Family Matters [Open to Ticons]

[Dessh Ekwesh]

Location: The Planet of Taris, the Lower City

You never heard the expression "get away from it all," on the planet of Taris. After all, the entire planet was made up of one big crumbling city, divided into four levels: the Upper City, the Middle City, the Lower City and the Undercity. It was in the depths of the Lower City in a bar aptly named The Promised Land, that Diego Ticon, one of the youngest men of the infamous Ticon criminal clan, sat.

The Promised Land was a notorious hangout for a swoop bike gang called The Lower City Renegades, of which Diego was a rider. He sat hunched over at the bar, knocking back some Chadian rum and making wisecracks with his favorite bartender. Every now and then the man's blue eyes flickered to the door as if he was expecting someone.

Sadly, Diego was wasn't holding his breath that this crazy experiment of his would yield any results. He'd put out word not only on the HoloNet, but also throughout the galactic criminal underworld that he was looking for family. His relatives were a mystery to him. He only knew there was alot of them, and that they had been spread around the galaxy like seeds in the wind.

He'd come to Promised Land every night for the last few weeks, ever since he'd started his search. The biker bar was the meeting place he had suggested for any interested or curious Ticons to come meet one of their own lost souls. But to his chagrin, no Ticons had showed yet.

He knew it was a shot in the dark, but every night, like clockwork, he still came. Just in case tonight would be the night.

[member="Keira Ticon"]

 

[Jasper Felinus]

Taris was, to put it lightly, a craphole. Just to get down to the lower city, I'd had to fight my way through all sorts of gangs, mercenaries, and half-dead panhandlers. Of course, it would've been nice if my speeder hadn't gotten blasted to bits while I was flying it, but that's life. It also would have been nice if I wasn't picking pieces of glass out of my favorite jacket. The pseudo-uniform I wore appealed to my sense of irony, and had a good bit of armor in it.

Now, back to the pieces of glass. An angry Nikto had been standing before me, grimacing in the sort of way that would make anybody less self-assured than me run like hell. In one fell swoop, he'd managed to pick me up, and hurl me through a bar window. I went flying, landing on a metal table and denting it. I looked up from the table to see a young, bearded, guy in a hat looking back down at me.

"Hey there. Mind giving me a hand?"

Of course, despite my question, I drew my pistol, lined it up with the Nikto's head, and dropped him in one shot. I bowed theatrically to the hatted man, and grinned.

"And so the curtain falls."

[member="Diego Ticon"] [member='Keira Ticon']

 

[Dessh Ekwesh]

Diego wasn't at all shocked when a Zabrak suddenly came flying through the window. At the Promised Land, an event like this was as commonplace as someone putting a song on the jukebox. He pensively watched the man finish up his business and then grasped the other man's arm, pulling the Zabrak to his feet.

"Hey man, no biggie," he said, brushing glass off his leather jacket. A tray of shots went travelling by and Diego, winking at the waitress, grabbed two. He handed one to the Zabrak. "Here, looks like you could use this."

He gulped down the other shot and slammed the glass down on the table. "My name's Diego. Diego Ticon."

[member="Jinxer Ticon"] [member="Keira Ticon"]

 

[Nyxie]

Most people, as it were usually the case, weren't too fond of Taris. The occasion was the LLP droid's first journey there, and Manamune as a living being had never been there before either in all her years. Her bulk freighter remained in lower orbit while she took the Cat-o-Nine down into the city's upper levels. A steep but circumstantially paltry fee was charged to her account to reserve the landing deck space and the lone droid made her way to the Lower City. It quickly became apparent why nobody said much about Taris....

Manamune had only just approached the shanty little bar when she witnessed her first Tarisian murder. Utterly indifferent to the clearly fresh Nikto corpse on the ground before her and the shattered bar window, she strode over it and through the pool of glass. The sound of crunching and a low, dull ringing of metal gave out from under her wedged metallic heels.

"Hey there.... Manamune Ticon. Adopted. Don't ask."

Asking someone not to question something so confusing was like pointing a gun to their head and expecting them not to duck. In reality, it really meant ask away.

[member="Diego Ticon"], [member="Jinxer Ticon"]​

 

[Keira Priest]

Well, Taris certainly wasn't one of the worst planets Keira had ended up on in her nineteen years of life, but neither was it the best by any standard. There were mercenaries, spice dealers and the more numerous gangs to either fight through or avoid just to manage one's way to the Lower City. And then there was finding the bar itself, which proved to be less of a challenge.
Of course, the hole in the window did help in identifying it, and it was through said hole she leapt deftly through, studying the scene before her for a moment. A Zabrak, presumably the one responsible for the broken glass, and another man sitting at the bar caught her eye. She'd come here to meet the other members of the Ticon family, and so far they seemed like her best guess.
Reaching up with a hand to tug down her hood she made her way over to the pair, her lightsaber concealed within the folds of her robe should she require the weapon. Thus far she'd managed to get attacked frequently enough without people assuming her to be a Jedi, and she definitely didn't need a bar full of drunken strangers on her tail next. The other denizens of the city were trouble enough as it was.
Just managing to catch one of their names as she stepped forward, the rogue Padawan glanced to the other woman that had stepped up for a moment. Well, this was becoming quite the party. "Funny you say that. I'm Keira Ticon." Some reunion this was turning out to be.

[member="Diego Ticon"], [member="Jinxer Ticon"], [member="Manamune Ticon"]

 

[Jasper Felinus]

I grabbed the drink, downed it, put it on the table, and sat down. The droid and the new girl, along with the hatted man all had the name of Ticon... That meant...

"Jinxer Ticon. I do believe that you lot are my cousins. Of course, I can see that I inherited my mom's looks..."

I grinned at the others, and leaned back in my chair.

"I do believe I've heard of you before, Manamune. You're a Raven. I'd bet money Colap adopted you."

[member="Keira Ticon"] [member="Manamune Ticon"] [member="Diego Ticon"]

 

[Nyxie]

"Yeah," she indifferently sighed, "Something like that.... So what are your stories?"
Manamune turned about face and beaned back, but against bar with her ceramic palms pressed upon the counter. She would have ordered a drink but she wouldn't taste it. Ultimately, it was just another fluid to be disposed of from the small reservoir in her chest cavity at a later time. She wasn't always inorganic - though she had been well before claiming the LLP droid as her own coil. There was a story she'd get to once she had heard the others' own first.

[member="Jinxer Ticon"], [member="Keira Ticon"], [member="Diego Ticon"], [member="Colap Ticon"]​

 

[Dessh Ekwesh]

Diego slammed his hand down on the bar. "Kark yeah! Ticons!"

He grinned. "I can't believe you bastards actually showed." Diego was confused about who was who and he knew he'd probably have to get them all to tell him their names again before the night was through, but for now his relatives were here and that was all that mattered.

Diego whistled to the bartender and called for more shots. Then he heard the Zabrak, Jinxer or something, say the one name in the clan he actually knew.

"You know Colap? I'm his baby brother."

[member="Jinxer Ticon"] [member="Keira Ticon"] [member="Manamune Ticon"]

 

[Jasper Felinus]

I grinned at Diego, and shrugged.

"Not sure if that makes you my cousin or my nephew, then. I never brushed up on the history of who slept with what woman. Never met him, though. Dude's impossible to find."

I looked at Manamune, and grinned even wider.

"My story, huh? Most of it is composed of drinking and sleeping with women whose names I can't remember the next morning."

[member="Diego Ticon"] [member="Manamune Ticon"] [member="Keira Ticon"]

 

[Keira Priest]

Things were moving fast, but it wasn't anything Keira was a stranger too. Right now she was just surprised they'd all managed to show up all at the same time. Fate had a funny way with things, sometimes. If she was one to believe in anything of the sort, that is. "I do try my best not to disappoint, you know." Now more names were being brought up. Though she wasn't too familiar with much of the Ticon line, the name Colap certainly meant something to her. Maybe he'd still show his face. The night was young, after all. "I'm not exactly sure where I fit into the family picture, to be completely honest. But I'd guess probably Colap's younger sister, or something of the sort." She shrugged.
The other woman, who she'd pinned as a droid by now, spoke up, asking about their stories. "It's a long one, and I'm not exactly sure where to start. Long story short, I was raised a Jedi but left upwards of three years ago." As she spoke of the Order her voice dropped an octave, just so they wouldn't be overheard and possibly confronted. "Figured out about being a Ticon around the same time, decided to do some research, and here we are." Shrugging again she took up her drink as they were delivered, finishing it with a tilt of her head.
"How about the rest of you?"

[member="Diego Ticon"], [member="Manamune Ticon"], [member="Jinxer Ticon"]

 

[Nyxie]

Manamune let off a slight, crooked smile on the corner of her synthetic face. That was the part where things got interesting.
"My story... well, I'm a... droid. I used to be a woman from the Unknown. I had gotten into a few different things throughout my years, was disembodied aboard some pirate's ship, condemned to otherspace and forced to haunt a Shard that the first mates mistook for a rare gemstone into oblivion. I spent the next eight hundred years in that ship, as that same Shard.... This droid was the first piece of functioning technology I had seen in almost a millennium. I had it pull out its own processing core and install me in its head, borrowed its memories and used its ship to come back to the real world."
Manamune reached beside her, grabbed a shot and downed it anyways, if only for the nostalgia of remembering what it felt like to lift a glass at all.
"About how I became a Ticon... well, that's a story for another day."

[member="Keira Ticon"], [member="Jinxer Ticon"], [member="Diego Ticon"]​

 

[Dessh Ekwesh]

Diego knocked back another shot, letting out a loud whoop. He smiled at [member="Keira Ticon"]. If you're Colap's sis, that makes you my sis, too. C'mere you!" The boozy-smelling man leaned in gave Keira a bear hug, clapping her on the back.

Diego listened to Manamune's story but most of it was a bit too dense for the kind of celebratory mood he was in. "I'd like to hear that story." He grinned. "I didn't know Colap that well, but I never knew that bugger to be into lovebots." Diego winked at her.

Then he turned to the Zabrak. "Drinking and womanizing, huh? You and I are gonna get along just fine, my friend." Diego grinned widely and clapped him on the back.

[member="Manamune Ticon"] [member="Keira Ticon"] [member="Jinxer Ticon"]

 

[Jasper Felinus]

I smirked, and stirred my drink.

"We should go cruising in the Horned Queen one day. See who we can pick up."

I looked up at Manamune, who was still standing.

"So, Shards can be created rather than born or whatever? Interesting."

[member="Manamune Ticon"] [member="Diego Ticon"] [member="Keira Ticon"]

 

[Keira Priest]

Never had Keira ever gotten such a reception once others discovered she was a former Jedi, but the hug from [member="Diego Ticon"] was much more preferable than getting shot at. She returned the gesture with a half smile of her own, leaning back in the bar stool and studying the others of their so far ragtag family. Of course, from all that she'd heard of the Ticons before making any pursuit after meeting with any of them, it didn't come as too much of a surprise. "I'd say younger sister maybe, but I never got too much into the genealogy side of things, besides figuring out about all of us."
For the time being she neglected to retrieve her lightsaber from its hiding place, not wanting anyone else to get the wrong idea about her presence there, or her intentions. She looked to the Zabrak with another smile. "Quite an entrance you made, there," She nodded to the body of the Nikto on the floor as well, "And not a bad shot either. Something tells me I should start expecting everything similar to that in the future."
Not much of a drinker she let her empty glass sit and didn't make a motion for another one, instead reaching up to tuck a strand of brunette hair behind her ear. "So far this makes all of us quite the family, and this isn't even half of the Ticon line, if any of my research dug up anything useful. I can only imagine what the others are like."

[member="Jinxer Ticon"], [member="Manamune Ticon"]

 

[Nyxie]

On any other day, the Wraith turned Shard would have picked up [member="Diego Ticon"] and thrown him out the other window; but Ticon was family, and that somehow strangely made everything okay. Instead, she grinned of a subtle, easy amusement.
[member="Jinxer Ticon"] then mentioned something about Shards, which Manamune felt appropriate to answer.
"Chaos if I know.... All I know is that they're sentient Force crystals, and are completely inorganic."
Manamune shrugged a subtle smirk again.
"At least my new body comes with a full range of new senses the likes of which I've never dreamed of before. It's almost euphoric."
With the impulse of a simple forethought, the sliders on her third eye opened, revealing... a third orange-glowing eye.
Then she turned to the girl, [member="Keira Ticon"].
"So, Keira, what do you do for a living?"
She placed her own saber, Luster, on the bartop as a clear indication to Keira that she had scanned and been made aware of theirs.
It was actually the droid's, but now that the two were literally and metaphysically one, those truths were one in the same.

 

[Dessh Ekwesh]

Was it getting out weapons time? Diego unsheathed a long hunting knife and stuck it in the table with a thwack. He grinned at all the Ticons. They were a fun bunch so far. And he definitely wanted to go partying with his cousin Jinxer the first chance they got.

He noted that Keira had mentioned being a Jedi. Or a former one. Diego himself had been feeling some things he couldn't explain lately, thoughts and emotions that weren't his, strange sensations he didn't know what to do with. He had wondered if maybe it was the Force and now he felt more sure that it was. Maybe they shared the same bloodline that was connected to it, just as she. He made a mental note to ask her about it later.

For now the young biker was content to listen to their stories, and see if any more connections or similarities emerged.

[member="Manamune Ticon"] [member="Keira Ticon"] [member="Jinxer Ticon"]

 

[Keira Priest]

A subtle twitch of her fingers, and her lightsaber flew into her palm. Keira supposed that the group had already attracted enough attention once the Zabrak had crashed through the window, and that anything else was just adding to the stares. Regardless, she set the weapon on the bar, the beads that adorned the thin leather strip hanging off the pommel clicking softly as they met the surface of the bartop. The decoration of the weapon had been a spur of the moment thing, but it added something. Just what, she wasn't sure.
"That's really a loaded question. A bit of this and that, really. I don't really stick around much in one spot to get any kind of typical job, and I'm not one for anything average anyway. Now that I've made connections with family, I might have to see about joining up with the Ravens." She shrugged. "Right now it's all really up in the air."
Glancing to Diego as she sensed something just a bit out of place, a suspicion that had been nudging at the back of her mind blossomed. "Hey, Diego, not to get overly personal right away, seeing as how we've only just figured out we're related and all of that, but have you ever really considered the idea that you might be Force sensitive? Just an idle thought, but we're of the same bloodline, so it's worth asking." She decided not to mention the fact that she'd had a grasp of his latent abilities since she'd entered the building. That would definitely be something to tack on later, once he responded to her initial prodding.

[member="Diego Ticon"], [member="Manamune Ticon"], [member="Jinxer Ticon"]

 

[Dessh Ekwesh]

As Diego listened to Keira talk of her dilettantism, he smiled. She could have been describing Diego himself, except for the family connection part. When his sis asked if he was Force-sensitive, he slowly nodded.

"I've only started to realize that's what it might be. It started with lucky hunches, and then it turned into being able to figure out what someone's thinking or feeling, and then weather patterns." He let out a low chuckle. "It's almost like I know when a thunderstorm is coming. Like I can feel it in my veins." He looked as his hands. "All kinds of weird stuff has been happening to me lately and I've begun to think it might be the Force."

Diego grinned. "I really wanna know more about how to do stuff with it. I'm not sure anyone would want to take on training a swoop gang biker from The Lower City though." Smirking, he pointed to the gang tattoos that covered his arms.

[member="Keira Ticon"] [member="Manamune Ticon"] [member="Jinxer Ticon"]

 

[Jasper Felinus]

I shrugged, and shook my head at the very idea of me being Force sensitive.

"It'd almost be unfair if I was Force-sensitive. I'm already this amazing. But I have odd intuitions sometimes. Like when to draw. When I'm playing cards, I always know when to fold. But that could just be me."

Just to add to the stack of weapons on the table, I brought out a slender throwing knife, and a much heavier combat knife. Both lodged themselves about an inch into the table with no damage to the blades.

"I might not be sensitive, anyway. I don't even know if my dad was. My mom definitely wasn't, though."

[member="Manamune Ticon"] [member="Diego Ticon"] [member="Keira Ticon"]

 

[Nyxie]

Manamune smiled with a cold, narrow stare upon the sight and sound of all the weapons being lodged on or into the bar's surfaces. She pulled forth an entire twin-bladed Sith longsword, spun it five-fourty and lunged it through the table where [member="Jinxer Ticon"] and [member="Keira Ticon"] were gathered around, which it pierced effortlessly. Her hand slowly released its firm grip upon the blade's twisted sterling handle, the golden glow of her indicator lights refracting through the alchemical crystal ball wrapped into its hilt.
"If I ever get my body back, you owe me a drink...."
Manamune winked at the trio of other Ticons, and just as she did, the impaled table split asunder. from the force of impact.
"Whoops..." the droid nonchalantly stated, eyes scrolling over the damage.
Random change in subject.
"So, do any of you have a ship?"

[member="Diego Ticon"]​