Despite the earful Hera got from the rebel council (Anakin may have intervened on her behalf during that meeting, the two of them managed to negotiate her way out of consequences), they were very happy to have the Ghost crew officially operating in the Rebellion at full efficiency. It wasn't long before they were assigned missions left and right. It was stuff they had already been doing, but there was a much more formal tone to the assignments now.

Anakin wasn't always able to be around when Ezra and Kanan were available due to his Fulcrum duties, but he made sure to keep an eye on them even if he was absent. He would leave things with Commander Sato and ask him to pass it along to the Jedi the next time they were on board. He let them keep the training remote (Ezra needed it more than he did), but he also lent them the textbook on lightsaber forms, as well as a few holocron recordings of lessons from past Jedi Masters. Ezra watched them to catch up on some of the fundamental aspects of the Force that he would have already learned if he had gone to the temple to train. Kanan watched them for nostalgia's sake.

Having gotten a sense for what both of them were like, Anakin didn't bother with the history textbooks he had tucked away. They were a good read, but only if you had the time and absolutely nothing else to do. Anakin tended to read them when he was on extremely long stakeouts with no outside communication, and he didn't think Ezra nor Kanan would ever get to that point in the forseeable future.

For Kanan specifically, he remembered the conversations about a 'training handbook' they had together earlier. Of course, there was no such thing, but there were alternatives. Anakin dug through his collection and found a thin textbook outlining the original thresholds Younglings had to meet in order to become Padawans. The requirements had been heavily modified over the past several centuries, but most of the modifications reflected the original intentions of the Initiate Trials during the Old Order. He left a note explaining that if Kanan was looking for lesson ideas, the book might help point him in a few directions.

Kanan also left what remnants of the Jedi Order he had kept over the years for Anakin. Though he did not keep them, Anakin looked through the holocrons Kanan still had. He cringed at the recording quality of himself, but also took note of the other holocrons in his posession: Obi-Wan Kenobi's warning during the Jedi Purge, Depa Billaba's introduction to telekenesis, and one of Yoda's meditation guides.

Even while Anakin was gone, Ezra and Kanan took to training a lot more often. There seemed to be a mutual desire to not disappoint the Jedi Knight the next time he saw them. Not that it was ever mentioned, of course. Hera accused Kanan of being a fanboy, but it didn't bother him very much. Now that he had a few more resources at his disposal, one of them being Skywalker himself, he felt slightly more capable as a teacher. Ezra, spurred on by his admiration for the legend, gained a slight sense of discipline during his training. Not much, he was still as unruly as ever, but he focused better during lessons now.

Actually, the entire Ghost crew had taken a liking to Agent Skywalker. With the knowledge that he had been Fulcrum the whole time, they managed to put a few pieces together about him as a collective. After all, they did appreciate the intel he had gotten them multiple times in the past. It went further than that, though.

Hera knew him best out of the non-Jedi. She had been in constant communication with him on Lothal, and though she hadn't had many face-to-face conversations with him, she felt like she already kinda knew him. They both had considerable history in the Rebellion, even if it wasn't together. In the brief talks they managed to have over the next couple weeks, they were able to relate on topics like missions, commanding officers, piloting (they really liked this one), and Kanan. In fact, now Anakin was positive he had been right about him and Hera. Never brought it up, though, except to gloat to Senator Amidala that he had been right.

Sabine and Zeb hadn't gotten to know him nearly as well as the others, but they already had a significant level of respect for him. He was a warrior, that much was recognizable. There were ways he phrased certain things, or specific words he said, or sometimes even just how he presented himself that they picked up on from time to time. When they were reminded that he had once been a Republic general, they weren't surprised.

After about two weeks of supply runs and drops, the Ghost crew was resting while they were waiting for their next orders (of which the rebel council was sure to be very specific that they were orders, not suggestions as had been with Kanan's extraction). Their ship had been refueled and the engine had been tuned up, so they were ready to go when Commander Sato gave them the word. The time came quickly and Chopper alerted Hera that the commander was calling the ship.

Following her droid to the cockpit, Hera sank into her seat and flipped off the mute switch. "Spectre-2, reporting for duty. You have another set of coordinates for me, sir?"

"I do," he replied, "but this isn't another supply run. Fulcrum has the location of specific intel he believes will benefit the Rebellion, but he requested that he go on the mission with you. This will be a longer assignment and a more dangerous one. Is your crew up for it?"

"Hey, a change in pace won't be such a bad thing," she pointed out, not bothering to consult the others. Hera knew they would be on board. "I assume Fulcrum is already on his way?"

"You would be correct. Sending the coordinates now," he commented, and the digits appeared on the screen of the navi-computer. "Good luck, Captain."

Hera smiled despite being alone. "Thank you, Commander." Copying the coordinates, she simultaneously talked into the ship's speaker system. "We've got another mission, people. Landing gear up in five."

Chopper rolled off to do routine engine checks. A few seconds later, Kanan appeared and leaned against the doorway. "More orders again?"

"Don't worry," she assured him, "you'll like these ones. We're extracting intel and we'll have a guest agent with us. Bet you can't guess who."

Kanan grinned at that. Slipping out of the room, he went downstairs to greet Anakin when he boarded. By the time he got down to the airlock, Anakin was already there.

Glancing around, Anakin asked, "Got room for a stowaway?"

"Hey, there's always room for one more," Kanan told him, leaning over the railing, "but since when do you need help with an intel extraction?"

"Since I wanted to see your crew in action," he explained, climbing the ladder up. "If that's alright with you, anyway."

Pointing up the next ladder, Kanan deferred responsibility. "Hey, I'm not in charge. It'll be nice to have you, though. Ezra will like it too."

They went together into the rest of the ship while Anakin asked, "How's he doing?"

"Really good, actually. Ever since he's met you, he's been concentrating better than ever," he noted. "Again, if you had shown yourself sooner..."

Anakin rolled his eyes as he ascended to the next floor. "For the tenth time, I'm sorry. Concentration is good, though," he decided. "With how busy your crew has been, every minute training counts. I'm glad he's making the most of it."

"Any word on the Grand Inquisitor while you've been out?"

"Nothing," he reported somewhat disappointedly. "His title has dropped out of all Imperial documents ever since he died. I've been trying to figure out what the Empire's next move is, but of all the names I've got, I can't cross-reference them with anything enough to give us hard and fast intel," he sighed, crossing his arms. "I'm hoping this will help us out, but no promises, I'm afraid."

Kanan nodded, before narrowing his brow and asking, "Why are you so convinced that the Inquisitor's going to be replaced? Or avenged, or whatever?"

He opened his mouth to answer, then realized a verbal explanation probably wasn't going to cover it. Luckily, his hesitation was covered up by Ezra and Sabine walking in the room.

Ezra smiled when he saw Anakin. "I thought I sensed you."

"Good," Anakin praised, pausing his conversation with Kanan momentarily. "If you're able to sense presences more easily, you're becoming more in tune with the Force."

He stood up a little bit taller, but Anakin was distracted by what Sabine was holding: an old box full of spare parts. "Do you mind if I borrow that for just a minute?" he asked, pointing to the collection.

She seemed caught off guard by the question, but she nodded. "Yeah, I guess. Why, do you need something?"

"It's just going to make this easier to explain," he told her. As long as Kanan had asked, might as well make this a lesson. Using the Force, he emptied all the parts onto the ground and floated the box in midair upside-down. Kanan, having sensed that a lecture was incoming, took a seat and leaned forward in concentration.

Anakin turned to him. "How much do you remember about the Chosen One prophecy?"

He flicked through his memory before answering hesitantly. "You're...supposed to bring balance to the Force? I don't remember, it's been a while."

"You got the main point," he affirmed, focusing on his demonstration. "Part of what I've done over the past few years is explore what the hell that prophecy is supposed to mean in more practical terms. So far, I've figured out that the Force has a scale of sorts. Every Force user in the galaxy is on it."

Using telekenesis, he sprinkled small nuts and bolts on the platform created by the bottom of the box. "The stronger the user, the 'heavier' they are on the scale, so to speak. I've been calling it the Balance of the Force, for lack of a better term. The Force always wants to be in balance.

"From what I can tell, the Force hasn't been in balance for a long time. In fact, about twenty years ago, this is what it looked like." Anakin lifted three large gears onto one side of the box and hundreds of small pieces onto the other, as well as a few bigger ones. A few medium pieces were scattered across the middle and the heavy side. Using the Force to keep the pieces in place, he tilted the box toward the heavy side. "Can you tell what's going on?"

"Too many Jedi and not enough Sith?" Kanan guessed quite easily.

Something about that didn't sit right with Ezra. "Wait, what do you mean, not enough Sith? Aren't they evil? Why would we want more Sith?"

Anakin made eye contact with him. "Fair point, but the Balance of the Force doesn't measure good against evil, it measures the Light Side against the Dark. Yes, historically the Sith have been fascist tyrants who want to control the galaxy, but that doesn't affect where they stand on the scale or how much they affect it."

"That makes a lot more sense," Kanan noted, looking up at Anakin. "But then why did the Jedi allow this to happen if the prophecy was about balance?"

"Would you like the short version or the long version?"

"...short version."

"The Sith Rule of Two only allowed for two Sith at a time and the Jedi Order didn't have limitations on how many Jedi could exist at once."

Sabine raised her eyebrows. "That sounds complicated. If that's the short version, how long is the long version?"

Anakin snorted. "Even I don't know that. I'm still trying to piece together the long version, but it's a bit difficult when nearly every Jedi is dead and most of our records are on Coruscant."

Looking back at the makeshift scale, Kanan went on. "So this is after Sideous died?"

"Oh, no," he corrected, shaking his head. "Not even close. This is before Sideous died. This is after," he emphasized, lifting the biggest gear off the Dark Side and tilting the box even further toward the Light Side. By now, it was nearly vertical.

Ezra looked a little concerned. "How are the pieces not falling off the Light Side then?"

It took a moment, but Kanan made the connection before Anakin could explain. "The Purge."

Nodding, Anakin let most of the pieces fall off the side. "The Force wanted to be in balance, and Sideous' death was one step too far. Not only did most of the Jedi die, but survivors were recruited to the Dark Side," he demonstrated, allowing some of the pieces to roll over as he tilted the box the other direction. Adding a few nuts to the middle, he went on. "A lot of Younglings have been born in the past fifteen years or so, like you, Ezra, but the Empire's been diligent about hunting them down and either turning them or killing them. The Rebellion's only been so effective at protecting the ones we do find."

"But now the scale is tipped the other way," Zeb, who had joined in the conversation recently, pointed out, gesturing with his hand. Behind him, Hera was also listening in.

"And that's how we can predict that more Dark users are out there," Anakin concluded, looking to Kanan. "We know a few things for sure. The Grand Inquisitor was one of them, but he's dead." He lifted one of the pieces off the Dark Side and evened the box out a little. "I know of two others by name. Tyrannus is one, and Offee is another. Most of the others are unaccounted for."

Lifting the pieces back into the box, he gave it back to Sabine, quickly thanking her for letting him use it. Hera piped up from behind her. "Do you know where those other two are?"

Anakin shrugged for a second. "More or less. Tyrannus, I know for sure. It's kind of hard to hide when you're an emperor."

"The Emperor is a Sith???" Zeb blurted out, and everyone else except for Kanan seemed surprised by this news too. "Since when?!?

"Since the Clone War," Kanan explained. "Dooku is just his regular name, he's been using it since I was a Padawan."

"And you just never bothered to tell us this?" Sabine asked, nearly dropping the box of parts. "Why are we just learning about this now?"

Kanan glared at her. "If I told you the Emperor was a Sith Lord, would you have believed me?"

He got a mixed set of responses from the rest of the crew, resulting in a slightly amusing facepalm from Kanan.

"The other I know of is Offee," Anakin went on. "I assume she's his right hand nowadays, but I haven't been able to track her down in years. Wherever and whoever she is, she's been in hiding."

"Is that who you've been trying to find?" Hera asked, crossing her arms and leaning up against the wall.

"It's who I think is going to show up," he corrected, "And I'd like to find her before that happens. Hopefully, if we can track her movements, the first time she shows up won't be a surprise."

Zeb groaned and rubbed his forehead. "You Jedi type are so complicated. Every time I think I've got something figured out, another thing pops up."

Anakin stood up and spread his arms. "Hey, you aren't Force-sensitive. You're just learning about this now, but this has been nearly my entire life."

"Oh, great," Ezra complained, much to the amusement of the others.