(A/N)- Hello again readers! I really enjoyed writing this chapter and I hope you enjoy reading it.
Warning for minor character death.
Disclaimer: Unfortunately not. I do not own.
Fadeout
Kallus nursed a drink as he waited for the secure line to connect. Old Jho casually wiped down the bar in front of him, talking aside to Ryder and Kanan as the two men discussed plans.
Ezra was about somewhere, Kallus didn't know where exactly, and the rest of them had taken up various spots around the cantina, blending in with the sympathetic populace, who crowded close around them to hide them from view of the street whenever Stormtroopers patrolled too near.
The line clicked, a beeping sounding as the code was accepted, and then a holovisage image appeared; three very familiar teenagers.
Kallus sat staring for a moment in disbelief. "Oh you've got to be kidding," he said.
At his voice, the teens alerted, the three of them stumbling over each other trying to get closer to the speaker. "Kallus!" they all cried happily.
The man had his elbows on the bar and his fingers pressing into his temples, hiding his eyes. "Did you three seriously commandeer a communications station just for the chance to talk to me?" he asked them wearily.
"When are you coming baaaaack?" Gooti whined in distress, not answering the question.
"Yeah, it's been totally lame without you. AP-5 has us doing inventory on the repair tools—for all the squadrons, daily—and Sergeant Matlock keeps stealing my snack stores!" Jonner complained.
Kallus felt the beginning of a headache start to throb inside his skull.
"And where exactly is Sergeant Matlock?" he asked.
"Oh, we gave him the slip hours ago," Mart replied, so nonchalantly and casually that Kallus felt an involuntary twitch. "Seriously though, why haven't you been responding to any of our messages?"
"I explained this to you," Kallus griped, saying the words through grit teeth. "This was a whole conversation before I left. Any unsecured communications could be intercepted by the Empire and jeopardize our mission here."
"Yeah but we miss you!" Gooti told him.
Kallus could feel Ryder and Kanan looking towards him, see their amused expressions from the corner of his eye. He sighed heavily, pressing his fingers into his eyes now.
"Ensigns..." he said, sounding so, so very tired. "Please put someone in charge on the line."
The teens grumbled but complied, stepping out of view of the camera and shuffling around somewhere out of sight. A Rebel technician replaced them momentarily.
"Captain Kallus," he acknowledged, nodding respectfully. "What news from Lothal?"
Kallus straightened, pulling himself into something of a professional posture. "I have some news about the status of the factory raid we're planning," he relayed. He nodded back towards the former governor. "And then Ryder has intel on the TIE Defender project."
The technician nodded again, pressing a button to patch them through to Rebel Command.
-SWR-
Ezra sat idly in the grass, contemplating a nearby pile of rocks.
The wind whispered through the tall stalks, miraculously still untouched by the Empire's machinations. Ezra could see a crawler on the edge of the horizon though, belching out smoke and fumes, and fought against the anger that threatened to rise in him at the sight.
Instead, he sought after the cool tranquility of the Force, breathing in and out in a slow, steady rhythm.
In. Out.
Calm his mind. Focus.
Ezra narrowed his eyes at one boulder in particular, raising his hand quietly and focusing.
Look for it... look for it... let the Force guide him...
His mental touch ran over the surface and then sunk into its bulk, finding tiny fissures left from erosion and wind weathering.
Very carefully, he put pressure on one of the fissures. Pushing softly.
A creaking sounded from the boulder as Ezra's manipulation with the Force worked upon it.
Ezra added just a little bit more pressure.
Crack!
The boulder gave a sharp crackle as it split, a wide fracture appearing in the surface, bisecting the rock with a solid black line. It didn't split the top off completely, but it had fractured a good solid piece of the main body of the boulder, separating it from the apex.
Ezra exhaled softly, coming out of the Force and looking at his work in satisfaction.
He had learned this technique from the same Jedi Master who had taught him how to break down seemingly huge tasks into smaller manageable pieces. Every opportunity he got he would practice, focusing on finding the hidden shatterpoints in objects, pushing on them to make them splinter apart.
It was still hard. Manipulating the physical world with such precise Force telekinesis was not easy by any stretch of the imagination, and it took so much concentration and focus that Ezra often felt drained by the end of it. But every time he was able to pull it off, it felt like some kind of small little victory, some reclamation of his heritage as a Jedi, some manner of connecting with the culture and teachings that should have been his from the beginning.
Plus it just felt... good to be so in tune with the Force he could perceive an object's properties. The warmth that filled him seemed to melt all the echoes and static away, leaving room for nothing but peace and serenity.
He leaned into that feeling now, feeling his mind calm and at ease, untroubled by the phantoms that plagued him, at least for a moment.
The moment passed. Deep in the Force as he was, Ezra felt the tingle and prickle that buzzed his senses, warning him of something coming, some undefined danger he had to be careful of.
Ezra raised his head with a small gasp, straining his ears and eyes for whatever it was that he felt.
There was something standing just over the next rise. Ezra squinted at it, straining his eyes to make out more details.
It looked like... but it couldn't be.
Ezra's eyes slowly widened, the breath catching a bit in his throat.
A great animal, like a huge crouching dog, hovered on the top of the hill, staring back at him with bright amber eyes. It was covered in white fur, tufted ears on the top of its head, and scaly ridges along its snout and nose.
Is that... a Loth-wolf?
The thing stood there, like a marble statue, a sound like a howl carrying on the wind across to him, though the creature's mouth never opened.
Ezra looked at it in a daze, entranced for a long moment, before the danger sense flared stronger and broke him from the trance.
A creeping sense of dread was starting to pool in his stomach.
Ezra shook himself, rising from his haunches, grabbing the hat that went with his civilian disguise, and getting quickly to his feet. The Loth-wolf was gone by the time he looked back at the distant hill, but the foreboding remained, and he turned swiftly back toward the low buildings of Jhothal and began trotting back towards town, heart beating with a frantic, anxious pace.
-SWR-
Kanan's head lifted as Ezra's glowing presence suddenly flared on his senses, the emotions he could sense from the boy anxious and worried.
"We need to leave," Ezra said, interrupting Ryder as the former governor spoke with Mon Mothma. "We need to leave now," he insisted, urgently.
Kanan closed his sightless eyes and tuned into the Force, detecting the same foreboding Ezra was feeling.
"You're right," he confirmed, quickly pushing back from the table, his stool giving a wooden squeal as he stood. "Hera! Zeb!" he called towards the back corner.
Confusion bubbled out of Ryder and Kallus, but they also broke away from the bar. Kanan heard Sabine's light bootsteps and Chopper's creaking wheels begin to approach, sensed their presences gather with Hera's and Zeb's in the clear center of the dining room, murmurs whispering around them as patrons shuffled nervously.
And then underneath the rustling voices, the sharp barking command of a Stormtrooper.
"Down there!"
Soft cries rang out from the crowd, alarm and fear rising in them, muddying the empathic waters of Kanan's mind. He felt Ezra latch onto his sleeve, tensed and on edge.
Jho moved hurriedly out from behind the bar.
"Take the sewer access tunnel in the back," he urged. "Quickly!"
Ryder's footsteps sounded in the opposite direction. "We'll stall, try to buy you some time," he volunteered, relaying the message to several of his operatives. Kanan heard blasters unsheathing and the stuttering shuffles of clothing and feet as civilians rushed to move out of the Rebels' way.
Hera brushed past him, trotting quickly towards where a metal iris sounded like it was sliding open. Sabine and Zeb and Kallus were quickly on her heels, and Chopper's boosters fired up with a low roar, the heat passing on Kanan's right, as the droid maneuvered over to the hatch and dropped down, the roar fading out.
Kanan jogged carefully, mostly relying on Ezra's guidance to lead him.
A warning spike sounded in the Force and Ezra was suddenly pulling back frantically on his arm.
Kanan jerked himself to a stop, coming up short, stumbling back as Ezra yanked them back under cover of the awning.
Blaster shots sizzled and popped in front of them, pinging off the metal sewer doors. Kanan heard a muted yelp from Sabine, already within. The droning high-pitched whine of a TIE fighter sounded from above them somewhere in the air.
The man clenched his teeth, giving a small hiss. He backed up several steps back into the cantina, but there was already another firefight at the top of the stairs behind them, shot and shouts carrying down the stairwell, frightened cries ringing out from the crowd.
Instinctively, one arm jabbed back to shield Ezra.
-SWR-
Jho covered his head as he was forced back away from the sewer entrance, the TIE fighter above still taking potshots down at the Spectres.
Ezra bit his lip, craning his head back anxiously over his shoulder at the other entrance. Turning forward again he made a quick decision.
He raised his hand and brought the Force to bear, switching the mechanism to seal the door and lock it.
It closed with a loud Shnnk! and Ezra tugged on Kanan's arm, pulling the man back further into the cantina.
His wrist comm buzzed with an insistent ping and Sabine's voice came on, snapping at him.
"What are you doing?" she cried.
"Go. We'll catch up," Ezra told her, speaking quickly into the device before shutting it off and silencing it.
Jho's beady eyes met his and the Ithorian jerked his head towards the other corner.
"Kitchen door," was all he said.
Ezra nodded, and led Kanan that way. Civilians parted around them, put hands on their shoulders to cover them and urge them along.
A moment later Ryder came barreling down the stairs, blaster in hand, running through the crowd and pushing through people until he too was at their side, and all three of them slipped through the narrow door that led into the kitchens.
Kanan let go of him then, raising a hand and sensing out while Ryder crossed to the back door and checked the alley for signs of patrol.
Ezra found himself frozen with indecision, peeking through the crack of the door as the sound of the firefight stopped, and heavy-booted footsteps came trumping down the stairs.
Stormtroopers poured in from both the upper street and the courtyard, quickly spreading out, and the cries of the people they shoved aside wrenched at Ezra's heart.
An ominous clinking of heavy armor sounded down the stairwell, and Ezra's skin prickled nervously at the sight of a pair of Death Troopers, their matte black armor making them look like moving shadows.
Two regular Stormtroopers presented Jho before them, their hands on the Ithorian's arms, while another came up to one of them.
"Rebel insurgents escaped through the sewer access hatch, sir," the trooper reported.
The Death Trooper nodded. "Seal off all other exits, send a probe droid and two squadrons in to flush them out," he ordered.
The first trooper saluted. "Yes sir!" he acknowledged, running off to carry out the command.
The high-ranking Death Trooper turned his attention to Jho, brandishing his weapon in the Ithorian's face.
"Where did they go?" he demanded.
Jho was unflappable, expressing nothing but a defiant glare.
"Ain't got nothing to say," he told the Imperial. "I did nothing wrong."
That seemed to irritate the Death Trooper, who gripped his blaster tighter, shoulders tensing.
"Jho Rhuthan," the man growled. "You are hereby charged with treason for aiding and abetting enemies of the state." Flashing anger seemed to emanate from the Death Trooper's blank eyelenses. "Give up the Rebels now and you might be granted leniency."
Every impulse instinct inside him told him to intervene. His fists clenched at his sides, nails digging into his palms. Ezra felt Kanan's hand land on his shoulder, squeezing tightly, quietly stopping him from taking action. Ezra glanced up briefly to see Kanan shake his head in a silent reprimand.
Ezra returned his attention to the sight before him, watching helplessly.
Old Jho looked the Death Trooper straight in the eye and declared, "The Republic will rise again. Down with the Empire."
The Death Trooper squeezed the trigger and sent a clean, precise shot through Jho's chest.
Screams sounded from the crowd in the cantina, and Ezra's left hand snapped up and clamped over his own mouth as he held back a cry of horror, his eyes wide, staring at the body of his friend as it crumpled to a limp heap on the floor. He whimpered behind his palm, feeling Kanan's arms wrap around his shoulders, pulling him back and squeezing in a mute comfort.
"Spread out!" the Death Trooper ordered. "Question everyone! No one leaves this place until we get to the bottom of this!"
Shaking, Ezra pulled his eyes away from the crack, holding back tears. Ryder was motioning for him and Kanan to follow—the coast was clear and they had to leave now or risk wasting this chance to escape.
Stumbling, barely able to see past the blur in his vision, Ezra trailed after Ryder and slipped into the back alley.
Kanan's hand didn't leave his shoulder the whole time.
-SWR-
Every time they escaped one patrol, it seemed like they just ran straight into another one.
Ezra's chest was beginning to ache with exhaustion. His green blade moved on instinct, blocking blaster bolts methodically in a never-ending pattern. He, Ryder, and Kanan finally fought their way to a speeder depot and commandeered one of the vehicles, swerving around the metal legs of an AT-DP walker, whose cannon shots nearly upended them once as they turned outwards towards the city's edge.
Ezra came down hard on his seat, his teeth rattling, as the speeder jostled hard before coming back level.
"Hera, what's your position?" Kanan was calling into his comlink. "We've got a getaway vehicle, we can come to you."
"I can't tell one tunnel from another down here!" she complained. "This place is a maze!"
Ryder leaned slightly over, to talk into the open line. "We've left starbird symbols at junctions all throughout the sewers," he told her. "They should lead you to an access hatch that opens up on the outskirts. Well meet you there."
"Copy that," Hera acknowledged. "Be careful, Kanan."
"You too," he said, signing off and raising his lightsaber, standing up awkwardly on the seat as the high-pitched whine of scout bikes blared up on their right.
Ezra grabbed the back of Ryder's pilot's chair and stood up as well, grim-faced and determined.
The two Jedi blocked the first couple of shots handily. Ezra redirected one back at its sender, managing to unseat the trooper with a satisfying yelp. The riderless bike careened forward, catching on something and flipping over. Ezra ducked the spinning metal as it whooshed way too close over his head, hitting a wall behind them and bursting into flame and scrap.
Kanan grappled with a second rider who'd gotten too close, wrestling half over the side of the speeder with the man for his sidearm. Ezra uncovered his head and ducked in low, sending his fist hard into the side of the Stormtrooper's solar plexus.
The man grunted breathlessly and doubled over on his bike, grasping the handlebars and his stomach and slowly falling behind.
"Thanks," Kanan said breathlessly, righting himself in his seat.
Ezra nodded and touched a hand to Kanan's shoulder.
The Force flared up around them again and both of them ducked the blaster bolts aimed at their heads. Another TIE fighter was swooping down, strafing the ground behind them as it closed in.
Ryder swerved the speeder to avoid the volley, knocking Ezra into the side a bit painfully.
"Well we're awfully popular tonight," the boy complained, ducking his head as sparks popped off the back from a lucky stray shot.
"Thrawn's been waiting for you to return," Ryder told him grimly, hands tight on the steering yoke, sending them down the long highway out of Jhothal. "He wanted to know the minute you came back to Lothal. That's why we've been trying to keep you two low-profile."
Ezra pursed his lips, thinking back to the man's previous insistence that he and Kanan operate without lightsabers as much as possible the first few days after they'd made contact, how he'd seemed to be deliberately kept away from more active missions and infiltrations.
He frowned, glancing up over the edge of the speeder at the TIE fighter pursuing them. "So much for that," he grumbled, leaning up and swinging his lightsaber to bat away a shot from the ship's cannons.
The TIE swerved around, coming at them for another pass, its cannons lighting up with a rapid burst of fire.
A twisting missile shot came out of nowhere though, and blasted against the side of the cockpit, sparking an ignition inside the craft that that had it exploding apart.
Ezra looked forward, spotting someone standing on the median of the highway, lowering the barrel of the missile launcher from their shoulder.
"Looked like you could use a hand!" the figure said, the voice young and exuberant and immediately familiar.
Ezra squinted, then gave a short laugh, lighting up. "Jai?" he called. "Jai Kell?"
Jai grinned, smile cracking his face. "The one and only!" he confirmed.
Ryder slowed the speeder, bringing it to a gradual stop as Ezra looked past Jai to where Marida Sumar was at the access hatch to the sewer, helping Hera up the ladder.
He met the widow's steel eyes across the way and they exchanged a look, Ezra nodding in gratitude and respect.
Hera, meanwhile, couldn't stumble towards him fast enough.
"Are you all right?" she asked frantically, reaching him, touching his face and shoulders in worry. "What happened?"
Cold anger settled inside Ezra's heart. "They shot Jho," he said bitterly. "He's dead."
Just now making it up the ladder, Sabine looked stricken as she overheard. Hera's hands squeezed his shoulders.
"I'm sorry, Ezra," she said quietly.
He just crossed his arms, lowering his head silently as the others made their way up. Zeb was frowning as he stepped away from the ladder.
"Uh... that speeder is not gonna hold all of us," he pointed out. Marida and Jai had brought their own, which was parked next to the side of the road, but with all six of them plus Kallus there was still not enough room.
Ryder abandoned his pilot's seat, motioning for the group to get off the highway. "We've got bigger problems," he grunted.
Torpedoes came whistling ahead of the next wave of Imperial pursuit, slamming straight into the second parked speeder and blowing it with a force that made them all duck and cower for a moment.
Uncovering their heads, they scrambled over the median and across the opposite road into the grasses as the thrumming sounds of multiple Imperial gunships started to build.
Ezra craned his neck up to look behind them, as they crouched low to the ground and sprinted away. At least five gunships were slowly approaching, weapons primed on the ground, looking like hanging birds of prey as they came closer and closer.
The boy's heart twinged. They were too exposed, they'd be spotted for sure. Ryder had paused a moment at the head of them, head up and searching for cover.
"Over there!" he hissed in a whisper, pointing towards a cluster of rocks.
They didn't quite make it to the shelter of the boulders before the gunships opened up, peppering the ground with hot blaster spray, sending dirt and earth into their faces.
Sabine grabbed him, tucking him under an arm and covering his head, and Ezra squeezed his eyes shut a moment as he waited for the volley to stop, before quickly moving behind one of the tall columns.
"This is not a good place to be!" Kallus shouted, back pressed up against a stone, his sidearm looking very dinky and ineffective as he held it in his hand.
"WUB WHUBBA WUB!" Chopper complained, beeps a bit shrill.
Ezra could feel echoes threatening on the edge of his hearing and fought to keep focus. There was a steady panicked stream of fragmented thoughts in the back of his head—They've caught us, they've caught us, they're going to take me back there, we can't escape, they're going to take me back—and he firmed his mouth, clenching his eyes tight to cut out his awareness of them.
Trust in the Force.
They weren't captured yet. There was always a way out.
Breathing softly, calming himself, Ezra reached out through the Force, feeling its hum cover over the noise in his mind.
For a moment, nothing changed.
Then, underneath the blasting and shooting, he heard a a soft shuffle of padded paws.
Ezra looked up, opening his eyes and blinking in mute wonder. He looked past the others to the far side of the cluster. Standing between tall rock columns, as if it had always been there, was the white Loth-wolf, its golden eyes level and sagely, the Force vibrating around it.
Ezra tingled with a strange sensation, watching two more wolves poke their heads out from behind the columns and pad behind their leader. The others had stopped firing back at the gunships now, noticing their odd company. Zeb and Kallus looked nervous at the sight of the large beasts, but Kanan's chin was tensed and he stared straight forward, clearly feeling their presence, and Ryder, Marida, and Jai all had matching expressions of disbelief and wonder.
"Is that...?" Jai started to ask. He shook his head. "No, it can't be."
Marida slowly removed her head-covering, holding it to her chest in reverence.
The white Loth-wolf snuffed, and took a few steps forward, and the Rebels backed up in apprehension. In a daze, Ezra pushed off Sabine and approached the creature, ignoring the sharp way she hissed his name, ignoring the droning buzz of the gunships fast approaching, ignoring the blaster shots that nicked the rock column ring around them.
He extended his hand, and his mind, gently, reaching to connect with the creature. The Loth-Wolf felt ancient and strange, a mix of primal instinct and unnatural intelligence.
Can you help us? he impressed through the connection, a little hesitant and meekly.
There was no response, at least not inside Ezra's head, but the Loth-wolf turned its side, easing down on its front paws to bow its head lower to the ground, an invitation to climb up.
"I... think they want us to go with them," he told the others.
Chopper warbled in doubt and Kallus looked extremely uncertain. Sabine's eyes strained out anxiously.
Hera stepped up behind her partner, the Jedi still standing in place where he was.
"Kanan?" she asked.
Ezra watched some kind of silent communication pass between his master and the wolf. Kanan stirred, turning towards Hera.
"It's all right," he assured her. He inclined his ear towards the buzzing of the gunships, almost on top of them now. "They're no friends of the Empire."
That seemed to be enough. The Rebels slowly approached, moving cautiously as yet more wolves appeared, as if from nowhere, to surround them. Enough to carry two people apiece.
Sabine settled nervously behind Ezra on the back of the white wolf. Her hands gripped the belt loops on his hips, her body tensed as the tufted sides of the creature shuddered in and out from its heavy breaths.
"Are you sure about this?" she asked him, whispering the question in his ear.
He nodded. "I don't sense any malice from them. Whatever they are," he said, "I think they're our allies."
"Well that's a nice change," she muttered, and then she gasped and had to cling tighter to him as the Loth-wolf lurched underneath their legs, loping up and beginning to trot away from the plain through the rock cluster.
The other Loth-wolves followed, falling into place behind their head, the Rebels holding on to their backs in nervous fear as the creatures found a path somehow through the winding columns and the blaster shots, and melted into the wilderness with soft footfalls.
-SWR-
"What do you mean you've lost them?!" Pryce shouted at her subordinate, her eyes flashing with dangerous anger.
The gunships circled over their heads, sweeping in tight search patterns through the air, and several troop transports now clustered around the rocks, ground troops running here and there through the scant columns.
The Stormtrooper flinched a little bit. "We chased them into the rocks," he explained again. "We had them pinned down, but when the gunships reached the cluster they had just... disappeared."
Pryce crossed her arms with a sour look. "Did they go underground, trooper?" she asked with dripping condescension.
"Er... I don't think so?" the man offered in chagrin. "We haven't found any evidence of tunnels. But one of the pilots thought he saw..." He seemed reluctant to continue. "...a... a wolf?" he finished timidly.
There was an almost imperceptible flicker of fear in Pryce's eyes for a second.
She shook herself and scoffed.
"Don't be absurd," she snapped. "Loth-wolves are extinct. They have been for a millennium." She jabbed a finger towards the cluster. "There's nothing beyond those rocks besides open plain. I don't care if you have to level that ridge to the ground, find them!"
He snapped a salute. "Yes ma'am!" he barked, swiftly departing.
Pryce's eyes burned after him as he left, then looked over her shoulder with apprehension, a creeping unease moving through her heart.
She had been eager to give Thrawn the good news—that Ezra Bridger had been spotted in Jhothal among the Rebels—give him something to ease the fervor with which he checked and re-checked the reports from the ground on new insurgent activity, but now having seemingly lost track of him despite having him dead to rights...
...Perhaps it was better if she kept this knowledge to herself.
(A/N)- Heeeeee, totally posting this from work 'cause I'm too excited about it to wait til I get home.
Have some chapter notes!
1. Kallus continues to be very tired Rebellion dad in desperate need of coffee and a break. Lol.
2. Ezra slowly getting better at the Shatterpoint technique. This will come into play later. That's all I'll say on that.
3. RIP Jho. :(
4. We can see the timescale starting to separate and splinter again. This may or may not be related to Ezra's progress with Shatterpoint.
5. A little hint as to the current state of Thrawn's, ah... mental capacity? Which we will see more of next chapter.
Updates may or may not space back out to every other week, I'm going to try for a weekly update to get finished with this baby quickly (since we are moving, hopefully, and I will be busy with handling everything for that) but I can't make promises. Leave me a review dear lovelies, let me know what you're looking forward to.