Chapter Text
Scorn’s blaster cannon desperately fires at the Inquisitor closing in on him, who is ceaselessly deflecting each rapid plasma bolt with ease. He can almost feel the heat emanating off of the ‘saber with each swing, or is it from the blaster? It won’t hold out much longer, and then he’ll die. He’ll die to a blade-wielding Imperial attack hound.
Several emotions battle to be the focus of his limited attention, and he subconsciously settles on betrayal. Raw, sickening betrayal courses through Scorn’s tired veins as he thinks back to watching their only form of escape lurch up into the sky, fading out of sight through smoke and haze only minutes ago.
And with it, a handful of traitorous Mandalorians.
After all their leader has done for them, for them to just abandon Maul now? To leave him to die? Repulsive. And now Scorn is going to die, too. It’s his own blasted fault that he’s here now, alone, backed up against a cavern wall and losing to the armored coward standing before him.
There is no one around to save him. However, there is also no one to see him lose so foolishly, no one who bore witness to the huge blunder he’d made to get himself in this situation.
Small mercies.
Scorn lets himself think of his brothers… his brother, and his leader. He can only hope this is allowing time for them to escape. Surely, if this Inquisitor is wasting his time here, neither him nor his counterpart have managed to stamp out Lord Maul.
It is with this fleeting thought that Scorn stands a little taller. He’s eye to eye with the skull-masked Inquisitor, now. If he must die, if this is his shameful demise, then let it be of some use. He considers this train of thought and holds onto it, anything to counter the rabid disgrace that threatens to engulf him whole.
The blaster cannon is well past overheated, the automatic safety sensors that would have prevented it from doing so long since removed. The barrel’s soft orange glow is now a brilliant amber, and he almost wants to laugh at the irony of his failing weapon emulating the skies of Dathomir.
Life has a funny way of coming full circle.
He trains both eyes on it and lets it bring him home.
There was a day not so long ago, yet simultaneously feeling like lifetimes ago, that was not too far out of the ordinary at first glance.
Scorn had finished his daily tasks hours earlier than most, and so he found himself sitting beside a few of the elders, tying up cured rancor meat as it was passed to him.
It was not his preferred way to eat it, he much preferred the rewarding taste of fresh meat after a successful hunt. In any case, it was nice to spend time with the elders he respected so fiercely.
The same ones that once sat and cured piece after piece so that he and his young brothers could eat. He owed it to them to help out in the same regard.
It was one of those days where the relentless Dathomir fog seemed to almost relent, and the sky was visible in all its amber glory. It was an uncommon occurrence, and everyone seemed to be in a more jovial mood when it did happen.
This foreshadowed the arrival of a Zabrak–so familiar to him, yet so foreign–with his hands clasped behind his back and a lightsaber hilt swaying and bouncing against his hip with every sure step. He had a calculating, complacent gleam in his eyes: yellow rimmed with crimson like fire, like burning something to ashes just to start anew.
Scorn is only half aware when the plasma stops firing, when the barrel starts cooling to a different color still reminiscent of home, when the cannon is ripped from his hands.
He is sluggishly brought back to reality by the warbled sounds of someone speaking. Yelling?
Why is he talking now? Can’t he just kill Scorn already? Was this not a dishonorable enough death on its own?
Vermillion and soot colored hands. They grab at him, grab his chin, the back of his neck, his own empty hands, that are stuck positioned as if the blaster cannon is still firing. They shake his shoulders.
Scorn lifts his eyes to meet blazing red ones.
Not the penetrative red of the Inquisitor, not the red that swathes the gold of their leader’s, but the comforting, familiar red of his brother’s.
Icarus.
“Icarus?” Is all he can grunt out, echoing his mind.
Nine horns, a cowl he can feel hot breath through, invisible brows contorting in concern and urgency. “Come back to me, brother.”
And Scorn does. He takes several steadying breaths of crisp air and straightens his back immediately. His hands shoot back down to his sides, and his fingers ache from the position they were held in for so long.
He blinks a couple times to reorient himself, attempting to clear any confusion from his face, any sign of weakness.
The body of the Inquisitor is crumpled and smoking at their feet, several blaster holes having found their new home in his back. Scorn’s poor blaster lay beside him, its condition not much better.
“I suppose he was so focused on you he didn’t see me coming,” Icarus remarks. Scorn meets his gaze and offers a slow nod, the most his pride will allow at the moment. Icarus returns it without a second thought, and he’s suddenly grateful his brother doesn’t mention how close he was to losing.
“Where is Maul?” He asks automatically. “I haven’t found him, but an explosion came from over there.” Icarus jerks his head back and to the right.
It’s an unspoken, implicit agreement when they both take off running in that same direction.
Scorn’s legs protest with each footfall, angry at the rest of him for being locked in place for so long. It’s a crude ritual they fall into, consisting of running, pausing, listening, then running some more. Every pause is a faint punch to Scorn’s gut, as each time the only audible noise is a medley of rushing water, their hard breathing, and the far-off bustle of city life.
He will not give up on Maul, not as the spineless Mandalorians did. He is physically incapable of it, both he and his brother, and that’s what keeps his body propelling forward, his eyes probing the surroundings, his brain operating.
He thinks briefly of Kast, and wonders if she made it out all right.
Icarus pauses ahead of him. He has his head cocked and his fingers ball themselves into a fist before relaxing again. Twice. Three times.
“Do you hear that?” he murmurs, his voice gone gravelly.
Scorn freezes too and listens, trying to break past the steady drone to locate this new sound.
And mercifully, he does. Like a divine intervention, the familiar whir and chirp of Maul’s beloved droid grows in volume and they run toward the sound, desperate to break the distance. It takes only a few seconds, and Scorn has never in his life been more relieved to see the bothersome thing.
Spybot is frantic when he finds them, zooming back and forth in the air and chittering on so quickly that Scorn has trouble understanding what he’s trying to tell them. “Do you know where he is?” he asks instead, and Spybot prattles a few affirmatives before turning and heading quickly in the direction he came from.
The droid, calmer now that he found assistance, fills them in on the way.
He tells them about how the other Inquisitor injured Maul and brought part of the cavern down around him, likely believing he was too weak to escape. He wanted to provide Maul with a slow, suffocating death, and told him so, but was apparently called away before he could ensure it happened. More than willing to trust in the force to do his dirty work for him.
Also, Scorn thinks, gravely underestimating Lord Maul.