Chapter Text
“My lord?”
The intimidating figure grunts, but his eyes don’t leave the wall. There, encased in golden-orange material, are the remains of the Second Sister. Her last moment of agony is perfectly captured, her lips parted in a gasp and a gaping hole left in her abdomen, the signature charred wound of a lightsaber.
Sometimes, if he stares hard enough, he thinks he can see her blink.
It’s wishful thinking, of course. He killed her long ago to earn his title, to become the highest among the Inquisitors. Well, he had to deal with the Grand Inquisitor after that, but it was only a matter of time.
“Lord Vader has summoned all on-planet Inquisitors, my lord,” the officer says again. They look ready to piss themself.
He does not respond. The officer’s eyes well with tears; they won’t last long here with a constitution like that. He won’t kill them today, though. That can be left to whoever witnesses the fall of their tears.
Dismissed. Tell him I’m on my way.
Predictably, the officer leaps out of their skin at the voice that echoes in their mind. He almost laughs.
“Yes—yes, my lord, right away.”
And with that, they scamper off, leaving him to brood. Vader’s summons should be answered as soon as possible, but knowing his brothers and sisters, it will be some time before they’re all present. He has a moment longer to linger, should he wish. Being Second Brother comes with its perks, after all, and that includes the privilege to be fashionably late, even to a briefing with Darth Vader himself.
“Reminiscing about another victim, Second Brother?”
The Fourth Sister arrives as she always does, in an exceedingly boring fashion. She stays a respectful distance away, uninterested in what he’s actually doing but desperate to get in his good graces. She remembers what truly happened to the Grand Inquisitor. They all do.
“He was weak. You are not. Remember that,” his sister’s voice echoes in his ears.
Second Brother smiles. Something like that.
He watches the Fourth Sister shiver, uneasy at the way his voice invades her mind. No one likes the way he can do it, speaking directly into their heads without projecting himself in the Force. It’s as if he slips past their shields all at once just to speak, just to leave a slight trace of himself behind like a virus. As far as they can tell, Second Brother never takes anything, but they can never be sure, what with how easily he slinks in. It’s unnerving. He loves it.
Come, he says. Lord Vader calls and we must answer.
Dutifully, she nods and follows him into the depths of the fortress.
“Watch your step, little brother,” the Second Sister hums, only ever a step behind. “I have a bad feeling about this.”
Ezra loves the Spectres, he does, really, but the more dung they find themselves in, the more he wants to call it quits. He’s not going to, obviously, but he’s thinking about it. He’s thinking about it a lot.
Especially while the Inquisitors are staring him down.
There are three of them; the large figure that calls himself Fifth Brother, the lithe and terrifying Seventh Sister, and the eerily silent Second Brother. Since they snatched him, only the former two have actually spoken, most often hissing taunts at the boy. The latter, the highest ranking from what Ezra can tell, hasn’t said a word. The other Brother and Sister don’t find it strange, so he assumes it’s normal. Maybe he can’t speak?
“We should kill the boy and be done with it,” says the Fifth Brother, dragging Ezra’s focus back into the conversation. It would probably be important to know whether he was going to die or not.
“Idiot,” the Seventh Sister declares coolly, moving uncomfortably close to the boy as she observes him. “We use him as bait for his other rebel friends. And with them—”
Enough.
Ezra leaps out of his skin, flinching far enough that the Fifth Brother feels the need to grab his arm and drag him back.
“What the kriff—” he spits, shivering at the presence that had slithered into his mind without his permission.
The Second Brother stands from the crate he’d been sitting on, a loose and unbothered hand resting on the hilt of his lightsaber. Ezra may be inexperienced in the Force, much less using it, but he knows instantly that the voice he hears must be the Second Brother’s. He swears Kanan has been helping him to build up his shields recently. They made sure they were strong enough to keep unwanted visitors out, especially after their run-in with Darth Vader. How is this guy getting into Ezra’s head? Is he that strong?
The boy is Force-sensitive, and strong at that, comes the Brother’s voice, echoing through the crevices of his mind as if it is his own. Therefore, his fate will be in Lord Vader’s hands.
Ezra shivers at the mention of the Sith Lord. A quick glance at the Second Brother’s compatriots shows him that they’re displeased at the interruption, but not outwardly. They say nothing against the conclusion, with the Fifth Brother even nodding submissively. So he is higher ranked.
A hand presses below his jaw, lifting his face. He tries to back away, but the Second Brother holds him tightly, observing from behind his mask.
He would make a fine Fourth Brother, after all.
At this, they both stiffen. Ezra’s eyes widen; if a lower number means a higher rank, like the Second above the Fifth and Seventh, then…reasonably, the Second Brother just threatened to make Ezra more important than them. You know, if they weren’t deranged, immoral murderers serving an oppressive and tyrannical regime, he might have thought that cool. But no, they just had to be Inquisitors.
The Second Brother finally releases his jaw, letting him shake away the bruising touch. The strange being tilts his head as if staring through Ezra and seeing right into his soul. Considering the fact that he can slip through the boy’s shields, it’s entirely possible.
Kanan Jarrus is hardly a qualified teacher, you know. I would be more equipped to teach you, youngling, considering he never made it to Knighthood.
Ezra glares through dark eyes. “You don’t know anything about Kanan. And we beat your boss, remember?”
He can feel the Second Brother’s amusement, which is a jarring change. The Inquisitor has purposefully lowered his own shields just enough to let him in, to let him know what he would normally gather from facial expressions. It’s…almost polite. It makes him nervous.
I know plenty about Kanan, and I certainly know more than the Grand Inquisitor did about your friend. More than you, even. He circles the boy and leans over his shoulder. When next he speaks, he mimics a whisper, still never speaking aloud. Does he still wear that ugly necklace?
Ezra pales.
Reasonably, he should assume that he’s seen some kind of up-close security footage and is trying to make him nervous. But the question is just so personal. That ugly necklace is one of Kanan’s signature items, a piece he wears almost everywhere. Does the Second Brother know that?
And besides that, you’re wrong. He doesn’t allow Ezra to stew on the thought for long.
“About what?” he snaps.
You didn’t kill the Grand Inquisitor, youngling. Something like a laugh echoes in his mind, making him shiver.
At the change in topic, the other two Inquisitors fall silent. They seem to slink back into the shadows, their emotions swirling in a complicated storm of bitterness and fear. It’s about normal for Inquisitors, from what Ezra has seen, but he doesn’t linger on the thought. Instead, he squints at the Second Brother.
“Yes, we did! Sort of. He let himself die,” he stammers. “But we beat him!”
No, you didn’t. He repeats. I did.
The Second Brother stared down at the pitiful figure of the Grand Inquisitor. The former would-be Sith crawled across the ash-covered ground, body covered head to toe in burns. His breath wheezed and rattled in his chest, but he didn’t stop moving. It was easy to stand over him, to wait and watch. When the Pau’an finally gave up, he looked up at his former inferior, life barely sparking behind his eyes.
“Brother,” he gasped, “help me.”
It was funny. All that time, the Grand Inquisitor had been terrifying. He was the shadow of the Inquisitorius, the monster under the Empire’s beds, the guard dog of Vader. Over the last 15 years, he’d killed ten thousand Force sensitives single-handedly. Every mission was carried out with deadly accuracy and every move was calculated. He’d nearly died once, to a rogue Inquisitor, but it was all part of the plan. All that misery, all that death, all those horrors caused by his hand, and now he crawled in the dirt as the lowliest of worms. And all it took was one Jedi-Padawan pair with an eccentric crew at their backs.
Brother? The Second Brother echoed his words with palpable disdain. Attachment made the others weak, but not me. You know better than that, Inquisitor.
He felt a familiar presence nearby, reeking with more darkness than the pitiful former Grand Inquisitor. Before the simpering man could think to beg for mercy he’d never consider, the Second Brother lit his lightsaber with a snap-hiss and brought it down on his head.
In an instant, Vader’s lap dog was nothing more than dust.
“Well done.”
The Second Brother straightened at the mechanical voice and the whirl of darkness that followed it, sheathing his saber. He tilted his head and allowed his shields to slip, allowing Vader into his mind. It was a submission, a tail tucked between his legs.
“Did he speak on what caused him so much trouble?”
No, my lord. Only to beg.
“Pitiful.” He didn’t so much as look down at the Grand Inquisitor’s body. “The Padawan and his Master have been identified as Ezra Bridger and Kanan Jarrus.”
Second Brother did not even twitch.
“Jarrus is your mistake. You will fix it.” Surprisingly, Vader continued. “Should you do so, and do so exceedingly well, perhaps I could be convinced to grant you an Inquisitor apprentice of your own.”
This time, the Inquisitor bowed his head. He did not dare to question Vader’s judgment, did not linger on what alternative motives his Master might have had. I will not fail.
“Good. Take the Seventh Sister and the Fifth Brother.”
Displeasure filtered out of the Second Brother’s presence.
“I would not expect all of you to return, given that you are fighting a Jedi,” Vader added. “They could do with a refresher course on lightsaber combat.”
Under his helmet, the Second Brother grinned wickedly. Understood, Master.
ENOUGH!
The Seventh Sister and Fifth Brother come to a screeching stop at their brother’s harsh order. They leave the Spectres to escape on their attack shuttle, narrowly slipping from their fingers. Unsurprisingly, the Sister whirls on their leader.
“We had them!” she hisses.
You were playing with your food, he accuses, taking a threatening step forward. Enough toying.
His lightsaber flickers out and he stores it on his back, storming further into the hangar to watch the Phantom fly off. His siblings stand two steps behind him, but rage filters off them both. The Fifth Brother is at least subtle about his displeasure. That is why he is Fifth, and she is Seventh.
Jarrus is a stain on the Empire, a ghost of a bygone era, the Second Brother declares. And he must be stamped out.
“Ezra!” Hera cries back at the Ghost, embracing the boy. She already gave her love to Zeb and Sabine, and frankly, the boy hadn’t expected quite a firm hug. He hugs her back anyway, though, melting into the touch. “Any injuries?”
“No,” he says, voice muffled by her flight suit.
Beside them, Kanan has a hand on Sabine’s shoulder. “What the hell happened out there?”
“Inquisitors; three of them,” Zeb informs.
The former Jedi pales. “What? What level? What were their titles?”
“Uh,” Sabine hesitates, eyebrows furrowing.
Ezra lifts his head. “The Seventh Sister, the Fifth Brother, and the Second Brother. She’s a Mirialan and the Fifth Brother is humanoid, but I couldn’t tell his species and the Second Brother never removed his helmet. He didn’t…talk either.”
Hera and Kanan share a confused look. “He didn’t talk?” Hera repeats.
“Not out loud. It’s like, like he talked through the Force,” Ezra explains hesitantly. “I’m sorry. He got right past my shields.”
His teacher reaches out (never master, never father, not if he wants to keep the both of them from crying) and holds his shoulders. “Ezra, you have nothing to apologize for. I didn’t—I didn’t prepare you as well as I should have. We can work on them some more.”
“But—But there was something else,” he continues. “He asked about you. He wanted…to know if you still wore ‘that ugly necklace,’ he said.”
Somehow, Kanan pales further. “What?” he croaks.
“And he said that he knew more about you than the Grand Inquisitor, more than me.”
“Well, the second part is probably true,” Hera suggests.
Kanan turns to her. “Hera,” he whispers meaningfully. “He was there. How else would he…?”
She swallows, looking faintly ill. “I know. I don’t like it. It’s obviously supposed to intimidate us.”
“Well, it’s working!” their youngest charge shouts.
Ignoring him, Kanan talks to both Hera and himself. “The Second Brother must be at the top of the food chain, like the Second Sister, right under the Grand Inquisitor.”
“He probably replaced her.”
“If anyone is a threat, it’s him. The other two are…a problem, but it’s him we have to worry about, even on his own.”
Hera crosses her arms. “Kanan, we should call Cere. She has more experience than we do.”
“I don’t want to call them until we have to,” he argues, “they’ve dealt with enough darkness as is.”
“Who’s Cere?” Sabine questions loudly.
“I’m so confused,” Zeb adds. “You’ve run into Inquisitors before? And you never told us?”
The tips of Hera’s lekku twitch, exposing her discomfort. “Cere is an old friend that would be very helpful right about now. And it’s a long story, Zeb.”
“Not a fun one either.” Kanan sighs. “She didn’t want to get involved with a rebellion, Hera.”
She frowns. “This is different and you know it.”
“I don’t want—” he cuts himself off.
Her face twists into something vaguely…angry. The kids look on with wide eyes. They’ve never seen her genuinely angry at Kanan before, not like this. “You think I want reminders either? I’d be happy with a long-distance relationship with them for the rest of my life, but this is more important than bad memories.”
A poignant silence follows.
“The Second Brother wants to train Ezra!” Sabine blurts.
Hera whirls on the boy. “Did he say that?”
“No! He just said he would be ‘better equipped’ to teach me than you, which obviously isn’t true,” he rambles. “Also, he killed the Grand Inquisitor, apparently.”
“Shit.”
“Shit,” Kanan agrees. “I’m calling Cere.”