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Ezra Bridger is probably one of the most annoying little runts Zeb had the great fortune of meeting in his lifetime, and yet that didn’t mean he wouldn’t kill or be killed if that meant no harm would befall the kit.
And trust the lasat when he says that was a quick turnaround, he wasn’t often nice to people who’ve robbed them in the past and upset him enough that he’d bodily tossed them across a room.
Then again, it was kinda hard to stay mad at kids. Especially when the kid in particular had good reasons for his behaviors. Ezra wasn’t lying when he said he had to eat…Had to survive.
Zeb understood that, knowing he’d done plenty of shady and abhorrent things all in the name of survival, and Ezra hadn’t actively hurt one of them in doing so.
So he’s alright in Zeb’s book, especially as both Kanan and Hera toppled over the child as parental figures the moment they decided Ezra would be staying with them on the Ghost.
Straightening him out so to speak, even if the kit still kept a defensive snark, born from trauma.
Zeb didn’t think Ezra would be Ezra without it, and it was quite entertaining when not aimed in his direction.
When he was, they bickered like children. Mainly as a result of Chopper’s intervention until they joined forces against the metallic threat.
It’s orange spinning dome refusing to back down from a fight, mainly ending with both he and Ezra getting shocked in some way before Hera broke them all up.
What Zeb’s trying to explain to himself is he and the kid had fun, fitting together in their odd little family unit well even if an outside eye took one look at them and didn’t understand.
They didn’t need to, and maybe Zeb didn’t either, he cared about the kid and the kid in turn worried for his well-being as well.
So when Kanan, stressed over something leaving him with a raging headache, asks the two of them to handle a shipment together, Zeb cooly agrees.
Not missing the look the younger man gives him, a look Zeb and everyone else in the crew knew all too well. It was the ‘ Watch Ezra’ look.
Chopper had one too, but currently the droid was preoccupied with whatever mission Hera and Kanan would be taking on in the meantime.
Sabine suspects the three of them had an appointment with Fulcrum, especially now that they knew their identity.
Ahsoka and Kanan had been conversing more and more about the threat of the Inquisitors, and lightsaber training together in the meantime.
Those monsters are probably the reason for the man’s more frequent stress headaches, especially after the slash they left on Ezra’s face.
Not to mention the other Inquisitor’s (Mainly Seven’s) urge to take the young boy away and indoctrinate him as their own. (Her own.)
Zeb doesn’t know how he’d fare against the Inquisitors in a genuine fight, likely not very well, but he knew if it came down to it. He’d give them hell if it kept Ezra safe.
He just hopes the Inquisitors, or anything too bad, didn’t disrupt their shipment today.
The lasat gives the man an affirmative nod, corralling Ezra towards the Ghost who is none too happy to be torn away from the little time he had to himself.
Having been reading some comic book Sabine had picked up for him, correct in her assumption that he’d like it.
What the kid saw in web-slinging Ewok, Zeb didn’t know, nor did he care; the kid could continue to read it on the Phantom.
Which Ezra does with some muttering about making him lose his place and nearly ripping the page, but is otherwise enraptured by the story once again as Zeb sets the coordinates.
Their shipment happened to be on a rather large vending planet, one he wouldn’t doubt had a few issues of Spider-Ewok.
He could bribe the teen with one in the hopes of things going smoothly. Sure the kid always got the work done but not without some dallying.
If they got the job done quickly, Zeb figured he could pick up a few things for himself - he’d been looking for augmented arrows for his bow rifle amongst other things - and Ezra normally enjoyed perusing stalls in a place he wasn’t known as a loth-rat.
It’d be fun for the both of them.
“C’mon that should be them, let’s make this quick,” Zeb instructs as they dock in the port, head motioning through the transparisteel at the ship Kanan had described.
Looking up, Ezra takes a gander at the ship and carefully dog ears his page and sets his comic down with an exaggerated sigh. Trudging on his feet with heavy shoulders down the ramp.
Zeb rolls his eyes at the kid's antics, more tired of the boy’s act than actually irritated. Zeb couldn’t say he was all too pleased to be moving around cargo for likely an hour or two at most, but it had to be done.
They had a certain way of going about these things, Zeb taking the lead with the talking and negotiations when with Ezra, Sabine, or Chopper.
Making them stand behind him until the lasat was sure about proceeding with the transaction.
Sometimes he was wrong, good liars were everywhere in the galaxy, but most of the time the call was made with the confidence that if things went wrong Zeb and whoever he was with could handle it.
The opposing crew had three members, two of which were scrawnier than the fourteen year old behind the lasat.
How they got any work done between the two of them, Zeb didn’t know, but their Captain was a trandoshan.
It was odd that their captain likely was responsible for most of the heavy lifting, poor enlistment on the Captain's part, but it made more and more sense why this shipment was going down.
This unprepared crew couldn’t go through with whatever they’d taken on, hence their intervention.
They’d still get a cut of the profits but not as much as they could have got in doing the job themselves.
He could take a trandoshan, Zeb is sure of that, and goes through with the deal.
Ezra followed his lead, mainly doing what the other man’s crewmates were doing, connecting the cables to the cargo and tying the knots.
Zeb and the trandoshan, unironically named Shan, moved the cargo together to be tied and loaded onto the lifts.
It was going quite well until it wasn’t, Zeb seconds away from taking the overflowing lifts back to the Phantom, when the familiar clicks of a blaster's safety flicks off.
The trandoshan’s runts both raised a blaster in his direction, causing the lasat to stop. Holding his hands up placatingly, ears sticking up in alert, angled back towards the trandoshan behind him, Zeb slowly turns.
Ears pushing down flat against his skull at the sight. The trandoshan had an arm wrapped around Ezra - effectively keeping the kids arms down - the other grasping a vibroblade, keeping it pressed tightly against the boy’s throat.
“Here’s what’s going to happen lasat,” Shan sneers, Ezra trying not to flinch at the grating sound next to his ear.
If the mechanism in the blade activated, Ezra knew he’d come away from this bleeding or dead.
If he or Shan made any sudden movements, it wasn’t likely Ezra was making it out of this alive. Zeb obviously noticed this, a growl held low in his throat.
“You’re going to load the cargo onto your ship, my men will follow just to make sure you don’t try to contact someone for help. Then we’ll take the cargo, the credits, and your ship - and maybe just maybe I won’t slit the boy’s throat.”
Gruffly Zeb makes a noise of agreement, knowing if he spoke it’d only be to antagonize the trandoshan which wouldn’t help the kid.
And with the blaster’s aimed on his person, the lasat didn’t have a chance at bashing their skulls in the way he wanted to.
Not quicker than they could shoot or Shan potentially slitting Ezra’s throat. He wouldn’t chance it, and places his hands firmly back on the lift, bending the handle bar in his anger.
Shan and Ezra don’t follow, Zeb knows why and it doesn’t change his plan. Having every intention of braining the two men the second they were in close quarters.
The action would still put Ezra on the line, but there was no other option apparent. Not when there was no way to call for help.
He could only hope Ezra could do some Jedi trick to mitigate the damage without outing himself.
Then again, Zeb was feeling quite murderous. If the boy did push out through the force - which still might get his throat slashed - Zeb had every intention of taking out the threat before Shan could go fibbing.
Shan’s two crewmates may resemble Ezra in build but they didn’t share his prowess with a weapon, their shots barely singe fur as Zeb swings out once in the Phantom’s confines.
Clotheslining one before his big hands managed to reach out and cup each of their skulls before bringing them together.
Repeatedly, splattering blood within the confines as their heads concaved and their bodies fell to the ground motionless.
The carnage means nothing to the lasat, in fact if anything there’s a certain pleasure in giving them a what for.
Even still, it’s not the kill he’s after as Zeb weighs his options, heading out of the Phantom through the bay door rather than the cargo hold he came in through.
Pressing the distress signal on his way out in the hopes it would get through to his crew. He couldn’t wait for them to arrive, needing to act fast, but if they could get there in the wake of the fallout, it’d be appreciated.
The sight that meets him is the same as the one he left, the only difference being the irate rage on the trandoshan’s face.
“Where are they?” Shan shrieks, the creature's signature call mixing with his words.
This time Ezra isn’t able to keep still at sound, it likely deafening his ears for the moment.
The blade nicks skin, just barely, almost as if it’d been a piece of flimsi to cut him rather than a knife.
Zeb’s ears had never cramped but they hurt with how much pressure they exerted when melding against his skull.
Furious.
“They're taking the ship like you wanted. Now give me the kid and get out of here,” Zeb instructs as if he wasn’t covered in enough blood to matt his fur.
“Give you the kid?” Shan asks incredulously, red eyes bulging from his scaly face.
“After you killed my crew? Fine!” The trandoshan snarls, pushing Ezra forward, practically into the blade.
Zeb isn’t sure if it’s shock or the way his ears are squashed flat, but the world around him seemingly slows and there’s not a sound in the air.
Ezra’s sapphire eyes open wide in shock as blood splatters out in a wave.
The side of his throat slashed as the child hits the ground, his hands flailing to cover up the wound.
Realistically Zeb should help the kid, help stop the flow because precious seconds were being wasted, and yet the lasat has no control of himself as he launches on all fours at the trandoshan.
Not letting the bastard get away, not letting him live for what he’d done to the child.
The child .
Zeb throws himself off the crippled twitching, near corpse, and rushes to the boy's side.
Tears leaking from wide eyes as strangled and wheezing gargles escaped the boy's ashen lips.
“‘Eb,” the boy whimpers, his limp hands thrusting something against the lasats chest.
His blaster…his lightsaber.
It takes much too long for Zeb to understand just what Ezra wanted him to do as his eyes began to close.
Quickly on autopilot without concern of any potential repercussions, Zeb ignited the blade sure he could do it.
His hands were steady as he pressed the blue glowing blade against the leaking wound.
Just enough to cauterize it rather than slip right through the boy's neck.
“Hang on kid, hang on,” the lasat pleads, pulling the limp twitching body into his arms.
In reality he only really needed the one, but instinct and despair had him clutching the dying child suffocatingly close.
As if Ezra could sink right through his skin and rib cage, away from the despicable galaxy entirely.
Zeb ignores the sterile lights around him, unable to even remember getting Ezra to a doctor, and continues to hold the padawan close.
He’s almost certain he managed to send out a comm to the crew with their location.
In fact his ears are still ringing with their concerned voices, voices he doesn’t think he answered.
The lasat doesn’t even really care that he worried his crew because he himself was still scared shitless as he cups the boy’s skull against his chest.
His wound had been tended, the details on how fuzzy, but for now bacta soaked gauze wrapped around the majority of the boy’s throat and was secured once around his shoulder.
An IV fed into the boy’s thigh, another in his arm, one of which being blood as the kid had lost so much.
So much it was a miracle the kid didn’t pass on the way over.
If the wound hadn’t been cauterized and the boy didn’t have experience with shock, he probably would have died the moment Zeb had lifted him into his arms.
A clatter of footsteps roars from down the hall, Zeb’s mind assuming the worst as it always did, stormtroopers, and moves to cover the downed boy more thoroughly.
Instinctually even when deeply asleep, medicated to hell, and practically drowned by fatigue, Ezra’s head rolls towards the warmth and odd yet familiar scent his mind perceived as safe.
Within the lasat’s body a rumbling, protective growl began from deep at the bottom of his lungs, pushing up until the sound was barricaded by his clenched teeth.
Daring the threat to get closer, to try and harm the kit in his care again.
Looking up, the kid carefully tucked away from prying eyes, Zeb’s ears flatten in something akin to shame and embarrassment when he realizes there was no swarm of stormtroopers for him to pummel.
In fact there was no threat at all. Just their crew, watching him warily, concern in their eyes as they try to glimpse at their fallen specter; utterly clueless as to what had taken place.
A heavy, guilty sigh releases from the lasat’s chest by no will of his own, his arm lifting in the slightest to reveal Ezra’s wan and blanketed form.
It takes all Zeb’s strength to pull away completely, to make sure no IV’s had pulled, and let Kanan and Hera get close enough to inspect Specter Six.
He knows they're going to ask as they fret over the boy’s hair and head, the gauze around the boy’s throat not going by unnoticed.
“Your contact decided he wanted it all, including the Phantom. Figued cutting the kid's throat would be enough of a distraction to pull it off.”
If the crew hadn’t already looked sickly at seeing the state of their youngest, they live up to their namesakes with how white their features go.
Kanan’s large hand carefully moves back the blanket to glimpse further at the bandaging, his peculiar brows drawn in an expectant way.
Obviously able to tell there was more to it than that.
“Kid made me use his lightsaber to cauterize the wound, it was the only way he wouldn’t bleed out.”
None of them know if it’s the tension that fact brings, Kanan, or just the force itself the permeates the room with an emotional veil. A daunting one Zeb doesn’t know how to dismiss.
Zeb hadn’t taken any pleasure in the action, surely Ezra knew he wouldn’t and knew what he was suggesting in pushing that saber forwards.
It could have gone horribly wrong, a saber dangerous in the hands of one who wasn’t force sensitive.
The crystal, even if in the hands of the “wrong” force sensitive, could affect the weight of the blade.
The lasat could have cut off the kids head and they all knew it.
He should tell them he hadn’t worried about that fact at the time since the blade had been akin to any other Zeb had handled in the past.
Meaning the crystal obviously trusted him in some way.
Whether that be because Ezra had directly passed it into his hands, or the crystal was familiar enough with him due to their close proximity, Zeb didn’t know. Nor did he really care.
But he doesn’t say it. That blade had helped him save the kids life, he refused to think about it any more than that.
If it wasn’t for Hera dotingly fixing the covers, pulling the thin piece of fabric up to the boy’s chin, Kanan probably would have tried undoing the bandages to check the severity of the additional wound Zeb had left behind.
“We saw the corpses on the Phantom,” Sabine speaks up, having been eerily quiet, pressing herself as close to the door as possible.
Feeling the need to provide cover, and to save herself from looking directly at their injured specter.
Zeb merely grunts in the affirmative, not having a thing to say about that. He’d done what he had to, and in the case of Ezra’s assaulter, he’d done what he wanted to.
There was no going back from that, and he wasn’t ashamed about it either.
“There’s another in the port,” Zeb admits, knowing Shan had been dead the minute Zeb managed to pull Ezra into his arms.
A grim yet satisfied smile pulls at his lip at that fact.
He’d pummel the bastard to death again if he could.
“If they haven’t cleaned him up yet,” he then added. Hera, Kanan, Sabine, and even Chopper can tell the body in the port definitely belonged to the one who maimed Ezra.
The lasats facial expression is telling enough.
Kanan places a comforting, protective, hand on the back of Ezra's skull, head dipping down to gently rest against the boy’s own.
The Jedi only had so much to say: “Thank you Zeb. Thank you.”