happy father's day - blindrun

[merging]

 [Honestly? He's been here wayyy longer than he planned to be. He knew it'd be hard to escape, but it had to be possible. That's what he kept telling himself. Days turned into weeks turned into months and now? It's been over a year.

The other Inquisitors still don't completely treat him like one of them. Or maybe teasing is their way of doing so? He rolls his eyes whenever they call him "baby brother", thinking they could at least have some sense of professionalism. But everything's been going okay for the most part. As okay as it can be when you're an Inquisitor-in-training.

Except today was... well, it was something else. They were assigned to ambush a small rebel cell that was said to be working with a Jedi. It should've been easy, except for the part where it wasn't. The rebels got away and the Inquisitors had failed. Now Ezra's standing outside the Grand Inquisitor's office while the adults debrief. It's frustrating, being left out like this, but he also knows there isn't much he can do about it.]

Comments

[blindrun]

[ the meeting is unpleasant and there are more than a number of times third brother envies ezra's position. he gets to be outside and spared of this dressing down the grand inquisitor slams everyone in the room with. the thing about their family is when one person fails, they all fail. there is no personal failure, there is the collective failure. individual failures, after all, end with death. group failures end with the question of who gets tortured for screwing up.

this time it's him, seventh sister and fifth brother. he of course blames their egos, and they of course blame his plan. grand inquisitor decides they get to share the blame.

at one point the doors open and the siblings file out. most of them storm out, frustrated and annoyed. ninth sister makes some choice comments about how they got dragged into a stupid meeting, second sister sees ezra and chuckles before moving on, and second brother stops to regard him with a more sympathetic look that can be felt even past his helmet. the doors shut and only third brother, fifth brother and seventh sister remain inside. ]

[merging]

[Well, that's not good. He scowls at all of them, even Second Brother since he still interprets that sympathy as pity. He's about to peek inside, and then-

The doors close in front of him. He shouldn't do anything. He knows that much, but that makes him want to do something even more. While he can't hear what's happening inside, Ezra tries to reach out with the Force, get a sense of the emotions in the room.]

[blindrun]

[ the grand inquisitor, inside, explains to them the cost their failure has brought to their operation. there is a powerful jedi, one with the power to rival even vader, and she is growing an operation. they don't know her name or where she is, but they know she is out there. a survivor of the purge, and she operates as such - with intense secrecy and stealth unmatched. how do they expect to bring an end to the jedi if she is around rallying a resistance. a rebellion!

their failure will not be forgotten. ezra can feel it - the gravity of the grand inquisitor's anger, the weight of his promise that they will pay for their incompetence, and the steel cold each sibling grips themselves with understanding full well what the punishment is.

the grand inquisitor, however, feels ezra too. suddenly his eyes bulge in fury and with a growl he reaches his hand out toward the door. curls up his hand as though he were choking ezra's throat in his grip, sharp, tight, unforgiving.

Your experiment is trying my patience, Third Brother. ]

[merging]

[Definitely not good.

Ezra's hands go to his throat, grasping in an attempt to keep the invisible force from taking his last breath. His concentration shaken, he stops probing the room.]

[blindrun]

[ even as the probing ends the grand inquisitor continues. seventh sister and fifth brother sit without care, not really invested in whether or not the boy behind the door lives or dies. third brother tries his best not to engage. tries desperately not to let fear grip him.

it doesn't work.

he rises from his chair and calls out for the grand inquisitor to stop, voice desperate. his siblings turn head to him, shocked, and the grand inquisitor doesn't even look at him. however, just as ezra feels lightheaded, on the verge of passing out, the grand inquisitor abruptly lets him go. his eyes do not leave the door as he instructs seventh sister and fifth brother to leave.

the doors open and the siblings depart. fifth brother storms out, annoyed more than anything. seven sister steps out, sees ezra, and smirks. ]

What's the saying on your planet, baby brother? Curiosity killed the loth-cat?

[ she laughs to herself and then walks off again. the doors do not immediately close as before, as grand inquisitor wants ezra to see him in his muted rage. he also wants him to see third brother, who still stands by his seat, and only when he is certain the boy has a chance to see them both does he shut the doors again. ]

[merging]

[Gasping for air, he falls to the ground, just barely catching himself. He's too out of breath to respond to Seventh Sister, though the look in his eyes says enough.

When he sees his master still in there, he wants to yell out. He's sorry. Not for his own sake, but for Third Brother's. But having been shown his place so thoroughly, he shuts his mouth and waits.]

[blindrun]

[ behind the closed door, the grand inquisitor turns to third brother with cold fury piercing in his eyes. he steps away from the table, puts in a message on his communication dashboard, and then turns to third brother. neither of them have to say anything - they both know what's about to happen next.

the doors do not open and ezra will be left alone for a few minutes longer. however the familiar click of light heels on the floor fill the hallway. second sister approaches, but not for pleasure. ]

Come now, dear baby brother. [ she calls out to him, voice full of contempt as always. ] You are to return to your quarters.

<3

[merging]

[Another day, another Rebel base to destroy. Ezra does his best to minimize damage whenever he can, while still appearing to be loyal to the Empire. If possible, he tries to share information on upcoming ambushes so that people can be evacuated and bases moved. Other times, he might barely miss someone, ensuring their escape. Another trick he'd come up with was to destroy tech during combat. Inquisitors are ruthless and aggressive, and no one would think it strange if his attacks just happened to prevent the Empire from accessing potentially important data.

Today's not that different, though their informant is tagging along for once. Something about bio-scans, not wanting the rebels to suspect anything, he had stopped listening about a minute into it. They split up to cover more ground and when Ezra happens upon a rebel hiding in one room, he lets them go. His anger is instead released on the base itself, plenty of destruction for a typical dark side user. These people had trusted the informant, and he had betrayed that trust entirely. Ezra's reminded of his parents, as he smashes furniture into walls in "search" of rebels.

They meet up in a central room when they're finished. The informant's proud of himself, boasting about how quickly they'd gotten rid of the rebels thanks to him. He hopes the Empire will be grateful for his service. He's about to say something else, except what's that? Yeah, he's being force choked.]

He warned them.

[The informant's too busy being choked to deny that accusation.]

[blindrun]

[ things have turned since the day he showed ezra his parents were alive. what he feared would be a shift in his loyalties turned out better than he could hope, as his apprentice began to double his efforts to being initiated as an inquisitor. it pleased third brother and the paranoia he had that ezra was simply pretending and pulling away from him have been washed away for some months now.

the informant, who secretly contacted their base a few days ago, is a little more than pleased with his works but third brother ignores it. after all the base has been taken over, many of its occupants captured or killed, and they can repurpose this area for the empire.

so third brother has questions when ezra begins choking him. ]

What are you talking about?

[ he isn't especially inclined to stop him yet, but his interest is piqued. ]

[merging]

One got away. I can sense them.

[On the landing pad, about to be far away from this base and this planet. Too far now for Third Brother and him to catch them.

Ezra tightens his grip on the informant's throat.]

Or what, did you have a sudden change of heart?

[blindrun]

[ third brother's head turns and he reaches out, trying to see... yes. there is one who got away. he's too far away to do anything but lifts up his wrist to tap the communicator attached to it. ]

We have a runaway on the landing pad. Pursue them, don't let them get into hyperspace.

[ there's a jedi helping the rebellion but doesn't sense that person is the one who escaped. they might not have been here is all, a shame but nothing to worry about. now then- ]

One escapee is not proof of anything. Let the informant go.

[merging]

[... he should've waited longer to reveal that, whoops. Oh well, not gonna let it show now.]

I know he did it.

[But Ezra releases him and he falls to the floor, gasping for air.]

You let them go.

[The informant, barely able to speak, repeats after him. I let them go..]

[blindrun]

[ third brother's eyes bulge for a moment behind the helmet when the informant says that. he looks at ezra, wary, then back at him. he walks forward in front of the man and with a raised hand lifts them of the ground no different than raising a puppet. ]

Explain yourself.

[prover]

[ the dull light of the morning sun crackles across the sky, as the sun slowly rises to overlook the planet atollon. an undesirable planet with little life, little resources, and no great use to the empire. a perfect hiding spot for rebels.

the base is small and could use more staff, but you take what you can get when you're one of many cells fighting the empire's tyranny. ahsoka isn't normally here as often as she has been in the last month, but there's not many who can really help ezra bridger the way she can.

a shame he has a bad habit of being late to training! though she can't help but smile that the empire's strict regime didn't wring that habit out of him. he's a tough one for sure. she's glad he contacted her for an extraction when he did, and gladder more that they made it out after a quick scuffle with seventh sister and fifth brother. nothing she couldn't handle.

she doesn't bother knocking on the door of his small room before tapping the button, stepping in with a grin. the rooms are even smaller than the ones he had to deal with in the academy, forget comparing it to the gracious space of an inquisitor's room, but again - you take what you can get. ]

Wake up call.

[merging]

[One good thing about the base is that he has to fear for his life far less than he ever has. Mostly. Sometimes Zeb makes a few threats, but it's not like he ever acts on them?

Even so, when someone suddenly steps into his room, he wakes up with a jolt and ignites his lightsaber. Except it's Ahsoka. Thanks for nothing, Force instincts. Ezra sighs and turns off his saber.]

Sorry. I thought- [Inquisitor stuff. Initiation. All that.] You know.

[prover]

[ ahsoka takes a quick step back through the doorway when the saber goes off, hands going up, but shrugs when he comes to his senses proper. ]

Bad dreams? [ nightmares - haunting and never fading. ]

[merging]

Let's just say I'm not used to friendly wake up calls.

[He stretches and pulls himself out of bed properly. As he talks, he pulls his hair into a ponytail. It's been getting pretty long lately, huh...]

What's up?

[prover]

[ she leans against the doorway, arms crossed, eyes wide. ]

Training? The thing we do every morning. You slept in.

[merging]

Oh.

[That's a thing. Yeah.]

Wait! I gotta get dressed, get out!

[And he pushes her away lightly and closes the door with the Force. Can't become a not-Jedi if you're stuck in your pajamas! Gotta become a not-Jedi in your old Inquisitor uniform, obviously! Once he's ready, he opens the door again.]

Okay, now what's up?

kidnapping

[blindrun]

[ before the sun rises on atollon a ship makes a quiet landing about a mile away from the rebel base that makes camp on the otherwise wasteland planet. it took time to find this place, but third brother can't take the credit for it. strangely he felt... called here. a voice entered his mind in his sleep and suddenly he woke up, dead of the night, knowing where ezra had gone. the sudden escape of his apprentice, aided by the jedi, only served to deepen the emptiness third brother has known since he was a child. it was the same deep depths where he buried the corpse of a dead padawan into, never again to unearth.

he wanted to throw ezra into that same hole, but he couldn't. not until he severed their bond.

so he travels to atollon with only that thought in mind. the time to make ezra join him has passed. he will kill him and the jedi and then destroy this base. no survivors. it's the only way he can redeem his name, and the only way he can avoid being killed himself. not by the grand inquisitor, but by the sith lord who they all fear will come for their heads someday soon. some things are worse than failure.

he has to trek a mile to get to the base undetected, but he has no fear in him. only cold determination, his inquisitor helmet left behind in the ship and a dark brown cloak covering his uniform. ]

[convor]

[It's a basic, completely ordinary, run of the mill patrol. After they'd solved their little Krykna problem, the Atollon base had gone rather quiet. It's a little boring, if she's telling the truth. Still, someone's gotta do it.

Sabine's about to finish up and head back to the base, but then she spots someone in the distance. Her hands hover over her blasters as she waits for them to approach. Probably just Zeb or Rex, but...]

[blindrun]

[ as he approaches, cloak hood covering his head and making him look like an oversized jawa, third brother begins to sense a presence nearby. it isn't ezra or the jedi, and so he sees no particular reason to take concern. ]

[convor]

[Sabine lowers her scanner to get a closer look at the stranger, though even then she can't see much more than the cloak. Still, that doesn't look like Zeb...]

Hey! Who's out there?

[blindrun]

[ the call brings him to a stop, realizing the echo comes from above. his head tilts up, obscured by his hood, and though he can't see who announced themselves he now realizes the element of surprise is no longer his. so be it - time to go the brute force route.

he takes a couple steps back, feet planted on the ground firmly, and then leaps up in a single bound. the force carries him up all the way to a railing that surrounds the back of the base, where he lands smoothly on top with a soft clank. he looks around to see if the guard is nearby and readies for a fight. ]

[convor]

[That's not normal. And that's also not Zeb. Sabine plants an explosive under the railing near her, then begins moving away from where she assumes the intruder is, hoping to encourage them to chase her.

She quickly turns on her comm,]

This is Spectre-5, either the kid's playing a prank on us or we've got an intruder.