Star Wars Rebels: A Gray Tale

Cold.

That was the first thing I noticed. Not the brisk, refreshing kind—like opening the fridge at 2 AM to scavenge for leftovers. No, this was the kind of cold that burrowed into your bones, like the universe had tossed you in a freezer and forgotten you were there.

My face was mashed against something rough—concrete, maybe—and the smell hit me all at once: dust, rotting vegetables, that rancid funk of a place that hadn't seen sunlight in years. Classy. And of course, my cheek was wet. Fantastic. I'd been drooling. A brilliant start.

I tried to move, but my arms just flopped uselessly. Noodle limbs. My head throbbed like a drumline had set up shop inside my skull. Great. Either I'd gone on a legendary bender, or someone had roofied me with something industrial-grade.

I forced one eye open. Pitch black. Immediate regret. My headache flared up, offended I'd dared to exist.

Then—BAM.

Memories. Not mine. Someone else's life detonating inside my skull, a whole existence compressed into seconds like a movie downloaded at 1000x speed.

A woman's laugh. Dark hair, warm smile. Mira.

A man lifting me into the air, his beard scratching my cheek. Ephraim.

The tang of something sweet—meiloorun fruit.

Frustration as tiny fingers fumbled with a broken datapad.

Flashes of childhood: first steps, scraped knees, learning to read letters that shouldn't make sense but somehow did. Seven years of memories dumped into my brain like a psychic trash bag.

And then came the last memory. The worst one.

Shouting. Boots pounding overhead. Mira and Ephraim shoving me—no, shoving Ezra—into a hidden compartment beneath the floorboards.

"Stay here, Ezra. Be quiet, no matter what you hear. We love you."

The panel slammed shut. Darkness. Screams. A door splintering. A cold, mechanical voice barking orders.

Then… silence.

The memory vanished as abruptly as it had come. My heart was racing, but the panic felt… borrowed. Like someone else's fear was echoing inside me.

I lay there, trying to process.

Ezra.

Ezra Bridger.

As in Star Wars Rebels Ezra Bridger.

As in orphaned-by-space-fascists Ezra Bridger.

As in oh holy crap, I was in Star Wars—and I was a seven-year-old Ezra Bridger.

I groaned. "You've gotta be space-kidding me."

My voice was too high. My hands were too small. I wiggled my fingers, just to be sure. Yep. Definitely a kid.

So. Let's recap:

I, Alex (RIP), had somehow woken up in Ezra Bridger's body.I had his memories, but they were spotty, like a bad Wi-Fi connection.His parents had just been space-napped by the Empire.I was currently hiding in a basement like the discount protagonist of a horror movie.Oh—and I was in Star Wars.

Cool. Coolcoolcool.

This was fine.

I took a deep breath. Okay. First things first—was this an isekai situation? Because if so, where was my cheat skill? My overpowered system? My tutorial NPC?

I cleared my throat. "…System?"

Nothing.

"Status?"

Silence.

"Inventory? Skill tree? Golden Finger?"

Nada.

I slumped. Great. So no game mechanics. Just me, a traumatized kid's body, and a galaxy full of space fascists.

Wait.

Wait a damn fucking moment!

This was Star Wars. If there was no system… there was still the Force.

How the fuck could I even forget about this so very important thing? That was supposed to be Ezra's whole deal.

The big cosmic cheat code. The thing that made him special...through that guy wasted the gift by not tapping the cheeks of Sabine.

That aside!! This was a cheat skill if I ever heard one.

The deus ex machina that is going to make me go UNLIMITED POWER bwahahaha...

...

...

Now… how the hell did I use it?

I held out my hand—tiny, grubby, and distinctly un-magical—and willed something to happen. A spark. A tingle. A whisper from the universe telling me I wasn't completely screwed.

Nothing.

Okay, maybe I was doing it wrong. Jedi stuff was all about peace and serenity, right? Deep breaths. Empty mind.

Be one with the Force or whatever.

I closed my eyes and tried to meditate.

In. Out. In. Out.

My stomach growled like a rancor.

I groaned. Seriously?

Fine. If calm wasn't working, maybe sheer frustration would. I dug through my (our?) memories for something raw, something angry. Ezra's parents being taken was the obvious choice, but weirdly, it didn't hit hard enough. It was sad, sure, but it wasn't mine.

So, Earth memories it was. I thought about that one time I lost a ranked match because my teammate decided to "test" if he could throw a grenade straight up and catch it. (Spoiler: He couldn't.) The sheer, unbridled rage of that moment flooded back, hot and acidic. I grabbed that feeling and pushed, like trying to shove a door open with my mind.

Still nothing.

I slumped against the wall, the weight of reality crashing down.

No system. No Force powers. No OP cheat skills. Not even a snarky AI to mock my terrible life choices. Just a seven-year-old body, a head full of someone else's tragic backstory, and a front-row seat to Space Fascism: The Home Game. I'd read about guys getting reincarnated as slimes, as swords, even as sentient vending machines, and every single one of them had a better starting kit than this.

The silence in the basements suddenly felt heavier. Like the air itself was pressing down on me. The lump in my throat grew until it felt like I'd swallowed a rock. That borrowed sadness from Ezra's memories didn't feel so borrowed anymore. It mixed with my own panic, turning into something thick and suffocating. The darkness felt like it was a living thing, wrapping around me like a musty, wet blanket.

For one humiliating second, the seven-year-old instincts kicked in. I wanted to curl up and cry for parents who weren't even mine.

I choked it down. Hard.

Alright, Alex. Get it together. Crying in a basement wasn't a survival strategy. Time to think.

First, the good news: I was in a hiding spot. A good one. Built to keep a kid safe from stormtroopers. That meant it was secure. Probably had a way out, too, if Ezra's parents were smart. (And they were. They had to be.)

Now, the bad news: I was seven. Weak. Tiny. My reach was pathetic, my strength nonexistent. I couldn't win a fight with a loth-cat, let alone a stormtrooper. This wasn't the kind of body you used to overthrow an empire.

And then, the worst news: Lothal wasn't just some backwater. It was a backwater with a deadline. The Sienar factory, the TIE Defender project, Thrawn's whole military science fair—this place was about to become a warzone.

But the real nut-punch?

The Ghost crew. Kanan. Hera. Sabine. They didn't find Ezra as a scared kid hiding in a basement. They found him as a cocky teenager, living in that dumb comm tower.

How old was he then? Fifteen?

I had to survive eight years before the plot even kicked off.

My head thumped back against the cold wall behind me. A dull ache bloomed where it connected.

Well.

This was going to suck. Hard.

For a long, stupid moment, my brain just… stalled. Eight years. The number bounced around inside my skull like a loose bolt in a junk speeder. Eight years of what? Scrounging? Hiding? Eating nothing but space-potatoes until I actually turned into one?

That sharp panic tried to surge again. Acidic and familiar.

But something stronger smothered it instantly. Pure, bone-deep exhaustion.

Turns out, freaking out takes energy. And right now? My tank was bone dry. Empty.

I dragged in a shaky breath. Okay. Screaming into the void wasn't getting me anywhere. Time to figure out what "anywhere" even looked like.

First priority: light. Fumbling around like a doomed extra in a cheap horror holo wasn't helping. My hands – still weirdly small, still unsettlingly not mine – patted across the rough floor. Cold stone, grit… then smooth, cool metal.

A glowrod. The name popped into my head courtesy of Ezra's leftover memories. No question needed. My thumb found the switch.

Flick-hiss.

Pale, sterile light flooded the cramped space. Harsh after the endless, suffocating dark.

I blinked, letting my eyes adjust.

This cellar wasn't just a hole in the ground. Crates lined one wall, stacked neat and military-tight. Bulky water canisters stood guard beside them. Dented, but solid. And those lumpy sacks? Yep. Space-potatoes. Probably some dubious vegetables too.

A lot of them.

This wasn't a hideout. It was a fortress. A stockpile meant to last. Someone had planned for the absolute worst long haul.

My gaze snagged on the datapad. It sat perched on one of the smaller crates, deliberate. Like a goodbye note left on a pillow.

It felt heavier than it looked in my hands. The screen was smudged. Tiny fingerprints everywhere – Ezra's, probably. I hit the power button.

The lock screen loaded.

Mira and Ephraim. Smiling. Bright. A gap-toothed Ezra squeezed between them like the world's happiest, most oblivious sandwich.

That phantom grief twisted, sharp and sudden. I swiped the image away fast. Before it could sink its hooks in.

The home screen was a mess of Aurebesh icons. Ezra's patchy memories let me sort of decipher it. Like reading a language I'd half-learned years ago and mostly forgotten. News feeds. Technical manuals. Some puzzle games – probably kid-distraction tools.

I tapped the news feed. It loaded slow, grinding. Headlines popped up:

IMPERIAL CURFEW ENFORCED IN CAPITOL DISTRICT

SIENAR FLEET SYSTEMS ANNOUNCES EXPANSION

REBEL SYMPATHIZERS APPREHENDED IN DAWN VALLEY

The last one… yeah. My stomach did an unpleasant flip. No names listed. But.

Yeah.

I swiped back to the home screen. Didn't need to dwell on that right now. Next, the manuals. Dry, technical jargon about broadcast equipment. Handwritten notes crammed the margins. Ephraim's work? Likely.

Then I spotted it. Tucked between a calculator app and what looked suspiciously like a recipe for nutrient paste sludge.

A file labeled: E.B. - PERSONAL.

I stared at the glowing text.

…Right.

Subtle. Real subtle.

Curiosity won. I tapped the folder before my brain could start overthinking.

The screen filled instantly with thumbnails. Images. Videos. Audio files. A whole life crammed into digital scraps.

The first picture loaded.

Baby Ezra. Wide, curious green eyes. Swaddled in a blanket covered in tiny, stitched Loth-cats. His chubby fist gripped Mira's sleeve. She grinned down at him, dark hair messy like she'd just rolled out of bed. Pure, exhausted joy.

The timestamp glared up: seven years ago.

His first birthday. Our first birthday.

I swiped.

Ezra, maybe three years old. Perched high on Ephraim's shoulders. Both of them laughing, really laughing, as they ran through a field of golden grass taller than the kid.

Next swipe. Ezra at five. Covered head-to-toe in dark grease smudges. Proudly holding up the guts of a dismantled comm unit. Behind him, Mira shook her head. But even through the grainy image, you could see the fondness in her eyes.

Another swipe. Ezra last month. Caught mid-scowl. Ephraim ruffling his hair. The datapad froze the exact second before Ezra ducked away. Annoyed kid face perfected.

It felt… weird. Like watching someone else's home videos. Worse. Like remembering them. A hollow ache opened up deep in my chest. Heavy and familiar, but not entirely mine. Borrowed grief.

Then I saw the recordings section.

Dozens of files. Dates and clipped titles. Mostly broadcasts: FREEDOM_RADIO_EP17, FREEDOM_RADIO_EP42. On and on. I tapped the most recent one.

Static crackled. Then Ephraim's voice filled the tiny cellar. Warm, but worn thin. Tired.

"—coming to you live. Or as live as we can manage these days. Broadcasting from somewhere the Empire would really love to find." A dry, humorless chuckle. "Tonight's topic? That shiny new 'tax relief' bill for the Lothal sector. Let's cut through the bantha fodder and talk about what 'relief' actually means when the Empire says it—"

I skipped forward after a minute. Had to admit, the guy knew his stuff. Clear, sharp analysis.

Another recording. Ephraim again, fiercer this time: "…and that's why, Lothal, we stand together. Or we fall apart. They want our resources? Fine. They want our labor? They take it. But our silence? Our spirit? That's ours. They don't get our loyalty. We are Lothal. We won't be broken."

Good speech. Passionate. The kind of thing that makes you believe, for a second, that words and a couple of jury-rigged transmitters can stand against a star-spanning war machine.

I sampled a few more. Mira's voice, calmer, methodical. Ephraim's fire. They detailed Imperial exploitation – the mines, the forced labor, families ripped from their homes. They talked resistance. Hope. Holding onto who you are.

Part of me listened for clues. A hidden message about their arrest. Where they might be now. Anything useful.

Another part? Just… listened. Their voices were a strange kind of balm. Ridiculous, right? I'm a grown adult crammed into a kid's skin. A total stranger crashing someone else's disaster. Yet… hearing them? It settled something. A deep, unexpected familiarity. Maybe Ezra's leftover wiring in this brain, still resonating.

I kept scrolling. Past the neatly labeled broadcasts. Down towards older files.

One entry snagged my eye. Dated a full year before the others. The filename wasn't a title. Just a string of numbers: 73011.4a. No stylized Loth-cat icon like the broadcasts. Just a plain, generic recording symbol.

A personal log?

Curiosity – that annoying little glitch that always gets me into trouble – flickered. Bright and insistent. It won.

I tapped the file.

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A/N: Hi Guys! I bring forward my best creation to date, an deeply thought out methodological tale set in Star Wars Universe. As per my plan, while the name of book is Star War Rebels Story, I am a schizophrenic(jk!), this story is going to involve every media of star wars created. Every Series, games and movies that can chronologically fit in the timeline is going to happen. 

One Small Leaks for After Story

That aside, currently this is the prequel to the main story, that is before the canon events of Rebels start happening, and also before MC gets himself involved in galactic matters.

Originally I had been planning to wrap up the start in 20-30k chapters before doing an big time skip to start up the Rebels Events, but once I had started writing, I realized that If I want to really show how an actual character would behave if left in a galaxy far far away, he wouldn't be sitting on his ass for canon events to start 8 years in future. 

8 years a damn long time for a person who had been adult in last life, and the events of that time need to be expanded upon to show the true personality and traits of main character. 

Additonally when given force sensitivity, no matter how strong or weak, a person is gonna tinker with it, especially the type of guy mc is. This prequel is going to chronicle the journey that he would be taking. I won't lie, there would definetly be time skips ahead, long ones too, as I too see how boring it would be to write up story of 8 years without getting cannon involved, but trust the process my brothers and sisters, this is going to be a epic journey.

And trust me not to drop this, because I just can't drop this, even if I want to. Why? Cuz I have already written the full damn book (i am talking about prequel part, so thats 100k word around) and I am writing the main story already. 

Spoilers for those who want to peak ahead in the comments. (Don't worry, it won't spoil the story, I am just going to tell you which star war canon event would begin the galactic adventures of MC)

Give me your votes, give me your stones. I am hungry for it this time. 

Current Milestone is 100 stone for bonus chapter.