"Apoc Krayt ~ Luke" Claim Examined

Vestara opened herself to the Force and felt it rush into her, so dark and cold it was almost overwhelming. She had never before been to a place so strong in the Force, where it actually raised tiny bumps on her skin and made her spine crawl with excitement. None of them had, and she could tell by the precision with which even Lady Rhea drew on the Force here that they were all just a bit frightened of its strength. Of course, that did not stop anyone from actually using it. No true Sith would ever allow fear to stand between her and power. - FotJ Abyss

Luke resisted the temptation to start hurling accusations. The Font of Power was clearly a dark side nexus, and Ryontarr, at least, would understand what that meant. - FotJ Abyss

Luke's hand dropped to his hip, automatically reaching for a lightsaber that did not exist beyond shadows. He tried to continue the motion and bring it up to deliver a blast of Force energy, but Abeloth had already launched her own attack by then, delivering a bolt of Force lightning that blasted straight through the stranger into Luke. He felt himself fly backward, consumed by pain, his entire being a column of blue, crackling Force flame.

The white points at the bottom of Abeloth's eyes flared into nests of blue lightning, which kept growing larger and flashing brighter until they finally spilled out of the sockets to engulf her whole head. Luke hurled another blast of Force energy in her direction, then braced himself to take the most devastating counterattack yet. The counterattack never came.

Instead, the Force blast rocked Abeloth up on one leg, where she hung teetering over the Lake of Apparitions for a thousand heartbeats. Luke's chest was a searing ache around a fist-sized scorch hole, and his Force essence was bleeding out from a dozen smaller wounds, leaving a crescent of twinkling light spread across the dark water. He sprang anyway.

Abeloth only seemed to sag, and it appeared that she might tumble into the water in the eternity it was taking to reach her. But that would have been too easy. Luke and the Sith stranger had been hurling Force attacks at her for a lifetime-or perhaps it was a mere eyeblink-and this was the first time she had shown any reaction.

Then Luke was there at Abeloth's side, stomp-kicking her legs, knife-handing her throat, grabbing for her head. It was like cotton striking gauze-no popping ligaments or crunching cartilage, just Force essence pushing into Force essence. But the damage was done. Luke's foot went through Abeloth's knee; her leg buckled. His hand sank into her larynx, and she drew back wheezing. 

He pivoted around behind her, swinging one arm around her shoulder and grabbing for her chin, slipping the other arm up under hers and pressing his wrist into her neck. But grappling was different beyond shadows. There were no pressure points or joint locks or choke holds, only his presence merging with hers, binding him to her in a writhing knot of energy.

Tentacles began to lash at his face, probing for his nose and ears and mouth. A pair of gray tips shot into view, blurring and growing large. Luke closed both eyes and turned away, but not quickly enough. The right eye socket exploded in pain, and everything went dark on that side of his head.

The tattooed stranger stepped in from the left, then slid to the front and drove his stiffened fingers deep into the pit of Abeloth's stomach. A black spray erupted from the wound, and she writhed in pain as the stranger probed for something to grab.

Abeloth loosed a Force blast, trying to drive the stranger off. He held tight. So did Luke, and all three went tumbling across the lake in a snarled mass of limbs and tentacles.

Then Luke felt an icy twinge between his shoulder blades. The twinge became a sting, and he began to feel something cold flowing down the center of his back. His first thought was Abeloth, that she had sunk a tentacle into his spine-until the lashing of her tentacles slowed and she began to shudder.

Luke did not understand until an eternity later, when the stranger rolled up on his feet and jerked them all to a halt. The Sith seemed to be growing stronger as Abeloth grew weaker, and there were wisps of dark fume swirling off his shoulders and head. It did not take a Jedi Grand Master to understand that Luke was being betrayed by a Force-draining technique.

Still holding Abeloth tight, Luke shifted his hips, rolling them both onto their sides, and kicked a foot through the stranger's knee. The joint buckled, and the Sith dropped onto the surface of the dark water, still on the opposite side of Abeloth from Luke. 

"I'll release her!" Luke warned.

"Abeloth?" The stranger shook his head. "Never."

Despite the Sith's words, the cold stinging inside began to subside, and Luke realized the stranger was not pulling as hard. Abeloth continued to struggle, slipping a pair of tentacles around Luke's throat and trying to tear herself free. But she was growing weak faster than Luke.

then the stranger threw back his head and screamed in anguish, and it suddenly seemed that only a breath had passed. Shiny black Force energy began to pour from the Sith's wounds into the lake, spreading outward around them in an oily slick so hot the water began to steam and hiss. Still, the stranger continued to drain Abeloth, and Luke realized that he was not being betrayed-the Sith was suffering as much damage from the attack as was Luke.

Abeloth whipped her chin free of Luke's hand, ripping the energy knot where they had joined and sending a sparkling line of both of their Force essences splattering across the surface of the lake. She began to roll her head around, gnashing and spitting, trying to sink her fangs into Luke's arm or the stranger's-anything she could reach.

Luke slipped his arm down around her throat and pulled hard, merging his form into hers, doing his best to keep her under control.

"Keep going," Luke urged the stranger. "Pull harder!"

Abeloth lay tangled in Luke's arms, a writhing mass of Force energy that had suddenly gone limp a second or a day ago, only to explode an hour or a nanosecond later into a flailing tempest that had sent them all rolling and bouncing across the Lake of Apparition's dark waters. The stranger was tumbling with them, his hand still buried in Abeloth's chest, now wailing in agony as gleaming black Force energy steamed from his wounds. 

They bounced so close to the shore, Luke grew worried that Abeloth was trying to carry them away from the lake into some new place beyond shadows. And then what? His back hit the water again, and he spun them all around so that his feet were toward the shore. He planted his feet against a moss hummock and kicked off-and sent them all somersaulting back toward the center of the lake. Abeloth stopped struggling and seemed to shrink in his arms, and Luke dared to think that maybe, just maybe she had finally lost hope, that they had exhausted her to the point that she was no longer capable of fighting. 

Then she was gone, leaving the stranger and Luke with nothing between them but twenty centimeters of space and the stump of the Sith's hand, now pointed at Luke's chest and still drawing Force energy, draining it not from Abeloth now, but directly from Luke.

They stayed like that for an eternity, a void of cold nothingness growing inside Luke as the stranger continued to hang in the air above, draining him. It seemed to Luke that the Sith's betrayal was premature, that they at least ought to make certain Abeloth was truly dead before they turned to fighting each otherˇ...ˇbut that was not the way Sith did things.

Luke started to bring his hand up, intending to hit the stranger with a Force blast. But before he could loose it, the Sith's feet dropped to the water's surface, and he raised his stump and pointed toward the far end of the lake.

"There!"

Luke craned his neck and saw Abeloth's silhouette backing into the Mists of Forgetfulness-with the stranger's wrist still protruding from her chest.

"Stop her!" Luke yelled. "If she disappears into that fogˇ..."

Luke left the sentence unfinished as a fountain of oily black Force energy erupted from the protruding wrist. Abeloth's mouth gaped open, and her piercing shriek broke over the lake, reverberating across the water like a clap of thunder. Luke glanced over and saw the stranger standing beside him, pointing in her direction, using the Force to draw his missing hand back toward its stump. 

Abeloth did not come dancing in to counterattack, did not even try to stand off defensively and weaken them with a blast of Force lightning. She did not have time for such tactics. Luke doubted she would have fled the battle in the first place if she were not already dying, and with her Force essence gushing out of her like a geyser, she had to attack now. 

And she did.

In the next thought Abeloth was simply there in front of the stranger, driving a ball of tentacles deep into him. Luke sprang forward to help-and felt a blistering iciness slide deep into his own chest. His entire right side flared into cold anguish, and the tentacles began to dig and grab, tearing him apart inside in a way no lightsaber or blaster ever could. 

Luke attacked anyway, driving an elbow strike into the side of her head. As before, there was no crunching, no physical sense of impact, only Force energy plowing through Force energy, sending waves of pain and damage rolling through them both. Luke sensed his elbow come free as it pushed out the other side of Abeloth's head. Then she simply fell away, her still-balled tentacles tearing free of both Luke and the strangerˇ...ˇeach clutching a handful of dripping, pulsing Force essence.

The stranger collapsed with a gaping hole in his chest. Luke felt his own form grow limp and weak, and he sensed his mouth falling open to scream, then his whole body was falling, weak and aching for breath.

The Lake of Apparitions was neither warm nor cold, still nor roiling. It simply was, beyond time and sensation, beyond fear or desire or duty. It embodied surrender and attainment, death and immortality, and Luke had never felt more ready to slip below its dark surface and join his beloved Mara, to wrap himself in her liquid embrace and let the Depths of Eternity wash away the anguish of his wounds, the ache of his lonely despair. 

But something would not let him sink.

He lay on the water for a year or a minute, hurt and exhausted, watching Abeloth's pale form vanish. Her eyes were empty and dark, her tentacles curled into loose balls. Her golden hair was fanned about her head in a floating halo, and she did not seem to be sinking so much as merely shrinking. Luke continued to watch as she dwindled to the size of a thigh, a foot, a finger, then a mere sliver that seemed to hang below him, wavering and flickering, before it finally slipped from sight.

And still Luke did not sink. He was too weak to rise, and he could feel nothing of himself except the aching void Abeloth had torn in his chest. It occurred to him that he might well be dying, and it was not a thought that brought him any fear. Even if his life had not been as long as Yoda's, it had been a good one filled with close friends and much-loved family. He had been of some small service, at least, to his fellow sentient beings. And in the new Jedi Order, he had rekindled a light that had once gone out in the galaxy. He had few regrets for anything he had done, and if the time had come to let another Jedi carry the torch, he was ready. 

"Not yet, Skywalker."

The voice was warm and familiar, and it came from beside Luke. He turned to find Mara's face breaking the surface of the water. Then he saw a hand gripping the back of his biceps and realized that she was floating beneath him, preventing him from sinking.

"Mara, it's okay," Luke said. "I'm ready. I want to be with you."

"Too bad." He felt his upper body rising as she tried to push him upward. "I don't want to be with you-not here, not yet."

"What?" Luke asked, feeling more confused than resentful. "Mara, I'm woundedˇ...ˇbadly. Abeloth took something out of me." 

"She wounded him, too." Mara's other hand rose out of the water and pointed past Luke's head, toward the tattooed Sith who had helped Luke kill Abeloth. The stranger was on his feet, limping toward the far shore with both hands clutched to his chest. "If he can do it, so can you." 

Luke forced himself to sit upright. The effort made his head spin and his whole being ache, but he refused to collapse back into the water. He had no idea of the Sith's true identity, but it did not seem wise to let him return to the physical galaxy alone.

"That's ridiculous. Their injuries may be different." This voice came from Luke's other side, sinister and cajolingˇ...ˇand also familiar. "Besides, Sith are stronger. They have the dark side."

"Who is he?" Luke asked, turning to find Jacen looking up from the water on his other side. "You know, don't you?" 

"I told you," Jacen replied. "He's the one I saw sitting on the Throne of Balance."

"The dark man of your vision?" Luke asked. This was the best opportunity he would ever have to learn for certain why Jacen had turned to the dark side, and he was determined to take advantage of it. "The one you sacrificed yourself to stop?" 

"I saw only one," Jacen replied. "And you're letting him win."

Luke shook his head. "He can't win, Jacen. Whatever damage you caused to the Force, you accomplished that much. The Sith will never rule the galaxyˇ...ˇnot now." 

The tattooed man stopped and whirled, and Luke found himself preparing to dodge a fork of Force lightning. But the stranger was in no better shape to fight than Luke. He had a gaping wound in his chest, just like Luke, and Luke could see that his entire form was shuddering. Instead of attacking, the Sith just stood staring at them, one eye shining yellow and the other an empty socket, his right arm a useless ghost of a limb.

Then, after an eternity that might have been a mere second, he said, "You must not be so certain of yourself, Master Skywalker. You may think you have stopped the Sith, but you know nothing of usˇ...ˇnothing at all."

"I know that Jacen changed the future," Luke retorted. "And you know it, too-or you wouldn't have been here to help me fight Abeloth."

The stranger dipped his chin in acknowledgment. "There is that," he said. "But can you be sure the change will last? Perhaps Caedus did not change the future. Perhaps he only delayed it." 

Luke felt his energy and his determination come rushing back. "I guess that remains to be seen, doesn't it?"

A slow grin crept across the stranger's mouth. "Indeed it does." He turned and began to limp away. "And we shall see, Master Skywalker. I promise you that." 

Luke returned to his feet and stood watching, until the stranger finally stepped onto the shore and vanished. The man was barely gone before Jacen spoke again, this time from the water in front of Luke.

"What does Abeloth have to do with this?" Jacen asked. "She wasn't part of my vision."

Luke studied his nephew's bitter face, debating how much he should reveal about what Raynar had learned from Thuruht-whether it would be justice or cruelty to let Jacen know that he bore personal responsibility for an apocalypse.

"As I thought," Jacen sneered. "You're as much a liar as I am." 

Luke shook his head. "I'm not a liar, Jacen. You are the one who released Abeloth."

"Me?" Jacen's tone was snide, but Luke could see the shock in his eyes. He truly did not understand what he had done. "How?" 

Luke shook his head. "I'm not sure I should tell you," he said. "It would do no good."

"You expect me to believe you're protecting me?" Jacen scoffed. " Truly? Because, I assure you, I can handle the truth." 

"All right," Luke said. Jacen had already guessed what had happened, and it would only be cruel to leave him wondering if he had guessed right. "But first, you must answer a question that's been bothering me." 

"I might," Jacen said. "It doesn't hurt to ask."

"Sometimes it does," Luke said. He squatted down, then looked straight into Jacen's dead eyes. "I want to know why you didn't come to me."

"About my vision?" Jacen asked.

"About any of it. For a while, I thought it was because I was the dark man you saw on the Throne of Balance-that you were trying to take my place." Luke gestured toward the shore where the stranger had disappeared. "But if the Sith is the one you saw, that makes no sense. You didn't have to confront this alone. We could have done it together-" 

"No, we couldn't," Jacen said, shaking his head. "Because the dark man had nothing to do with my decision."

Luke frowned. "Then what did?"

"It was who I saw standing with the dark man." Jacen's gaze shifted away, and his expression grew at once very determined and very sad. "I saw Allana."

• His Force attack was the first to do damage.
  
• He more constantly attacked Abeloth in melee while Krayt would attack while Abeloth was already engaged or just hold onto her while using drain.
  
• He got in the killing blow, getting past Abeloth tentacles while Krayt was stopped and held by them.
  

• Can do meaningful damage to Abeloth in melee and with drain.
  
• Can't just be effortlessly discarded by Abeloth (though beyond shadows Luke and Krayt are evidently far more durable).
  

PeraltaEagle45 wrote:Most of this has already been debunked lol, you're just regurgitating old arguments.

PeraltaEagle45 wrote:Most of this has already been debunked lol, you're just regurgitating old arguments.

EmperorCaedus wrote:Very good post, Ant.

Tondemonai wrote:Solid post, however I question the validity of arguing Krayt was benefited by the Font of Power. If Krayt was amped by it then I’d argue Luke would likewise be amped by the Pool of Knoledge, but what little evidence there is for the Font & Pool having a tangible impact on them during the fight is flimsy on its own. Regardless the presumption overlooks that  Abeloth would similarly be amped by their presences all the same, if you can prove they have an impact on the fighters present then ALL fighters present are impacted, it doesn’t singularly apply to Krayt.

PeraltaEagle45 wrote:Most of this has already been debunked lol, you're just regurgitating old arguments.