🐺 ~PROJECT SAC-1~ ⚔️

Chapter 17 - As far as first dates go... 😆

... But Hunter did not want to pay hundreds of credits for the skull tattoo, especially since he didn't have hundreds of credits.

Misunderstanding their apparent lack of credits at first, the co-owner of this place known as Nik's Parlor, Nik himself stood behind the counter with his arms crossed and said with a no-nonsense tone, "No money = no tattoos, guys." A stark contrast from how he enthusiastically treated the rest of his paying customers.

The Parlor got stragglers all the time who wanted to weasel cheap, sometimes outright FREE tattoos out of him and his co-owners. Or haircuts. Or piercings. Or clothes. It was only to be expected that he'd immediately assume this band of strange misfit soldiers in strange armor, standing in front of the pay counter with discontent looks, were exactly the same those sleemos, 'meekly' saying they didn't have the estimated number of credits to buy their Sergeant a tattoo.

Yet Nik's suspicions were quickly expunged when the difference between those sleemos and these guys is when Tech did hold out the pitiful amount of the measly dozen credits to their name, their mouths were pressed in hard lines instead of mock pouts, and their droopy eyes gleaming with not only embarrassment but shame and confusion and misery and they just looked so LOST. The people who tried to weasel freebees out of them could never be this sincere, a mischievous glint always giving them away. And there were exaggerated stories about a family member suffering a grave illness that's treatment sucked them dry of every spare cred they had, or how they knew the owner or manager and this downright disrespectful treatment would cost them their job, yada yada yada-

With these batch of strange looking soldiers, it was just a few humiliating mumbles amongst themselves.

"I don't understand." By the goggled one to his frowning leader, the subordinates' eyes timidly rounded and looking for guidance.

"They didn't tell us 'bout this." By the burly one directed at the leader too.

"They could have told us you have to trade money for everything out here." The silver-haired one snarked to no one in particular.

The glints in their eyes weren't lively and excited like before, they only showed bitter resentment.

The leaders expression was hard when he said, "We're uh, we're very sorry we wasted your time." Face burning and with dodgy eye contact. He turned and made a brisk gesture for his soldiers to follow him out the Parlor, wanting to leave behind this humiliation ASAP.

"It's all good," Nik ended up saying kindly to their retreating hunched backs, forgoing the matter-of-fact approach as curiosity took over, "Hey, I gotta ask -" He called after them and they paused their exit, "Where you guys from, anyways?"

The three youngest looked apprehensively down at their shortest member, and ever the strong Sergeant it made him nod in an okay before they turned back towards the twi'lek owner who now wore a playful grin to lighten the dreariness, leaning against his hands on the counter. "See, everyone knows you have to pay for a tattoo, and basically everything in life, unless ya'll lived under a rock or something?" He chuckled that last part, not having the slightest clue it was far worse than that.

"We have just been deployed from Kamino." The goggled one recited quietly, exchanging an uneasy glance with the burly one to his right.

'Kamino.' 😮

Nik and his family had obviously heard of the outbreak of the war through the Net, and how this army of CLONES created by this freakishly smart race known as the Kaminoans. These clones were now being spread thin across the galaxy to fight against the new threat to the Republic - the Separatists. He'd seen some pics on the Net too of these brave men with identical faces and identical white armor, so it was only to be expected he'd not been able to realize at first that these UNIDENTICAL guys with BLACK armor were also CLONES.