★ Top Fifteen Tournament #5 - Anakin Skywalker / Darth Krayt

The Ellimist wrote:Here to address (with heavy skepticism) the notion that Apocalypse shows Krayt has some sort of parity with Luke from an in-universe standpoint.

Note: Abeloth's Planet is a nexus.

Of course, the Font of Power and Pool of Knowledge are perhaps the strongest nexuses in the galaxy - and the planet as a whole is an extremely powerful dark side nexus:

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

Does this nexus also exist in the corresponding mirror place Beyond Shadows? Well, everything else corresponds - the physical location, bodies, etc. - and Luke can feel the Font and Pool Beyond Shadows:

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

So the preponderance of evidence suggests "yes", though there is admittedly reasonable doubt.

Therefore, Krayt is potentially drawing on a hilariously powerful dark side nexus throughout the fight, and may have also been drawing on the Font and Pool.

Note: Is Beyond Shadows Krayt relative to Krayt Reborn?

How do we compare the potencies of different characters beyond shadows?

They're using their spirit bodies - which may very well depend more on potential - and many conventional physical limitations don't apply. Krayt doesn't have his Vong implants beyond shadows, for example. While Krayt Reborn is "more powerful than ever", do we know by how much he's relatively more powerful than his spirit version vs. other characters beyond shadows? Is it enough to make up for an extremely powerful dark side nexus?

Fight Analysis

Preface: it should be noted that Luke had just been fighting Abeloth and numerous Sith earlier in the book, and was constantly injured for most of the FotJ series.

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.

So far, this tells us very little. Abeloth's bolt of lightning can penetrate Krayt and do lots of damage to Luke - that doesn't put any upper or lower limits on either character except "can't tank Abeloth's lightning".

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.

Luke's attack is the first one to do meaningful damage. This could, of course, just be a coincidence - but it shifts the preponderance of evidence marginally in Luke's favor.

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.

After Abeloth gets rocked, Luke is the first one to get to her in melee. Krayt then comes in from the side while Abeloth is occupied, and to his credit does damage. Was Luke faster than Krayt? Was he closer to her? Did Krayt wait for Luke to take the brunt of the damage? All three answers would weaken the "Krayt ~ Luke" argument for various reasons; the first is obvious, and the latter two would call into question the "Krayt took comparable damage!" claim that we'll address later.

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.

So Krayt can hold onto Abeloth while she Force blasts her - impressive, though hardly indicative of parity to Luke or a direct comparison to Luke given that Luke had held onto and grappled with Abeloth on numerous occasions. The range of "can hold onto Abeloth" isn't so small and precise as to say that Luke and Krayt are on the same tier; it just establishes a lower limit. Maybe if Krayt had been standing alone against Abeloth and Abeloth couldn't blast him off, there'd be more of a question.

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.

The draining seemed to continue for days;

Krayt can hurt Abeloth with Force drain over an extended period of time - while this is extremely impressive as its own feat, it hardly does anything regarding parity to Luke, since Luke severely injures Abeloth on numerous occasions without using any dark side draining techniques.

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.

So Krayt's Force drain can be roughly considered a wash in terms of whether it damages Krayt or Luke more. Luke is also grappling more heavily with Abeloth though.

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!"

Not much here.

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.

Not much here.

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.

Abeloth attacks both Luke and Krayt, but Luke is the one who gets through and delivers the killing blow. Of course, you could argue that this was just coincidental; maybe Abeloth hit Krayt harder and Luke had starting momentum, etc. But it once again gives more preponderance of evidence to Luke, if inconclusively.

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.

Krayt seems to collapse sooner than Luke, but maybe it's because Abeloth had just attacked him first.

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."

While it's true that Luke was severely injured from the fight, that he was apparently about to die was primarily a product of mindset, as the bolded line shows. 

"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."

Not much here - Luke's apparent willingness to die was psychological, and would not apply to Krayt. Jacen's quip is obviously not meant to be an honest analysis of their relative power levels (or else Caedus himself would've been stronger than Luke).

"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?"

The bolded part provides more evidence that Luke's near death state was heavily psychological.

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."

Luke then seems to talk to Jacen just fine. He was still heavily injured, of course, but still functional.

What does this tell us?

There seems to be some indication that (starting-injured) Luke did better:

• 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.
  

It's far from impossible to rationalize those away though - the first could've been a coincidence, the second could've been a greater emphasis on Luke's actions due to it being from his PoV and/or just a difference in strategy, and the third could've just been Abeloth attacking Krayt first and having to divert lesser focus to Luke's attack after. But if you had to pick, you'd pick Luke as the stronger combatant, with Krayt's main contribution being a dark side technique that Luke obviously wouldn't use.

Did Luke and Krayt suffer comparable injuries?

Abeloth's first and final attacks seemed to have hit both Luke and Krayt in similar ways. Krayt's drain roughly hurt Luke and Krayt equally. Luke was grappling more directly with Abeloth. So in terms of who would've been in a position to take more damage given comparable stats, it would be a moderate leaning to Luke.

But were their injuries comparable? It's unclear. While Luke seemed closer to death initially, the text makes it clear that this is due to his desire to join Mara. When he decides that he needs to stay alive, he is suddenly much less on death's doorstep. You can make the case that Krayt collapsed sooner than Luke, but that's also potentially contextual. Some have also noted that Luke's real body was borderline brain dead...but 1) he was strapped in with nearly no attention while Jaina was dogfighting Ship, and 2) his vitals improved when Luke's determination came back.

Both were severely injured (and Luke already before the fight began), but that's a very wide gap - if Qui Gon and TPM Obi Wan were both shot in the leg by a blaster, both may appear really injured, but just by looking at a description of their injuries you wouldn't be able to tell who was stronger.

Ambiguity =/= parity

The uncertainty here is not in the form of "well, it looks like they're comparable in power", but rather "we don't know because there weren't many side-by-side comparisons". If there were no other evidence at all, you'd likely default that Luke and (nexus-amped?) Krayt were comparable, with Luke having a moderate advantage, but that's like a default answer with huge uncertainty. It's like if Yoda and Obi Wan dueled for 6 seconds, and in those 6 seconds you had no more information than to assume that they were comparable with Yoda having a moderate advantage.

If we instead look at other evidence...well, it's not even close, is it? While I agree that Krayt has some impressive feats, they are not a match for Luke's. Krayt didn't no-sell the telekinesis of a being with the combined potential of trillions of beings by becoming an "immovable object" and then ragdoll said being, nor did he fight through thousands of Vong, casually pin Caedus to a chair with TK, or defeat DE Sidious in a duel. So just as how from a 6 second duel we wouldn't conclude that Yoda ~ Obi Wan, from Apocalypse we can't conclude that (nexus-amped?) Krayt ~ Luke.

What does it establish for Krayt?

We do know that (nexus-amped?) Krayt:

• 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).
  

These are impressive feats, but don't really establish any sort of comparison with Luke, except that Luke probably can't just ragdoll him in a fight.

You can try to say that authorial intent suggests parity; I highly doubt that (Luke's position as the most powerful conventional Force user seems to be fairly consistent TUF and onwards given general OOU awareness of his Skywalker potential, even if authors don't always write the gaps to be vs. debate scaling-tier consistent), but that's beyond the scope of this blog. While I don't completely dismiss authorial intent, I do not heavily factor it into my methodology unless if it's extremely consistent across numerous writers, or if it's Lucas himself (in which I take it far more heavily, but not infallibly). 

I am glad to hear people's opinions and thoughts on the matter.

• Abeloth's planet, where the battle takes place, is an extremely powerful dark side nexus. (And the dark side energies of the Font and Pool can be felt Beyond Shadows, so there's no reason to assume that Abeloth's Planet can't be)
  
• Luke had just fought through literal armies of Sith and then Abeloth herself earlier in the book before going to fight Abeloth Beyond Shadows with no apparent medical treatment. This is after a multi-book run of constantly fighting Abeloth and Sith squads, many times at near-death states. Krayt, meanwhile, appears with no apparent recent battles.
  

ILS wrote:Secondly. I always assumed that when Krayt pulled his arm out of Abeloth, it was simply the open wound causing her essence to spill everywhere that was important... but Krayt being able to drive his arm so deeply into Abeloth "grabbing for anything he could find" (to paraphrase), cause huge internal trauma, and then TK rip his arm out to make the wound mortal is... staggering.

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. 

...

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.

1. Penetrates Abeloth's flesh (while Abeloth is preoccupied wrestling Luke - a common theme). Star Wars isn't DBZ where this would be really impressive - there's no precedence for it being that incredible to penetrate someone's flesh. Luke was lighting up Abeloth earlier in the novel with a blaster pistol. One might reply with the argument with Beyond Shadows spirits being different, but the onus would then be on them to establish the difference if they're making the active argument for Krayt having relativity; if anything, Luke does more physical penetration to Abeloth Beyond Shadows than he typically did in person.
   
2. Doing lots of damage once his hand is inside Abeloth. Um, if your hand is literally in someone's guts, it's not that hard to do lots of damage even if you're far weaker than them. You might say that Beyond Shadows is different, but again, that would require elaboration - what's so difficult about grabbing that essence stuff once your hand is inside? Is the essence being glued together with some sort of Force barrier proportional to their power? Based on what?
   

Consider this: Krayt and Luke both pummelled Abeloth with TK blasts. Luke hit her with about a dozen or so punches and kicks. Abeloth blasted a hole through both their chests with lightning. None of those wounds caused enough damage to inflict mortal injury even though some of them penetrated her spirit body fully.

Luke merged his essence with Abeloth in an "energy knot" to keep her still, which is full penetration, but that didn't mortally wound either of them. So we know that unlike the physical world, telefragging your enemy does not mutilate them.

In contrast, Krayt drove his arm deep into Abeloth, but what is more important is the damage he caused while inside her: when he ripped his amputated arm free, a geyser of essence poured out. I think its clear that he caused an insane amount of ripping damage inside her. He created lots of energy knots and ripped them apart, and then all that was needed was to rip his arm out to finish the wound.

I assert that physical attacks and Force attacks Beyond Shadows are synonymous,

So Krayts attack potency contributed likely over 50% of the sheer damage needed to kill Abeloth and her avatars.

• Luke's TK attack was the first attack to do any damage to Abeloth. Luke then immediately engaged Abeloth in melee while Krayt came in from the side later.
  
• Abeloth's final tentacle assault on both of them stopped and restrained Krayt; it is Luke that forced his way through said attack and dealt the killing blow.
  

ILS wrote:Then Luke (and presumably Krayt, although the fight is from Luke's perspective so we do not always see what Krayt is doing) hits her with an elbow which is enough to finish her off.

ILS wrote:Yeah I got mixed up with Workaan and Viun. Here are the tweets:

ILS wrote:The fighters are basically just sentient energy... they take on characteristics like arms and legs and use attacks like punches and kicks, but that is only because that is what they are used to doing in the physical world. Luke "automatically" reached for a lightsaber that didn't exist, just like he automatically takes on the form of a human, because that is his identity - his spirit, while made purely of energy and theoretically could be made into anything, could be made into a dog, an octopus, a tank (think Green Lantern rings), or could even just shed all identity and merge with the Force as homogeneous energy (which is what happens upon true spiritual death in SW), because Luke's identity and will dictates that he is a human being with arms and legs, that is how he appears.

Apocalypse wrote:As seen above, Abeloth's lightning goes straight through Krayt, but obviously this alone doesn't cause a "geyser" of essence energy to pour out of him - he's not mortally wounded by an attack that goes right through him.

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.

3. Likewise, Krayt draining Abeloth's essence directly is described as "pulling harder". I think this is a good point to address the question of "who has the harder job" - to me, this is like comparing apples to oranges. They are both fulfilling a different but necessary role, and I'm not sure if you can really quantify who is doing "more" and, given what I typed earlier, what "more" even means generally speaking. Abeloth needs to be held in place to be drained, or she will just fuck Krayt up - but in turn she needs to be drained or she will just break free of Luke and fuck him up. Force Drain is more efficient for separating Abeloth from her essence, but merging into Abeloth is more efficient for holding her in place.

4. Abeloth was so weakened by what damage Krayt had caused her from his drain/knot ripping that all it took was one elbow from Luke to finish her off - she was effectively dead the moment she began running from them both, but managed to hold on for one final attack, then Luke elbowed her to finish her off.

ILS wrote:So... now that we have established that Krayt, with Luke holding her in place, was almost entirely responsible for killing Abeloth, which is a direct result of his Force potency, which, as we've established, can transfer over to his physical power as long as we bear certain caveats in mind about energy efficiency and midichlorians... how powerful is Abeloth again?

So... if Krayt was responsible for even 50% of the damage caused to Abeloth, and in reality, he was responsible for upwards of 75%, and the difference between Abeloth and Luke is described as a "dozen", meanwhile, the difference between Darish Vol (oneshottable by Abeloth) and Luke is less than 50% of a difference, even if not taken literally, means that Krayt drained the Force strength from Abeloth equivalent to numerous Vol-Luke level Force users consecutively.

• Luke had, over the previous books, run a pretty uninterrupted gauntlet through armies of Sith and multiple incarnations of Abeloth, often times coming to near-death states and continuing to fight on.
  
• Literally just earlier in the novel (and I think hours earlier?) Luke had fought through an army of Sith and taken on Abeloth with a blaster pistol.
  
• Luke goes to fight Abeloth Beyond Shadows, with the initial intent of doing so alone.
  
• The fight takes place in the Beyond Shadows mirror of Abeloth's Planet, which is an extremely potent dark side nexus. 
  

• Being the first to affect Abeloth with a TK blast.
  
• Being the first to pounce on Abeloth and rattle her in melee.
  
• Grappling with and restraining her.
  
• Getting past her final attack (which seemed to hold up Krayt) and landing the killing blow.
  

• Ripping some stuff out of Abeloth while she's distracted fighting Luke.
  
• Holding onto her while she tries to blast both of them off her (with a single blast).
  
• Affecting her over an indeterminate amount of time with Force drain.
  

xolthol wrote:I think that with your scaling of Luke, you would have that Luke could literally stomp Yoda.

xolthol wrote:@DarthAnt66
What made you have Cade just around Maul level at best? The case made by @ILS in his SS against HellfireUnit was pretty convincing.

WalkingInCircles wrote:@DarthAnt66 Do you have the source for this?

Isv wrote:Once again pretty rhetoric but no substance.

Krayt still stomps, nice try Ant my boi

• His coral seeds had finally been removed, so he no longer had to dedicate any Force energy to fighting off their attempts to devour his insides and consume his mind.
  
• His body was healed to its peak state, to the extent he was able to regrow a human arm after it had been cut off, whereas before his body had been subject to nearly fatal injuries on two occasions.
  
• After transcending death, Krayt’s understanding of and connection to the Force increased greatly, independent of his body being healed.
  

Dark Empire Luke

Beginning of Dark Empire Luke

Mid Dark Empire Luke

End of Dark Empire Luke

LEIA: Be careful, Luke! The Force is strong....they're both moving so fast, I can hardly see them....I feel waves of power....the Dark Side and the Light.....But......I feel......the Light.....is winning!!
- Dark Empire I Audiodrama

Jedi Academy Luke

”I, Jedi” wrote:The Jedi Master looked at me and I felt electricity run through his blue-eyed gaze.
When we had met before I had felt power in him, but now, after his experiences with the Emperor Reborn, his power had been redoubled. Physically he looked a bit haggard and worn, with the flesh around his eyes having tightened and wrinkles appearing at their corners. I knew we were the same age chronologically, but in experience he far surpassed me.

”I, Jedi” wrote:"During the time of the Emperor's return, I, too, went over to the dark side. I did so for a variety of reasons, some of which seemed to make sense at the time, and many of which still cause me difficulty. What I experienced then has given me an understanding of the dark side which is vital to fight it. More importantly, the love of my sister and my friends drew me back. It redeemed me. Even the most foul victim of the dark side can be redeemed. By turning their backs on evil, Brakiss and Kam have already begun their journey into the light. I want to help them complete that journey.

”The Jedi Academy: Jedi Search” wrote:Luke nodded somberly. The question had been working at the back of his own mind, and he had pondered it deeply. "I can only say that we have seen these terrible examples, and we must learn from them. I myself have touched the dark side and come through stronger and more wary of its powers than ever before. I agree there is a risk, but I cannot believe the New Republic will be safer without a new force of Jedi."

Black Fleet Crisis Luke

”Black Fleet Crisis: Before The Storm” wrote:
"Once the Force was to me like a whispered voice on the wind, " Luke said, standing and looking back toward the Great Temple. "Obi-Wan taught me to hear it, and Yoda to understand it. I trained myself to hear it no matter where I was. And in my turn I taught others to hear and understand. But I have not been hearing that voice well of late, though my hearing is more acute than ever. There is too much noise. There is too much I must screen out. There are too many questions, too many demands. Everyone seems to be shouting at me. It's painful, and tiring. "

”Black Fleet Crisis: Before The Storm” wrote:
"No, " Luke said, shaking his head. "It's much easier for Han Solo to hide--even with a price on his head-than for a powerful Jedi, whether Knight or Dark Lord. A Jedi's physical presence is only a small portion of his connection to the universe. Change his face, hide him from sight, and I'll still feel his presence when he draws on the Force. It doesn't matter if he's in the next room or across the system. Remember when we were taking the stolen shuttle to Endor, to destroy the second Death Star's shield? "

"Yeah, " Han said. "You were pretty jumpy. You said Vader could sense you. "

"He did sense me, " Luke said. "I didn't have the skill yet to make the waters still. But Obi-Wan and Yoda were Masters. If they could hide from the Emperor-and I believe they could-why, they could as easily hide in Imperial City, or on Vader's own Star Destroyer, as anywhere. And if their skills weren't equal to Palpatine's, neither distance nor isolation could save them from being discovered. "

"Maybe they hid out in the sticks so no one else would get hurt if Vader showed up, " Han suggested. "You've gotta admit, when you guys fight, it has a way of getting messy. We've got a few monuments to that fact downtown in Imperial City.

Luke shook his head. "No. I discovered the real reason while I was on Yavin-the dilemma that every Jedi eventually faces. I discovered a very important and difficult truth, Han-a frustrating truth. The stronger you become in the Force, the more that you can do, the more that's expected of you, and the less your life belongs to you. "

"Is this the answer, then? " Han said, gesturing at the room with one hand. "Running away? "

"Call it that if you must. It's one answer. There's another, even less appealing, " Luke said. "Han, I'm convinced that for each Jedi, there comes a point at which he or she must choose. When the world presses in on you, threatens to drive you mad, there're only two ways you can find peace. One is to impose your will on everyone and everything around you. The other is to surrender your will, your ego, and withdraw from those who are always wanting you to 'fix' their lives. "

"I don't see it, " Han said stubbornly.

Luke smiled. "Try to imagine that you're at home. One of the children is screaming, and the other two are tugging at your elbows, each demanding that you punish the other for some slight. "

"Routine, " Han said.

"Chewbacca is playing tree-drum music at ear-splitting levels. SeeThreepio is nattering on about nothing. Artoo-Detoo is behind your chair, arguing with the household droids in Basic. The hypercomm is blaring two channels at once, both too loudly. Your comlink is chirping in your pocket. You have three messages from people who want you to come do them a favor, and Leia's insisting on your attention. Lando has a raucous sabacc game going in the next room, there's someone at the front door, and a flight of airspeeders keeps buzzing right over your head. "

"Okay, that'd be a little worse than routine, " Han conceded. "A little. "

"Now imagine it goes on around the clock for a day, ten days, a month, half a year, a year-not only without a break, but getting worse all the time. Until you reach your limit, whatever your limit might be. What are your choices? Control your environment, or leave it. "

"Or go mad and destroy it, " Han said. "Which hardly counts as a choice. Yeah, I think I get the picture now. "

"Do you see what a thin line separates Palpatine and Yoda? " Luke said earnestly. "Palpatine sought power over others. Yoda sought power from within. Palpatine wanted control of everything, in the hopes of building what he thought would be a perfect universe. Yoda gave up the idea of controlling or perfecting the universe, in the hopes of understanding it. "

"You know, " Han said slowly, "I always kind of wondered why you drew the short straw, why Yoda and Obi-Wan didn't team up and take on the Emperor themselves-"

"Yes! " Luke said, his face more animated than Han had seen it since arriving. "I think that's why it fell to me, Han. That's why I had to be the one to face Vader. I still had the passion to reshape things, a passion Obi-Wan and Yoda had moved beyond. Surrender disarms you. "

Han's expression showed his disgust. "It's pretty useless, then, isn't it? Jedi Knights who won't fight? "

"Han, try to understand. The essence of the dark side is using the Force to control others. I know that temptation firsthand. If you champion that idea, you're thinking just as Palpatine and my father did-'I have the power, and it's mine to use as I wish. ' Do you want that to be the code we live by? Should the Jedi rule the galaxy, simply because we can? "

"Well-now that you put it that way-"

"Good, " Luke said. "But then understand that there's a price. When a Jedi renounces that path, it becomes very hard to be a warrior, to lead a crusade. Obi-Wan and Yoda weren't afraid to fight, or to die. They felt the suffering the Empire was causing just as acutely as any of us did-probably more so. I wasn't stronger than them, or wiser. I was raw, headstrong, reckless. But I had to be the one to challenge the Emperor-because I still could. "

Han frowned and cocked his head. "What about now? "

"Now? I don't know, " Luke said, shaking his head. "I don't know if I could do it now. I don't know if I could summon the outrage. I feel myself standing on a dividing line, at a cusp. I don't know what I should be doing with these gifts-these burdens. It's the question I've come here to explore. "

”Black Fleet Crisis: Before The Storm” wrote:
Inside the protective cocoon of Luke Skywalker's secret hermitage, time had no meaning.

To be sure, the elemental cycle of day and night was echoed in the ebb and flow of the Force, as the living web of Coruscant stirred and slept, fought and foraged. The turning of the seasons was a longer, slower rhythm, an almost imperceptible crescendo and decrescendo of vitality and dormancy, fecundity and death.

Beyond that, a mere whisper, lay the almost unimaginably deep, subtle echo that was the birth of stars, the creation and extinction of life, the blossoming of consciousness. Deep in meditation, profoundly connected to the mysteries of the Force, Luke could see that through the manifestations of life, the universe knew itself, and beheld its own wonders.

But to extend himself that far, and reach that degree of oneness, Luke found it necessary to let go of his everyday senses to a degree he once would have thought impossible.

Sealed behind opaque walls, he lived in darkness for days at a time, barely conscious of hunger, thirst, or other bodily demands. He wore clothing only out of habit, but the habit weakened. The winds howled outside the hermitage, but Luke was oblivious to them.

He took no notice of the sun or moons in their courses, the rise and fall of the tide, the ever-changing sky painted in light and cloud.

The sea began to freeze, as the northern hemisphere slid deeper into Coruscant's short winter. Over a period of many days, the rocks and beach were draped with a heavy crust of sculpted ice. But the sight would have surprised Luke, had it mattered enough to him to seek it out.

Even Leia had stopped reaching out for him, though more in anger than in understanding. The result mattered more to him than the reason.

His solitude was complete, timeless and undisturbed.

”Black Fleet Crisis: Tyrant’s Test” wrote:
"I think she deserved better than the way she lived--the way she died." Luke shook his head. "It's been harder to forgive my father for what he did to them than for almost anything else."

"Harder to forgive, or harder to understand?"

Luke answered with a weary smile. "I wish it were harder to understand. But I know how tempting it is to simply bend someone to your will, or break them and push them aside. All of the whims and wishes and wants that we carry around inside--I have the power to fulfill mine. So I find I have to be careful about what I let myself want."

"How do you do that?"

"I have Yoda's example--he led a very simple life, and Wanted for very little. My father walked a different road. I try to let him be an example to me, too," said Luke. "The impulse to take control--to impose your will on the universe--has to be resisted. Even with the best of intentions, it leads to tyranny--into Darth Vader reborn."

"Control is a transitory illusion," said Akanah.

"The universe bends us to its purposes--we do not bend it to ours."

"That may be so," said Luke. "But in the moment of trying, people suffer horribly and die needlessly.

That's why the Jedi exist, Akanah--why we carry weapons and follow a path of power. It's not out of any lust for fighting, or for our own benefit. The Jedi exist to neutralize the power and the will of those who would be tyrants. "

"Is that what you were taught, or what you've taught your apprentices?"

”Black Fleet Crisis: Tyrant’s Test” wrote:
For the question gnawing at Luke was not whether Leia wanted his help, but whether she needed it. If his presence might mean the difference between triumph and defeat, then he would go to her--as she had come to him in his darkest moment, aboard the clone Emperor's flagship.

Leia had pulled him back from the precipice of the dark power, and joined her power to his to defeat Palpatine. If she had not been willing to sacrifice herself and the child inside her in confronting the reborn Emperor, Luke would never have broken the grip of the dark side--and the history of the intervening years would have been written with the pen of tyranny. He could not have done it alone.

Vong War Luke

”New Jedi Order: Vector Prime” wrote:
Above all else, Uncle Luke, with all of those harrowing experiences behind him, and despite the obvious trials ahead of him, seemed to Jacen to be in a place of spiritual comfort, a place of harmony. Here was this man, the epitome of what it was to be a Jedi Knight, and Jacen, though he recognized that truth, meant to argue that very philosophy against him.

”Invasion #3” wrote:
Luke Skywalker. A simple farmboy – became powerful. Now... beyond powerful.

Dark Tide: Onslaught

Dark Tide: Onslaught wrote:
He opened himself to the Force more fully than he had in years. He sought more power than he had when freeing his nephew. The Force flooded into him, at once molten-metal hot, yet as soothing as a cool rain. It swirled through him, filling every cell of his body, freeing him from fatigue, sharpening his mind.

Luke reached out with that power and latched onto the void that the Yuuzhan Vong vehicle had created. He pushed a bit, then tugged, in nanoseconds getting a feel for the power the dovin basals were able to exert to control the void. He almost smiled, since that amount of power was nothing compared to the Force, but he stopped himself short of pride in that fact.

"Artoo, juke the missiles."

R2-D2 keened sharply and fed the proton torpedoes a new set of data. The torpedoes twisted in flight and arced toward the sky, flying up and over the void. Then they turned again and fell toward the ground, aimed at the vehicle's spine.

Immediately the dovin basals started to shift the void to cover this new attack vector. Luke fed the Force into his hold on the void, thwarting them. Their pressure increased, and still Luke held it unmoving. The torpedoes got closer and closer. The dovin basals pulled harder, and when their effort reached a new peak, Luke let the void slip over toward intercepting the proton torpedoes.

The dovin basals devoted their efforts to sliding the void into place, which required both some lateral movement and shortening the arc over which the void would travel. As they brought it close to the vehicle, Luke pushed with the Force. Since the dovin basals were already tugging the void back toward the vehicle, they were not prepared to have the travel accelerated.

The void crashed into the vehicle, striking it in midspine. The long vehicle bent backward as both ends became sucked into the black hole. It flowed like thick liquid, all the sharp horns and bony plates becoming fluid as they curved up over the void's event horizon. In less than an eye blink the vehicle had been consumed by the void, leaving a huge gap in the Yuuzhan Vong formation.

Then the proton torpedoes detonated. One after another the four missiles slammed into the ground and exploded. Their blasts scattered Yuuzhan Vong warriors and lit the night. They gouged a huge canyon across the Yuuzhan Vong line of advance, and the shock waves were such that the ground rippled even into the refugee compound. Soldiers fell on both sides of the battlefield, and ramparts collapsed.

"What now, Master Skywalker?"

Luke stared at the Caamasi for a moment, trying to reply, but a wave of exhaustion crested over him and eroded his ability to think. He shook his head, then slumped back in the chair. The Force energy he had used to help the Yuuzhan Vong destroy themselves had drained out of him completely, leaving him limp and barely able to keep his eyes open.

"Master Skywalker?"

"Do... what you... think best, Senator," Luke managed to say before the world closed in on him tight and black.

The Unifying Force Luke

New Jedi Order: The Unifying Force wrote:
It wasn't until the eighth level that Luke and his niece and nephew met with resistance, but it was clear from the ferocity with which the warriors attacked-from above, below, and through the various access corridors-that the onslaught was likely to continue all the way to Shimrra's lair, and probably inside it, as well. If the warriors constituted the first line of defense, it was difficult to imagine what might await them at the summit, assuming they could even make it that far. In most places the stairway wasn't wide enough for the two people to stand abreast, and in those stretches Luke had to face the brunt of the attacks.

He was his own vortex, deflecting amphistaff strikes, whiplike lashes, and spurts of deadly venom; dodging or redirecting flights of thud bugs; parrying the thrusts of coufees, to sidestep, duck, maneuver his body in ways that seemed to defy gravity. Stunned or burned by Luke's green blade, thud bugs were ricocheting from the walls and high ceiling, chipping away at the yorik coral surface.

Dropped in their tracks, warriors sprawled with hands pressed to stumps of legs and opened foreheads, or with black blood welling where the lightsaber had found defenseless areas between living armor and tattooed flesh. Jacen recalled watching his uncle on Belkadan, where the war had begun, wielding two lightsabers when he had come to Jacen's rescue.

But the rescue on Belkadan paled in comparison to the control Luke demonstrated now. His single blade might as well have been ten, or twenty. He took the steps at a lightning pace, burning his way through dilating membranes but in complete control of his momentum. Seen through the Force he was a maelstrom of luminous energy, a Force storm against which there was no shelter. And yet all his energy poured from a calm center; an eye.

He made no missteps. None of his actions were interrupted by thought. In fact, Luke didn't seem to be there at all-physically or as an individual personality. Jacen and Jaina were astounded-but they had little time to reflect. Their lightsabers were busy, as well, turning the blows Luke dodged, or defending assaults launched from below. On the fourteenth level, where the Citadel's exterior wings sprouted from the hull, they reached a fork in the stairway. Luke swung to Jacen.

"Which way?" He wasn't even breathing heavily.

Jacen extended his Vongsense.

"The left passage leads to living quarters on the next level. The other, to some sort of dovin basal lift that accesses the summit." He screwed his eyes shut. "Shimrra is there. He has guards with him-"

"Not enough."

"-and another."

[...]

"Shimrra's expecting us," he said. Jaina tightened her ringed grip on the pommel of her lightsaber.

"We should at least announce ourselves," Luke said.

He aimed the tip of his lightsaber at the membrane. Jacen and Jaina brought their lightsabers close to his, and the three of them pushed the glowing blades through. A rancid smell permeated the antechamber, and the thick membrane began to melt. Finally the lock retracted with an audible pop! Luke gestured for Jaina and Jacen to withdraw to either side of the opening, and not a second later a shower of thud bugs whizzed out into the antechamber, caroming off the walls, ceiling, and floor. The three Jedi raised their blades, deflecting some of the winged creatures back through the portal, stunning others, and killing the few that remained. While Jaina was dispatching the last of them, Luke whirled and leapt through the opening. Landing in a crouch five meters from the membrane, he held the lightsaber in a one-handed grip extended to his right and slightly behind him.

Jacen was the next through, assuming a bent-legged forward stance, with his blade held straight out in front of him. Then Jaina came through, moving swiftly but vigilantly to Luke's left side, with her blade raised over her right shoulder. Though the floor was level, the walls of Shimrra's circular, high-ceilinged lair were curved. A simple throne occupied the center of a raised dais that was encircled by a shallow moat flowing with what might have been diluted Yuuzhan Vong blood.

The far wall contained a much more elaborate entry portal, and to the right of the throne a stairway climbed into the summit of the Citadel, presumably to the command and control areas of the escape vessel itself. Between the moat and the Jedi stood fifteen warriors of modest stature, arrayed in a semicircle and armed with hissing amphistaffs.

They affected no armor, but their burnished and blood-smeared flesh looked as impenetrable as vonduun crab topshells. Luke recognized them from Han and Leia's description as examples of the specially engineered warriors they had faced on Caluula, and against whom even Kyp had failed. The slayers presented a daunting obstacle, but they were surpassed by the one they were deployed to protect.

[...]

When Luke had been brought before the Emperor, Palpatine's visage had been familiar to him from images that had reached even remote Tatooine, and his inherent power was immediately evident.

The Supreme Overlord, however, was a void Luke could not fathom. He wasn't a shell of a human in a hooded cloak, more energy than flesh. Nor was his face that of a Sith Master, prematurely wizened by years of calling on dark power.

Instead, Shimrra was very much alive and all the more intimidating for it. In him was concentrated the combined strength of the Yuuzhan Vong species, and if he couldn't be defeated, then all that Luke had done to reach this point would amount to nothing. He was the largest Yuuzhan Vong Luke had ever seen, with lean limbs, a massive head, and an upper body so thoroughly branded and tattooed it was impossible to distinguish flesh from garment.

Widely placed, his slightly slanted eyes gleamed in shifting colors. He wore a ceremonial cape made of tanned hide. Curled sedately around his left forearm was a thick-bodied amphistaff with an intricately patterned head. Only in his bemusement was Shimrra similar to the enemy Luke had confronted at Endor, on the incomplete Death Star.

Much as the Emperor had trusted in the power of the dark side of the Force, the Supreme Overlord trusted entirely in the power of the gods. And similar to that pivotal moment in the Galactic Civil War, a battle was raging in the skies.

But Shimrra's lair permitted no view of the contest; only the muffled sounds of distant explosions infiltrated the sealed space. If Luke was at all worried about Jaina and Jacen, if he had any regrets about having brought them to the very heart of the war, he kept his concerns so deeply to himself that they could not be felt by his charges, even through the Force. The strength of their meld was such that the three might have been sharing the same mind, and that mind was the Force itself.

Luke had no doubt that what they were doing was necessary, and in harmony with the will of the Force. Shimrra's warriors were no less committed to the moment. A threat to all the Yuuzhan Vong held sacred, the Jedi were driven by a dark and incomprehensible power that flew in opposition to the divine edicts of Yun-Yuuzhan and the other gods. No more than did those of the Jedi, the marked faces of the slayers displayed neither anger nor fear-only the full measure of their intent to protect their god-king at all costs.

"The Master and the twins," Shimrra murmured from the throne, in passable Basic. "How long we have anticipated this meeting."

"As we have," Luke answered.

Shimrra beckoned with the fingers of his left hand.

"Then come forward and show your respect, Master Jeedai."

Luke stayed put-and yet something began to move him forward. Just short of the moat, and much to the amusement of the slayers, he dropped to his knees, and bent at the waist. His extended left arm shook as it fought to prevent him from pressing his face to the floor, and the lightsaber was nearly yanked from his grip.

It's not Shimrra, Jacen said through the Force.

A dovin basal, Luke guessed. He sensed Jacen abandon the meld momentarily, presumably to call on his Vongsense to disable the gravitic powers of the biot. Luke began to feel as if he were shedding weight by the second. Gradually, he raised his face to Shimrra, then-and as if defying gravity-he drew himself erect with a proud air.

Incredulity almost raised Shimrra out of his throne. For a split second his glowing eyes fell on Jacen, who by then had returned to the Force-meld. Jaina and Jacen sidestepped away from Luke to create three separate fronts. Then Luke did something neither twin had ever seen him do. Shifting his stance, he called the lightsaber into his left hand. Abandoning form, he encouraged the warriors to attack him. In swift response the fifteen divided themselves into three groups of four, four, and seven.

The quartets began to square off with Luke and Jacen, while the larger group formed up opposite Jaina. Seeing that Luke and Jacen were the stronger fighters, the slayers had decided to reserve most of their might for the Jedi they perceived as being the weakest, guessing that Luke and Jacen would always go to Jaina's aid before attempting to reach Shimrra.

No one moved.

Just when it seemed that the moment would be forever frozen in time, the slayers charged, some with amphistaffs stiffened, others unfurling them like whips, and still others prompting their weapons to spit venom. There were no attempts to engage Luke, Jacen, or Jaina in single combat for personal glory, as had happened on Yag'Dhul and other worlds.

The war had gone on too long. All that mattered now was that the conflict be decided, and that there be winners and losers. Luke's lightsaber was a blur of pure energy as he parried a four-pronged attack.

His blade found exposed flesh time and again, but the slayers sustained each searing blow without surrendering ground. The amphistaffs hammered at the lightsaber with such force that flashes of blinding radiance filled the room, projecting giant silhouettes up along the curved walls. In an attempt to forge a united front, and despite battling warriors on three sides,

Luke and Jaina began to move toward one another. For a moment, several slayers found themselves trapped between the two Jedi and the lashing movements of their comrades' amphistaffs. Pierced simultaneously from either side, one warrior dropped to the floor; then a second. Luke vaulted through a half-twisting front flip that landed him back to back with Jaina, killing a third warrior on the way down, with a strike to the top of the head. With some effort, Luke saw Jacen through the Force, pressed hard by the four slayers who had dedicated themselves to him.

Again Luke leapt, swinging his blade through the air and cleaving the neck of the most formidable of the slayers attacking his nephew. Two slender amphistaffs shot for Luke's legs, but he managed to jump over both, as if skipping rope, then decapitated the slower amphistaff before it could withdraw. A coufee swooshed through the air millimeters from his right ear. Crouching, he extended one foot and pivoted on the other, knocking feet out from under the knife wielder, then amputating the warriors left foot with a return swing of the lightsaber.

Seeing an opening, Luke made a move for Shimrra-only to be dragged down by the dovin basal. Immediately, he rolled to one side, toppling two slayers and removing himself from the gravity field. Jacen leapt to Jaina's side of the bunker, and the two of them began working in concert to drive a trio of warriors back toward the moat that encircled Shimrra's throne.

One of the slayers nearly stumbled into the flow, but caught himself in time. Surging after him, Jacen swung his blade through a backhanded crosscut, which the warrior parried, then answered with a fast chop aimed at Jacen's left knee. Jacen jumped straight up, but not quickly enough, and the amphistaff struck him on the ankle. Landing off balance, he staggered into the wall. Two warriors hurried after him, but made it only halfway when the entire bunker tipped to the right.
[...]
And yet there was a look in Shimrra's blazing eyes that promised Luke he had not seen the last of the Supreme Overlord's tricks. Shimrra was concealing something-a secret of such power that it enabled him to remain seated on his throne, even with his world teetering around him. Luke noticed then, for the first time, that Shimrra wasn't alone on the dais.

Behind the throne crouched another Yuuzhan Vong, whose asymmetrically swollen head and downcast features identified him as a Shamed One. Aware that he had been glimpsed, the Shamed One withdrew into the shadow cast by the throne, as if in an attempt to make himself small and unnoticeable. But Luke had no time to think further about Shimrra's companion.
[...]
Buried under half a dozen blood-smeared bodies when the bunker had shifted, Jaina used what little maneuvering space she had to avoid amphistaff fangs and venom, the serrated edges of coufees, and the sharpened teeth and hardened elbows and knees of warriors. Out of sheer desperation she tried to use the Force to throw everyone off her, and was bewildered when the crushing weight of the warriors abated-or at least until she realized that the sudden turnabout had nothing to do with the Force.

Shimrra's lair had simply tilted again, and now she and the same warriors were sent flying and tumbling toward the opposite wall. Hurled headfirst for the curved expanse of yorik coral, she just managed to get her free hand out in front of her and brace for impact. Loud grunts escaped the warriors as everyone hit the wall midway to the arched ceiling, then slid in a jumble to the floor as the bunker attempted to right itself.

Backward-somersaulting from the heap, Jaina shot to her feet and was preparing to Force-leap toward Shimrra when the chamber canted again. This time she used the Force to hold herself to the floor as the half a dozen slayers went rushing past her out of control, some running faster than their legs could carry them, and others sliding on their bellies or backs. Loose amphistaffs tried to sidewind for the safety of the moat, but only a few made it, and the rest were flung hard into the wall.

Once more the lair leveled out before tilting a full thirty degrees, and those warriors still on their feet launched themselves at Jaina, only to slip on whatever it was that had sloshed from the moat and was fast slicking the entire floor. Close to the osmotic membrane, Luke and a sturdy warrior were in the midst of a fierce duel, their free hands clamped on the burned edges of the breach the lightsabers had opened. Though Jaina couldn't see Jacen, she could perceive him behind her, and she could hear the burning hiss of his lightsaber as it connected with the slayers' weapons and armored flesh.
[...]
In the midst of the swaying she heard the thrum of Luke's and Jacen's lightsabers, and the agonized cries of at least two slayers.
[...]
Her instincts came alive even before she glanced up into the ladder well. The Shamed One was already plummeting directly for her. She raised her lightsaber over her head, but the Yuuzhan Vong managed to evade the blade and land feetfirst on her shoulders, driving her to the deck.

Bent over her, he wrenched the lightsaber from her hands and tossed it aside. Then, grabbing her by the right ankle, he sent her sliding across the floor. She hit the wall solidly, but sprang to her feet. Shimrra's companion was on her just as quickly, driving his fanglike tooth into her right arm as his powerful hands pressed her to the wall. Even before he stepped back, she had lost feeling and movement in her arm, and now she could feel the numbness beginning to spread like a dark tide, coursing through her armpit into her upper chest, spreading across her chest and into her other arm, up into her neck and head, and down through her torso and legs. She became as pliant as soft leather.

She remained alert but her lips and tongue couldn't form words. Her eyelids fluttered, and sounds grew indistinct. One thought kept repeating itself in her mind as she slipped into the blackest of voids. Before he had dropped on her, she had sensed him through the Force!
[...]
Only the Force was keeping Jacen from succumbing to the pain-the Force and what he had learned from Vergere during the indeterminate amount of time she had kept him in the Embrace of Pain-breaking him. While under his mentor's tutelage he had been able to go into himself to meet the pain on its own terms. Now he didn't have that curious luxury, because he was having to call on all his abilities to keep from being killed. If not for the swaying of the Citadel and the effects of its unpredictable oscillations of Shimrra's coffer-his escape vessel-Jacen figured he would already be dead.

That was the World Brain, having finally decided which side it was on. The trouble was, that decision mattered only to the reshaping of Coruscant and not to the Supreme Overlord, who was clearly able to control objects in his immediate environment without need of the dhuryam. The slayers, for one thing.

Where initially they had been moving with individual vigilance and of their own accord, they were now moving as coralskippers did under the control of a battle coordinator. The change had come simultaneously with Shimrra's rising from the throne, and the escape of his Shamed One companion, whom Jaina had pursued into the summit of the Citadel.

Jacen knew that her exit had been prompted by something she had perceived through the Force, but he and Luke could have used her lightsaber now. Three slayers had Jacen backed to the bunker's outer wall. Even through his Vongsense he could not predict their actions, or where their thrashing and thrusting amphistaffs were going to strike next. He had managed to evade copious sprays of venom, but his torso had taken countless lashings; his limbs were bruised by the heads and coils of the serpentine weapons-though none had yet been successful in sinking fangs into him.

His lightsaber had returned as many blows, but the slayers seemed to be largely immune to pain, if not indestructible. A half dozen corpses were sprawled on the floor, sliding or rolling with each random cant of the Citadel. But more than the lightsaber, it was acrobatics that was keeping Jacen from being overwhelmed by the specially engineered warriors. Time and again last-moment leaps had carried him out of the range of their shapeshifting weapons, as the fight moved along the perimeter of the throne room.

The gravity-tweaking dovin basal set in the base of the throne made it impossible for Jacen or his opponents to venture closer to the throne than the shallow moat that encircled it without being tugged violently to the yorik coral floor. Jacen took advantage of the gravitic anomaly now, as one of the slayers lunged for him. He leapt high into the air, and the warrior flew under his feet, only to be pulled to the floor facefirst, so that by the time Jacen had twisted in the air and landed he was able to drive his blade into the small of the warrior's back, almost pinioning him to the floor.

The other two immediately rushed him from behind. Unleashing his amphistaff, one warrior managed to wind the weapon around Jacen's legs, while the other swung his amphistaff at Jacen's head. Ducking the swing, Jacen leapt again, taking the attenuated amphistaff with him. Yanked from the warrior's grasp, the weapon unwound and dropped before it could strike.

Across the room Shimrra was moving stiffly toward Luke, who was being set upon by four warriors. The enormous Vong overlord stepped across the moat as if crossing a final line. Seemingly entranced-in sway of the Yuuzhan Vong gods-he fixed his glowing eye implants on his prey. He held the thick-bodied amphistaff diagonally in front of him, with his giant left hand closed around the middle of the weapon's three-meter-long body.

Jacen sent a warning to his uncle through the Force, which Luke acknowledged-not only through the Force but also by spinning away from the warriors to provide himself with enough fighting room to confront Shimrra. Whirling through a cartwheel, Luke caught one of the warriors on the chin with the heels of his boots, unbalancing him enough so that Luke could get inside the arm that held the amphistaff and drive his lightsaber through the warrior's neck. As he quickly withdrew the blade, a second warrior was ready to pounce; Luke stretched out his left hand and impaled the slayer through the right eye.

At once the other two converged on him, battering him with their amphistaffs and coufees, opening ragged wounds in his upper arms and chest. Abruptly, the Citadel rocked and the room tilted to the right. Luke dropped to one knee, holding his lightsaber arm up to protect his head, then dived, somersaulting on landing and spinning to his feet to face the warriors' charge. His green blade moved up from the floor in a diagonal motion, cutting off the weapon arm of one of the warriors, then on the downswing grated across the abdomen of the second, leaving a sizzling burn in the slayer's hardened flesh. Wincing, the warrior tried to take hold of the energy blade itself and fell forward on his knees. Luke pierced him through the chest, then pivoted on one foot to take on the others.

One of the warriors stalking Jacen abandoned him to engage Luke. Jacen moved against the others, the shorter of whom feigned a strike at Jacen's right leg, then twirled the amphistaff in his hands and slammed the tail end of it into Jacen's right cheek. Reeling from the blow, he staggered within range of the dovin basal, which dragged him to the floor on his back.

The short warrior hurried in, his weapon striking at Jacen like a serpent, then stiffening, jabbed him hard in the left forearm, as if to stake the arm to the floor. Jacen twisted out from under the attack, grasping that Luke had again been pressed to the wall. Having killed three of his assailants, he was facing only one opponent, but his energy was beginning to flag. It was not fatigue born of fear of going to the dark side, but simple exhaustion, and Shimrra was moving in. Eager to award the kill to the Supreme Overlord, the slayer closest to Luke turned and ran at Jacen with his amphistaff held overhead like an ax, intent on splitting open his victim's forehead.

The Unifying Force wrote:Jacen could feel Luke call deeply on the reservoir that was the Force. From Luke's left hand gathered a blinding tangle of energy manipulated into being by the raw power of the Force. As if hitting an invisible wall, the warrior stopped short, then spasmed as green sparks began to coruscate around him. Enveloped, he fell like a tree. Still twisting and writhing away from the snapping amphistaff, Jacen used his Vongsense to dampen the effect of the dovin basal, allowing him to move out of its gravitic field and get to his feet. His short opponent howled in outrage and whipped the amphistaff.

Jacen allowed it to coil around his body; then, as the warrior was reeling the weapon in, Jacen hurled his lightsaber deep into the slayer's armpit. The bunker inclined, sending Jacen directly toward Shimrra. Without thinking-and without his lightsaber-he lunged for the neck of the towering Yuuzhan Vong. But Shimrra perceived Jacen's intent, and threw his mighty right arm behind him. Jacen was hit squarely in the center of the chest. Dropping to the floor, he blacked out.

When he came to an instant later, he saw that Luke had obviously intercepted Shimrra's follow-up blow. But now, monstrous in aspect and power, Shimrra hovered over Luke like a rancor. Luke's lightsaber thrummed through the air, but Shimrra refused to be kept at bay. Luke tried to Force-leap out of reach, but the Supreme Overlord had him caged.

The master of defense is one who is never in the place that is attacked, Jacen recalled Vergere saying. Shimrra appeared to have learned the same lesson. Lunging, the thick, three-meter-long amphistaff wound itself around Luke's torso, pinning his right arm and lightsaber hilt to his side, the green blade aimed at the floor. Just in time, Luke managed to get his left hand gripped on the snake's uppermost coils and the head as it loosed volumes of venom at him. But Luke was rapidly being squeezed to death by the amphistaff.

Feeling his uncle's suffocation in his own crushed chest, Jacen summoned his strength and crawled frantically for his lightsaber. Calling it to his right hand, he sent it hurtling through the air at Shimrra's head. The Supreme Overlord raised his left hand in a parry; then, with Jacen's lightsaber spinning off toward the throne, he reached into the folds of his hide cape-and extracted a lightsaber!

With a flourish, he activated it. A violet blade shot forth with the familiar snap-hiss. Jacen recognized it immediately. Anakin's lightsaber.

"Weapon of the Solo we killed at Myrkr," Shimrra said, his eyes shifting through colors as the energy shaft thrummed: "Conveyed to Yuuzhan'tar by the traitor Vergere, wielded by the Jeedai Ganner against so many of my warriors, retrieved when he died and brought to me, and now yours to confront. So that you may know what my warriors experience at Zonama Sekot, forced to fight against other living vessels."

Jacen was too stunned to respond; too disheartened to move. Shimrra waved the blade close to Luke's head. Luke removed his left hand from the amphistaff's throat to grab Shimrra's right wrist. The serpentine weapon immediately stiffened and plunged itself into the left side of Luke's chest.

Luke screamed in pain.

The Supreme Overlord reared back to gloat: "One thrust and the deed is done!"

Then all at once, Anakin's lightsaber flew from Shimrra's grip into Luke's left hand. Through his Vongsense, Jacen could feel Shimrra's astonishment and dismay. In a motion almost too swift for Jacen's eyes to follow, Luke slit the throat of Shimrra's amphistaff.

As its coils began to relax, he sliced his own lightsaber blade upward, cutting the amphistaff's body into segments. As a horrified Shimrra leaned forward, as if to vise his huge hands around Luke's neck, Luke crossed the blades and shoved them upward toward Shimrra's neck.

The blades burned clean through. Shimrra's decapitated head dropped to the floor with a loud thud! and his body crumbled. Luke hauled himself out from under the Supreme Overlord's body and collapsed against the wall.