Chapter 61: The Force Unleashed
While the wreckage of the Death Star was still being fashioned into a ramp, Aang used the lull in the battle to take his glider and tend to another matter.
Appa had crashed relatively close to the second crater, where Mara Jade had crawled out of the wreckage. Aang hadn't seen her in person in over a year, and in her current condition she wasn't going anywhere, much less harming anyone that approached her. He figured he might not have another chance to confront her, given that Vader had been trying to kill him and everyone else today. Toph was not far behind him on a moving mound of dirt, also wanting to deal with the woman that had taken them across the galaxy, though she would be a lot more rough than Aang.
Aang landed a few feet in front of Mara, beyond the reach of the lightsaber he knew she carried. "You know, I wanted to get payback for what you did, but seeing you like this is just sad."
Cradling her wounded arm in the other arm, Mara refused to make eye contact. "I am not apologizing. I was always the Emperor's Hand, servant to his will, and you two were just pawns to be used in delivering his justice."
Toph came to a stop near them, and she walked down the mound to stand next to Aang. "I suspect you and we have different definitions of justice. For instance, mine says I should put you six feet under right now. You have six seconds to convince me otherwise."
"The Emperor is dead," Mara answered.
"Can confirm," Aang said. There was an awkward silence around him. "I was in spirit form when it happened. He even tried to escape into the spirit world, but then the spirit in Vader killed him there."
"With his death, I have no purpose," Mara said. She looked down at the ground, waiting for the earthbender to bury her alive. "I want to see Vader die. After that, I have nothing."
Toph turned toward Aang. "Well… she's not lying."
"I believe that," Aang said. He looked over at the first crater, where Darth Vader was walking down the ramp that was held up by the Force. "And yet I don't see you doing much against him like that. I mean, you weren't a match for him before the makeover."
"Still, I have to do something," Mara said. She held up her lightsaber, sighed, and flipped the handle around before holding it out to Aang. "If I can't strike him down, maybe my weapon still can."
For a moment Aang stared at the lightsaber, thinking back to when another one took his hand off. It was an incredibly dangerous weapon, able to kill with a single swing on a direct hit. It was not the sort of weapon Aang wanted to use, since it would be all too easy to kill someone by accident, both friend and foe alike. Not to mention he couldn't do the fancy blaster reflection trick with the lightsaber, since that sort of technique required the Force to guide the wielder's hands. Aang figured he was more likely to hurt himself than Vader with it, even when setting aside his personal misgivings about the lightsaber.
So Toph took it instead. "We'll make sure this gets to someone that knows how it use it."
By then Haru had caught up to them on his own moving mound of earth, having brought Katara and Zuko along with him. "You two done over here yet? We're kind of on the clock."
"Just finishing up," Aang said, turning toward his friends. "Is everyone else alright?"
"I got them patched up enough to make it through the day," Katara said. "But Sokka and Ty Lee are out of it. Suki's keeping watch over them and Appa."
"I put up a thick wall around them," Haru said. He pointed a thumb over his shoulder, to the rim of rock that concealed the place they left the sky bison. "It should hold against anything short of a direct hit."
"It's the best we could come up with on short notice," Zuko admitted.
Aang nodded. "Is your sister going to meet up with us? I lost track of her."
"I believe she has Kori doing donuts inside the crater," Zuko said. "She will likely join in when the fighting picks up again."
As if on cue, the ground started to shake, and it wasn't like earthbending. All eyes were drawn to the rim of the crater, where Vader was standing in front of and above Luke. Aang and the others were too far away to hear the short conversation made over there, but they could just barely make out a distant, angry scream. It was coming from Luke, and the shaking in the ground was from the Force being uncontrolled in his anger. Aang couldn't begin to guess what Vader had said to accomplish that, and part of him didn't want to find out.
"I think that's our cue," Haru said. He recreated the mound of rock beneath him, ready for others to get on. "Let's go."
"What about her?" Katara asked, pointing at Mara.
"Leave her," Aang answered. He hopped onto the mound of rock beneath Haru. "If she's still here when this is all over, we'll deal with her then."
Toph pocketed the lightsaber and walked away from Mara. "Alright. Let's go wreck Vader!"
The Sith Lord in question was still standing atop the crater rim, sensing the power growing within Luke, fueled by the anger in response to an unwelcome revelation. The younger Skywalker could deny it all he wanted, but it would not change the fact that their relationship was that of father and son. Vader saw the righteous fury in the face of his son, and it was something Vader could be proud of, for it would give Luke a sample of the Dark Side of the Force. It wouldn't turn him to the Dark Side, not yet, but soon enough Luke would see the folly of the ways of the Jedi.
Luke leaped up the slope outside the crater, lightsaber in hand and swinging at Vader's head. A red lightsaber rose up to meet it, and the blades clashed in between their faces. Red and green lights cast bizarre shadows around them, ever changing as the lightsabers swung back and forth, clashing at different angles again and again. Vader held his ground, intercepting every swing Luke made, though he didn't strike back just yet. He didn't want to kill Luke after all, not unless he forced the issue, and it wasn't necessary at this time.
"Excellent," Vader commented, noting that Luke was going for lethal strikes. "Your anger makes you powerful. Use it, control it, make it your weapon. Like this."
His free hand thrusted at Luke, pushing him away with the Force, and held him in the out of reach from the lightsabers. Force lightning erupted from Vader's fingertips, and it was caught by Luke's lightsaber, holding the brunt of the electricity at bay. Luke pushed back against the Force holding him up, but even enraged his power was no match for Vader's. The anger within Luke was growing, and with it he pushed back in the Force more and more, showing natural talent that Vader wanted to nurture. It was for his own good, as far as Vader was concerned.
But then the ground shattered beneath his feet.
The earthbenders had arrived, carrying their comrades into the battle and ruining Vader's father/son moment. Toph and Haru had torn apart the ground beneath Vader, while Aang and Zuko hurled fireballs at him, trying to take him by surprise. Vader leapt from the crumbling rocks, getting to stable ground outside the crater, turning to face the interlopers. He returned fire, literally in this case, unleashing a flume of fire with his fist. But his flames were easily diverted by the two firebenders, demonstrating that there was more to firebending than just throwing flames around.
The distraction released Luke from Vader's grip, dropping him back to the ground, and he dashed toward Vader swinging his lightsaber. Once again the red lightsaber rose up to block it, but now Vader was facing threats from both directions. He faced earth, fire, air and water converging on one side, and it took some concentration to maintain a barrier of the Force to keep the elements at bay. To anyone else caught in the middle like this, retaliating against one side would him vulnerable to the other, but Vader was no ordinary Sith.
Eyes glowing bright red in the Avatar State, Vader used the Force to create a massive shockwave, pushing against everything all around him. Luke was flung away, and the elements that assailed him were hurled back at their masters. Vader reached toward the benders, and a ripple flowed through the ground, before the soil shattered and enormous slabs of rock were hurled at them. Large plumes of fire followed the slabs, filling the space between and consuming all the air within. All while he kept Luke at bay and outside the bombardment, wanting to keep him alive as long as possible.
Aang and the others were still tumbling across the ground when the slabs of rock and plumes of fire came bearing down on them, giving them only a single moment to react. Toph and Haru created a dome of rock around everyone, thick enough to withstand the slabs that crashed into it. The flames were another matter, their heat passing through the rock to bake the air inside. Aang and Zuko channeled that heat through themselves, much like the lightning redirection technique, and sent the heat into a crack in the ground to bake the bedrock instead of themselves.
"We're pinned down here!" Katara yelled.
"Know that!" Toph yelled back. She was holding the dome up while Haru made quick repairs, all while more slabs crashed against it. "Working on it!"
"Can't we just go beneath all this?!" Zuko asked.
"And have him collapse the ground on top of us, no way!" Haru countered. A hole broke open and flames poured through until he mended it with more rock. "We aren't sneaking our way through this!"
"Give it a moment," Aang insisted. Assuming he wasn't wrong about someone, this siege would be ending very soon. "This is going to break, and when it does, charge!"
Vader kept up the assault, until he sensed danger behind him. "What!"
From the crater a mound of earth came free, launched into the air on earthbending and momentum. Kori held it together as it soared above Vader, while Azula and Mai rode along, their feet bound to the rock beforehand. Enormous arcs of electricity were curving around the flying mound, trailing Azula's fingertips as she charged a bolt of lightning. Kori flipped the mound around, putting Azula in view of Vader, and she stuck out her fingers to fire. Having spent a few minutes charging, the lightning bolt was larger than normal, and Azula smiled as she unleashed it in Vader's face.
Dropping all other considerations, Vader turned his lightsaber toward the lightning, holding it in both hands as all that electricity crashed into his weapon. For a moment he thought it would overload, but the lightsaber held, albeit with its blade wavering back and forth while losing cohesion. Some electricity arced around the weapon, and Vader had to push it away with the Force, sending it into the ground instead. Still, blinding light and deafening thunder assaulted his senses, leaving only the Force to warn him of other dangers.
Such as Luke, released from the Force to charge again, ignoring the danger to himself from the lightning crackling around Vader. One hand let go of the red lightsaber, reached out to summon the other one on his belt, and the blue blade ignited to meet the green one. Pinned between lightning and lightsaber, Vader held his ground against them both, until the lightning's charge was fully spent. Then, once the red lightsaber had stabilized, Vader turned it on Luke, pinning the green blade between the red and blue ones.
"Enough," Vader commanded, his voice reverberating with raw power of the Avatar State. "You will submit, one way or another."
With a twist of his blades he pulled the lightsaber from Luke's grasp, throwing it aside to deactivate and clatter against the ground. Vader then pushed Luke with the Force, hurling him far across the land, until he crashed into a small piece of wreckage hurled from the crater earlier. A nudge with the Force brought some of the metal down on top of Luke, not enough to crush him but enough to pin him down for a time. It would allow Vader to deal with Luke at his leisure, after all of the earthlings had been put down.
The mound of earth carrying Kori, Azula and Mai came crashing down on the other side of Vader, and the earthbender released their feet from the rock that held them to it. Mai opened fire with her blaster, only for Vader to reflect the bolts with his lightsabers. She stopped immediately, her shoulder hit by a reflected bolt, and while her arm hung limp she didn't let go of the blaster. Azula and Kori had narrowly avoided the reflected bolts, silently grateful their aim wasn't as good as Mai's. But a lightsaber could not reflect fire, and Azula hurled her blue flames at Vader.
Just as Vader turned towards the three women, more mounds of earth assaulted them, one for each earthbender. Haru carried Zuko with him, hurling rocks and fireballs in tandem. Toph and Katara were riding together, mixing dirt and water to hurl thick globs of mud. Aang had a mound all to himself, wielding the four elements, alternating between them as everyone closed in on Vader. All of the elemental fury impacted an invisible barrier around Vader, maintained by his power in the Force, but even that struggled to hold off so many attacks all at once as his concentration was strained.
"Keep it up!" Aang yelled, currently hurling wind and fire at Vader. "He's got to slip up sooner or later!"
"Anyone else seeing the glowing eyes?" Haru asked. "That's bad, right?"
"If it means what I think it does, then yeah, very bad," Zuko said. He kept up the flames as he glanced at everyone else. "Aang! How long can you stay in the Avatar State?!"
"Um… A hundred years?" Aang answered, not liking the implications of Zuko's question. "At least. Well that's how long I was on ice."
Katara didn't like it either. "You think he's doing something similar?"
"Makes sense to me," Toph said. She paused her attacks to quickly open a fissure into the bedrock, breaking open an aquifer for Katara to access more water. "Does explain the power boost he got."
For another demonstration of that power, Vader floated off the ground as it shattered beneath his feet. The rocks and dirt and all nearby metal fragments were pulled together into a ring of debris around Vader, including the rocks Toph and Haru were throwing at him. Plumes of fire followed from his hands to form another ring, absorbing Zuko's and Azula's flames into it, though the latter's blue color quickly turned orange. Force lightning shot from his fingertips to make a third ring, completing the arsenal of power that orbited Vader.
"He's doing your power planet thing," Katara said.
"I see that," Aang answered. He stopped his attacks, made a long leap away from everyone else, and calmed his mind to access the power within. "Bringing out the original!"
Aang's eyes and tattoos glowed bright blue, calling upon the power of the Avatar State. Winds swirled around Aang and lifted him off the ground, followed by rings of water, rocks, and fire forming around him. This display drew Vader's gaze to him instantly, and their glowing eyes met. In that moment, to everyone watching, it seemed like there was more to both of them than what could be seen. Something existed behind those glowing eyes, ancient entities that had existed in opposition since the dawn of time.
When Vader spoke now, there was a deeper voice alongside his own. "You show yourself at last, Raava. It has simply been far too long since our last battle."
Aang felt something else take over for a moment, from the very core of his being, speaking through him with a vaguely female voice laid over his. "You may have escaped, Vaatu. But you will not win. I have vanquished you before and I will do so again."
"Last time you left me imprisoned for nearly ten thousand years," Vader, or rather Vaatu, reminded the spirit within Aang. "Now I am more powerful than you could ever imagine. Perhaps this time I shall be rid of you forever."
Vader rode on the Force toward Aang, who in turn flew on the wind to confront his foe. The two spheres of destruction collided head-on, with all of their rings crashing into each other. Fire clashed with fire, rocks smashed against other rocks and metal, and water evaporated on contact with Force lightning. That last one prompted Aang to swap water with earth, so that rocks hit the lightning and water crashed into rocks and metal instead. It didn't matter much, for within moments all six rings had thoroughly mixed together into a chaotic mess of elemental mayhem.
A red lightsaber swung at Aang's head, and when he ducked the blue lightsaber was waiting for him. The wind pulled him back, and the blade passed just in front of his nose. Vader pressed forward, swinging the lightsabers again and again, yet Aang nimbly dodged every swipe. It seemed like he wasn't even looking at the weapons, his body moving with the wind, appearing to respond without conscious thought. Still, there were very near misses, to the point where Aang felt the heat of the lightsabers as they burned off the hair on his arms.
It wasn't just lightsabers, but lightning as well, in both varieties. Vader created more Force lightning in one hand, and generated firebender lightning in the other, careful to keep the electricity away from his lightsabers and not overload them. He brought the two together and fired at Aang, filling the air with so much electricity that it could not be avoided. Instead Aang simply stuck his left hand into the mixed lightning, channeling all that power down his arm. He didn't send it up the other arm, that would destroy his artificial hand, so he sent it down his legs instead, out his feet and into the ground.
Aang's shoes were destroyed, but it was a small sacrifice worth making. He dropped to the scorched dirt, bare feet stomping in the blackened soil, making enormous spikes of rock burst upward. Vader thrust a hand forward to shatter the spikes with the Force and hurl the fragments back at Aang, but he stood his ground and seized control of the shattered rocks. All the fragments came back together and were merged into a slanted wall of rock, which Vader cut to pieces with his lightsabers and tossed them aside.
He was confronted with Aang using all of the elements at his disposal, air, water, earth and fire put together in an enormous spiral of destruction. Vader brought both lightsabers forward and had them spin rapidly, like twin shields of strobing light. They vaporized the earth and water, struggling to keep up with the sheer mass of those elements, but the air and fire passed through the defense with little resistance. They struck Vader in the chest and launched him away from Aang, though the burns he suffered were superficial.
More of the elemental spiral was headed at Vader, and he decided to respond in kind. Force lightning, firebender lightning, flames and stray rocks and metal, brought together into a twisting corkscrew of power. It crashed into the elements controlled by Aang, and the opposing forces pushed against each other. Both sides poured as much of their power as they could into their attacks, tearing apart the terrain around them for ammunition, shaking the land beneath their feet for miles around with reckless abandon.
Struggling to stand on the shaking soil, Luke was watching the chaos unfold. "Vader, even if it is true, it doesn't matter anymore."
Whatever was left of his father, Anakin Skywalker, was nothing like the Jedi that Ben had told him about. From what Luke could sense in the Force, the dark presence within Vader permeated his entire being, inseparable in every conceivable way. There was no turning back from the Dark Side for him now, not after what he did to achieve the power put on display. He may still be Luke's biological parent, but the soul of the man inside was lost to the Dark Side forevermore. Killing the Emperor was not enough to redeem him, not when he did it for selfish reasons, and now that he was trying to kill Aang.
Luke heard the rumbling of earth and turned to see one of the earthbenders heading his way. "What are you doing over here?"
Toph stopped her mound of earth next to him, and she held out a lightsaber she'd picked up along the way. "You dropped this."
"Oh, thanks for grabbing it," Luke said. He took the lightsaber and put it away on his belt. "I wasn't expecting Vader to rip it out of my hands like that."
"Then you're probably going to want this," Toph said. She produced another lightsaber, one that Luke didn't recognize. "It's from someone that wants Vader dead just as much as we do."
"Couldn't hurt to have a second one," Luke admitted. He accepted the lightsaber and tested the feel of it, and while it was different it would work well enough. "Remind me to return it when this is over."
"Sure," Toph said. A particularly potent tremor drew her attention back to the battle. "Uh-Oh… Run!"
Aang had dropped to the ground, crouched with one hand pressed into the dirt, and an earthquake started with him at the epicenter. The entire landscape surged upward, splitting apart with massive crevices that reached the bedrock and below. Vader was closing in on Aang, lightsabers pulled back and ready to swing. Aang leapt away, but the earthquake continued, now with a deep red glow coming from the crossed crevices where he had been crouching. Still in pursuit, Vader passed over that spot, right when the newborn volcano erupted.
It was a small volcano, admittedly, created entirely by Avatar State earthbending. As such it was a small plume of volcanic ash and lava that spewed from the earth, directly underneath Vader at point blank range. He thrust a hand down, pushing against the molten rock with the Force, and being pushed up in return. Searing heat from hot air and ash tried to cook him alive, along with globs of lava that splattered ahead of the source. But Vader wasn't going to be burned alive again, and the Force kept the bulk of the heat at bay.
As Vader ascended into the sky much of the molten rock was diverted away, falling back to the ground and flowing into one of the craters. The volcanic ash continued to rise, caught in the wind and blown away to the east. At several hundred feet up the plume reached its maximum height, and Vader kept ascending to get beyond the heat. It gave Vader a view of all the lands around him, though his gaze was fixed on Aang maneuvering around the manmade volcano. Already the volcano was running out of lava to expel, and the plume of molten rock began to subside.
After being hauled to a safe distance by the blind earthbender, Luke looked up at Vader hovering above the volcano. "I really should have called in that orbital strike…"
"If that's not a signal, then I don't know what is."
Even from as far away as Earth's moon, the eruption of a volcano was picked up on Home One's sensors. It was at Luke's last known coordinates, and in a region that didn't have natural volcanic activity. It was obviously bending on a scale Leia hadn't seen before, no doubt meant as an attack worthy of Vader's time. In any case it was a sign that the battle was still raging down there, even without the feeling in Leia's gut that Vader was still alive. Leia knew she couldn't just stand here on the bridge and do nothing to help, even when any other option carried with it extreme risk.
"Take us out of lunar orbit," Leia ordered. There was a sense of relief amongst the bridge officers, though Leia got the sense they were expecting a jump to hyperspace. "Full power to shields and engines. Divert it from life support if you need to. We're charging through the imperial fleet."
Even Yoda was surprised by this command. "Are you absolutely certain?"
"It's the last maneuver they'll expect," Leia said. She looked at the viewscreen as the perspective shifted, bringing the imperial fleet into focus in front of the planet. "And with Vader busy on the planet, he isn't coordinating the imperial fleet. Their organization is still in flux and we can exploit that."
The comm officer was already responding to an incoming signal, and a hologram of Admiral Ackbar appeared in front of Leia. "I hope you have a plan. Because it looks like you're trying to pull off a suicidal maneuver."
"Everyone's free to use the escape pods now," Leia said. She gave a hand signal to an officer to relay that throughout the ship. "If you could pick them up before you go, I'd appreciate it."
"As if I would just abandon you like that," Ackbar said. He turned to someone outside the hologram's display, gave some orders while audio was muted, and then turned back to Leia. "We'll try to draw their fire as much as we can."
"Thank you," Leia said. The hologram disappeared and Leia turned her attention back to the bridge crew. "Divert all shields forward. Full speed ahead."
Home One soared through space toward Earth, in defiance of the imperial fleet still integrating the former loyal ships into the fold. They had to scramble into defensive positions, having expected the rebellion ships to have jumped to hyperspace from behind the moon. The heavily damaged Star Destroyers moved to the far side of the planet, while the relatively intact ones remained to hold the line. Only one Super Star Destroyer remained in fighting shape, and it was providing cover for the remaining half of the Reaper, which was adrift and barely in a stable orbit.
Every imperial ship still able opened fire on Home One, even before that ship entered targeting range. Battle damage had left every single one of them with only a fraction of their firepower, and many couldn't target properly anyway, so they were firing as much as possible instead of aiming. Blaster bolts impacted the shields of Home One, but with the rear shields redirected forward they withstood the bombardment. Other rebel ships joined Home One in this reckless charge, taking some of the blaster fire for the flagship.
With the bridge shaking around her, Leia stood strong and maintained her resolve. "Maintain course and speed. Fire every weapon we still have!"
"New contact, ahead and portside!" the sensor officer reported, though he seemed shocked and couldn't believe what he saw. "Ma'am, a fleet emerged from hyperspace!"
If that was an imperial fleet, Leia knew it would ruin what little chance they had. "Who is it?"
A hologram appeared in front of her, displaying a woman that Leia hadn't expected to see here. "Now then, this is quite the predicament you've gotten yourself into."
"Mon Mothma?!" Leia blurted out, surprised by the sudden appearance. "I wasn't expecting you."
"An insurgency sprung up on Corellia the moment my fleet arrived," Mon Mothma said. "That allowed me to destroy the imperial defenses and leave the rest to the locals."
"Letting you withdraw early," Leia surmised. She let out a small laugh and shook her head. "Don't get me wrong. I just figured you wouldn't be coming to my aid all the way out here."
"Well I'm here now," Mon Mothma said. She gave some orders to officers on her end, then turned back to Leia. "Let's get to it now, shall we."
The arriving fleet opened fire on the imperials, coming from a different angle than Leia and Ackbar's ships. The initial volley tore into the Star Destroyers, targeting the most heavily damaged ones first to take them out of the battle. The rest of the fleet changed course and turned their weapons on Mon Mothma's fleet, as the fresh and barely damaged ships were a greater threat than the battle-ravaged ships charging at them. Some still fired on Home One and the others, but at greatly reduced intensity, though even then it was a danger to damaged rebel ships.
To mitigate that danger, Yoda sat cross-legged with his arms reaching forward, eyes closed as he concentrated. "I will do what I can to make sure we survive this."
Leia nodded to him and then turned back to the bridge officers. "Find the weakest spot in the formation and punch through!"
As Home One charged at the imperial line it became harder for their shots to miss, and yet more and more of them simply bent out of the way. Yoda was putting everything he had into this display of the Force, though it was a struggle for him to focus on so much at once. Home One closed the distance in a matter of minutes, and up close Yoda couldn't divert all the blaster bolts aimed at the ship. Still, the shields could handle the shots that struck, long enough for Home One to reach a gap in the Star Destroyer formation.
Just when Leia saw the planet fill the viewscreen, with no Star Destroyers ahead, the entire ship shook violently. "What was that?"
"Explosion in main engine!" one officer reported. "Our stern is taking heavy damage."
"Damn it!" Leia said, realizing what went wrong. "Shift shields back to normal position."
Having the shields redirected forward had left their rear end vulnerable, and it had taken damage the moment Home One passed through the imperial formation. The mistake was quickly corrected, and the remnants of the main engine were protected from further attacks. And it didn't matter anyway, Home One was close enough for Earth's gravity to pull it in, already touching the edges of the atmosphere. The Star Destroyers ignored Home One from that point on, turning the last of their weapons on Mon Mothma's reinforcements.
Yet the true danger lay ahead, and Leia was determined to contribute in that fight, in her own way.
Just when the manmade volcano had finally settled, a giant fireball appeared in the sky.
Seeing it was enough to jolt Aang out of the Avatar State. "DUCK!"
It would have been an opportunity for Vader to finish him, if it weren't for the danger behind him. He sensed the rebel ship closing in on him, accompanied by the Jedi master keeping the ship from breaking apart. Every weapon on that ship was targeting him, and they opened fire with reckless abandon. Vader brought both lightsabers out to intercept the blaster bolts, despite the starship grade artillery being far more destructive than any lightsaber was meant to deflect. He used the Force to guide his weapons, keeping them well over a hundred meters ahead of him, spinning as fast as he could think.
Reflecting the bolts back at the ship would have destroyed the lightsabers, as they could not withstand direct hits for more than a couple of shots. Instead Vader had them strike glancing blows, at just enough of an angle to send the shots off course, hitting the ground instead of him. Even then he could feel the weapons reverberating under the strain, nearly to the point of breaking both of them. The cone of shielded space narrowed as Vader balanced the need for defense against the integrity of his lightsabers, quickly shrinking so far that blaster bolts were within feet of hitting him.
Aang, on the other hand, had to avoid shots that missed Vader and kept on going in his direction. Back in the Avatar State and maneuvering with hurricane force winds, Aang narrowly avoided the shots several times. He slipped through the cone of deflected shots and escaped the danger zone, and then rode the wind as high as they could carry him. From there he had a better view of the rebel ship blazing through the atmosphere, only minutes away and bathed in heat. That heat would be put to good use, amplifying Aang's firebending in addition to Avatar State.
He wasn't the only one with that idea, as Mai was quick to note this was an opportune moment for any firebender to act. "Better do it now. You're not going to get a better shot."
Gaze set upon Vader being stuck in one place in midair, Azula was holding a ball of electrified, superheated fire in her hands. "I couldn't agree more."
Azula had been focusing her firebending into that small space for some time, concentrating the heat and fire until her blue flames turned into superheated plasma. She thrust her hands forward and upward, unleashing the plasma in a narrow plume of destruction. But she wasn't the only one getting in on the stationary target, as a plume of fire from Zuko was also aimed at Vader. It wasn't nearly as powerful as Azula's attack, but every little bit was going to contribute to overwhelming their foe. The three attacks converged from different angles, all while Vader was still fending off the blaster bolt barrage.
It strained his concentration to the limit, dealing with so many dangers at once. Vader summoned a bubble of the Force around him, letting the attacks crash against that instead of him. It was one thing to let the flames wash over the Force bubble, but the blue plasma was much harder to hold at bay. Then there was the heat generated by the flames and plasma, which filled the air within the bubble and grew to sweltering levels. It threatened to cook Vader alive, and that was one experience he swore he would never repeat again.
Vader turned the bubble into an explosive shockwave, driving the flames and plasma away from him, sending them back in cascading waves of fire and heat. Once the immediate area was clear Vader rose high on the Force, adjusting his lightsabers on the way up, moving the cone of deflected blaster bolts up with him. The flames and plasma reasserted themselves and collided again, but in the spot Vader used to be, while he was above them and beyond the range of their combined heat. Now he was at the same altitude as Aang, the only one to see him this high and adjust his aim accordingly.
But then Vader's lightsabers started cutting through metal, and the rebel ship was upon him.
If shooting him wasn't going to work, as Leia had suspected, then running him over with a starship was the only mundane solution left. Even with the ship threatening to tear itself apart, between the engines at maximum burn and plowing through atmosphere, the pilots kept the ship's flight on target. It was too late for Vader to move out of the way, but he had his lightsabers already in place to deal with this. They moved in tandem with spiral patterns, cutting holes in every hull and bulkhead in a straight line, the edges dripping with molten slag.
From outside it appeared as though Vader was simply swallowed by the ship, evidenced by the lack of a splat against the bow. Inside the ship Vader passed through the series of holes made by his lightsabers, and with the ship moving faster than his weapons he quickly caught up with them. He had to use the Force to cushion the impact within the ship, and it left him stuck a third of the way through. The ship kept on going, and it was far too late to pull out of the planet's gravity well. It was going down, and with any luck it would take Vader down with it.
Aang, on the other hand, was trying to avoid the incoming ship, and failing badly. It was too close and moving too fast for him to get out of the way in time, and at the last second he put everything he had into his airbending. He created an enormous cushion of compressed air between himself and the ship about to run him over, and it softened the impact just enough to change it from a direct hit to a glancing blow. As such he bounced off the leading edge, tumbled along the upper hull, until he came to a stop several hundred feet down the length of the ship.
It hurt like hell throughout the tumble, feeling like it broke every bone in his body, and he screamed bloody murder from the pain. Still, he survived, even if in this condition he would prefer to be dead. He couldn't move for one, and trying just made the pain even worse. The ship was still moving forward, though Aang wouldn't slip off any time soon, having gotten stuck in a grove between two dorsal turrets. He wasn't going anywhere, and he couldn't see what was going on, so all he could do was simply ride this out.
And then Home One landed.
The ship hit the ground at high speed, carving a deep gouge into the earth. The bottom decks were stripped away, though fortunately they had been evacuated ahead of time. Thousands of tons of earth erupted around the ship, throwing up long lines of soil and pulverized rock on either side. After several miles the ship gradually came to a stop, half buried in the dirt and just short of crashing into a mountain. Although much of the ship survived the impact intact, courtesy of Yoda and the Force, Home One would never fly again.
Inside the bridge Leia was certain she had whiplash, judging by the pain as she undid the safety restraints and stood up from a chair. "Is any one seriously injured?"
One by one the bridge officers sounded off, all injured to some extent, despite the inertial dampeners having been at maximum capacity. A few of them were in critical condition, and crewmen were called in to carry them down to what was left of sickbay. Those with minor injuries like bruises and broken legs remained at their stations, and were given a ton of painkillers in order to keep focused on their tasks. Once Leia was certain the bridge officers were going to make it she realized one person hadn't spoken, and she turned toward the little green man sitting on the floor.
"Yoda, are you alright?" Leia asked. She wasn't sure if her eyes were playing tricks on her, but it looked like the Jedi was even more ancient than before. "You don't look so good."
"I'm sorry," Yoda said. He opened his eyes and looked up at Leia, and even that was a strain for him. "I did… everything I could… and it wasn't enough…"
Before the eyes of everyone on the bridge, Yoda simply disappeared, leaving only his clothes behind.
Leia gently put one hand there, as if to confirm that he truly was gone. "Goodbye."
The loss was felt by everyone with a connection to the Force, and those that knew Yoda understood that his life had ended. Luke closed his eyes and remembered his teacher, wishing he could have finished his training under the old master. He wondered if he would see Yoda as a Force Ghost someday, or at least hear his voice from beyond the grave. Such thoughts would have to wait, as there was still a fight to be waged, as Vader still lived. Currently slicing his way through the wreck of Home One, Vader would emerge soon, weary but still determined to kill the spirit that lived within Aang.
Standing next to Luke, having been momentarily overwhelmed by the intense vibrations from the crash, Toph was starting to recover. "Did that do it? Please tell me that did it!"
"No," Luke answered. "He's still alive."
"And I am in no shape to fight him."
Startled by the voice from right behind him, Luke turned and saw the ethereal blue image of Aang's spirit form. "Did you get hit?"
"I'm fine," Toph said.
"Not you," Luke said. "Aang, he's here in spirit."
"Oh," Toph said. "Tell him I said hi."
"He can hear you," Luke said. He turned back to Aang, and his posture told Toph which direction she should face. "What happened up there Aang?"
"Nearly got splattered on the windshield," Aang answered. He pointed up at the top of the crashed ship, where his physical body was left prone on the hull. "Cushioned the impact as best I could, but my body isn't going anywhere after that."
Alarmed by the grave news, Luke turned toward Toph and pointed at the top of Home One. "Get Katara and get her up there! Aang needs a healer, now!"
"On it!" Toph said, dashing off on a mound of earth.
Luke turned back to Aang, fearing the worst. "Vader's still alive, and if you can't fight back anymore…"
"I know," Aang said. "I'm a sitting turtle-duck. And if I suddenly vanish, that will probably be him sticking a lightsaber in me."
"We're running out of ways to fight him," Luke said. He took a quick look around the landscape, searching for people amidst all the battle damage. "Appa's down, most of your friends are injured or exhausted, your body's broken, the ship is broken."
"We still have you," Aang said. "That's got to count for something."
"I'm no match for Vader," Luke admitted. "I never was. And when we fought this morning, he was toying with me the entire time."
By now Vader had cut his way through the upper decks of Home One, breaching the dorsal hull to emerge in daylight. He appeared to be exhausted from all the effort expended today, even dropping out of the Avatar State and taking a moment to rest. After all, he had no need for urgency now, sensing in the Force that there were no viable threats remaining. He could eliminate Aang at his leisure, and Luke sensed that he would do so within a few minutes. Toph would never get Katara to Aang in time, and the rebel soldiers making their way up top would barely slow him down.
"There's still one thing we can try," Aang said, though he sounded uncertain. "It's desperate, it might not even work, but it's all I got left."
"I'm open to ideas," Luke said. "What do you have in mind?"
"We work together, like they did," Aang suggested, pointing at Vader.
Luke stared at Aang, uncertain of what to think about that. "Can we even do that?"
"Won't know unless we try," Aang said. "So either it works or it doesn't, we'll find out."
"Let's do it," Luke said.
Aang nodded and stepped forward, so that his spiritual form occupied the same space as Luke's physical body. It was a bizarre sensation for both of them, as Aang willed for his spirit to mix with Luke's, and Luke called upon the Force to draw Aang into himself. They stood together, Aang rising up to Luke's height, so that their faces overlapped and they shared the same eyes. The eyes closed, Aang's spirit form faded away, yet his presence remained. The ground began to shake, centered where Luke stood, but he was not shaking with it.
Sensing something amiss, Vader walked to the edge of the crashed ship, looking down at his son in the distance. "What's this…"
Luke's eyes opened, glowing bright blue, drawing all the power Aang possessed. Not just power, but knowledge as well, both from Aang and from all the previous Avatars before him. The knowledge to wield the four elements, in addition to his training in the Force, and could now use both in tandem. Air compressed and enveloped him, water burst from a nearby spring, earth fractured and rose upward, fire burst from his hands, coming together to form the elemental rings once again. Each hand grasped a lightsaber, igniting green and purple blades, and the Force lifted him off the ground.
Feeling Aang's presence within him, their minds mixing together, Luke was ready to put their combined power to use. "We'll finish this together!"