A/N: Ehh guys, turns out I made a slight mistake. The previous chapter was actually an incomplete one. If anyone had read it previously, please go and read it again. This chapter continues after that one and actually ends where the previous one does, through with more events. Date: 05 July 2025.
As an apology, you would still get the 2 chapters sanctioned for today after this one. And throw those stone boys, we are still at 15. Can't work like that!
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This wasn't just sensing. This wasn't just the Force giving me a little nudge or a tingle. This was… annihilation. Followed by violent reconstruction.
I forced myself to sit up slowly, leaning back against the cold metal crate, breathing through the nausea and the lingering terror. My mind raced, trying to categorize the impossible.
Force Sense? Was this what Jedi felt? This all-consuming, self-destroying immersion? This terrifying loss of individuality? It felt… broken. Wrong. Like using a fusion reactor to power a glowrod. The sheer intensity, the dissolution… no.
The sheer intensity, the dissolution… no. This wasn't just Force Sense. It felt… broken. Wrong. Like using a lightsaber to butter toast – ludicrously overpowered for the basic task.
Okay, Alex, think. What did you know about the Force? Beyond the movies, the shows, the games… anything. Jedi 101: Force Sense was basic. Padawan stuff. Feeling the living things around you, getting a vibe for danger, maybe sensing hidden stuff through walls. Obi-Wan feeling Alderaan's destruction? Big scale, but still feeling. Kanan using it to "see" when blinded? Yeah, sensing spatial relationships, obstacles, living presences.
But this? This was… becoming the concrete. Feeling the dust motes. Knowing the temperature gradient in the air. Sensing the vibration of the datapad's hum through the fabric of reality itself? That wasn't sensing your environment. That was being your environment, down to the molecular buzz.
It wasn't just perceiving the Force; it was violently merging with the physical world it flowed through, dissolving the barrier between "me" and "not-me" in a way that felt less like enlightenment and more like existential deletion.
No Jedi tutorial ever mentioned screaming internally as you became one with the floor grime. No Sith holocron boasted about the sheer, pants-wetting terror of nearly vanishing into the background hum of a basement. Forget detecting hidden enemies – with this, I could probably tell you the exact mineral composition of the wall, or count the individual threads in a burlap sack from across the room.Okay, maybe not the former one, that was still quite a bit more than my ability.
Like even if I could feel things, things didn't come with a label of what they were. A metal composite didn't knew it was made of what consistuents. Maybe if I if tried feeling and remembering the feel of every element, maybe then I could do that, but meh, I had better jobs to do than that. A spectrometer could do the job better anyways.
The main thing was, It was a sensory organ I didn't know I had suddenly ripped open and exposed to raw reality, cranked up to eleven. Broken? Maybe. Stupidly overpowered? Absolutely. But what was it?
I racked my brain. Force Sight? That usually meant visions, futures, pasts. Not this hyper-localized, physical immersion. Psychometry? Touching objects to see echoes? This wasn't echoes; this was live sensory takeover. Some obscure Legends ability? Maybe. But without a holocron, a ghostly Qui-Gon, or even a grumpy old hermit to ask, I was stuck theorizing in the dark. Literally.
Frustration gnawed at me. Okay, maybe the first time was a fluke, a weird surge. Gotta try again. Control it. Channel it. Be the Zen master, not the screaming dust mote.
For the next… however long (days blurred), I sat. And sat. And sat. Cross-legged on the cold floor, back against a crate of space-potatoes (which, let me tell you, is not a comfortable meditation cushion), eyes closed, breathing like I was trying to win a "Most Serene Basement Dweller" contest.
"Empty mind… feel the Force… be one with the… ugh, my butt's asleep."
I'd chase that fleeting feeling. Sometimes, for a split second, the world would shift. The boundaries would soften. I'd get a flash of the crate's coolness against my back, the rough texture of the floor beneath me, the air currents shifting – all simultaneously, internally mapped. Then poof. Gone. Like trying to catch smoke with my bare hands.
Other times? Nothing. Zilch. Nada. Just the familiar chorus of hunger pangs, cold toes, and the profound boredom of being trapped in a hole with only your own (confused) thoughts and a dwindling stash of chalky food.
The momentary bursts were maddening. Teases. Proof the ability was there, lurking under the surface like a scared loth-cat, but utterly refusing to come out and play nicely. Each failed attempt cranked the frustration dial higher. My tiny fists would clench.
I'd grit my teeth (which felt weird in a kid's mouth). Meditation wasn't calming me down; it was turning me into a tiny, irritable pressure cooker.
"Okay, screw this," I muttered aloud on what felt like the tenth failed-sit of the day. My voice echoed slightly in the cramped space. "Sitting on my ass in the dark isn't working. I'm just getting more pissed off and probably developing a permanent dent in my tailbone from this damn floor."
Hyperfocusing wasn't the solution. It was making things worse. I needed… air. Movement. A change of scenery. Even if that "scenery" was just the ransacked ruins of Ezra's former home, one floor up. It was time. Adventure time. Sort of. More like "Desperately Need To Not Go Stir-Crazy In This Hole" time.
I waited. Patiently. Ish. Until the faint sliver of light bleeding through the floorboards above dimmed, then vanished completely. Night. Or at least, deep dusk on Lothal. The safest time to peek.
Heart suddenly thumping against my ribs like a scared bird, I crept to the hidden panel – the one Mira and Ephraim had slammed shut over Ezra. My small fingers found the cleverly disguised release catch Ezra's memory supplied. It took a bit of fumbling – coordination in a seven-year-old body was still a work in progress – but finally, with a soft snick, the catch released.
I pushed upwards, slowly, millimeter by millimeter. The panel was heavy. Dust rained down, making me want to sneeze. I held it. Just a crack. Just enough to see.
One green eye pressed to the narrow opening.
The sight was a scene to behold.
The room above was frozen in a moment of violent chaos. Overturned furniture lay like slain beasts. Cushions had been slashed open, their fluffy guts spilling onto the dusty floor. Shattered datapads and broken crockery littered the space like morbid confetti.
A table leg was snapped clean off. The Empire hadn't just searched this place. They'd gutted it. Raged through it. Taken their fury at not finding Ezra out on everything his parents owned.
But the thick layer of undisturbed dust blanketing the wreckage… that told a different story. It shimmered faintly in the starlight filtering through a cracked window. No boot prints disturbed its smooth surface. No hand had touched anything in here for days. Maybe weeks. They hadn't been back. The trap was cold.
I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding. It misted slightly in the cool air drifting down from above. Safe. For now. The ruined room wasn't welcoming, but it was a space bigger than the cellar. A space with stale air that wasn't my stale air. A change.
Time to explore my new, incredibly depressing, front yard. Carefully.
Yeah, so turns out there wasn't much left upstairs worth taking. The Imps had done a pretty thorough job looting the place, but hey, I managed to snag a few things they'd missed—some boxes of cookies (score!), salt, spices (because let's be real, space-potatoes taste like wet cardboard without them), and a couple of ratty blankets. Oh, and a bar of soap, because wow did I smell like a bantha's armpit after days in that cellar.
I was this close to risking a quick sponge bath when—thud. Footsteps. Heavy. Imperial-issue boot heavy.
Nope. Nope nope nope.
I booked it back to the trapdoor so fast I nearly face-planted into the floor. The panel clicked shut behind me, sealing me back into my glorified storage closet. The Bridgers had prepped this place good—rations, water, tools, even a tiny portable fresher unit crammed in the corner. Prepper paradise. Too bad their whole "hide our kid here if things go bad" plan didn't account for said kid being body-snatched by some random dude from another universe.
I let out a dry laugh. "Sorry, Ezra," I muttered. "Guess you got screwed twice, huh?"
The guilt hit me then. Not just "oh no, I survived and they didn't" guilt. More like… I'd straight-up stolen this kid's life. His body, his memories, his parents. And yeah, it wasn't like I asked for this, but here I was, squatting in his existence like some kind of cosmic freeloader.
And the worst part? I wasn't even some badass protagonist. I was just Alex—some guy who used to yell at video games and eat cold pizza for breakfast. Now I was supposed to… what? Be a Jedi? Save the galaxy? All while stuck in the body of a seven-year-old who couldn't even reach the top shelf?
I flicked through the datapad again, scrolling past Imperial propaganda like "Mining Quotas: Good, Actually!" and "Curfews Keep You Safe!" Still no mention of the Bridgers. Nothing. Like they'd just… vanished.
But one name kept popping up—Governor Ryder Azadi. The forums were split on him. Some called him a rebel sympathizer, others said he was just playing nice with the Empire to keep Lothal from getting glassed. Either way, the Imps were clearly keeping an eye on him.
A thought started forming. In the show, Azadi had helped the Bridgers. If he was still around, still on their side… maybe he was my way out of this mess. My ticket to finding Mira and Ephraim.
If they're even alive.
I shoved that thought down hard. They had to be alive.
The datapad's glow made the shadows in the cellar stretch weirdly. Eight years. That's how long I had to wait before the Ghost crew showed up in canon. Eight years of hiding in basements and eating sad potato paste while the galaxy moved on without me.
Yeah… no.
I wasn't gonna be that kid—the one who cowers in the dark until the plot decides to rescue him. If I was stuck being Ezra Bridger now? Fine. But I wasn't waiting around for Kanan to show up and play hero.
I'd get strong. I'd learn the Force—even if it tried to dissolve me into the floor every time I used it. And when the time came?
I'd save myself.
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Next chapter coming in hot in half an hour. hold on!