128Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars: Rebels. Obviously.
Story: The beginning, the becoming, and the present of Agent Kallus; the child, the street rat, and the girl that is Ezra Bridger. When Ezra accidentally forms a Force bond with the agent, their lives are suddenly dependent on each other, but as they view each other's memories, it's not that hard to become attached. Bastila Shan and Darth Revan's accident is recreated, and the crew have no choice but to bring along Kallus until they find a fix.
Set after "Shroud of Darkness" (2.16).
Spoilers: I don't think so?
Warnings: Violence, language, sexual situations, etc.
Pairings: Agent Kallus/fem!Ezra, Wrenga Jixton/fem!Luke
Killing Strangers (Leave Me Alone)
Chapter One: An Opera Stage the World Don't Need
This was where Ezra Bridger died. And no, she wasn't being dramatic. She totally wasn't.
There were blasterfire all around her, and she was (with the rest of the Ghost Crew) in the midst of a firefight with Agent Kallus' unit. They had gotten word that a rebel unit in the area had needed help, only to be ambushed by Kallus and his Stormtroopers and locked into an entanglement that was lasting for almost an hour. Just then a series of minor explosions occurred near them and everyone scrambled to run away from them. Somehow or other, she found herself running alongside Kallus, but the one glance she took at him cost her as she didn't notice the biggest explosion yet, happening at the moment next to them, and hitting Kallus nearly full force and was knocked right into her.
They landed somewhere off to the side, and Ezra's vision was swimming while her ears wrung from the loud blast of the explosion. Coughing from the smoke, she tried to sit up, only to find Kallus heavily on her. Heaving (and using the Force), she managed to push him off of her before she went to see how he was. Her eyes widened at his condition, seeing him bleeding out and barely clinging to life.
Biting her lip, she didn't know what to do now.
'All life is precious.'
It wasn't a voice she recognized, whoever it was that spoke in her head. Faint though it was, she recognized the female tone, but not who. It wasn't Ahsoka…Definitely not Kanan, though Ezra was feeling like she was having a Yoda moment (like in the temple)…But unless Yoda had suddenly changed sex, it wasn't him either.
Still, she thought about the words more and looked hard at the dying Kallus. She also remembered Kanan's similar lecture.
"A Jedi seeks to preserve all life," she murmured, and then placed her hands on him and willed the Force to do something. She had to save him. She just…had to.
Ezra was concentrating so hard that she didn't notice how her body was beginning to lose energy and that her sight was getting darker and darker. Soon enough, without meaning to, she blacked out on top of Kallus. However, her mind didn't close down and disappear into a void of darkness.
No, that wasn't the case. For some reason, Ezra found herself in the middle of a dark gray room that was practically bare. A few things covered the place to show it was lived in, but it was minimal at best. There was a lump on the bed and Ezra curiously drew closer, until she was close enough to see it was a young boy.
The room's door slid open then and a pretty woman came in. "Cor? Cor, are you awake?"
The young boy on the bed shifted before slowly getting up.
"I'm up, Nana," he said quietly, and Ezra gasped. She recognized those eyes anywhere –the only person she knew with natural bright bronze (gold in the right light) eyes. This was a younger Kallus. She had no idea how or why, but the ISB Agent was right in front of her as a kid!
"Come, Cor," 'Nana' smiled gently at him. "It's breakfast time. Then you have to get to school."
"Okay," Kallus' voice was still quiet, and it made Ezra stare at him. He just…didn't seem like the agent she knew.
And so Ezra found Kallus having breakfast, and quietly followed him around like a ghost as he apparently got ready for the day.
It was raining. He didn't know when it had started, but he was in the middle of the street when it had started raining on him.
Kallus wasn't sure where he was or what had happened. The last thing he remembered was that he had been in the middle of a fight with the usual group of rebels that he was always after, and then there had been explosions that caused him to run with everyone else. He had somehow gotten to be by Ezra Bridger's side when a bigger explosion knocked him off of his feet and towards the girl. However, he didn't remember much after that. Only that he was in extreme pain and he could barely see or be aware of anything.
He had noticed, though, that girl had been touching him. She had been concentrating intently and he remembered feeling some sort of energy flowing through him…
"Ezra~ Little Ezra…don't run too far, little Loth-catling," a man sing-songed, and Kallus moved to face him in surprise.
He nearly let his jaw drop as he saw the little girl giggling and dancing through the rain, ahead of a couple he presumed was her parents.
Why in the galaxy was he seeing Bridger as a little girl?
"Mama," Bridger tossed out her hands. "The rain is going to wash me away!"
"Is it, catling?" the beautiful woman by the man's side smiled softly at her daughter. "But if you're washed away, where will our little girl go?"
Bridger giggled and danced back to her parents, hugging them both tightly.
"Sillies~ I'm right here, Mama, Papa. I'll never leave you. Just like you won't ever leave me, right?"
"Of course, little catling," the man Kallus knew from his file as Ephraim Bridger caressed his daughter's hair. "We'll be with you until the end of time."
"Our little Loth-catling will never be rid of us!" Mira Bridger's prison picture didn't serve her justice.
The girl, Ezra…she just smiled widely and held onto her parents.
Kallus watched the scene with dead eyes.
"You poor child," he blinked lethargically. "They're going to leave you soon."
They really shouldn't have lied to their child. Maybe then, she wouldn't have been so bitter and cynical upon Kallus' first meeting with her.
Kallus' first name was Coriolan. He was Coriolan (called 'Cor' by his Nana) Kallus. He was currently five years old, living and being raised on the planet of Coruscant (Ezra remembered from somewhere, that she'd read his home planet was Coruscant). It was also currently in the middle of the Clone Wars, meaning that Kallus had grown up in the middle of it (she also remembered something about him being born before the Invasion of Naboo).
Ezra also figured out that apparently she was in his memories. How and why she was in his memories, she had yet to figure out though.
Kallus was a cute kid. That was unexpected. Smart too, not that she was surprised about that at least. The moment he'd stepped into the Coruscant Academy, she could tell. He was young, but didn't go to the younger grades. Instead, he was apparently in a more advanced level class, where she could easily see him at the top of the class while also unexpectedly not acting like a total bookish student. In fact, to her surprise, he was actually very friendly and sociable, and a favorite with the teacher and the other students.
He wasn't like the Kallus she knew at all.
Although he worked as hard as she knew he probably did in present time. His work ethic hadn't changed, it seemed. He also was very strict on himself, and followed the authority of those higher than him closely. All of which she knew that the Kallus she was used to would do and would think like.
Still, Ezra wondered where his father was. Or his mother. She hadn't met them yet, and Kallus hadn't revealed anything that she could find out. Mostly, she wondered if they had any bearing on who Kallus was now.
Overall, while she could find glimpses of the man she knew in this little boy, she couldn't really see how the ISB Agent that haunted her and her crew was the very same little boy that was helping a little girl fix her broken doll.
"Sh," Kallus murmured. "It's alright now. It's all back together, see? Like brand new."
"S'anks," the little girl blinked back her tears before smiling widely.
Kallus gave a small smile back.
"You're welcome."
Ezra really couldn't see him in this little boy at all.
If a man like Kallus could admit it, he would admit that little Ezra was a cute girl. She was bright and happy, and very affectionate with everyone she came in contact with. It was…unlike the girl he knew. She was so precocious, though at least she sometimes still was now.
Truthfully, he was sure that (after meeting and bonding with the Lothal rebel cell) Ezra was now much more happier and softhearted than she had been back when she was in that cell with Kallus. They'd softened her, made her want to trust and hope again.
But he also remembered a darker, bitterer, even angrier her. An Ezra that was disbelieving in people and the world.
"People don't do that. They just don't."
"Indeed they don't," Kallus muttered, watching as Ezra hummed in the kitchen, helping her mother prepare dinner.
Sometime soon, this little girl would no longer be the smiling, happy child in front of him. She'd stop believing. She'd distrust so much easier. It would be hard to gain her trust.
Sometime, probably after her parents' arrest, Ezra would close herself off to the world and everyone in it.
She wouldn't let anyone in.
Not until she met with Kallus, told him her beliefs, and had those beliefs shattered and ironically Kallus proven right as those rebels came back for her. That Jedi and his friends would be the very key to showing her that people could be trusted and that she didn't have to ward everyone off.
Though Ezra wore a happy-go-lucky façade back then, these days that façade was much more real and she wasn't so distrustful anymore.
It was practically a shame that the batter-covered girl giggling in this kitchen was about to have her life come crashing down on her at any time.
"Come, little Loth-cat! Dear catling, you need a bath badly."
"Meh! Water, water, wash away?"
"Oh, maybe just this once," Mira laughed.
"I'm sorry," Kallus murmured in the empty room.
Talking to the Lasat…to Zeb on that Geonosis moon…he wished he didn't have to see their lives as it were, nor see Ezra Bridger's life be torn apart.
It was never his intention to be a cruel person.
"Over here! I found her over here! And you're not going to believe who else I found with her!" Kanan heard Sabine yell out.
Quickly rushing over to the rebel artist, his stomach dropped at the sight of his Padawan passed out and looking too pale. He cringed at seeing Kallus though, and more so at the fact that for some reason Ezra was on top of him.
"Let's just pack her up and go?" Zeb asked, heading over already.
"Yeah. The Empire will pick Kallus up, so leave him behind to be taken cared of," Kanan ordered, and Zeb went to follow that as he grabbed Ezra and began to carry her away from the downed ISB Agent.
However, Ezra whimpered while Kallus started to groan. The group of three there looked at each other in confusion, about to dismiss it as nothing. But Zeb took a few more steps away from Kallus, and Ezra began squirming in his hold.
"She's burning up!" Zeb noted in shock, cringing at the heat in his arms. Not even his fur was protecting him from it. "Karabast, Kanan! What's going on?"
"I don't know," Kanan was equally shocked and confused.
Sabine frowned, looking between Ezra and then Kallus, who was suddenly writhing on the ground a little more now.
"Zeb, walk closer to Kallus," Sabine said and Zeb gave her a blank look. "Just do it!"
Grumbling, Zeb did so and noted that the teenager in his arms started to become less restless and the heat was dying down. Tentatively, he moved away again and noticed the symptoms coming back. He groaned aloud, and then explained his observations to the other two.
"Thought so," Sabine nodded to herself. "I noticed the reactions had started the moment you grabbed Ezra and moved her away from him, while also seeing that the two of them were both having reactions in the first place. Whatever happened from the time of the explosion and separation from us, to the time where they were here together…something must've happened, which caused this."
"Whatever this is," Kanan muttered. He sighed. "Just bring them both then. Here. Hand over Ezra, Zeb. You handle Kallus."
Kanan was going to have to figure out what happened quickly, because they were going to be having an ISB Agent on board as a guest for an indeterminable amount of time, and he knew that no good could come out of that.
Started 3/16/16 – Completed 3/16/16
A/n: I couldn't help working on this. I've REALLY wanted to work on this storyline for the longest time, but I've been putting it off in favor of other stories. But after the recent major Kallus episode, yeah I got back into this fandom and this plot~ I hope everyone liked and will review please!
