Goddamn is Abeloth the worst villain in Star Wars history. This fight is awful.
"Abeloth was here.
Down in the smoky genetics lab on Hagamoor 3, Tahiri had no time to call for help. Not that Fett could have offered much. A tentacle lashed up toward the workroom where Tahiri stood, and the head floating at the end-the one that looked like flabby Moff Quillan-came flying into the transparisteel viewing panel that separated the two rooms.
Instead of bursting against the panel as Tahiri had expected, the head exploded in a purple flash of Force energy. Tahiri brought her arm up, using the Force to push against the blast wave, and barely managed to keep from being shredded by the spray of metal shards that came flying her way.
Then Tahiri was flying, being drawn out through the shattered viewing panel into the searing heat of the genetics laboratory. How much time had passed since she had checked her chrono, she could not say. Two minutes, no more than three-and she needed to keep Abeloth occupied for at least eight. Not good.
Tahiri jammed a hand into one of her vac suit thigh pockets and felt the reassuring smoothness of a thermal detonator-and then she was in Abeloth's grasp, wrapped in a tentacle so tightly she could hardly breathe. A second tentacle wrapped itself around Tahiri's wrist and pulled her hand out of the pocket, still holding the not-yet-armed detonator.
Abeloth spun Tahiri around, and she found herself looking into a monstrous face-a face so consumed by Force energy it barely looked human. What little flesh remained had turned as gray as ash, and it was peeling away in flakes the size of thumbnails. The nose had collapsed into open cavities, and the lips had withered into brown strips that looked like they might fall off any moment.
But the eyes were familiar-and shocking. They were the same icy blue irises that had stared at Tahiri from the witness stand as Pagorski testified-as she lied about the death of Admiral Pellaeon. But the pupils weren't Pagorski's. They were huge, and they seemed dark and bottomless, with no light except a pair of tiny silver points that seemed to be receding even as Tahiri looked into them, to be drawing her down into a cold and soulless Void from which there could be no escape.
Inside Tahiri's mind, Abeloth's wispy voice said, There is no need for explosives, child.
The tentacle squeezed Tahiri's wrist until her hand opened and the thermal detonator dropped to the floor-still unarmed.
We are going to be together a long time, you and I.
Tahiri jammed the emitter nozzle of her lightsaber into the pit of Abeloth's stomach. "Not if I can help it."
She thumbed the switch and saw the tip of her sapphire lightsaber shoot out through Abeloth's back. Guessing it would take more than a single penetrating wound to kill a Force entity, Tahiri immediately whipped her hand down, dragging the blade down through her captor's body at an angleÿ...ÿor so she had intended.
When the blade failed to move, Tahiri looked down and saw that this hand, too, was wrapped in a tentacle. She tried to pull free and found that not only was she unable to move the hand, she could no longer even feel it.
That is the thing, my child, Abeloth said. You can't help it.
A tentacle rose between them, then bent forward and began to slither up Tahiri's chin.
"What?" Tahiri gasped. A cold terror was rising inside her, and she had to fight to avoid panicking. "What are you doing?"
Did I not say? Abeloth replied. We are going to be together. The lieutenant's body is weak. Yours will be strong. Yours has felt the Force-
The explanation was cut short by the sharp crackle of a mini rocket, its roar rising in pitch as it approached. Tahiri glanced toward the shattered viewing panel and saw Fett standing there, the arm with the launcher still pointed down into the lab.
Then Abeloth twisted away, ripping herself open on Tahiri's lightsaber blade, and was gone. The mini rocket arrived an eyeblink later, striking the floor in front of Tahiriÿ...ÿand failing to explode. Fett dipped his helmet-as though to say you're welcome-then spun away and disappeared about two breaths ahead of Abeloth. She sprang through the hole after him, an oily dark fume pouring from the wound in her side.
It took a couple of heartbeats for Tahiri to believe she hadn't lost her mind. It seemed impossible, but Fett had just risked his life to save hers. And he was using himself as bait, when he could have just taken his scientists and fled. Maybe he wasn't such a bad guy after all-or maybe he just valued his word more than his life.
Either way, Tahiri was not going to waste the time he had just bought her-quite possibly with his life. She pulled two more thermal detonators from her vac suit pockets and armed them both, then set one fuse for twenty seconds and secured this detonator inside a thigh pocket. The other detonator she kept in her hand, setting the fuse for ten seconds.
By the time Tahiri finished her preparations, brilliant bursts of orange and blue were flashing in the workroom as Fett unloaded his full arsenal into Abeloth. Keeping a silent count in her head, Tahiri Force-leapt through the shattered viewing panel and turned toward the far end of the room, where the two nanotech scientists-Tarm and Yu-were still shackled and cowering in their chairs.
Fett was in front of the two scientists, crouching behind the large lab table that filled the middle of the room, firing everything he had at Abeloth. The blasterfire she simply took, her wounded body barely flinching as bolt after bolt burned through. The flames she stopped with a shield of Force energy that sent tongues of crimson fire licking in every direction but toward her. And the mini rockets she simply Force-nudged off-course, sending them streaking past to explode harmlessly against the wall.
Tahiri's count reached five. Abeloth was facing away from her. She had leapt up on the table and was walking across it toward Fett.
Tahiri raised the thermal detonator so Fett would have at least some chance of grasping her plan, then opened her hand and used the Force to float it gently toward Abeloth.
The detonator had traveled barely half the distance when Abeloth pivoted sideways so that she could see both of her enemies, and extended a tentacle. The orb tore free of Tahiri's Force grasp and went sailing toward Fett.
With only a few seconds left before the first detonator exploded, Tahiri went straight to Plan B, activating her lightsaber and Force-leaping to the attack. She was on Abeloth by the count of eight, hacking through a trio of tentacles-which dropped to the tabletop and promptly slithered around her ankles.
A tremendous roar filled the room as Fett activated his jetpack and came streaking toward them, one hand grasping the detonator Abeloth had sent flying toward him-which he had nabbed from the air. He jammed the detonator into the fume-oozing wound in the same instant Tahiri's count reached nine.
She turned to leap away-then something strong clamped her biceps, and her arm nearly came out of its socket as she was jerked into the air. By the time she realized Fett had politely snagged her on the way past, they were crashing into the front corner of the workroom. Everything went white and loud, and Tahiri feared they had failed to escape the detonator's blast radius.
That fear vanished an instant later as she hit the floor in an aching heap. Fett came down on top of her, all hard metal and sharp edges, and Tahiri realized that she had actually survived."
Are we sure shes actually a One and not just a hobo who wondered into the Valley of the Jedi?
But that exactly what she is, Neph. The Son and Daughter and Father were already immensely powerful Force Users, still the most powerful beings in the mythos from the start. Then the Son and Daughter became even more powerful by drinking from the font of power and bathing in the pool of knowledge.
Abeloth was just some servant mortal who decided to drink from the font, as well as bathe in the pool. Now she's just a monster hobo.