*Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars rebels*
"Much appreciated, you two!" Ezra yelled before reversing into a patrol
So, what happened? Well, Ezra tried to pursue the bikes (and their cargo) discreetly. In other words, jumping from rooftop to rooftop like a madman in plain sight of the now panicking imps. His idea was to jump the imp commandeering the bike with his crate and get the kriffing hell out of there. Kinda dumb, isn't it? At least that was his impromptu strategy until a rusty, old speeder blocked the alley the bikes were escaping through. And the driver? The bearded, ponytailed guy from the square.
In a blink of an eye, all 3 drivers were mowed down, with the squad of bucketheads sent to investigate the blaster fire meeting the same fate (I.e a blaster bolt to the face or, poor bastards, having their skulls cracked by an angry Lasat). Ezra, taking advantage of the confusion of the brief, one-sided skirmish, leaped down onto one of the bikes (how was he not shot?) and just as the last imp got knocked out.
Knocking down (and possibly killing) the incompetent patrol, Ezra took off down another alley, using the route he knew would get him out of the city quickly. As he was driving though, reality set in.
I should've thought this through Ezra mused. I could've just stunned them with the slingshot and detach the crate. He REALLY wanted to slap himself for that. Not only is he on the run from the imps, but also a group of pirates who just dispatched an entire squad of imps in mere seconds.
Are they pirates though? a side of Ezra's mind inquired. Ezra had to admit, something about them didn't seem to add up. Something was telling him that they weren't pirates or bandits. No. Ezra told himself. They can't possibly not be pirates. Nobody else would do such a thing here. Right?
If only he was aware of just how wrong he was.
His musings were cut short, however, when he felt the bike, and the crates behind him, shake. Looking over, his heart dropped like a stone as he saw that the Mandalorian from the bombing had jumped on the crates. He couldn't read her expression due to her helmet, but if he had to guess, she was probably livid.
"Pretty gutsy move, kid!" She spat, pulling a WESTAR on Ezra. He gulped. Mandalorians were revered and feared for their ferocity and heartlessness, and here was one of them, with a blaster pointed at his temple. He could see her finger tense and the trigger.
But she hesitated, or at least that's what he thought. And that split-second's hesitation was all he needed
If they want their crates so badly, they could have them, just not mine. He thought as he leaned back and whipped out the old blaster he stole and aimed at the coupling between his crate and the ones she was kneeling on. Please don't blow up in my face
Thankfully, as he pulled the trigger, a red bolt shot out of the barrel and dislodged the other 2 crates from the bike. He watched as the Mando looked visibly confused as the crates slowed, before hearing her yell "If the big guy catches you, he'll end you. Good luck!"
Oh I bet he will he mused IF he catches me, he added as he turned onto the adjacent street, only to see a hastily set up, makeshift barricade with a squad of 4 troopers behind it, weapons raised at the oncoming speeder. Ezra's eyes widened, before hardening with resolve as he whipped out his blaster again and shot 4 bolts in rapid succession. He could feel the grimy and overused blaster heat up after the 4th shot, but thankfully every shot found their mark, as the 4 troopers crumpled to the ground. He smashed through the barrier, luckily not damaging the speeder bike in any way.
It was then he took notice of his pursuers-the bearded, ponytailed guy and the Lasat, both commandeering the other 2 speeder bikes with their cargo still attached.
As they pursued Ezra out of the city, they were in turn pursued by two imperial speeder bikes.
"Karabast!", the Lasat yelled as the imperial bike's blasterfire scorched his crates.
Ezra, meanwhile, was internally shitting himself. Who wouldn't if they were being pursued by briggans, and then the empire shows up? He jumped as a single bolt hit the bike's engine.
" Well that ain't good!" As the now smoking bike was shaking violently from side-to-side. The bike lurched suddenly to the left, sending itself, and Ezra, flying. Amazingly, Ezra managed to regain control and steer the bike down onto the adjacent lane, swerving left to right to avoid incoming traffic. All the while, being noticed by a certain ponytailed man.
He looked back just in time to see the Lasat using his bo-rifle to dispatch the driver of one bike, before the ponytailed man threw a grenade to the other driver.
Who caught it.
Ezra could almost palm his face. How dumb could the bucketheads get? Sure enough, an explosion of epic proportions engulfed the other bike, and with it the dimwitted driver.
As the Lasat caught up with his ponytailed companion, the Lasat saw his signal. Knowing what it meant, he rolled his eyes and gave the thumbs-up, before slowing down his bike. After all that just happened, he wanted nothing more than to skin the lothrat alive! But he orders were orders. As he stops by the crates that his partner had uncoupled, he couldn't help but growl. "If Kanan catches that kid, I will END him"
Ezra sped up so as to lose his pursuers, only for the ponytailed stranger to steer his bike over the barrier before coming to a stop, forcing Ezra to follow suit.
"Look, I already gave up the other two crates to your Mando friend. You could have those, but you can't have this crate." Ezra said exasperated.
"Hahah, good joke kid but that's not how it works"
"You have no idea how much the contents of this crate mean to me!"
"I don't have to. I've got plans for that crate, bud. So today's not your day."
But as he said that, Ezra looked over this "pirate"'s shoulder to see a TIE fighter diving towards them.
" The day ain't over yet!" Ezra said, before driving off the highway.
It was then that the "pirate noticed the shrill screeching of TIE fighter sirens above him. "Oh, wonderful."
Ezra watched as the "pirate" escaped the explosion that engulfed the bike moments later. Smirking, he drove back onto the highway.
"See ya around!" He yelled, before speeding away. As he neared the end of the expressway, however, he heard loud screeching coming from behind him. "Oh kriff" he thought, as the ground around him was sprayed with TIE fire.
"Come on" he muttered as he drove back off the highway and towards his tower, "Just a little further!"
Just then, a lucky shot hits the engine and explodes, sending Ezra flying. Thankfully, the crate was intact, as Ezra noted whilst he struggled to regain his bearings. His eyes widened in horror as the reality set in. He was out in the open, nowhere to run or hide, and with a TIE fighter swooping down towards him. He braced himself for the inevitable.
Only for the TIE to to be engulfed in a huge ball of fire. He spun around to see the "pirate" from earlier standing on an old freighter's ramp hovering several metres above the ground.
"Want a ride?" The man offered. Ezra remained silent. He could see more TIEs incoming, and he did not particularly want to become target practice. On the other hand, he did not want to surrender the crate to these guys.
"You got a better option, kid? Come on!" He yelled.
Ezra sighed, between pirates and becoming target practice, he'd choose the pirates. He ran over to the crate.
"Leave the crate, it'll never make it! Come on!"
Like hell I'm leaving my parent's stuff here! Ezra thought as he activated the levitation (or whatever mode they called it) on the crate, before running towards the freighter, pushing it with all his might.
As the first bursts of neon green blasterfire left the barrels of the TIEs' phasers, Ezra, Listening to what that "feeling" was telling him, jumped… with the crate.
Astonishingly, despite the crate's weight and the height of the ramp from the ground, Ezra managed, just barely, to land on the ramp with the crate, to the amazement of the ponytailed stranger.
"Woah," He muttered, before helping Ezra, and the crate, onto the ship. He had only seen a few people make a jump like that, all of whom were...long gone. Just who is this kid?
Only when the ramp was finally shut, did Ezra register the looks he was getting. The Lasat and the Mando appeared to be glaring at him. The ponytailed stranger, on the other hand, was giving him a curious look.
"Keep an eye on our friend here," The ponytailed man said, before climbing the ladder.
The man climbed onto the bridge of the ship, only to be met with a familiar, chastising voice.
"You said this was a routine op. What happened down there?"
The speaker was a female Twi'lek, evidently the captain of the ship. She wasn't the only one with criticism though.
"Whomp. Whomp whomp, whomp"
"Chopper, please. It's been a busy morning," the man deadpanned to the old, and possibly senile (but don't tell it that), C1 astromech's grumbling.
"He has a point, love. We've got 4 TIEs on our tail,"
"Hera, how about a little less attitude and a little more altitude?" The man replied, not noticing the mischievous glint in the Twi'lek, Hera's, eyes as he said that. She pulled back hard on the controls and tugged them to the right, sending the ship into a sudden upward spin. The force of which throwing the man into his seat
"WHa-WOAH-!" THUD. "Ugh… if I didn't know better, I'd say you did that on purpose." The man grumbled.
"If you knew better, we wouldn't be in this situation. Seriously Kanan, what happened?"
Sighing in resignation, the man, Kanan, nodded his head to the security camera footage of the cargo hold. "He did,"
"I said this crate belongs to me!"
"No it's not, it's ours! We have plans for these crates!"
"I'm sure you don't have plans for this one! You have no idea what's in there or just how important it is to me!"
"Oh, we know what's inside, and it's not important to YOU as much as it is to US, you filthy stealing lothrat!"
"This coming from a pirate!"
"We're not pirates! You have no idea who we are, what it is we do or why we do it!"
"And I don't want to! I just want off this damn burner. With my stuff!"
"Oh believe me, I would love nothing more than to toss you out. WHILE IN FLIGHT!"
"A kid tripped you up? Must be some kid! He sounds impressive!"
"You're not thinking what I think you're thinking?" Kanan said, his expression contorting into a frown.
"He held onto a crate whilst facing off against a squad of stormtroopers,'
"He's a street rat!" Kanan retorted, "He's wild, selfish, reckless, dangerous and-...gone?" He trailed off, noticing that said "street rat" was no longer in view of the camera.
The ship lurched violently as a burst of TIE fire struck the hull of the corellian VCX-100 freighter. In the cargo bay, the lurch caused the Lasat to fall…
On top of Ezra.
"Get off! Can't… Breathe!" Ezra gasped out.
"I'm not that heavy in this gravity," The Lasat replied sheepishly as he pried himself off of Ezra.
"The weight is part of it, but also the smell!" Ezra blurted out, before instantly regretting it.
"You don't like the air in here, eh? Well, fine! I'LL GIVE YA YOUR OWN ROOM!" The Lasat attempted to grab Ezra's legs. On instinct, Ezra scrambled up, dodging the Lasat's fists as he tried to knock Ezra out, before giving the Lasat a powerful kick to the nose. The Lasat was knocked back by the sudden kick. He was stunned for a few moments, which Ezra took advantage of, getting in a few more punches and kicks before restraining him to the ground.
"Easy there kid!" The Mandalorian girl said as she whipped out both of her WESTARs. Inwardly, she was mildly impressed. Not everyone could dodge or even hit Zeb-the Lasat-so hard that he's stunned. Nonetheless, she was supposed to keep an eye on him. "Let him go." She added firmly.
But before he could retort, the Lasat managed to get free. Ezra found himself grabbed by the collar, before thrown into a locker (or whatever it was).
Kanan's voice chimed through the intercomm. "Zeb, Sabine, where's the kid?,"
"Don't worry, boss," Zeb, the Lasat, replied. "He's in- oh no" he trailed off as he opened the door to the cabinet, to find it empty with the vent open. "Uhhh…"
"Zeb, where's the kid?" Kanan demanded urgently. "What happened to him? Where did he go?!"
"Well ... he's still in the ship" Zeb nervously replied. A series of thuds were heard coming from the vents just then.
"Oh, he's in the ship alright!" Sabine muttered exasperatedly.
Back on the ship's cockpit, Hera heard the thuds loud and clearly. She couldn't help but smirk at the implication. "Very creative," she said, just as kanan palmed his face at the Lasat's slip-up. "Kinda like someone I used to know,"
As Ezra was crawling, a burst of TIE fire struck the shielded hull once more, shaking the whole ship and knocking Ezra out of the vents. Getting up, he saw that he was in some sort of gun turret, looking out at-
"Space," he whispered to himself, in awe at the black void and the many stars in front of him. "I'm in space," A loud screech was heard just then and he looked on in horror at the oncoming TIEs. And I'm about to die!
Suddenly, Ezra got that feeling again. This time it was… telling him to shoot? Ezra didn't question it, though. Between a painful death in space and aiding some pirates, the choice was obvious.
How does this thing work? He wondered. That feeling got stronger as he sat down on the seat and it was almost as if it was instructing him how to operate it
Listening to it, Ezra flicked a few switches, before rotating the gun and pulling the trigger. To his own surprise, he managed to hit 3 out of the current 6 TIEs within seconds. So stunned that he did not notice a certain mandalorian rushing towards him
"Nice shot kid, but that's my seat!" She spoke, before literally tossing him out of the chair. Ezra wanted to retort, but no words escaped his mouth. The mandalorian (Sabine) no longer wore her helmet. To say she was pretty would be an understatement, she was downright gorgeous! She had multicolored hair, dark blue bordering on indigo with brown tips, light brown eyes and lightly tanned skin. He was no expert, heck, he barely even thought of girls before now (his main focus was on surviving and not getting mobbed or mugged by greedy criminals), but Ezra's mind, she was one of if not the most beautiful woman in the galaxy! After a few seconds of staring though, Ezra shoved that thought to the back of his head and voiced his irritation at the moniker she used.
"Hey, I was just trying to help. And don't call me 'kid', I'm almost fifteen!" He voiced, before being grabbed by the shoulder and spun around by an angry Lasat.
"Well you can call me Garazeb Orrelios. And YOU aren't supposed to be here, kid." He growled.
Ezra could almost feel a vein popping on his forehead. "Oh yeah? Well what're ya gonna do, wookie? Shove me into a locker like last time?"
"I am NOT a Wookie!"
"Well you're heavy enough and hairy enough to be one, although you're definitely stinkier than one,"
The expression on the Lasat's face was well worth the repercussions of his taunts. He was almost instantly picked up and thrown out of the turret, before being grabbed by the collar once more and dragged back to the cargo hold.
Hours later
"Hang on," Zeb irately stated while examining the crate with Ezra's stuff,"this wasn't in the manifest!" He added, examining a sculpted lothcat (how were those sculptures still intact?). "Not complaining though, this is quite neat!"
"Oh wow! I didn't know they still produced stuff like these!" Sabine said, holding up an old, clone wars era WESTAR and an antique blaster pistol.
"They don't," Ezra said, "Those were taken from…an abandoned house. The owners...no longer stayed there, and left their stuff behind. At least, until one of the greedy imps decided to drop by," he added. A pained and miserable expression on his face briefly appeared on his face, before becoming neutral. This however, did not go unnoticed by the mandalorian and the ponytailed stranger.
"Let me guess, you knew them?" Kanan asked, his expression softening a little at the implication of the phrase "no longer stayed there".
"Gahh, who cares? One man's trash is another man's treasure! This stuff is up for grabs! I don't mind keeping this!" Zeb smugly said. What happened next stunned everyone in the room
In a flash, Ezra delivered a massive punch to Zeb, his eyes blazing with cold fury. He delivered another, and another, eventually pinning him to the wall and pulling the stolen, old blaster on Zeb's temple.
"LISTEN HERE, ya filthy PIRATE! I don't know WHO YOU THINK YOU ARE, but THIS STUFF belongs to MY PARENTS!" Ezra spat, receiving a small gasp from sabine and a wide-eyed stare from Kanan, "THEY TOOK THEM AWAY for merely SPEAKING OUT against them! THESE are the LAST THINGS I HAVE of them. And I'll be DAMNED to let any of my stuff, My PARENT'S stuff, be taken by GREEDY MARAUDER PIRATES!"
"Look around, kid!" Zeb growled,"You ain't getting off the ship with this stuff. Heck you ain't getting out of this alive!" He added, panic starting to seep into his voice as Ezra pressed the scorched muzzle into his temple
"Then I'll bloody well take you with me!" Ezra growled, his finger tightening around the trigger.
"Alright that's enough! Zeb, Sabine, let the kid have his stuff," Kanan said firmly
"But Kanan-"
"No. We already got what we came for. No reason to take the kid's stuff as well. Kid, release him or you'll regret it" he added, nodding to Ezra.
With a final glare, Ezra released Zeb, before turning to "kanan". "If you don't mind me asking, what else was in the crates?"
"Food, munitions and blasters. Why?" Kanan replied with a raised eyebrow.
"Hmm, valuable currency for the right people, eh?"
Kanan felt a smile tugging at his lips. "Not exactly the reason why we took them, but you have quite a keen eye, kid
Ezra shrugged "You don't survive 8 years living on the streets having to contend with pickpockets, criminals and gangsters if you don't read between the lines and recognise things."
"Fair enough. Kanan Jarrus, these are my subordinates, Garazeb Orrelios and Sabine Wren," kanan introduced.
"Whomp whomp whoooooommmpp," Chopper beeped(?) out.
"And this is our rusty, deranged droid, Chopper," Kanan groaned, jumping when chopper shocked him "Hey!"
Chopper started laughing, before going off in a stream of code.
"So, you're the kid Kanan was talking about," Hera said
"Ezra Bridger. Where are we going, if you don't mind me asking?"
"Back to Lothal," Hera said nonchalantly.
"Say WHAT?" Ezra exclaimed,"I thought we were chased out of there just a few hours ago. They'll sure to be looking for us. If you go back there now-"
"Don't worry about it," Hera replied calmly," The ghost can scramble its own signature. We'll make it through unnoticed,"
Sure enough, their arrival on Lothal went without a hitch. Although, they weren't returning to the capital
"What is this place?" Ezra asked , taking in the heart-wrenching scene in front of him as the ghost touched down.
"This is what the locals call 'Tarkintown'" Sabine told him through her helmet. "They named it after Grand moff Tarkin. His policies are the reason why these people are here," she added as they pushed the crates of fruits to the settlement. "Many of these folks lost their jobs and their livelihoods because of the empire and were left to rot here. We're just trying to help out as best we can,"
Sure enough, the residents came over in a heartbeat, gratefully taking some fruit. One rodian was so relieved, he thanked Ezra over and over again.
"Thank them," Ezra said, gesturing to Sabine and Zeb, "I didn't do anything," he added, smiling sheepishly
His expression turned to one of sadness after the rodian walked away though. I didn't do anything
*A/N: Finally, another chapter! I am not even gonna bother checking how many words it was, all I know is that it was a lot and this chapter was overdue. Sorry for posting this one late. I wouldn't be posting anymore until the exams are over, so please remain patient. I hope you have enjoyed the story so far, and I'll see ya next time! Kudos to Spectre6, who has been a major supporter of this fic and was the first person to follow this story! Cheers!*
