User Friendly

[Onley Xiangu]

Coruscant​

Lower Levels​

He was still fascinated by all the people walking by outside.

He’d spent most of his life thus far on a space station hidden deep within a remote system. Jared Ovmar wasn’t exactly paranoid so much as a recluse in his ancient years. He preferred his solitude and his biological son and adopted ward were forced in to the same isolation. Thus when Onley had finally left its icy halls and quiet rooms he’d found even the loneliest planet a noisy place. Coruscant was an assault on every sense he possessed. His vision felt like a sieve, catching just enough but still leaving him trying to grasp the small details with no luck.

But when Matsu walked past the storefront with a stranger in tow, his attention was completely focused.

She came in to Hades’ shop like a snake, quiet and slithering, a streak of dried blood under the curve of her jaw that she wiped when she caught him looking. Her eyes were bright and glazed, a post-bloodbath high he knew in her even if she still felt foreign. And behind her was someone more foreign still, and strangely enough close to Onley’s age. He looked like the cat that got the canary to the Atrisian boy, but once more he felt entirely out of the loop. He’d gone out on his own to explore Coruscant only to come back to Hades telling him Matsu had gone out to run an ‘errand’. And Force knew what that meant.

“Lok, this is my son Onley,” he heard her say, snapping him out of his processing. “I’m going to be a while with Hades. I’m sure he’ll want to compensate you, Lok, but in the meantime why don’t you two…” She paused, looking as if she really was at a loss for whatever it was teenage boys did. As a substitute she waved her hand dismissively, leaving them to it as she glided over to tell Hades of the good news regarding Layden’s destruction.

Frankly, Onley wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do either. Though naturally gregarious, isolation hadn’t done much for his idea of stereotypical ‘fun’. Still, it was either stare at each other over a bunch of flowers that were a front for something far more sinister, or find something to do.

“Let’s get out of here,” he offered by way of breaking the ice, pushing open the back door to the shop and letting it close behind them as Lok followed him out in the to the stench of the undercity’s alleys.

[member="Lok Munin"]​

 

[Lok Xiangu]

There was blood stains all over his armor after a nice, fun exercise with Matsu. Whatever fun the two had was only know between him and her as they sought out Lok's former cartel gang and played around with the gangsters until they were broken and unusable for playing. What they had done was securing Hades' business from those mere thugs and getting the Munin a nice, sweet piece of candy called vengeance. Oh, did he not enjoyed that or what? He savor every last flavor of it and would have more of it when he thought back of what he did back in that warehouse.

Right after they had their fun with Layden and his minions, the duo had returned back to Hades' storefront to tell him the good and wonderful news of what had happened to Lok's former gang. Why did Lok tagged along with Matsu back to the storefront? Well, Hades was going to compensate him, but the two had engaged themselves in a conversation of different torturing methods and which ones were the best. After what happened at the warehouse, Lok wanted to get some insight on knowing how to torture one that stepped on his toes.

Just as the Mandalorian and the Sith Lady entered the storefront, there was a face that was new and unfamiliar face to Lok and he was sure the other boy felt the same way. They appeared to share similar ages and the boy looked like he was Atrisian. Suddenly, Matsu spoke and introduced the Munin to the boy that appeared to be her son. The teenager had no idea that Matsu had a son, but he wondered if Onley was anything like her at all. Cool and cruel.

The two teenagers were then left as the Sith Lady went to talk with Hades' about what had happened earlier today in Coruscant's Underworld. That left both Lok and Onley know idea what to do at all. What things did teenage boys do? Talk about video games? Then again, Lok barely played video games. So what could they do?

Then Onley broke the ice by getting out of this storefront and go out to do something in the ghetto of Coruscant. The Mandalorian followed in tow and then said to Onley, "So are you cool and cruel like your mom? Or nah?"

If he could have a conversation with Matsu, the he sure could do the same with her son.

[member="Onley Xiangu"]

 

[Onley Xiangu]

People were always asking him questions about his parents, and he could never answer them. He gleaned from Lok’s question that Matsu had been, at least, entertaining. He supposed he should hate her, but he couldn’t convince himself she hadn’t - in some twisted way - protected him by jettisoning him off to a stranger before he could even talk. But it was also hard to look at it that way when it was done so that she and his Father wouldn’t murder him in his crib.

Tossing around different answers he finally settled on the simplest. “If not more,” he decided, though he wasn’t boastful.

“What were you guys doing anyway?” he asked, poking around for information. He wouldn’t describe it as jealousy - after all, there was nothing his Mother told him he couldn’t participate him. On the contrary she seemed pleased whenever he threw himself in to a task, especially when it was dangerous. But he must have still been out exploring when Lok and Matsu had set off, and therefore missed the invitation. He was still curious as to the comings and goings of a woman he was just starting to see.

Coruscant hummed around them, even here in the middle of thousands of levels. Onley had been dazzled from the uppermost floors of the planet, but even here in the mid-slums he felt there was opulence - or at least in terms of things of value on the street. Admittedly he was rather ill-versed in the culture but he’d seen enough of what Hades did to be familiar with the idea. He had never been lower down in to Coruscant where the truly desperate and destitute hashed out a meager living but he imagined it wasn’t worth his time.

He was just about to ask another question when an extremely shabby looking little human burst out from around a corner, opening up one side of his trenchcoat to reveal an elaborate assortment of...Onley didn’t know what, actually. Just another thing he had to learn. “Eh kids you uh….wanna buy some death sticks?” Even his voice was slimy, raspy from too much of his own product. Onley was stumped as feth.

[member="Lok Munin"]​

 

[Lok Xiangu]

"Oh, nice! I'm sure you would've added much more flavor to me and your mom were doing," the teenager said to Onley in an amusing and enthusiastic tone in his voice. Was Onley as skilled as his mother when it came to just torturing someone with nothing holding her back? The Munin thought so since after all children were much better and creative than their parents. True, he wasn't at the level that equated with his adopted father and was actually many leagues below him, but it was all just a matter of time before he could parallel Vilaz or even surpass him. Then a curious question was asked from Onley in regards of what activity him and Matsu were having when he was off doing whatever business he was attending to.

"Oh, we were just having some fun with some guy. Then he got boring and broken, so we threw him in the garbage," Lok answered back to the boy's question, with a wide grin on his face. Sure, he spoke in riddles and metaphors of what he and the Queen of the Undead were doing back in that warehouse with Layden and his crew, but he was sure that Onley could know and see what Lok was saying. What else could he had said instead of speaking in riddles? "We tortured the feth out of someone." That might've sounded much better and cooler than what he had said, but he was still thinking of just having the time of his life with his former boss and one heck of a Sith Lady.

As the two teenage boys continued walking the streets of Coruscant's Underworld, some guy with a long trench coat came out of a corner and the Mandalorian knew what he was going to do. Offer some drugs for them to consume or some other shady merchandise that was similar to drugs. Now Lok had consumed many kinds of drugs, but deathsticks were foreign to him. Was he about to #YOLO? Most likely, even if it meant reducing his lifespan by just a little bit. "Sure, why not," the Mandalorian responded to the merchant and bought two deathsticks for him and Onley. "Ever had something rad like this, Onley," Lok asked to the Xiangu as they continued on their merry walk done here in the slums of Coruscant and lighting up both his and Onley's deathstick with his lighter.

The Munin took an inhale of it as he placed it in his mouth and could feel the chemicals entering his system. Looks like he was also boiling up a new addiction.

[member="Onley Xiangu"]

 

[Onley Xiangu]

Onley was sort of a dichotomy in terms of naivete. He was no stranger to violence - he had seen the very worst the galaxy had to offer both in history and his own experience. After all, how many boys had seen their parents rip people apart limb from limb, or stand calmly over them while they writhed in agony? No, he understood violence and its place in the galaxy. In that sense he was as travelled as the worst of them.

But drugs? He pretty much just knew there was stuff out there that got you high. He couldn’t have told Lok the first thing about the stick in his hand, and he definitely wouldn’t have known he was holding the infinitely stronger version that was smoked rather than added to a drink. He stared at the smoke curling off the end of it for a minute, catching Lok’s casual inhalations out of the corner of his eye, and considered his options. He could just toss it - he didn’t need it, and he was strangely immune to the common plague of youth: peer pressure. But the other, much louder part of him screamed to try it, to live after so many years of shuffling through imprisonment masquerading as comfort. “No, never,” he answered truthfully, deciding to at least warn the other boy as to the newbie he had strolling next to him.

The first drag hit him like a freight train to the chest, threatening to make him cough though he intentionally held it in so as not to completely reveal himself for the incompetent he was.

And then he was gone.

Each drag shoved him closer to oblivion, the neon lights of various establishments starting to drip downwards in pools on the ground. But it wasn’t the visuals that lifted him - it was the sense of invincibility, an urge to use it to its full potential, to kill something that overtook him.

“This is good…” he said quietly, suppressing exceedingly creative ways to end each stranger that shuffled past him.

[member="Lok Munin"]​

 

[Lok Xiangu]

Neon lights invaded his eyesight with every inhale he took of the deathstick and with every inhale he took of the drug, he reduced his lifespan. But he didn't have a single kark at all! The Munin boy always lived by the #YOLO philosophy and was always a huge risk taker with that being said. His mental mindset became one like with every other drug he consumed: light, happy, carefree, and untouchable. The boy looked at his fellow teenager which he was starting to take a liking in as a friend, and this was a neat way for the two males to bond with each other.

Illegal things like drugs, but Lok was gonna raise it a notch or two as his wild, fun, and crazy side just came up with an idea that was a good combination with deathsticks.

Yes, the two boys were about to have a play date at some club with a whole lot of drinks and girls. Truth be told, this Lok was a whole different Lok than when he consumed drugs, but he needed some fun and celebration after terminating his former boss in a way he would never forget at all.

"Yo, Onley. What if I told you there was something as good as this stick," Lok said to Matsu's son with a wide grin and a chuckle as that was what happened when he got so high from spice and all that fun stuff. Despite of what was Onley's answer, the Mandalorian would take point and lead the two of them to nearest club that had a whole bunch of liquor, drugs, girls, and a lot more for their own amusement.

[member="Onley Xiangu"]

 

[Onley Xiangu]

Spoiler

It only took me forever, but I powered through crying at the sight of your avatar to get you this post.

Onley had a hard time believing there was something better than the death sticks.

The name was sort of ominous but that was forgotten in the dripping blaze of neons, the way they almost seemed to melt in to one another in candy-confection strands. Colors melded together in to something wholly new, foreign - exciting. Space was a lot of blues, purples, and greens and the planets he'd spent most of his life on were full of nature if he found any civilization at all. He found that the city mimicked life, but in brilliant vibration. The yellow of a flower was replicated here almost blinding, cascading in to orange like fire and purple like a bruise all spooling out of control until he wasn't sure which way was up. And yet it all felt good. Great, even.

So following Lok when he promised something even cooler was not even a decision he had to contemplate.

The club was loud. Big noises didn't bother Onley but again this was nothing like nature - it dug in to his eardrums, almost as if the music was trying to pop them out of his skull with the depth of its bass and the hit of its snare. And yet it didn't bother him. He was far too enamored by what he saw once he and Lok had crossed the threshold of the club. (This wasn't the kind of level in Coruscant where anyone cared about a drinking age or something similar, and neither of the two young men were stopped.)

Women everywhere.

He was a self-proclaimed pig and there probably wasn't a person in the galaxy that would argue with him on it. This was his element and he had no idea it could be like a veritable field to pick from. The death sticks were pounding in his head but already he wanted more.

"I would ask you what could possibly be as good as this, Lok."

 

[Lok Xiangu]

"Oh, it gets even better, Onley. Order a drink, mix it with drugs, and find yourself a chick or two. Just make sure you don't all lovey dovey or get someone all," and the young Mandalorian made a circular gesture with his hands in front of his stomach, indicating of getting a girl all pregnant and such. He chuckled at the thought of that and took another smoke of his deathstick, thus shortening another percentage of his life. The joke wasn't that funny at all but when one was hallucinating a twisted version of reality with all kinds of bright, neon colors, then one would find an awful joke something to laugh about.

However, Lok wouldn't just let his new friend, in which they had become just by smoking some dangerous illegal drugs and shortened their own lifespan, let him go all by himself. Just by the knowledge of Onley taking his first dosage of drugs today, he would need some coaching. But it was easy and simple coaching for what Lok was about to teach Matsu's son.

"Follow me, bud," the teenager said to his fellow companion and led the way towards the bar of the club and then ordered a couple of drinks for him, Onley, and an experiment in which they were about to test - or at least the Atrisian would.

"See that blue Twil'lek and that Echani," he asked in regards of two females of different species dancing and grinding on each other, while asking for some liquid deathsticks from the bartender as well. If the man gave the two youngsters some alcohol, then it was most likely that he had some illegal drugs as well. "You're gonna ask them if they want a free drink, bring them over here, and just let the magic flow from there," he gave the boy a sly and mischievous wink at the end of that sentence. "Show 'em who's boss."

[member="Onley Xiangu"]

 

[Onley Xiangu]

In that moment Lok felt like something of a really disconcertingly flippant spiritual guru leading Onley through some hallucinogenic adventure - like those desert retreats one could find if they looked hard enough. He'd never seen the use in planets covered with sand but now he was reconsidering that notion. The Atrisian wasn't used to being in a position where he allowed someone else control, but in this case it felt like being invited somewhere.

Drugs? At a loss. Women? Much less of a loss.

There were women on all the planets Jared Ovmar had dumped him and Silas on, and so Onley had developed something of a habit. Less dangerous than the ones Lok had opened him up to, but impossible to put down nonetheless.

"On it," was his only response.

Now, despite being an absolute and total self-proclaimed pig, Onley liked to think he had an innate understanding of and respect for women. So although he would absolutely be gone in the morning despite telling you he loved you the night before, he would at least be pretty cool before he ghosted. With that in mind he didn't make a beeline for the two that Lok had picked out of the crowd, instead ingratiating himself in to the wavy mass of bodies first. Everyone blended together, a mix of the dark and the flashing neons lighting the floor making sight difficult even if everything hadn't been melting in his vision. Slowly but surely he found the natural motion of the crowd pushing him closer to the Twi'lek and Echani, his eyes settling on the blindingly white hair of the latter. She'd let it roll in to dreads, long and pristine and half pulled-up on the back of her head. That would be the one.

He'd purposely left his death stick half-finished, smoke curling from between his lips as he finally pulled alongside the dancing pair and held it out in invitation to the Echani. He didn't press in to their fun - that never went over well. Instead he offered drugs, a sure-fire way to at least get a foot in the door. And he was right.

By the time he returned to Lok, he had a woman on each arm. They were both giggling and ruffling his hair, already half out of their minds on what he'd shared with them. When they reached Munin the Twi'lek disentangled herself, instead siddling up to Lok to slip under his arm, one palm pressed to his side.

"Ladies, my friend Lok. I'd tell you his last name but he's outlawed in four systems so I shouldn't. Lok, these are my friends Reshka," he said, nodding to the Echani still plastered to him, "and Odin'covi."

The Twi'lek curled her palm so her fingers ticked along Lok's ribs, coy smile on a classically beautiful face. "Covi, for short."

[member="Lok Munin"]​

 

[Lok Xiangu]

And so the young Munin watched and watched and watched.

Back then when he still worked for his ex-boss, was treated like a ragdoll, and wasn't an adopted Mandalorian or had Vilaz as his adopted father, he would come and spend his little money and time on places like this. At first, he was just completely awful when he came to places like this club. He was shy, timid, scared, and downright respectful. It was pretty obvious he didn't belong to a place like this; however, he literally spent his adolescence in the Underworld of Coruscant so there were some habits and hobbies that he picked up along the way before he was adopted by Vilaz. Many of those habits included consuming drugs, drinking liquor, acting like a party animal at clubs, and charming girls with false love and want.

He would never forget those habits and hobbies, and he would never forget how to properly execute them like a...thug.

"Look at him go. He's a natural," the teenager said to himself in a moderate volume of voice, being muted out by blast of music and screams of the patrons. He laughed, again, at his own comment after taking another hit of the deathstick and was given a rush of more hallucinated neon colors. The young Mando was very proud and astonished seeing Onley being very skilled and proficient at what he was doing. He wasn't sure if it was pure luck or natural talent, but it sure paid off for the grand prize that the Atrisian conquered.

"Oh, chit. He's got the booty," the boy mused as Onley was heading back with two stunning and gorgeous women at his side. One of them, the Twil'lek, got off from Onley and slipped herself under Lok's arm. She then began to play with his ribs, creating a fond for the youngster. "Well, I don't think I've seen a face like this in my life," the Mando said, pretending to have some affection for the pretty Twil'lek. He then offered two drinks of the counter of the bar to the girls that were sweet and not hot.

"It's on me and Onley, and don't be shy." He winked and smiled at Covi, encouraging her to drink up from the goblet of alcohol.

[member="Onley Xiangu"]