lord, why she had become his lover, even after all he had done. Why Qui-Gon Jinn, one of the Jedi's greatest and most controversial, continued to believe in his fallen student, and even after his death, returned to walk beside him like he hadn't been able to do in life. Why Yoda, the Order's Grandmaster, came when he called. Why Kenobi himself didn't simply kill him, a loose end in his quest to exterminate the Jedi and fulfill the Sith's revenge.
What did it even mean to be a Sith Lord?
"You saved the Jedi?" he asked Kenobi softly, and the man simply scoffed.
"I saved no Jedi."
"But you saved someone. You saved me. You saved Ezra and Sabine and Hera, and Master Yoda is saying that more survived. More than just me." He paused, his eyes widening with realization as the Sith snarled. "We were spread so thin, and none of us were warned. The only way many could be saved is if they were called together, but none of us were." He gasped softly when the sneer on the Sith's face deepened. "You saved those in the Jedi Temple."
"I saved nobody," Kenobi growled. "The night we executed Order 66, I was on Raxus slaughtering the Separatist leaders."
"But you warned them," Kanan said breathlessly. "If this is true...Obi-Wan, what are you?"
"I am Sith," Obi-Wan said, his voice low and dangerous. "Never forget that." He turned his cruel gaze on Yoda. "You are misleading him on purpose. Why."
"The truth, I have told him," Yoda said softly. "Dark and corrupted, you are. Lost to us forever. But an ally, you are. Lives in you, the light does." The Sith's golden eyes narrowed dangerously. "Capable, you are, of mercy, of compassion, of love. Seen it, I have."
"You know why you can't sense me, Jedi?" Kenobi said, his voice low and soft and so cold it sent a shiver up Kanan's spine. "It isn't because I am skilled at concealing my presence, though I am, and I have always been. It's because there is nothing left inside me." The edge of Kenobi's mouth twitched with barely concealed anger, and Yoda's ghostly presence began to waver as sand and dust was kicked up in a sudden, violent wind, stirred to life by the Dark Side in the hands of the wrathful Sith Lord. "Understand?! No heart, no soul, no light. There is just darkness."
"You are so much more than that, Obi-Wan," Qui-Gon said softly, unaffected by the winds that whipped around him. He simply stood, calm and serene and unafraid of the predator that preyed on the emotions of others, and slowly, the frigid wind died down, leaving Kenobi looking pale and drawn and exhausted, like he hadn't slept or eaten in days. Kanan couldn't help but wonder if that was actually the case.
"Of course I'm more than that," Obi-Wan hissed, but the menace had gone out of him. He just looked tired and drunk and annoyed by the company he kept. "I am power. I am a Lord of the Sith. I am the Dark Side itself."
"And somehow, you got cut out of the Sith Empire," Kanan casually drawled, drawing the ire of the Sith as the irritated glowing eyes fell on him. "Pretty ungrateful, if you ask me."
"...yes, it was." Obi-Wan took a deep breath and held it, his gaze drifting toward the ceiling as he lost himself in thought. "Things will be different when I'm Emperor. The Sith need to be destroyed, just as the Jedi were. The Code of the Sith demands we change, we evolve, we progress. And it's time."
"Change into what?" Kanan asked warily, and Kenobi took in a shuddering breath.
"...that has yet to be seen," Obi–Wan said, and for just a moment, Kanan thought the Sith Lord looked...lost. Like he was trapped in the dark and couldn't find his way out of it. "Satine, ner kar'taylir darasuum, ner nau, alorir ni at vaii Ni enteyor cuyir..."
"Hey, Kenobi," Kanan drawled after a moment of silence, the Sith Lord looking up at him warily through hazy eyes. "I know you're the embodiment of darkness and all, but...well, if you need a light, I can be that for you."
Obi-Wan said nothing, simply muttered under his breath and turned over, and for just a moment, Kanan thought he felt gratitude rippling through the Force.
Ezra wasn't sure what he was seeing. He ran far, and he ran fast, and still, he could feel the Inquisitor's presence creeping ever closer. But now, the feeling faded, lost in a cold snap so severe that Ezra couldn't move. Everything was bathed in red light, dark and foreboding like blood, the stench of death thick in the air. Before him, three shadowy figures stood. One tall, his movements stiff and mechanical, one lithe and small and fidgeting, one old, smaller than the others, calm and powerful, commanding in his presence. Before them, on his knees, his head bowed in defeat, knelt Obi-Wan, his breathing labored, his body battered and beaten, a long slash burned across his back still smoking and filling the air with the smell of burned flesh.
The smallest shadow, the Lord, the Master raised his hands and lines of blue lighting shot from his fingertips, striking Kenobi in the chest and sending him writhing to the ground. Slowly, the man stilled, his ragged, pained breathing evened into slow, shallow breaths, the golden eyes dull and vacant like an empty shell, and Ezra could do nothing. This somehow felt...different from the other things he had seen, all at once more real and less, like a thing that could happen, would happen, but hadn't yet. And it chilled him.
Pale, sickly yellow eyes stared at him from the faces of the shadowed figures, and slowly, the Master began to laugh, cold and cruel and vicious, and Ezra was certain that the shadows could see him.
The red eyed, blue skinned, beautiful woman laid across Obi-Wan's lap, pressing long, lusty kisses to the inside of his thigh, her hands wandering and stroking as the Sith Lord drank deeply from a new bottle, his other hand slid in the woman's blue black hair, encouraging her to continue her attentions. Supplying the Sith Lord with alcohol and the attention he craved had significantly improved his mood, though with the new additions to the temple, they had divided into groups. The Jedi stood close to the door that Ezra disappeared through in silence, waiting for the boy to return to them, the ghostly Masters' eyes closed as they reached out to the boy through the Force to monitor his progress.
On the other side of the temple, closer to the entrance as if they were itching to get out, was the Sith Lord's entourage, consisting of his blue-skinned slave, a very mouthy Imperial droid, and the quietly amused Cody, who sat and drank beside Kenobi, the two quietly talking about something that Kanan couldn't hear. Whatever it was, Obi-Wan looked...peaceful. Pained, yes, open and emotionally raw and grieving deeply, but there was a familiar serenity in it, something nostalgic and reminiscent that made Kanan think of the Master he had lost, a painful memory of a woman he loved dearly. It always hurt to think of Master Depa Billaba, but he never wanted to forget. It was painful, but it was also nice to think about her now, the sharp stab of grief mingling seamlessly with the fond memories he had of her, and Kanan wondered who it was the Sith and the clone were talking about.
Kanan was certain that this conversation wouldn't have been quite like this if he had been anything other than overwhelmingly drunk, as he was right now, the copious amounts of alcohol repressing the Sith's considerable rage and allowing something deeper and far more emotional to bleed through. In that moment, it was easy to see that Kenobi was little more than a man that had lost everything, one that didn't know how to deal with grief, one with wounds that would never heal, and the Dark Side made certain that the wounds would never close. His heart wasn't gone, it was broken, and one look at Qui-Gon told Kanan that the Force spirit thought the same thing.
It was a really good thing he had that clone.
"What are they talking about?" Kanan whispered to the ghost, and the Jedi Master never took his eyes away from his former student.
"They are speaking Mando'a. I don't have a wonderful grasp on the language, so I couldn't say." Kanan frowned at the spirit until he looked sidelong at the young Jedi, and with a heavy sigh, Qui-Gon ran a hand through his hair. "If you are so curious, you could ask."
"And you think he'd tell me?" Kanan asked in a tone that said he knew it was impossible. "No thank you. I'm in no hurry to die. But you're already dead, so..."
"I don't need to ask to know his heart."
"...so you do know." Qui-Gon sighed heavily.
"I suppose I do." Kanan frowned when the spirit said nothing more. It was terribly unfair. Kenobi was drunk, had a beautiful woman lavishing him with attention, and had his best friend beside him. All Kanan had were a couple of moody ghosts. Beside him, Qui-Gon chuckled softly. "You are curious about the nature of the Dark Side that rests within him, yes?" Kanan absently nodded, his eyes fixed on the Sith Lord as he grabbed the moaning woman by the hair and kissed her hungrily as if he meant to consume her.
"Ezra is going to struggle with it. I have to know if I'm going to help him. I've had a lot of time to think about things. If the Jedi knew more about the Dark Side, if they studied it, if they-"
"The Jedi are gone, Kanan," Qui-Gon said firmly. "All of them. Yoda is all that remains of the old Order. Even you are different. Changed. You do not conduct yourself in the way the Jedi as you remember them would have accepted." Kanan drew back, feeling his temper rise.
"If you're going to judge me-"
"I'm not," the spirit quickly cut in. "There's a reason the Jedi are dead, Kanan Jarrus. If the Force willed it, we would have known. We would have had someone that could sense it, someone that saw the storm coming." He pointed to the Sith Lord, returned to the bottle as the woman sat straddling his hips. "We had Obi-Wan. And he fell, I made him fall..." The spirit breathed deeply and gazed sadly at his student. "He was so badly mishandled, not just by me, but by all of us. But the Force moves in mysterious ways, and it moved Obi-Wan to the Sith. So we never knew. This was meant to happen. The Jedi, what we became...we were wrong."
"You're saying the Sith are right?" Kanan asked tentatively, and Qui-Gon shook his head.
"No. The will of the Force saw the Jedi destroyed, and now it will see the destruction of the Sith, and Obi-Wan sits at the center of it. We all must begin anew. The Jedi will change. The Sith will change."
"Do you believe we can work together?" Kanan asked, feeling the tug of hope deep within him, and the faintest smile crossed the spirit's face.
"We are now, aren't we? Obi-Wan has done awful things. He's committed genocide more than once, he's burned worlds, he's tortured and killed to further himself, he's stolen life to feed his vanity, he's manipulated and controlled minds. Truly, he can be a monster." The spirit laid his hand over his heart. "But I have seen within him. I have sat with him when he loses himself in the Force. Everything inside him has been burned and blackened to ash. He walks the Force hand in hand with the love he lost."
"He's lonely."
"Terribly so, yes."
Kanan looked back to Kenobi, the Sith Lord clinging to the woman in his arms, needy and desperate as he sought physical closeness, and the Jedi felt his heart reach out to him. It wasn't the closeness he needed, nor the kind he craved, but pain kept him from seeking another lover, the memory of the women he lost held close to him and poisoning him, even as they strengthened him. Perhaps he was a monster. Perhaps he was evil and corrupted, but something in him wasn't. There may not have been light within him, but there was love in him so strong, so lasting, that it threatened to break him. Kenobi was tied to the world, created attachments with clones, with droids, with ships, all things that kept him tied to this world, invested in it, and that was not the way of the Sith, who sought to rid themselves of the mundane to become something else.
"Can we save him?" Kanan asked softly, and beside him, he could feel the Force spirit waver.
"Obi-Wan doesn't seem to think so."
"Obi-Wan also thinks it's too late for him. It's never too late, not for anyone."
"The Jedi believe there is no turning away from the Dark Side."
"Well, yes, but the Jedi also believe that nothing is impossible." The spirit at his side slowly smiled. "Ezra touched the Dark Side, but that can't be the end for him. He's emotional, yes, but he's also kind and compassionate, often to his detriment. He's a good person. His attachments are his strength, and I have found I fight harder when I am defending those dear to me. Emotions are strength, not weakness. It's not emotions and attachment that's to be avoided, it's cruelty. Balance is the key."
"...Obi-Wan was right about you," Qui-Gon said softly. "You're right. There is hope for him, fleeting as it is. He will remain committed to the Dark Side, but above all else, he will follow the will of the Force."
"You believe he can be redeemed?" Kanan asked.
"I believe redemption is attainable to anyone who reaches for it. The true tragedy of the Dark Side is those seeped within it is hopelessness. They feel there is nothing else, that they have gone too far to turn back, that the things they have done can never be forgiven. The Dark Side doesn't trap them, they trap themselves."
"That sounds to me like someone we can help," Kanan said, grinning broadly, and the spirit nodded.
"I believe so as well. I have always had hope for him. I have done what I can for him, but it seems as though there must be others that will help him forgive himself."
"If there's hope for him, there's hope for Ezra,," Kanan said, his chest filling with warmth as he felt himself filled with new purpose. He had been reluctant and nervous to train Ezra, which had led his Padawan to be unprepared to face the darkness he had so casually reached for. But it was no fault of Ezra, it was him. He had never completed his own training. He was never truly a Jedi, he was never...
"Troubled, you are," Yoda said softly, and Kanan quickly looked at the tiny Master.
"Impatient, I hate waiting," Kanan said, harsher than he intended. "What's taking him so long?!"
"Worried for your student, are you?" Kanan nodded. "Be not worried. Fail, he may, yes, but in no true danger is he."
"Unless he fails!" the Jedi snapped. "It will be my fault! I was too reluctant to train him, I can sense that he's growing stronger than I can teach him!"
"Sense this, do you?" Yoda asked. "Or fear it?" Kanan quickly started to respond, and then stopped, his voice lost. What was it? He knew Ezra's failure was actually his own, but the fact was that he was afraid.
"I lost my way for a long time, Master," Kanan said quietly, sinking down to his knees before the door, and Yoda calmly sat before him. "I have a chance to make things right now, but...but what if I'm wrong? What if I'm not ready? I'm not prepared to be a Master."
"Nobody is prepared to be a Master," Qui-Gon softly said, looking back at the student he had failed. "It's a dangerous time you live in, Kanan. But you are not alone." Slowly, a smile came to Kanan's lips as he thought about Zeb, loyal and strong and nothing but trouble, Sabine, feisty and free-spirited, and Hera, lovely Hera, a woman worth defying the Code of the Jedi for. Without them, he would be just another lost soul, traveling from bar to bar and never sober, drinking to forget and leaving a long string of one night stands behind him, careless and hedonistic and not giving a damn about what happened to the galaxy.
"I won't let him lose his way," Kanan said quietly. "Not like I did. Be it through darkness or light, the path is his to choose, but I will guide him safely through it."
Yoda nodded, grunting in satisfaction. "A Master, you sound like."
"We'll be with you," Qui-Gon said, looking over at the Sith Lord. "We all will."
Ezra stood with his back against the wall, his eyes wide with fear as the Inquisitor slowly advanced, his lightsaber ignited in his hand. There was nowhere to run, but he didn't care anymore. Kanan was dead, his friends abandoned him, and even Kenobi had been taken.
Probably.
He wasn't an idiot. This place was disorienting, but he had figured out that something was amiss. Nothing made sense here. This was the test. This was an illusion. It had to be, or else everything was lost.
"You think this an illusion, boy?" the Inquisitor asked as he drew closer, and Ezra stood tall, defiant in the face of this creature that either killed his friends or wasn't real. Regardless, he had nothing left to fear, not anymore. "That may be so, but I assure you," he growled, reaching out to Ezra, and a pit dropped in his stomach when a firm, cold hand touched him and forced him to look into blazing yellow eyes, "I am not."
With a gasp of fear, Ezra tore himself away from the creature's grasp and focused on the lightsaber, the red blazing and pulsating like it ran with blood, and Ezra couldn't push aside the idea that his friends were dead. This Inquisitor was real. Maybe some of that hadn't happened, maybe Kanan was alive, but the man before him was tangible.
"Are you ready to die, boy?" the Inquisitor asked, his hand extended and laying on Ezra's chest, the heavy touch keeping the teen pinned to the wall, his heart beating wildly. "Or are you afraid?"
"I've never been afraid to die," Ezra said softly. "I've never been anything, but my friends, the one you killed, or didn't, I don't know...they made me something. They made me more than I was, more than I could ever be on my own." His eyes narrowed. "I'm afraid of being alone. I'm afraid of letting down my Master. But I am not afraid of death." He laughed bitterly. "Why should I be? I've got nothing left to lose."
"Despair?" the Inquisitor asked, raising his blade. "Interesting. Then this is how you end." Ezra closed his eyes, heard the bloodthirsty shout of the Inquisitor, felt the heat of the blade as it descended, and then...nothing. He slowly opened his eyes, relief flooding through him as he found himself back in the room he started in. No Inquisitor, no dead bodies, no nothing. He dropped to the floor, breathing heavily as he tried to calm himself and stop the shaking in his hands.
"Great fears, you have, young one." Ezra's eyes shot open, his calming pulse taking off once again, and he focused on the tiny, shimmering image before him of the small, green Jedi Master he had met earlier, a look of sadness and sympathy in his large, expressive eyes. "Afraid of the Dark Side, are you?"
"Y-yeah, I suppose..." The Jedi closed his eyes and nodded sagely.
"Much to fear, is there in the Dark Side. But cause for fear, a true Jedi has not. Darkness, there is, in all of us. Face it, you must." He frowned and turned from Ezra, waving for him to follow. "Come. A guide, you need." Rising to shaky feet, Ezra cautiously followed, unsure what it was he was supposed to believe. This could be an illusion as well.
"Where are we going?" the teen asked softly, his voice softly echoing off the walls.
"The wrong question, that is," Yoda said softly. "Tell me of your visions."
"Why?" Ezra muttered, crossing his arms over his chest. "They weren't real so-"
"Illusions, there are, in this place," the Master said. "Made to test Jedi, they are. To see if ready, the student it, for the next step." He frowned deeply. "But a disturbance in the Force, there was. Felt it, I did, as did Obi-Wan. Close, he is, to the Force, to the future. A vision, you had. Different from an illusion, it is."
"A vision?" Ezra asked softly. "W-well, which one?! I saw a lot of things, and none of them were good! How can we know which one was a vision?" He gasped. "What if all of them were visions?!"
"Possible, that is," Yoda said, nodding. "Tell me." Ezra swiftly nodded.
"I saw the Inquisitor kill Kanan! I saw...I saw my friends abandon me, I heard their screams as they died. I saw Obi-Wan and three shadows, I saw..." The tiny Master growled at his feet, a deep frown on his face, his long ears lowered, his expressive eyes narrowed. "W-what, what is it?"
"Different, that one is," Yoda softly rasped. "Your vision, it could be. Tricky, is the Dark Side. Clouds everything, it does." He stopped, breathing deeply as he stared at the corridor as it diverged into three pathways. "Show Obi-Wan, you must. Make sense of it, he will."
"...is this because I used the Dark Side?" Ezra asked, his voice filled with fear and trepidation.
"Sensitive to the Force, you are. Visions, sometimes, it gives. Not from the light or from the dark, are they."
"...I don't understand," Ezra said, sighing in frustration. "I don't understand anything, I don't even know why I'm here!" Yoda softly laughed, causing the teenager to flush slightly in embarrassment.
"Better questions, these are," he said. "Mysterious, is the Force. Understand little, we do. But less important, that is, than feeling what is right, than trusting in the Force." He indicated to the diverging tunnel. "Your path, you must decide." Ezra looked at the tunnels, each one dark, and he could see where none of them led to. It was unknown, and he was desperately afraid of choosing the wrong one. Taking a deep breath as he closed his eyes, he reached out with his senses, just as Kanan had taught him, and he knew just what to do.
Taking a step forward, Ezra ventured down the middle path.
"Why must you become a Jedi?" Yoda asked, the tiny Master walking just behind the teen as he allowed him to lead. Ezra shrugged.
"I don't know, Kanan thinks I can be one."
"Mm, Kanan thinks so, does he?" Yoda asked, chuckling. "Matters not, what Kanan thinks. Matters, though, what you think."
"...I want to become stronger. Powerful," Ezra said, a soft growl of determination in his voice, his fists balling in front of him. "I will make the Empire suffer for everything it did! For everything it took!" he shouted, his voice growing louder as he went on and echoing through the tunnel. "For my parents! I don't want to be helpless anymore! I want to be powerful!"
"Ah..." Yoda said sagely. "Revenge is the Jedi Way, hmm? Teach you this, your Master did?"
"W-well..." Ezra stuttered. "N-no, but..." He huffed in frustration. "Kanan would never. He's a good Master, and better yet, he's a great man!"
"Then why seek you revenge?"
"Because..." Ezra sighed heavily. "They've done so much. This isn't revenge, this is justice!"
"Hmm..." Yoda mused, his three fingered hands steepling together. "Inside you, much anger. Much fear." He frowned deeply. "Correct, Obi-Wan was. Like Skywalker, you are, young one."
"Look, I don't know who this Skywalker is, and I really don't care!" Ezra said frantically. "I just want to be able to protect my friends! Not just them, everyone!"
"And this is why a Jedi, you must be?"
"Yes!" He hung his head, his frustration growing, but his anger was leaving him. "Before I met Kanan, all I thought about was myself, but Kanan, and Hera, and Sabine and Zeb, the things they do..." He laughed softly, his chest suddenly tight with emotion. "You should see the things they do...they help people, everything they do is for others! I can never be like that...but I want to try..." Yoda was silent for a moment, his large eyes looking over the teenager, watching closely when Ezra's head snapped up, his eyes growing wide as his gaze caught something in the distance, and the boy's pace sped up.
"A difficult path, you will walk, Padawan," Yoda said softly, the tunnel around them lit with a soft, green glow originating from a point just ahead. Ezra reached out, his hand wrapping around the origin of the glowing light, and looked in wonder at the small, glowing crystal on his palm. "Come," Yoda said softly. "Time, it is, for us to return."
Nodding, Ezra turned, the crystal clutched tightly in his grasp and found that the Jedi Master was gone. He looked around him, but the ghostly figure was gone, and Ezra wondered if the tiny green Master was ever there at all.
"Is it true you're talking to ghosts?" Cody said as he approached Kanan, a bottle in his hand that he offered to the Jedi, and Kanan cautiously took it, a wary eye on the clone. "Kenobi says you're talking to ghosts, but he's very drunk." He looked over his shoulder at the Sith Lord, the man now laying in the woman's lap in a state of near unconsciousness as the beauty deeply kissed him. "...like, I'm pretty sure there's more alcohol in his body than blood."
"You let him get like that?" Kanan asked, taking a drink from the bottle. "Aren't you supposed to protect him?" Cody laughed and shook his head, taking it in stride.
"Nah, he doesn't need me to protect him. That boy's going to live forever." He shrugged. "My job is to keep him happy and human. I've seen what he becomes when he retreats inside himself. I've seen what happens when the pain becomes too much, and believe me, nobody wants that."
"He's happy when he's drunk?" Cody looked at the Jedi like he was stupid and pointed to the Sith Lord and his moaning, lustful woman.
"Does he look unhappy to you?" Kanan grumbled and took another drink from the bottle.
"Yeah, I'm talking to ghosts."
"Hmm. Tell Qui-Gon hello." Kanan rolled his eyes.
"He can hear you, dummy, he just can't speak to you. You're the problem in that relationship." Cody scoffed.
"Typical."
"So..." Kanan pointed over the clone's shoulder to the Sith Lord. "What were you two talking about?" Cody smiled devilishly.
"Describe what lovely Hera looks like naked and I'll tell you." Kanan choked, immediately coughing as his face turned bright red. "If you must know," Cody said before the Jedi recovered, "we were talking about our lovers. Being around your Mandalorian has made him ache for her, far worse than usual. Doesn't help at all that her name is so similar. It's actually very likely that she was named after her, many children born under the Mandalorian Empire were named in honor of our glorious Mand'alor." He shrugged. "Her name, or a variation thereof. The Wrens are staunch loyalists, I bet Sabine is named after her."
"U-uh..." Kanan wasn't prepared for that much information or that much honesty. The clone was...proud, as so many Mandalorians were. "I-I wouldn't know..."
"That's alright," Cody said, patting the man on the back. "I'll ask her later." A sly smirk crossed his face. "You can tell me about Hera later. That was your end of the deal, wasn't it?"
"This is why I hate clones..." Kanan said between grit teeth. "Sneaky, devious bastards, the whole lot of you..."
"Uh huh." Cody crossed his arms and looked back at the Sith, a worried look on his face. "The only time we can ever really talk about her is when he's completely soused," he quietly explained. "I do what I can, but..." He growled in frustration and shook his head. "I don't know. I know he's going to live forever, but there are days I think death would be kinder." He sighed, and when Cody looked back at Kanan, his previous worry was gone, replaced with confident bravado. "But not today. There's work to be done, and the Force isn't done with him."
A faint rumbling could be felt running through the ground as the door to the temple depths opened, and Ezra walked out, his hand clutched around a glowing green crystal. With a gasp of relief, Kanan rushed to his student.
"Welcome back," he said, laying his hand on the boy's shoulder. "I was worried about you. Is...is that a kyber crystal?" Ezra opened his hand, and Kanan's lips split in a broad grin. "It is! We can make a lightsaber with that!"
"W-we can?" Ezra asked, the shock on his face fading into excitement. "Alright, that's great!"
"I'll teach you how to make one when we get back to the Ghost." Kanan breathed a sigh of relief. "I guess that means you passed, huh?"
"Means that, does it?" Yoda asked, reappearing after he had disappeared earlier, and Qui-Gon whistled for Obi-Wan's attention.
"Yoda and the boy have returned, Obi-Wan."
"How wonderful for them..." Kenobi slurred, leaning back and kissing the Chiss on her flat stomach. "Batas ch'acacah csei s bazor nah vacosehn tahn..."
"Ch'ah bapun vah en'casn'ah ch'ah ," the woman said, her voice low and breathless as she ran her hands down the Sith's chest and kissed him.
"That's not Mando'a..." Kanan said to the fuming clone, and Cody growled.
"No, that's not Mando'a, that's flirting. Kenobi!" the clone shouted at the oblivious Sith. "You stop that immediately, the kid is back!" Obi-Wan ignored him. "K2!" From his place by the pillar, the security droid looked up, its visual sensors focusing on Cody. "Bring him over here, he needs to talk to the kid!"
"Me?" K2 asked, looking back at the Sith Lord, who was currently tangling himself up in his Chiss lover and didn't look to be coming up for breath anytime soon. "I'll have you know, I am not programmed to handle beings with a blood alcohol level as high as his." K2 stood up taller. "I think you should do it."
"Are you sassing me, droid?!" the clone snapped. "One more time, K2, one more time!" With a weary sigh, the droid looked at the organics as the female slowly began peeling off the layers of the Sith's robes.
"I will have words with HK about this, and maybe he will reinstate your meatbag status. You may be manufactured, CC-2224, but as HK says, you are just as squishy any naturally created humanoid."
"Oh yes?" Cody said, menace in his voice. "How many droids do you suppose I destroyed during the Clone Wars? A thousand? Ten thousand? I don't know, Kenobi and I went on sprees." He gazed hard at the droid. "How many droids succeeded in destroying me?"
"...noted, CC-2224," K2 said as he stooped down to grab one of the Sith Lord's wrists, and he dragged the drunken man through the dust and sand on the ground. With a soft groan of displeasure, Obi-Wan reached out with his free hand and grabbed the Chiss with the Force, pulling her behind him as he was pulled by the droid. They stopped beside the clone, the Sith Lord hanging by the wrist in the droid's grasp, and Ezra had to cover his mouth to stifle the laughter.
"Obi-Wan," Yoda said, his voice low and serious, and a hazy blaze returned to the dulled golden eyes, the Sith Lord lifting his head up in his attention. "Right, you were. A vision, he had. About you."
"I'm in no state to look now," the Sith drawled, his vowels elongated as he tried and failed to not slur his words. "I'll purge myself when I return to the Umbra and I'll have a look tomorrow."
"You could purge yourself now," Qui-Gon said, his arms crossed and his face stern, and the Sith looked up at him defiantly.
"I could...but I like how I'm feeling." He scoffed. "You're dead, what would you know..."
"I-I saw you," Ezra said swiftly, the golden eyes turning on him. "I don't know of you died, but you were definitely defeated, and you were kneeling before three shadows..." The Sith's eyes focused, the blazing their glowing gold once again, and he grimaced, breathing deep as he shut his eyes, the Force churning within him as he purged himself of the toxins.
"Much fear, there is, in your Padawan," Yoda said gravely. "Failed the test, he did." Both Kanan and Ezra looked at the tiny Master in shock.
"But..." Kanan began. "But he came out with a kyber crystal, surely-"
"Belong to the Jedi, do all kyber crystals?" Yoda asked, and the Jedi shut his mouth. "Mysterious, the crystals are. Know not, do we, who they choose, or why. Chosen, Ezra was, but failed, he did. Too much fear, too much anger. Traits of the Jedi, he has, yes, but also something else, is there." He frowned. "Beyond my expertise, this is."
"S-so, I can't be a Jedi?" Ezra asked, his voice tense and afraid.
"The Dark Side is too strong in you," Kenobi said, his voice no longer slurred. "But clearly, a failed test isn't the end of the road. This isn't about passing or failing, it's about how you proceed."
"So what do we do?" Kanan asked. "If he can't be a Jedi-"
"A Jedi, he may still be," Yoda said. "But trained like a Jedi." He frowned and looked up at Qui-Gon. "Like Skywalker, he is."
"Yes, I see it too," Qui-Gon said softly. "Jedi training didn't work for him because he was...many things. Fearful and angry, far too human, far too old, and you are even older. We need a different approach."
"What happened to Skywalker?" Kanan asked, and an uncomfortable silence fell over the room. Kanan became instantly nervous, something gnawing at the back of his mind. There were secrets here, something deeply personal, though he wasn't sure for who. "He was the greatest general of the Clone Wars, he was what all the Padawans looked up to." He looked at each of their faces in turn, each one's eyes averted. "What happened to him?" Silence. "...if you're saying Ezra is like him, I need to know! I have to know!"
"I killed him," Obi-Wan said, his voice hollow and bitter, the golden eye rimmed with blood red that made him seem so much more fearsome. "Slowly, piece by piece, I tore him apart until there was nothing left, and on Mustafar the night the Jedi died, I watched him burn." He never took his gaze away from the horrified Kanan and Ezra. "He's dead. That's all you need to know." There was something more there, something black and poisonous about it, but Kanan knew better than to pry. He wasn't even sure he wanted to know.
"Obi-Wan," Yoda said, breaking the tense, uncomfortable silence. "Teach Ezra the Dark Side, you will."
"What?!" Kenobi and Kanan both shouted in unison, but the little Grandmaster held firm, his eyes narrowing in his determination.
"Not the ways of the Sith," Yoda continued. "Consumed, he will be, if control it, he cannot. Teach him control, can you?"
"W-well, yes, but-"
"Kanan," the Master interrupted. "Temperance, compassion, peace, you will teach him, as you have been. A Master, you are not, but know the way, you do." He pointed at Kanan. "In the Force, you must trust. Guide you, it will."
"...I understand, Master," Kanan said, inclining his head slightly. "We're striking a balance." Yoda nodded, a kind smile on his face as he looked at the Jedi, the Padawan, and the Sith Lord.
"Choose your own path, you will, Ezra." The teen looked up at Kanan, saw the Jedi pleased, and he smiled.
"I understand. I won't let you down."
"This is some kind of bantha shit..." Obi-Wan growled, shaking free of the droid and standing on steady legs. "I can't believe I sobered up for this..." He reached out and pulled the Chiss woman to him, his fingers digging possessively into her hip as she gasped and moaned softly. "Ch'ah csarcican't tsan'ah vah ch'itcuto g'et ch'ah seo csah..." Gold eyes narrowed as the woman moaned sweetly, her lips against his neck. "You will be on the Umbra at first light so I may look into your head and see this vision of yours," he growled. "After that, your training will begin, apprentice." He pushed the woman forward toward the entryway. "I advise you don't keep me waiting. You won't like it if I have to come looking for you." The Sith Lord turned away from them without waiting for a response, gripping the Chiss close to him, the woman moaning loudly as he bit at her ear, and Cody and K2 fell in step behind him.
"Soooo..." Ezra drawled when Kenobi and his crew had left. "Will training with him mean I'll learn how to make girls do that?"
"Don't even think about it," Kanan growled. "That's a slave. At the very least, she's enthralled, and at the worst, she's been completely brainwashed."
"W-woah...I-I didn't know the Force could do that."
"The Force can do great things," Kanan said softly. "But it can also do terrible things. Between the two of us..." Kanan sighed. "This isn't education in the light or the dark. We're teaching you the Force. All of it." Kanan grew pensive for a moment, and nodded after a moment of silence. "You'll be able to choose your path from there."
Ezra clutched the crystal in his hand tighter, smiling as he felt the warmth flow from it. Despite his failure, Ezra felt he had come out ahead, not with one Master, but with two, and very soon, his Force training would truly begin.