By midday, everyone was exhausted from karate training.
Ezra had re-picked up the skills from when he was younger quite quickly and Sabine adjusted to the fighting style quite quickly. Neeran was pleased with their progress in learning what she was teaching.

They'd broken up for lunch and everyone had the entire afternoon off except for Janan, Chopper, Shakkuri, Kyipen, Kanan and Ezra who Neeran was going to run Jedi training drills with in the late afternoon. 

Lunch went mostly undisturbed until a unknown and strange looking ship flew overhead.

"Gunship's back," casually said Zach.

"But something's different about it," said Neeran. "They don't normally land that close. They normally land closer to their district, just south-west of here."

Neeran headed over to where the ship was landing to see what was causing them to land so close. Though it probably wasn't a good idea to follow in most cases, many of the children followed after her to see what the commotion was all about.

Ezra had been one of the first to follow after Neeran. When the children whose curiosity had gotten the better of them had gathered around the outskirts of the clearing, they saw that it was actually a gunship from the Clone Wars era and was being piloted by clones from area where the clone troopers usually lived in their village.

"Fives, is something wrong?" asked Neeran, with a little bit of concern in her voice.

"Not really, General," said Fives.

"Fives."

"Sorry, Neeran," corrected Fives. "We just ran into a little bit of trouble."

"Good trouble? Or bad trouble?"

"Unusual, actually," said Waxer, as he, Boil and Numa exited the gunship.

"Unusual?" asked Neeran, raising an eyebrow casually.

"Only this little fella," said Echo, leading a small figure out of the ship.

The small figure was a boy who looked between the ages of 9-11, with spiky brown hair and his hands cuffed behind his back.  

Neeran knew immediately that this boy was like Chopper. Crouching down to his height, Neeran whispered, "You have the same eyes as him."

The boy looked up slightly into Neeran's eyes.
"Your name is Heero Yuy, is it not?" asked Neeran to the stoic looking, spiky brown hair preteen.  

"Yes," replied the boy name Heero, a look of concern crossing his face for the briefest of moments that everyone who wasn't paying attention missed it. 

"Fives, hold these," said Neeran, tossing him the cuffs that had been on Heero.

"Wha-" started Fives as he fumbled the cuffs.

"He removed them already," said Neeran, keeping her gaze at Fives.

"Mum! Look out!" shouted Chopper, knowing what the boy Heero was about to do.

 Neeran just simply raised her hand and caught the punch that Heero had thrown at her.

"You're not the first person to try that," said Neeran, staring straight into Heero's dark coloured eyes. "Chopper beat you to it about five and a half years ago when he tried to run away."

From where Ezra was hiding, he could see Chopper blush slightly at the mention of what he'd done all those years ago.

"Aw~," said Janan. "You do care."

"Shut up Janan!" hissed Chopper back.

"Chopper?" asked Heero.

"He's one of the boys here," replied Neeran. "He was the one who called out just before."

Neeran then looked over her shoulder and called out, "Chopper, come on over here."

Chopper emerged from the undergrowth surrounding the clearing and headed over to Neeran.

"Heero, this is Chopper, a former child soldier like yourself. Chopper, this is Heero."

Heero looked at Neeran with a slightly surprised and scared look on his face. 

"Don't worry Heero," assured Chopper. "Neeran doesn't learn secrets purposefully."

"Alright."

"Come on, I'll show you around," said Chopper, beckoning for Heero to follow him. "Everyone will want to meet you Heero. It's not often that we get newcomers."

Don't blame me for resurrecting some of the Clone troopers mentioned in this chapter. They only came back because they were my favorites from all 6 of the season and I felt so horrible when some of the died (Waxer, after I realized that a picture of Numa was on his helmet).