"'You need to go warn them, Ezra'. What was I thinking?" he wondered, making a face now that the stormtroopers had left with his stuff. Well, most of his stuff. "And of course, the only thing I managed to hold onto was this worthless piece of.." he tried to open it to see exactly what it was he had pawned off of Kanan, but it wouldn't even open. Groaning, he threw it against the cell wall and sighed, giving up. He was stuck here and he wasn't getting out anytime soon.

Folding his hands in front of his face, Ezra closed his eyes and let himself think. At least he had some peace and quiet without anyone there to bother him. Maybe the Empire was watching on the security cameras, but that was all they could do: watch. The guards probably didn't care about him anyway, he was a kid. What was he going to do?

Bait...ha. He wasn't bait, you had to be wanted in order to be bait. Just when Hera had convinced him that maybe some people around here were actually decent, Zeb ditched him. You don't put your neck out for strangers. He should have left that crate where it was, he had enough food to last him a few days anyway. He shouldn't have gotten involved.

...so why did he? Ezra hadn't been interested in that crate until he had seen Kanan and the others go after it. He had nothing against stealing, but that was too much. Too much attention for not enough value. There was no reason to want the crate, but he had gone after it anyway. He had felt something, the same thing he had felt when he had held the lightsaber, and the same thing he was feeling right now.

"This is Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. I regret to report that our Jedi Order has fallen at the hand of the Republic, with the dark shadow of the Separatists rising to take its place."

Well that made sense. He had found that thing with the lightsaber, so both were probably related to the Jedi.

Wait, that weird box was talking? Ezra looked up, and not only was the box talking but it had a hologram inside! He assumed it was a Jedi, all he saw was a man in brown robes.

"This message is a warning and a reminder for any surviving Jedi," the man went on. "Trust in the Force. Do not return to the Temple. That time has passed, and our future is uncertain. We will each be challenged. Our trust...our faith...our friendships. But we must perservere, and in time, a new hope will emerge. May the Force be with you...always."

The box reassembled itself in the cell and came to rest on the ground, where it had been after Ezra threw it. Ezra himself didn't move except to follow the box as it did its thing and then turned off. For a few seconds, complete silence stole over the cell.

He thought Kanan just really liked Jedi and maybe he had the lightsaber as a relic or something, but if he had this...this message, this warning, too? Was there something nobody was saying?

And what was the Force? It was probably some Jedi thing, but Ezra didn't have any clue what it was. All he did know was that Jedi were warriors with superpowers and laserswords, and all of them were supposed to be dead. Clone troopers had killed all of them when they revolted against the Republic, way back when the Empire didn't exist yet.

Maybe Kanan knew a Jedi, or had known them before they died. There was no way anyone could hide from the Empire, especially not for so long. They would have found out by now that Kanan was a Jedi, especially if he and the others kept doing missions like this all the time.

Ezra was interested though, he really was. He didn't know how to find out more, but he did know that he wasn't going to figure it out from this cell. Unless he wanted to get dumped in some jail or detention center, he needed to escape.

~

"22 pickup? Care to let me in on the secret?"

"Kid, I'm about to let everyone in on the secret," Kanan admitted, stepping on top of the crates they were hiding behind. Technically, what he was talking about had nothing to do with the maneuver they were pulling, but it would help explain a few things.

He knew Ezra still had his holocron, and there was a pretty good chance he had already figured out what it was. Seeing as so much chaos had already happened today, there was no reason not to add the icing on the cake.

Blaster bolts flew towards him, but he dodged the ones that got too close. These guys couldn't hit the broad side of a barn if they tried, honestly. The last time he was shot at like this by soldiers in white, he had actually been afraid for his life. Now? Not so much. I guess I've come a ways since then, he realized, watching as Agent Kallus held up a fist to cease fire.

Now or never. He grabbed the two pieces of his lightsaber off his belt and clicked them into place. He knew Ezra was watching from behind him, and he wondered what was going through his head. Activating the blade, he brandished it at the Imperials before holding it in a defensive position.

Again, the Force inside him seemed to wake up. Upon activation, the weapon reminded him of every other time he had picked it up. Even though it sat in his room and had collected dust for the past fourteen, almost fifteen years, it was still a part of him. A Jedi's weapon is a natural extension of their mind, their body, their spirit. He could get as accurate as he wanted with a blaster, but it wasn't a part of him in the same way a lightsaber was. His old life was brought back to the surface as his body naturally conformed to the technique that had long since been ingrained in him.

"All troopers," Kallus ordered, pointing at him. "Focus your fire on...on the Jedi!"

Something about being called a Jedi again made Kanan want to smile. The stormtroopers began firing again, but none of the bolts made contact with him. He deflected the ones within reach, muscle memory taking over his body. It felt...right, like this was where he was supposed to be. Normally, being accused of being a Jedi wasn't a good thing, but no matter how much his mind told him his identity needed to remain a secret and he ought not to have shown his ace in the hole, he couldn't listen. Not when there were lives at stake, not when the Force was this alive in him. Despite the risk he was taking, this was the will of the Force. Kanan had to follow through with it.

And, of course, save the Wookies. He should probably focus on that first.

~

Later, in his room with the lights off, Kanan opened the holocron Ezra had returned to him and listened to the message again. "This is Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. I regret to report that our Jedi Order has fallen at the hand of the Republic, with the dark shadow of the Separatists rising to take its place."

It had been Kanan's idea for Master Kenobi to send out this message. During the Jedi Purge, the Republic had hacked into the broadcasting system in the Jedi Temple and sent out an order to return. Kanan had followed it only to find that the Temple was under attack. He would have been more surprised if he hadn't just returned from watching his own master be gunned down by clone troopers, but the massive force that had marched upon the sacred grounds was still one to be reckoned with.

"This message is a warning and a reminder for any surviving Jedi. Trust in the Force. Do not return to the Temple. That time has passed, and our future is uncertain."

He hadn't stuck around for long, but he did tell Master Kenobi and Master Yoda about the broadcast. Kanan didn't know what had happened to either of them, but he knew that Master Kenobi had lived at least long enough to replace the Republic's message with his own. No other Jedi had been seen since except in recordings like this one. Between the clones and the Empire, hardly anywhere had been safe for their people. Survivors needed to stay in hiding, unlike Kanan who had just outed himself to Agent Kallus.

"We will each be challenged. Our trust...our faith...our friendships."

There were going to be consequences for that, there was no doubt in his mind. He didn't know what form the consequence would take, but it was coming and it would come for Ezra too. Kallus had known what he had figured out: Ezra was Force-sensitive. Only someone in tune with the Force could have made jumps the way he did. He needed work, a lot of work, but there was no way an ordinary Loth-rat could do that on their own. If he chose to stay on Lothal and not come with the Ghost crew, he would be dead in weeks, if not days.

The recording came to its end: "But we must perservere, and in time, a new hope will emerge. May the Force be with you...always." Behind the flickering image of Master Kenobi, the door to his room opened and Ezra was standing there.

A friend had once told him something, and it had stuck with Kanan for quite some time now: "You can try to stop helping people, but if I know you, then you won't be able to stop yourself from doing what you know is right. So promise me that you will never try to stop. The world is going to need you one day, Caleb. It will always need people like you."

He had kept that promise every day since he joined this crew. As he walked forward and accepted the lightsaber back from Ezra, Kanan chose to keep it again. He couldn't just let Ezra fend for himself against the Empire, especially not after knowing what he knew about him. Master Kenobi instructed him to trust in the Force, and the Force decided that the two of them would be brought together. There were no accidents in the Force. It was time to stop hiding from his past and start embracing it.