Aang took a walk through Lothal's massive fields in the nighttime. He walked and walked and walked, until he was sure he was lost. It was only then he knew exactly where he was.

Picked from his clothes, he held a small potion of thick green liquid. 'Never thought I'd actually have to use this.' He told himself as he removed the lid. He dipped his finger inside and pulled out some of the contents, setting it on the tip of his finger. He held his hand out and pushed his finger forward, as if pushing against an invisible wall. He dragged his finger around in a circle, the green substance tracing in mid air, the finished off by dotting some obscure details inside the circle, forming a symbol.

Once finished, Aang took a pace back; the floating symbol began glowing. The symbol itself then deformed and took the shape of a door. Aang stepped through the gateway; to anyone else's eyes, it would've seemed as though Aang had vanished.

When Aang stepped through the gate, he saw a tent de-cloak itself, just sitting there in the grass. He sighed to himself, battling some second thoughts, and thought 'I'm really going through with this, huh?'

A pale hand stuck out of the tent when he finished his thought process, gesturing him inside the tent; and a feminine voice emerged from inside. "Come on in, Aang."

Aang entered the tent and took a seat on the ground near the center. He didn't see anyone inside.

"I have two guesses as to why you're here." The same voice said from behind him. Aang turned and saw the pale-skinned and tattooed witch enter the tent; she took a seat on the ground right across from Aang. Seeing her enter the tent after him confused Aang; she sensed his momentary confusion and abated it by reminding him, "I'm still practicing some tricks." She said to put him at ease. "You remember what I am, yes?"

Aang nodded as he remembered fully. "A Nightsister." Aang scoffed at himself. "It's been a long time. I'm uh, here on important business."

"You survived the rift." She replied matter of factly. "Something like that doesn't happen by accident. And now you feel compelled to take up your Jedi mantle." She sounded confident in her assumption.

"You survived it too, yes? What do you make of it?"

"Whenever it happened, I delved deeper into my practices to try determining the source. The reach of this simple magick can only go so far, so clarification eludes me. But this I know: something evil, something ancient has awoken. And the universe needs the Jedi now more than ever." The witch said, holding her hand out palm-up; she waved her other hand over it, and Aang's two lightsabers appeared from thin air.

Aang was facing a decision he never thought he'd have to make.

Another thought came to the witch's head. She pulled back the lightsabers and asked him, "What do you make of the rift? What does the Force tell you about it?"

Aang hesitated. His attachment to Lothal and his admittedly comfortable life was keeping him from picking up his lightsabers immediately and leaving it all behind; but his conscience was telling him he had a big part to play, and that he needed to take the responsibility. 'I pushed myself this far.' Aang thought to himself. Yes, part of him wanted to stay, but something made him go to the Nightsister for advice, or help. 'What did I come for?' He thought.

"I don't need to read your mind. Your stillness is telling me everything." The witch said, extending her arm and holding out the lightsabers again.

Just one more moment, and Aang made his decision. The lightsabers flew out of the witch's hand and into Aang's.

"And now, things are set in motion." The witch said. "Once you step outside, your fate will be sealed."

"What if I become lost?" Aang asked, giving his lightsabers a hard look.

"Aang, once you step outside, you will never see me again." She paused to let him understand. "But you won't be alone." The Nightsister grew tired of the pauses between words and rushed him along. "You must go, now."

Aang obeyed and slowly exited the tent. He looked upon the starlight sky and glistening dew grass of the fields for 'possibly the last time.' He thought. He looked back to see the tent again, but it had disappeared. He put a hand on his cloak where he'd kept the potion, and the vial was gone.

Aang felt the winds of change and the turn of the tide, and he knew himself that there was no turning back now. "May the Force be with me." Aang muttered with sarcastic optimism.

---

Ezra slouched in the cockpit, his face in his hand; he'd been spending time pondering the recent tragedy on Lothal. If Kanan was around, he wouldn't let Ezra stew in this loss; but the Knight's absence unknowingly left an ever growing pit of darkness within Ezra's soul. Not just Kanan's death, but something else, too. Ezra never thought about it until now; but in the time of Kanan's death, there was a strange shift in the Force. It was as if the dark side was given a sort of 'power jumpstart,' for lack of a better term.

And with Kanan gone, Hera took it upon herself to bear the burden of helping her crew in dark times such as these, to be the voice that lifted them up. She followed Ezra into the cockpit, wishing herself luck. She saw that Ezra was in pain, and clenched her heart; it pained her to see Ezra in such a state.

"Anything specific on your mind?" Hera asked.

Ezra sighed, tightly shutting his eyes. "Every time we win, the Empire always finds a way to double down. After one Inquisitor, two came; and then a third, and Vader; when we barely survived them, Thrawn came along and nearly wiped us out. Ever since Atollon, things have been at their hardest. We may not have heard from Thrawn since Atollon, but someone's been pulling the strings. The rebellion stole the Death Star plans, so now they're taking it out on Lothal."

Hera sighed. "Not just Lothal, Ezra. Remember that. Recent events considered, we may have to prepare to let Lothal go. For good." It didn't hurt Hera to say that as much as it hurt Ezra to hear it. "Things may be hectic, but we must never lose hope. I had to do the same for my home, too. I'm here with the rebellion to fight for them and be their hope."

Ezra stood up to face Hera, so abruptly that she thought she offended him. "We are hope, Hera, for the people of Lothal. If we do nothing, they won't have any, ho. . . hope. . ." Ezra trailed off as the Force sounded like an alarm inside his head. He sensed something. 'No. . . someone!' Ezra thought. He hadn't felt that kind of Force signature since he helped save the Force-sensitive children from the Inquisitors.

"Ezra?" Hera asked. "What is it?"

Ezra closed his eyes to focus on this feeling; and in an instant, he had a vision. Nothing too clear, but he could make out a figure standing in -what were obviously- Lothal's fields. He snapped out of the vision just a moment later.

"Ezra! What is it?"

His eyes opened, and it seemed as though Ezra's whole aura changed. "Hope." He answered. He looked Hera dead in the eye. "There's another Jedi on Lothal." Hera saw Ezra glow up as he reeled it in. "We can't pass this up." He said with relief.

Hera put a hand on her heart. Such a joyous and optimistic response in Ezra again reminded her so much of Kanan; she saw so much of him in Ezra, so she couldn't help but smile softly.

---

Mythus and Bando returned inside the Imperial complex while the carnage outside was being attended to.

"I applaud your methods, Roscoe," Mythus complemented, "but don't you think some survivors could've been used as leverage?" He asked as they entered Mythus's office.

"Any surviving witnesses would've been as useful to the rebellion as a ragdoll, if they wouldn't have committed suicide by then."

"But we do have witnesses." Mythus pointed out.

"Indeed." Bando realized, too. "Any Imperial with a weak stomach will -no doubt- begin to question their place in the Empire. They will band together and contact the rebels to try to rid themselves of us. Some will return here to keep a, 'useful ear' out."

"Them, we will find." Mythus stated.

"But you will do nothing. They are our only link." Bando lost his balance, fell, but propped himself up on Mythus's desk.

Mythus slightly shifted his head to the side, indicating confusion. "Roscoe?"

"Your experiment is weakening." Bando said with a struggling voice.

"Oh, we can't have that now, can we?" He gave a two finger signal to his guards. One guard sat Bando in one of the outer chairs in front of the desk, and the other pulled out a needle and injected it into Bando to put him to sleep. "We knew the experiment would be hard. You just have to push through."

---

The Ghost entered the Lothal system to an empty blockade. Naturally the crew thought it was suspicious, but Ezra insisted they press on; the interest seemed to outweigh the risk. Before they entered the atmosphere, Ezra went to his room to briefly meditate to see if he could get a better sense of the situation.

The rest of the crew seemed to think something inside Ezra changed after he saw the footage of the massacre, despite the bright optimism he shined earlier. Out of all of them, Hera knew more about the Force, which was still not too much; Ezra's conflicting behavior and Lothal's suspiciously empty airspace where a blockade would be made Hera think there was some dark work going on. She figured some dark side craft might've been clouding his judgment, but she didn't want to believe it; maybe they'd actually had some luck. She sure hoped so.

For Ezra, there was a sympathetic and an empathetic case in Sabine Wren. Witnessing the slaughter of one's own people seemed to be a common tragedy among the crew: Zeb and the Lasats, Kanan and the Jedi, Ezra and the citizens of Lothal, and Sabine and many Mandalorians (at her own fault). Sabine decided to leave the cockpit, too.

Zeb watched Sabine leave, 'Probably to go after Ezra.' He thought. He also realized the similarity between Ezra's situation and his own and suddenly felt empathetic himself. He followed suit and trailed behind Sabine to his and Ezra's room.

Sabine opened the door, and she and Zeb saw Ezra doing his thing. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but they'd find out if that was the case.

Ezra instantly spoke up. "The unease in both of your minds is very distracting."

That definitely wasn't the way of speaking they were used to hearing from Ezra. They could tell something was weighing on his mind. "Eh, how you doing, kid?" Zeb asked calmly.

"And don't even think about saying 'fine.' " Sabine added before Ezra could dodge the question.

Ezra opened his eyes and looked at them. "Oh, but I am fine. I'm as fine as I can be under these circumstances."

' 'Under these circumstances,' he said.' Zeb and Sabine thought, briefly glancing at each other with the same knowing looks.

"We know what that level of 'fine' is, so we know you're not." Sabine fought that answer.

"Look, Ezra," Zeb gestured to himself and Sabine, "we've both witnessed genocides of our own people at the hands of the Empire; and we, we didn't exactly recover too quickly."

"I'll be blunt." Sabine said. "Only Imperials wouldn't be immensely disturbed by what's happened."

"Get to the point." Ezra interrupted.

"Talk to us." Sabine said, placing a hand on his shoulder, circling her thumb around. "We're your family, Ezra. You've always helped us."

After a moment of forming words, Ezra finally replied, "Anger, leads to the dark side."

They figured that sounded like something Kanan would've said. It seemed that was Ezra's way of saying he doesn't want to get into his emotions out of fear of falling to the dark side.

"Kanan also said fear did, too." Hera spoke up from the doorway. "Something else Kanan learned was that such emotions were natural. For a time, he feared falling prey to them; do you know how he overcame them?"

"His Jedi training?" Ezra assumed naturally.

"He let himself become vulnerable. He taught that too, didn't he? As I understand it, keeping your negative emotions bottled up only makes you more susceptible to the dark side. Finding a healthy way to let it out will help you heal." Ezra remained silent, so Hera continued speaking. "Kanan also talked about how Jedi were forbidden to have relationships, because forming deep attachments would cause the fear of loss. Although he did feel such a thing at one point, what made us work wasn't his determination not to lose me, it was his determination to protect. To protect all of us. A Jedi's duty. And in succeeding-"

"He was able to deepen his attachments." Ezra finished, and then everyone noticed some emotion leaking from Ezra's eyes. Through Hera's words, Ezra could feel Kanan's presence stronger than ever. Everyone did. "His compassion strengthened his resolve."

Hera gripped Ezra's shoulder tightly. "And we will follow his example. We will not fail him, will we?" Hera asked sternly but rhetorically.

Ezra closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Thank you, Hera." His voice sounded like it was about to break.

"You know, you're wiser than you lead on." Zeb complemented.

"I'll say." Sabine added, audibly impressed.

Hera chuckled. "Well, he would rub off on you too, if you hung around him as long as I did." She answered, getting up. But there was secretly an additional, deeper reason for her advanced wisdom; a reason Ezra was currently too blind to notice. "Don't take too long; we're nearing the surface." As Hera turned and left, she place a hand upon her womb.

Sabine and Zeb stayed with Ezra in his room for a little bit.

---

Something didn't settle well with Mythus. He had observed Bando's recent behavior and very duly noted an otherwise unnoticeable decrease in hostility. He theorized that he'd only grown accustomed to Bando's carnages, but that changed when Bando nearly had an episode right in his office. It was in the following moments that Mythus had noted differences in Bando's status quo, his regime. Nothing too significant to cause worry. Only now that he thought about it, that was reason to worry. 'There would normally be much more resistance. If he's strategizing his way out-' He immediately opened his comm and called his top scientist. "Doctor, increase the dosage." Mythus said calmly.

"Yes sir. Is there a problem?"

"Let's hope not." Mythus hoped a conversation wouldn't develop; he put his comlink down, but another response rang before he turned it off and leaned himself on the nearest wall, contemplating his choices. He figured Thrawn would have an easier time concocting ideas. As that thought crossed his mind, he became bewildered; he suddenly 'had an uneasy feeling' about Thrawn, at random. He'd always admired Thrawn, but this came out of nowhere; he traced his thoughts back, and his memories led him to Thrawn's strange and mysterious disappearance after the attack on the rebel base on Atollon. No one could figure anything out, and that left unease with many Imperials even in the higher levels.

Suddenly his mind was thrown into a frenzy. He ran all the way to his office, swiped everything off his table, and activated his hologram; he began pouring through every record and status update since he was instated on Lothal. Nothing in particular stood out to him.

'This isn't the first time I started feeling this way. How long- When was the first time I started feeling this?' He thought, greatly straining and rubbing his forehead. He thought and remembered, all the way up from his first assignment.

He produced the report in question up on the hologram. 'This was it. When I-' His thoughts were interrupted by the first sentence of the report.

The Empire has granted my request and has allowed funding for my personal project that hopes to breed an unstoppable army of cloned super soldiers. I haven't been able to find any information on my test subject; but alas, it's none of my concern. My rise in the Empire's ranks begins with him.

'Bando Roscoe.'