Kanan drew his lightsaber and ignited it, but he still couldn't speak. Even if he could, his mind couldn't think straight enough to come up with a sentence worth saying.

The Inquisitor went on. "Yes, I'm afraid Master Windu died at the hand of the Republic, but his bones continue to serve the Empire, luring the last Jedi to their ends.

"Spectre-3, come in," Ezra said into his communicator, not knowing what else to do. Kanan had frozen and he certainly couldn't fight this guy. "It's a trap!"

Instead of a reassuring response, though, all he got back was static. "There will be no reinforcements," the Inquisitor told him, and perhaps he would have said more if Kanan hadn't finally come to his senses.

"What do you mean, you're the Inquisitor?" he demanded, glancing down at his lightsaber. Sure enough, he saw a hilt with a curved handle. "I met the Inquisitor during the Clone War, and she didn't look like you! For one thing, she was a Togruta, and for another, she was a she!"

"Ha! You mean that traitor?" the new Inquisitor mocked him, both amused and insulted. "As I'm sure you remember, she was killed after she assassinated Lord Sideous. She was an enemy of the Emperor and a shame to the Inquisitorial title. I have come to redeem that title."

"That's good enough for me," Kanan spat back, readjusting his stance. If this guy thought the original Inquisitor was a traitor, there was no way this wasn't going to end in a fight.

He attacked the new Inquisitor and to his credit, Kanan did a lot better than the first time he tried to duel an Inquisitor. The closed cell door wasn't helping though, they were in really close quarters and Kanan still had to protect Ezra. He kept his cool, remembering the dueling techniques that he had been taught long ago. Only now did it occur to Kanan that it might be time to brush up on his strokes.

Kanan locked lightsabers with his opponent and the Inquisitor smirked. "Interesting," he noted, staring down the Padawan. "It seems you trained with Jedi Master Depa Billaba. That would make him your grandmaster, no?" he asked, glancing back at the sarcophagus.

"How..." he wondered, before changing his question. "Who are you?"

They exchanged a few more strokes, and Kanan saw Ezra sneak around them and pull a bomb out of his pack. He stayed focused on the Inquisitor, hoping he could give Ezra a chance to make his move.

To some degree, it worked. "The temple records are quite complete," the Inquisitor responded, slashing his saber so close to Kanan's neck he almost didn't block it in time. "In close-quarter fighting, Billaba's emphasis was always on Form III, which you favor to a ridiculous degree."

Ezra used his slingshot to distract the Inquisitor, and while he blocked the ball of energy, Kanan had a chance to attack him again.

Unfortunately, he was ready. The Inquisitor flipped over Kanan's head and kicked him down, and Ezra kneeled by him to make sure he was okay. He gritted his teeth at the Inquisitor, but he wasn't done insulting him yet. "Clearly, you were a poor student."

That didn't sit too well with Ezra. Defending Kanan, he shot two more times at the Inquisitor, but he simply opened his arms and accepted the shots. The energy pulses did nothing, he was wearing too thick of armor.

"Is that really all you've got, my boy?" he asked, unphased by the attempt.

"Well, I've got that!" he taunted back, gesturing to the explosive he had placed by the cell door. It started beeping loudly right as Kanan was getting back on his feet.

The door blew open and the two apprentices ran out of the cell. The Inquisitor wasn't far behind, but they managed to put a bit of space between them which was better than nothing. It bought them seconds before he started attacking Kanan again, but he had another trick up his sleeve. His lightsaber had two blades, not one.

It was impressive, but that was the one thing that hadn't caught Kanan off guard today. As long ago as it was, he still remembered the design of the original Inquisitor's lightsaber. It was rather hard to forget. Next, he knew it would start spinning, but he was hoping that wouldn't happen just yet.

While the two of them dueled, the Inquisitor kept talking. "Are you paying attention, boy? The Jedi are dead, but there is another path: the Dark Side."

The suggestion threw the teenager off, but he raised his slingshot again. "Never heard of it!" he retaliated, trying to help despite the situation. If he couldn't deflect canisters Chopper threw at him, there was no way he could make a difference by dueling. As if to prove the point, the Inquisitor threw him backward with the Force.

"Have you taught him nothing?" he scolded Kanan, provoking the Padawan to attack him again. It took a while for Ezra to get to his feet, and it was all Kanan could do to prevent the Inquisitor from getting too close to him.

"Do you really think you can save the boy?" the Inquisitor went on, challenging Kanan. "For his sake, surrender!"

"I'm not making deals with you!" he insisted, holding firm.

The Inquisitor could see that, as untrained as he was, this Padawan was rooted firmly in the Light. He wasn't about to waver anytime soon. "Hmm, then we'll let him make one, shall we?"

Kanan didn't have time to think about what that might mean. The Inquisitor threw him backward again, past Ezra and down the hall. His lightsaber fell out of his hands as he hit the floor.

"Your master cannot save you, boy," he told Ezra, who now had nothing standing between him and danger. "He is unfocused and undisciplined."

"Then we're perfect for each other!" Ezra decided, choosing to attack the Inquisitor.

He's got a point, Kanan admitted, though he was still on the ground. Come to think of it, giving him to Master Windu to train might have been a horrible idea. He wouldn't have lasted a day with him.

Ezra jumped around the Inquisitor's next attack, leaving his back vulnerable to Kanan. If only he could stand just yet. "I do so admire your persistence," he confessed, twirling his lightsaber around his hands. "Ready to die?"

"NO!!!" yelled Kanan from behind him, and at the last second, he lifted the Inquisitor to the ceiling so he couldn't move. "Run!" he told Ezra, and he darted past him to his master who was still kneeling on the ground. Only when the kid was clear of him did he let go, and even that took a lot of effort, enough that Ezra helped him stand.

The Inquisitor landed on his feet and faced the two Jedi. He held his lightsaber out in front of him, and the half-circle handle turned into a full circle. The mechanisms clicked together, and the red blades began spinning around the hilt of the weapon.

Called it, Kanan thought, but he didn't have time to rejoice about his prediction. "Does yours do that?" Ezra asked, but Kanan only put an arm around his shoulder and pulled him away from the Inquisitor.

"Come on, let's go!" he groaned, scooping up his lightsaber as they began to run away.

~

When they set back down on the ground again, Ezra was sitting on the ramp. At least, that's where Kanan found him. Before he could get a word out, Ezra took initiative. "Look, don't bother saying it. I'm letting you off the hook."

"What are you talking about?"

"I know you wanted to dump me on Windu. Just 'cause he's gone doesn't mean you're stuck with me."

He had been afraid Ezra had heard that. "I don't want to dump you," he objected, rubbing his forehead with his hand. Resigning to how uncomfortable this conversation was going to be, he sat down next to him and did his best to explain. "Look, I just wanted you to have the best teacher."

"Well, I don't want the best teacher. I want you," he insisted, gesturing to him right before realizing what his words might have implied. "Uh, not that you're not the best, I-"

"Ezra. I'm not going to try to teach you anymore."

Yeah, that's what I thought, Ezra told himself, trying not to let it hurt. He knew it was coming, but it still stung to hear it out loud.

"If all I do is try, that means I don't truly believe I can succeed. So from now on, I will teach you."

Kanan saw hope light back up in his face. He tried not to grin as he went on. "I may fail, you may fail, but there is no try."

"I understand...Master."

He could have let that three-word sentence hang in the air all night, but he didn't. Instead, he pulled his lightsaber out again and handed it to him. "Let's see if you do."

There were no canisters this time, just rocks, but when he started throwing them at the kid, he deflected them instead of letting them hit him. With every throw, Kanan became a little more confident in his decision.

There was still some trust to earn back, he knew. Kanan wasn't surprised Ezra had thought he was trying to get rid of him, and maybe there was some truth to that. He was trying to get rid of the burden being a teacher came with, but mostly because he didn't think he was ready for it. Not that Ezra knew yet, but he had never completed his training. The Jedi Purge had happened when he was sixteen and he had been nowhere close to Knighthood at the time. If the Jedi Order had still existed, he wouldn't be allowed to have an apprentice already. Maybe Kanan could have mentored Ezra, but he couldn't be his master.

He had trained for about three years with Depa. Though there had been more Masters to learn from, that was the amount of time he had studied as a Padawan. If he was completely honest, he hadn't paid attention very closely to her teaching strategies. Kanan didn't know the best ways to teach certain skills, he didn't know the landmarks and thresholds to look for in Ezra's progress. He didn't know how to best protect him, and if the Inquisitor was going to become a long-term problem, he was going to need protection.

Then there was that, too. Forget about the burden of teaching, what had he seen in the Spire? Another Inquisitor? The first one had been a pain in the neck, and it turned out she had been a double agent the whole time! Now they had a new one that was loyal to the Empire? Kanan wanted to groan just thinking about it. He was pretty sure this one wasn't going to commit treason, especially to the degree that the first Inquisitor had. For some reason, it seemed highly unlikely that Number Two was going to murder Emperor Dooku.

The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. The first Inquisitor had been a spy, but she did cause a lot of panic and disruption in the Jedi Order. Of course, the Emperor would want to bring that back. This Inquisitor had said something about Master Windu luring in Jedi to their deaths, so how many other survivors from the Purge had been tricked in the same way he had? After the whole fiasco with the first Inquisitor, the Emperor probably decided to start over and make real Inquisitors that were loyal to him.

Kanan was one of the few people who had an idea or two about who the Emperor was. During his childhood, he had been known better as Count Dooku, but he had been a Separatist general during the Clone War. When the clones began their mutiny, Dooku seemed to have a change of heart and promised to hunt down the clones in retaliation against the massacre of the Jedi Order. He had proclaimed that he felt pity for them, and under different circumstances, Kanan might have believed him. If nothing else, Dooku had kept his promise to hunt down the clones. That, at least, made it a little easier to sleep at night.

As Ezra got more consistent with his deflections, Kanan kept thinking. It had been hard enough to hide from the Empire when it was just him, but now his past had been exposed and there were two of them. The danger was only going to grow from here, especially if the Inquisitor proceeded to hunt them. If Kanan didn't look out for Ezra, no one would, especially if they were all dead like Master Windu. It was up to him.

Still, it would have been nice to at least have another Jedi to ask for help or advice every once in a while. His grandmaster would have been a reassuring presence on this treacherous road. How had Windu died? Kanan knew it was because of the clones, but had it been quick and painless, or did they drag it out and torture him? There was no way to know, but it was still something to think about. Where had he been? Who was the clone who shot him down? Had he seen it coming like Depa had and sacrificed his life to protect someone else's? Had it caught him by surprise? Was there someone still alive who knew the truth? There was no way to know...