Chapter Text
Ezra woke up to complete chaos. In fact, it was an explosion that woke him up in the first place.
"Woah! Okay!" He shouted as the ground beside him was shot by the star destroyer, spraying dirt all over him.
He jumped up, stumbling to his fighter jet, still shaken up from being knocked out.
After getting Sabine, he needed to cause a distraction to let the others evacuate. What distraction was better than no other? Sabine's color bombs, of course!
He must've been knocked out on his way back to the jet, but he really didn't remember what happened after he detonated the bombs.
"-ter 6? Specter 6 -t back up here. -t's- order," he heard Hera shouting over the comm static. It must've been damaged when he was knocked out. He adjusted it as well as he could, trying to fix it.
"I'm comin', Hera!" He called back, hoping she'd heard him.
"Specter 1, where are you?!" She demanded.
"He's not with you?!" Ezra questioned, alarmed. Everything was going wrong, and he had no idea where anyone was.
"I'm on the ground still, I'll be there soon!" Kanan shouted over the comm.
Ezra sighed. "I'll go get him."
"Okay, but be careful. You're still being shot at," Hera reminded.
"I'll be okay," Ezra promised, switching the jet on.
The moment Ezra was in the air, it triggered a rain of fire that was like nothing he'd ever seen. It was taking every evasive maneuver he had just to not get blown up, and even then, he was grazed across the wing.
"Specter 6, get outta there!" Hera ordered.
"I gotta get Kanan out!" He shouted back.
"You can't help him if you're dead! Get back here!"
Sighing, he began trying to escape. Unfortunately for him, the shots only became harder to dodge the closer he came to escaping.
One slip up. It took one slip up for everything to come (quite literally) crashing down.
It was less than 2 minutes into his escape that one of the shots hit his already damaged left wing, and he fell into an uncontrolled spiral, straight to the ground.
"Specter 6!" Hera cried. "Ezra!"
He had no time at all to respond as he was already careening towards the ground, frantically trying to control the fall. He braced himself for impact as the ground rushed at him.
As tears streamed down his face, he whispered into his comm;
"I'm sorry, Hera."
Aside from the incessant ringing in his ears, it was dead silent. He opened his eyes and saw... sky? Had he died? Last he remembered, it was chaos. People shooting at him, shooting at Bendu, and falling from the sky. Yes, he must've died.
Using what little strength he had, he looked up more but immediately froze. The entire fighter jet was crushing his legs, effectively pinning him down.
He tried to move, only to feel pain shoot up his right leg. With the amount of adrenaline running through his system, the pain wasn't too strong, but he knew his legs were hurt bad.
"Anybody copy?" He tried. Nobody did. He was met with dead silence.
"Hello?" He tried again. Still nothing.
"I'm - I'm hurt. I need help."
Only static.
"Damnit," Ezra said softly through his tears.
He still wasn't hurting much, which wasn't a good sign. He was, however, scared. Based on the amount of smoke rising from the jet, it could go up in flames at any moment. He knew the moment it went up, he had no chance.
Taking a deep breath, he tried to pull himself out from under it. The moment he tried, he felt the bones in his right leg separate, causing him to cry out in pain. It was most definitely broken.
"Okay, okay, okay, okay," he whispered under his breath, trying to find a solution quickly.
He looked around, analyzing his surroundings, and his eyes landed on a stray shard of metal. It wasn't great, but it would have to do.
He slid one end underneath and started using it like a lever. If he could just get it up off of his legs, he might just be able to slide out.
When he'd propped up the part of the jet that was crushing his legs, he cried out from both the exertion and the pain. He could actually feel the bones shifting in his legs.
"Kanan? Hera?" He whimpered into the comm. There was still no one.
He took a deep breath and propped himself up on his elbows, preparing to pull himself out.
"Ow..." he groaned, preparing himself.
Taking several quick breaths, he tried to pull himself out, but his foot was stuck.
Tears began pouring down his face, creating clean rivulets on his ash covered face.
He was trying as hard as possible to stay calm, but it wasn't working. He needed out.
The next time he tried to pull himself out, he found that his shoe was sliding off. He was struck with an idea. Maybe if he got his shoe off...
Without any further delay, he began wriggling his foot out. It hurt like hell since his leg was broken at the femur, but he didn't care. He was getting out.
The scream that ripped from his throat was near inhuman as his foot popped out, and he pulled himself away from the jet.
But he was free. He got out!
He scrambled away as fast as he could with one useless leg and one barely functional.
When he had calmed down enough, he assessed the situation on his body. His right leg was very clearly broken. That much was obvious. Looking closer, he saw that it was broken in more than one place. The main problem was going to be his femur, but the rest was not helpful.
"Okay... this is fine," he tried to convince himself.
Before he even had a chance to calm down, the entire ship combusted. It was so close that it singed his face, and he could feel the heat all over him.
He crawled away quickly, finding that his left leg was badly bruised.
"Need a hand there, boy?"
Ezra froze. Turning around, he saw fifteen troopers, all with their blasters trained on him. How long had they been watching him? Why didn't he notice them approaching? He must've been too distracted by his situation.
He had no chance. He knew he didn't. He was broken on the ground and still hadn't even tried standing up yet. But he had to try something. He owed it to his family to try. He would fight tooth and nail if it meant getting back to them.
He turned over, and he stood up. It hurt like hell, and he could only use one leg, but he stood up.
"Ah, so he can fight back," another storm trooper said.
Ezra wasn't too sure about 'fighting back,' but he knew how to dodge.
With that, they began firing.
It was probably the strangest thing he'd done all month. Standing on one leg, hardly able to move, all dodging only by using the force. Still, it worked.
But it didn't last. Only about fifteen seconds in, he was shot in the shoulder, causing him to fall to the ground.
He barely felt it. All he really felt was the storm troopers approaching him, prepared to deliver the final blow.
Ezra wasn't scared. In a way, he felt... excited? Relieved? More than anything, he felt regretful. Regretful that he never made it back to his family.
Finally, he relaxed, just waiting for the blast that would take him out.
"Wait."
Curiously, Ezra looked up. One of the troopers had his hand on another trooper's blaster, who was presumably about to blow Ezra's brains out.
"I know this one," he continued. "This is the Jedi that the Grand Admiral was talking about."
"So?" The one about to shoot him said. "All the more reason to shoot him, I'd say! "
"What I'm saying is that we may still have a use for him," the other trooper answered. "If he's a Jedi, then he must know a lot about the rebellion."
Ezra laid his head down in frustration. So they were going to take him. Just great.
"Wait, if he's a Jedi, how come he was so easy to catch?" A different one asked.
"He must've been hurt in the crash," he answered.
'No kidding,' Ezra thought.
"Stun him," were the last words Ezra heard before his body was pumped with electricity.
Hera watched in a state of numb shock as Ezra went down. This wasn't happening. It couldn't be.
But as she saw the fighter jet that she knew was Ezra's disappear from her radar, she knew it was true. Ezra was gone.
But she still had a job to do. She needed to get these people out.
With her heart feeling that it was made of lead, she took off and made the jump into hyperspace.
She sank down slowly to the floor, her hand covering her mouth. She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. What she needed to do was stay strong and be reliable, but she didn't know if she could.
She felt bile rising in her throat as she tried desperately to stay quiet. She needed to be calm to break the news to Kanan. Stars, Kanan. What was he going to think?
The moment she thought it, she heard Kanan's voice in the hallway.
"Where's Ezra?"
Those two words just broke her. She began sobbing almost silently, still trying to suppress it.
"Thought he was with you," she heard Zeb say.
"No. He was coming to get me, but it was too dangerous, so Hera made him come back," Kanan answered.
"Well, I sure haven't seen him," Zeb said. "Why don't you ask Hera?"
"That's where I was headed."
He came inside. Hera held her breath to keep quiet, though she knew it wouldn't last.
"Hera, have you seen- Hera? Love, are you okay?"
Kanan's soft words pushed her over the edge, and she began crying audibly.
"Hera, what's wrong?"
He pulled her in, and she began sobbing into his chest.
"Oh, stars, Kanan," she cried.
"Hera," Kanan said, deadly quiet. "Did something happen to Ezra?"
Hera said nothing.
"Love, what happened?"
She paused for a moment to regain composure.
"He... he was shot down, trying to get back."
Kanan squeezed her tighter.
"He's okay."
"No. No, Kanan, he's not okay this time," she said into his chest.
Kanan just shook his head. "He's alive. I would've felt it if he died."
Hera took comfort in this realization. She took comfort because she knew he was right. Kanan had told her about how badly it hurt when his master died and how he was terrified that the same thing would happen to Ezra. If Kanan hadn't felt it, then Ezra was alive.
"We're gonna find him, love."
Hera took a deep breath. They were going to find him.
It was just Kanan and Hera for this one since they didn't know what condition Ezra was in. Sabine, Zeb, and Chopper had protested strongly, but this was something that Hera was not budging on. They shouldn't have to see their brother hurt if they didn't have to.
Hera prepared The Phantom II for a landing beside the wreckage that was once their base. Ezra's fighter jet wasn't hard to find. Or... what was left of it anyway.
As she approached the charred wreckage, she began to doubt Kanan more and more. She'd never seen someone walk away from a crash like this. Even though it had been hours, the jet still had small flames surrounding it.
"Kanan... are you sure he's still alive?" Hera questioned.
Kanan nodded reassuringly. "He was in pain not long ago. I'm guessing he got out before it caught on fire."
"But if he's not in there..." Hera pondered. "Where could he have gone?"
"I don't know," Kanan admitted.
Hera was about to approach the ship, just in case Kanan was wrong, when something caught her eye.
She knelt in the dirt, picking it up. Brushing off the ash, she gasped. It was Ezra's lightsaber.
"Hera? What is it?" Kanan inquired.
Hera didn't have to answer. Kanan took his saber from her, cursing under his breath when he realized what it was.
"Kanan?"
"This is what I was afraid of. Ezra would never leave this here," Kanan answered.
"What is it?"
Kanan's grip on the saber tightened.
"They've taken Ezra."