Notes:

I started this out of pure indignation over the intense heteronormativity endemic in the core SWtoR game. The fact that there appears to be NO fic pairing a male Jedi Knight with Lord Scourge is just more insult upon injury. So I took it upon myself to rectify that.

And what was going to be a really short sparring session scene that ends in angry kisses turned into something much bigger as I started to actually think about Lord Scourge's character motivations.

So much of Lord Scourge's character isn't presented or discussed in the game, most likely because it's all from the Knight's perspective, and Scourge is very reserved with what he actually tells about himself. Most specifically concerning the ritual of immortality and its 'side effects'. I have attempted to make this story as compliant with the book Revan (where Scourge was introduced) as possible. From the book, we know that the true side effect of the immortality ritual is constant, unending agony. After a long enough time, this will actually affect a person's brain chemistry, to the point of 're-wiring' their nervous system, particularly in the section of the brain that processes emotion.

It's not that the ritual magically shut off Scourge's ability to feel. It's that he's deadened his own senses out of self-preservation.

I felt this was important to include and develop, so this will be a multi-part story told in snippets throughout Scourge's travels with my Jedi Knight. It's as canon compliant as I can make it, with some differences simply due to Knight Katsulas's personality.


The Jedi are weak. Their very nature collars their power, blunts their fangs, dulls their claws. They praise compassion devoid of reason, peace crafted from emptiness. This alone is enough to earn Scourge's disdain.

That they choose to live as husks is what earns Scourge's contempt.

That they dare to call it strength is what earns Scourge's wrath.

Revan and Surik are different. There is a passion in their hearts, a passion tempered and weaponized by experience, power, and focus. Scourge likes them. He has learned much from Revan over the past three years. They are not friends, but Revan is the closest he has to one. As a Vision slashes through the chaos of combat and brands his retinas with the image of an unfamiliar young Jedi standing over the Emperor's body, Scourge thinks, But why not Revan? Revan possesses knowledge of both Light and Dark. Revan is not weak. Revan wields greater innate power than anyone I have ever seen!

But clearly, it is not enough. Scourge has foreseen their failure, and he has just now foreseen the one who will succeed. He knows what must be done.

As Scourge slams his lightsaber between Surik's shoulderblades, cauterizing her scream before it can even leave her windpipe, he thinks that the strange Jedi from his vision will surely have a great darkness within him if he is to surpass even Revan's and the Exile's combined strengths.

He kneels and weaves his lies like synthsilk around the Emperor's eyes, knowing that the sacrifice had been well worth it, for now all he must do is wait. Only days later, the Emperor's ritual stops time and all of Scourge's passions flatline beneath an onslaught of unending agony. The world goes horribly dead. All he can think amidst the pain is, I had better not be left waiting for long, Jedi.

He waits for three hundred years.

#

The Jedi is not what he expects. Scourge recognizes his face instantly enough, and there is darkness knotted in his core, but not nearly enough of it. Light radiates through the Jedi's force signature like a Type O star, but the Emperor is a black hole. This young man standing behind the flickering force field cannot possibly defeat the Emperor as he is now. He will need to collapse his restraints and shed his beloved Code; the resulting shockwave will be felt and seen throughout the galaxy, Scourge knows, as powerful as any supernova. Scourge will be there to ensure it happens.

But it was a Jedi you saw, Scourge reminds himself as he walks away from the confused Knight, having exchanged only a handful of cryptic sentences for bewildered responses. A Jedi brilliant with light. Not a fallen Jedi. Nor a Sith.

But the Jedi are weak.

Scourge feels as though he's missing a vital clue. But no matter how long he meditates, he can find no answers.

#

For the first time since receiving the vision three hundred years ago, Scourge doubts himself. He looks up at the figure of the human Knight suspended in a kolto tank and studies him carefully. Every detail matches the appearance of the Jedi in Scourge's vision: human, male, small-framed, warm brown skin, a beard neatly trimmed around his chin and mouth, black hair cut on the longer side of short save for a thin braid in front of his right ear (why does he wear that? He is not a Padawan learner, he is a Knight). Were his eyes open, they would hold the same color and warmth as tarnished steel.

It is undeniably the same Jedi, unless he has a twin somewhere who also happens to be a Jedi Knight with the same preferences in personal grooming. Scourge actually considers the likelihood for a minute.

This Knight confronted the Emperor, yes, but it had all been wrong from the start. His vision had not shown them in the heart of the Emperor's Fortress, nor had it shown the female Jedi who had fought at the Knight's side. Scourge's vision had shown the Emperor in a fresher body-not his current horror, so corroded from the dark side that soiled gauze has fused to its decaying flesh where skin should be.

Wrong time. Wrong place. Wrong.

So when the Knight had challenged the Emperor, of course he had lost.

But Scourge had felt the Knight's strength firsthand when they'd fought. The Force blazes within him even more fiercely than it had in Revan.

Yet, the Jedi has failed, and now the Emperor has leashed the young Knight's mind to his will.

But it was his face I saw in my vision! How can this be?

Scourge has waited for so long. He can wait a little longer to see what happens.

#

When the Jedi does finally snap free from the Emperor's control, all of Scourge's doubt flakes away like sunspots, leaving only blinding certainty. He knows what he must do. After three hundred years of waiting, the moment to act has finally arrived.

Scourge thinks of Surik, the Exile, who had needed proof of Scourge's dedication in freeing Revan. She had not been a fool, and neither is this Knight. With Surik, he'd had the luxury of time. Now, he has only minutes at most to earn the Knight's trust.

Scourge thinks back to his duel with the Knight, before the distant voices of the rest of the Jedi assault team had laid open his words for the lies they'd been. The Knight had stared calmly up the length of his blade at Scourge, unwavering. The saberlight reflecting in his eyes had reminded Scourge of the skies over Dromund Kaas: black-violet scarring through steel grey. "Of course I know it's a trap," the Knight had snapped. "This entire debacle was obviously a trap. You may as well have broadcast 'Welcome, Jedi, This Is A Trap' in Basic."

"Then you are a fool, Jedi, to come willingly and knowingly," Scourge had spat back in response, disbelief and contemptuous indignation staining his tone.

The Knight had shifted one shoulder in a dismissive shrug. "Probably." Then his voice had hardened to match the steel in his eyes and the roiling fury that Scourge had sensed in his heart. "But I don't abandon those who need me."

It had been exactly the sort of inane Jedi drivel that Scourge so despises. But when the Knight had said them, the words had been personal, not empty, rote platitudes. Scourge had felt the sting of them in the back corners of his mouth, agonizingly exquisite.

I don't abandon those who need me.

Scourge thinks back to that moment now, and he knows exactly what to do.

#

The chagrian trooper is the laser-happy sort, but Scourge finds that he's possessed of a pragmatism that would have made him an exemplary Imperial officer, if he'd only had the fortune to be born human and in Empire-controlled space. When Scourge frees him and hands over his gear, the trooper stares at him for a moment and asks flatly, "Why?"

"The Emperor seeks the destruction of the galaxy," Scourge replies, equally blunt in return. "Knight Katsulas is the only one who can defeat him. He will not leave this place without his crew." And I need him to trust me. After another moment, Scourge turns away and moves to open the next cell. If the trooper is foolish enough to fire on him, Scourge will kill him, and their mission will be better off for it.

The trooper does not fire.

Out of all of the Knight's companions, it is the astromech droid that gives him the most trouble. The little heap of Jawa-rejected scrap metal tries to electrocute him when he reaches for the restraining bolt. Scourge growls and tells the doctor to do it instead-which the little coward does under the unspoken threat of a lightsaber through his gut.

Scourge scythes a clear path to the hangar bay with brutal efficiency. He is the Emperor's Wrath; no one expects his betrayal, even though betrayal is how he obtained that position in the first place. No one had expected it then, either. But for all that the Academy instructors like to decorate their lips with golden speeches about honor and 'for the Empire', it is betrayal that marks the beginning and end of every true Sith's career. Scourge is just smart enough to be the one doing the betraying both times.

He cuts down officers, enlisted, technicians, and Sith alike with the same level of ease and cold detachment. Who they are doesn't matter. Furiously snarled recriminations and desperate pleas for mercy are equally meaningless to him. There is only one truth that matters-they stand witness, therefore they must die. Once Scourge has choked the life from the last surviving guard, he lets the woman's body drop and turns to face the blazing presence that has just entered the hangar.

The Jedi Knight stands fifty paces away with the woman who was once a Child of the Emperor, watching with shock-widened grey eyes that narrow quickly with suspicion. The Knight's lightsabers are ignited but pointed cautiously downwards as he tries to make sense of the scene before him. Scourge deactivates his own lightsaber and clips it to his belt-a calculated display of nonaggression.

But the Knight does not follow suit, Scourge notes with silent approval. No, even though his decision to join Tol Braga's strike team had been a foolhardy one, the Knight himself is no fool. He approaches slowly; the way he moves, careful and fluid, reminds Scourge of a nexu. The Knight's twin violet sabers hum on either side of him. He glares up at Scourge for a moment, then glances carefully at each of his freed companions in turn, suspicion and worry carving lines into his young face. "Everyone alright? Not possessed? T7, what's going on?"

The astromech rolls forward and chirps in Binary. One of Scourge's many implants translates the language automatically for him. Sith = freed Jedi companions + secured hangar / Jedi companions != mind controlled

A corner of the Knight's mouth tugs upwards, pulling the faintest of warm, relieved smiles onto his face. A second later that smile is gone and the Knight's gaze fixes on Scourge's own, sharp as a scalpel. "You must be my 'Dark Ally'," he says.

Scourge's brow furrows and his eyes narrow, unsure what the Knight means. He's not the only one, either; he senses confusion rippling through the trooper, the doctor, and even the girl who had once been the Emperor's Child.

"What are your intentions?" the Knight continues, still staring at Scourge.

This is not what Scourge had expected. Either freeing Katsulas's companions has bought him more trust than he'd calculated, or he has misjudged the Knight.

Scourge does not misjudge people. He has been alive for more than three centuries. His initial rise to power had been accelerated by his unique ability to feed on the emotions of those around him. Even now, the Knight's suspicion and fear sparks the brightest in the back corners of Scourge's mouth. So why…?

"Though the Emperor seeks to conceal his true plans, I have seen them," Scourge replies, meeting the Knight's gaze unwaveringly. "That vision has driven me to this…" Scourge kneels in front of the Jedi Knight. Shock drowns out every other emotion in those around him; even the Knight's eyes have gone wide and his jaw slackened as he stares down at the Sith Lord who continues to speak. "I pledge my loyalty to you. Take me to your Jedi Council on Tython, and I'll reveal why."

Out of all of them, it is the doctor who finds his voice first. "We're not actually considering this, right? I mean, he's obviously full of awful." He reeks of fear, confirming Scourge's initial assessment of him. The doctor's fear doesn't drive him, doesn't make him stronger; he allows it to hold him back, to cripple him. Scourge would have preferred to leave the doctor behind as a gutted corpse in his cell, but before he can go about pruning Katsulas's allies, Scourge first has to prove that he's one of them.

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm with Doc," says Carsen. "This is a trap."

Scourge senses no fear from her, unlike with the doctor. In Carsen, there is anger and distrust. Useful emotions, when channelled well. Good. "I seek the save this galaxy from annihilation," Scourge counters sharply. "Without my help, your ship will never escape. I can guide you to freedom."

The Knight deactivates his lightsabers and clips them to his belt. "What about Master Tol Braga and the rest of the strike team?"

"If they were here, I would have freed them as well," Scourge replies. "I do not know their location, and we have little time to discuss this."

The Knight's jaw tenses, but he doesn't argue. Instead he nods stiffly. His expression is carefully neutral, but Scourge knows that outward peace to be a lie. Scourge wants to find the cracks in that calm, dig his fingernails into them, and claw until the Knight shatters apart. Katsulas would remake himself into something jagged, fierce, and even stronger out of the shrapnel. "I accept," the Knight says simply. "Let's get the hells out of here. Do be warned that I have no qualms against removing limbs if you betray us."

"I'll watch him," the trooper says. "If he so much as twitches, I'll shoot him."

Scourge can feel the chagrian's unblinking stare fix on the back of his head like a sniper's laser sight, but there are no whispers of danger from the Force. He does not smirk as he might have done a long time ago. His face is impassive. All he feels now is curiosity and impatience, both barely registering above the dull, muted agony that has become the constant background radiation of his existence.

He takes the ship's controls and navigates them clear of the Fortress's defense grid. The Knight's partner-Carsen-takes the helm with an urgency that implies Scourge couldn't have left the seat fast enough. Her suspicion is warranted, if unecessary in this particular case, and he approves of her defensive caution.

The Knight isn't subtle about his caution, either, though he is more...polite...about it than either his partner or the trooper. Jedi Katsulas watches him with a cool, steady pale gaze, and is never far away the entire hyperdrive trip back to Tython. When Scourge leaves the bridge for someplace quieter and less crowded, the Knight follows as expected.

"I thank you for your trust, Jedi," Scourge says as the Knight steps into the cargo hold. Scourge is leaning against the wall facing the door, his arms crossed leisurely over his chest. He watches as the Knight approaches until they are only three feet apart. "I might not have given mine so freely were our positions reversed."

"Yes, well, you made a very convincing argument," the Knight murmurs. His voice is soft but clear and audible, like Scourge's own. "And as it happens, you aren't the only one to have visions." The Knight's sharp grey eyes narrow up at him. Even though the human is small enough that the top of his dark head doesn't even reach up to Scourge's shoulders, his presence radiates more fiercely than anyone Scourge has ever known, second only to the Emperor himself. Free him from his Council-made shackles, and he will not burst like a supernova; he could be a quasar, searing brighter than billions of supermassive stars combined if only he would just reach for the power that is his birthright.

Standing so close to that blazing Force signature, Scourge is reminded of how sunlight used to feel on his skin.

Scourge's red eyes widen at the realization, just enough for the Knight to notice and misinterpret the reason. The Knight smiles crookedly at him and says, "I was told that a 'Dark Ally' would aid my escape and fight against the Emperor. That would have to be you. And there's no way you could have known that in time to invent your story as an elaborate scheme. So yes, I believe you. For now."

Scourge does not let his surprise or his intense curiosity show on his face. His voice is calm and tinted with approval when he replies, "We will work well together."

He tells the Knight of his vision, and of how, long ago, he worked with Revan and the Jedi Exile in an attempt to destroy his Lord Emperor. He answers the Knight's sharp, direct questions while carefully avoiding any hint of how his alliance with Revan and Surik actually ended. All the while, Scourge notes with interest how the Knight's gaze sometimes dips-ever so briefly-from Scourge's eyes down to his mouth.

Interesting, Scourge thinks, and he considers how he might use this to his advantage.

#

The Knight stops him before they board the shuttle to the surface. "They won't let you set foot on Temple grounds unless you're unarmed." He points at the lightsaber clipped to Scourge's belt. "It's enough of a miracle that the Council's willing to speak to you at all without first putting you inside a containment field."

"Very well," Scourge concedes. He removes his lightsaber and hands it to the Knight. He does not think he will regret this decision, but neither does he have a choice in the matter. If anything, disarming makes him safer; the Jedi's precious rules and sentiment won't allow them to kill an unarmed enemy, particularly not one who has come willingly and peacefully among them. Scourge takes off his gauntlets, too, for good measure, so that the Jedi will be able to see his hands bare and without weapons. The sight will, he hopes, set those around him more at ease.

The Knight looks surprised as he accepts the lightsaber, clearly having expected some protest. He looks up at Scourge and opens his mouth as though to ask 'why', but no sound emerges.

"I trust that your Council is not planning to execute me?" Scourge says.

"No, they'll listen to you. I don't know what they'll do afterwards, though," the Knight answers cautiously. He looks uncomfortable as he says it, like he's mentally preparing for a fight...though not a fight with Scourge.

There is no flash of indignation, no instinctive defense of the Jedi Council. No 'of course not!' or 'they would never!' from the Knight's lips. Just an unspoken acknowledgement that the Council might decide to do something that neither of them will like.

Not entirely a good, obedient little Jedi after all, then.

#

There are only three Jedi Councillors on Tython when they arrive, but all of them are near-legends even in the Empire. And yet, the young Knight standing next to Scourge-tense and radiating nervous energy-will eclipse them all.

Scourge has never met Master Kaedan before, but now that he stands only a few feet from him, he finally understands how this single, lone human man was able to withstand the combined might of all six Dread Masters. The Dread Masters command fear. They have the power to cripple entire fleets with terror. But Kaedan doesn't know fear. Kaedan brims with barely-suppressed emotion, and all of it is righteous fury, boiling rage, deep-set anger. In the years before Scourge was forced to deaden his own senses against the unending agony of the Emperor's immortality ritual, he would have gorged himself on Kaedan's rage until he burst with power. Scourge has not lost the ability to do so, but the art of feeding on another's emotions no longer fills him with vicious euphoria. It is only a tool to gain strength, now.

Before the Emperor's immortality ritual, Scourge would never have believed that power could be hollow. He would do anything to feel that passion once more.

The Council believes him-or Satele Shan seems to, at least-though only because Scourge is here in person, unarmed in the presence of three of the most powerful Jedi Masters alive. Were these Sith, Scourge would have feared for his own safety, and he would never have given his lightsaber to the Knight. But these are Jedi, no matter how strong in the Force. They are collared by their Code, their claws sheathed. They have listened, as the Knight said they would. And they will not attack him.

The Grandmaster and the Knight are the ones he needs to convince, and he has them, though Satele Shan does not look pleased about it. It helps that their own young Knight Katsulas-already a hero among them for his accomplishments-is standing right next to Scourge, safe and unharmed, with his arms crossed over his chest and a stubborn set to his jaw.

Master Kiwiks paces uneasily when Scourge tells them all of the Emperor's plan to genocide the entire planet of Belsavis. "We've kept the planet's location secret for decades," she says. "If the Emperor has found it…"

Scourge wants to laugh. They have no idea of the Emperor's power, of his reach, even after everything he's told them. Decades are nothing to the Sith Emperor. He has lived for centuries. He had been old even when Scourge had been a young acolyte still finding the limits to his own power on Korriban. "Once the sacrifice occurs, the Emperor's ritual cannot be stopped. We must save Belsavis."

Scourge hasn't even finished speaking when he hears the snap-fizz of a lightsaber igniting. He takes an instinctive step back, his right hand going to his belt where his own lightsaber would have been-but it isn't there. Katsulas has it.

"'We'?" Master Kaedan growls. He holds the glowing blue tip of his saber at Scourge's throat. "Your role in this is over, Sith."

The Knight reacts within seconds, darting in front of Scourge and snarling with both of his own saber hilts out-but not yet ignited. Kaedan does not lower his blade, but he looks down at the young Knight with surprise. "He came to you of his own volition," Katsulas snaps. "He helped me escape. He handed me his weapon when I asked. I will vouch for him, and regardless of whether you like it or not, we need him."

Kaedan's face twists. He doesn't stand down, and he looks as though he's about to start shouting back. Katsulas is only a Knight, after all; he doesn't have the authority to challenge the Council.

But he's doing it anyway.

"I know the Emperor's mind," Scourge says, drawing the three Masters' attention. "Belsavis is not the only world in danger. We must find the others, and I cannot help you if I am imprisoned or dead." Scourge looks at Kaedan pointedly, and then turns instead to Grandmaster Satele. "Knight Katsulas is correct. Like it or not, we need each other."

Satele's response is immediate and decisive. "He's right. I can sense the truth in his words. Without his help, we are all dead."

Only then does Kaedan stand down, deactivating his lightsaber and crossing his arms over his chest. Scourge watches him pace for a moment and wonders how much the Jedi Order has changed if someone filled with this much anger can become a High Councilor. Perhaps Scourge has not given them enough credit in recent decades.

#

In the end, Scourge and Katsulas walk out of the High Council chambers free, unharmed, and with a new mission to Belsavis. Scourge is where he needs to be: at the side of the Jedi Knight from his vision.

A few steps ahead, still in the Temple hallway on their way back to the shuttle hangar, Katsulas suddenly stops. "Hey." He produces Scourge's lightsaber and turns to hold it out to him. "You probably want this back now."

"We have not even left your Jedi Temple yet," Scourge observes. He isn't going to object, of course, but he is...curious.

The Knight shrugs, still holding Scourge's lightsaber out. "We're allies for the time being. You aren't going to cause trouble here. And I'd rather you be armed in case someone who hasn't gotten the memo yet decides to attack you." The Knight's mouth thins with impatience. "Come on, what's the problem?"

Scourge looks down at the Knight's hand, at the fingerless glove he's wearing, and has an idea. He reaches for the lightsaber with his own bare hand instead of plucking it back with the Force. His fingers press against the Knight's own. Brief, solid contact. Katsulas's fingers are warm and slightly roughened with callouses not consistent with holding a lightsaber.

Scourge senses the electric shock that jolts through the Knight's body. Katsulas's breath hitches through parted lips, his eyes widen, and he goes rigid.

It's more than mere surprise. It's desire.

Scourge clips his lightsaber to his belt and continues walking towards the shuttle hangar as though he hasn't noticed, but he's smirking. The Knight is too distracted to see it.

Knight Katsulas needs to break before his full power can be realized. His restraint needs to shatter, his passions discovered and embraced.

And now, Scourge knows exactly how to accomplish that.