Birthdate: 4 Dufoje 264
Birthplace: Near Lusvil, Delthakk Province, Sweytz, Sweytzian Alliance, Milky Way
Current Residence: Near Alton, Delthakk Province, Sweytz, Sweytizan Alliance, Milky Way
Biography: Bobby, as he’s known to everyone except his wife who likes the sound of Robin, spent his childhood getting into all manner of scrapes with his best friend, Vincent Blue. As he grew older and his father became a war hero and his elder sister became a champion fencer, he started to resent their success and became determined to make a name for himself instead of being in their shadow.
He was already a talented loothin player with a very pleasant singing voice, but his inherently lazy nature kept him from doing the work necessary to perfect his craft, as did his single-minded focus on pursuing every attractive young woman he saw. Especially the ones who were known to put out on the first date.
By the time he was fifteen, he was starting to hang out with a rougher crowd and get in minor trouble with the local law enforcement — which takes some doing on Sweytz. His father tried to convince him to straighten up and do something productive, such as following in his footsteps and joining the Defence Force, the Kavaliros having quite a long tradition of serving either their faith or their planet. This chafed young Bobby who saw his father’s well-intentioned advice as trying to push him into something he wasn’t interested in. Lacking in self-confidence and looking for an easy way to become someone important, Bobby was easily conned by the Anerix High Chancellor’s rhetoric.
At fifteen and a half, after his parents refused to sign the immigration papers, he tried to punch his father, ran away from home, insulted his girlfriend so badly when she wouldn’t join him that they didn’t speak for nearly thirty years, insulted his best friend so badly when he wouldn’t join him that they ended up in a fight that might’ve proved fatal for Bobby had his friend’s father not intervened, and then lied about his age so he could immigrate without parental permission, all in less than a day.
Once on Anerix, he discovered very quickly that the only thing he was qualified for that paid even remotely decently was the Army. He served as a infantryman for a couple of years, until he irritated his commanding officer one too many times and found himself ‘volunteered’ for the High Chancellor’s Bodyguard.
The High Chancellor’s Bodyguard is actually Anerix’s assassin squad.
Little did anyone suspect at the time that one of the assassin trainers was actually an undercover member of the Sweytian Defense Force Special Forces, Kenshin Kenodori. Kenshin had briefly served under Bobby’s father during the Second Mugdaran War and took a special interest in the young man, who was by now clearly disillusioned with Anerix. Luckily, Bobby was naturally a gifted martial artist — there are some who suspect the Kavaliros of old practiced selective breeding since so many are naturally talented martial artists — so Kenshin, who was a ninja master, had an excuse for giving him private lessons. During those private lessons, Kenshin got to know Bobby better, and eventually he invited him to come visit his home for some specialized training. Bobby eagerly accepted.
During that trip, Kenshin recruited Bobby into his family’s ninja clan. During his ninja training, Kenshin recruited Bobby as a spy for the Sweytian Defense Force.
Bobby was considered a valuable asset by both of his employers for the next few years. Then he had a serious misunderstanding with a member of High Command who he was — depending on which one you ask — either dating or casually having sex with, and she made it her purpose in life to ruin his. Rather soon after this, Kenshin’s spying was discovered. Bobby was ordered to kill him to prove his own loyalty. Instead, he helped him escape. He claimed to the High Chancellor that Kenshin was just too good for him to kill. No one in High Command really believed it. Bobby suddenly found himself suspected every time there was a security leak and assigned all of the most dangerous missions.
During a much overdue vacation, he met Karen Thase, a physical therapist originally from Moulei, but now living on Sweytz. She was very unlike the vrisks he’d been having shallow relationships with for years. By the end of the vacation, he was pretty sure he was in love for the first time since the girlfriend he’d wronged when he left Sweytz.
Their relationship deepened as more of High Command became convinced he was a traitor. Finally, fearing for Karen’s safety, he left the Anerix Army.
Back on Sweytz, he reconciled with his family and his best friend, and reconnected with Kenshin who’d retired from the military and opened a dojo. Determined to keep out of trouble, he started working at Kenshin’s dojo and, with his brother-in-law, Viktor Blue, opened The Sword & Scroll Tavern, playing loothin and singing in The Band Without A Clever Name. The tavern and the band both quickly gained local fame which spread rapidly thanks to the number of spacers from the nearby ‘port who dropped by, looking for something nicer than the bars nearer the ‘port.
Bobby and Karen married and had two children, Cassie and Char, then he, for reasons that even he isn’t quite sure of, suddenly decided that it was time to do more for Sweytz. He joined the Defense Force and was quickly recruited into the Special Forces. The discipline problems he’d had in the Anerix Army didn’t completely disappear, but the worst thing he ever did — punching a mithoska — only got him busted a rank as the mithoska in question was trying to provoke him.
He and Karen had two more children, Ben and Melissa, and everything in his life was going well for years.
Then his eldest got old enough to date and he took the overprotective father thing too far. Before things had gotten too bad between he and Cassie, he was severly injured on a mission and very nearly died, his heart stopping three times while he was on the operating table. His recovery took a bit longer than it should have because he refused to obey the limits the doctors put on his physical activity.
Stuck at home and seeing his children every day, he grew very close to Melissa, who wasn’t quite five, and succeeded in almost alienating Cassie, who by now was nearing fifteen. Every single outfit she wore, every single thing she did, he was sure was going to lead to her being taken advantage of by a young man. He thought every young man thought like he had at that age. These problems with his eldest led to problems with his wife, so once he was well enough to return to active duty, having turned down a medical retirement, he volunteered for every mission he could, finding home an unpleasant place to be. This, naturally, led to worsening relationships with his wife and children, except Melissa, as he made sure to never miss anything important in her life if he could help it.
When he wasn’t on a mission, he started drinking heavily, partially as a way to self-medicate insomnia which had plagued him for years. On missions, he started feeling like he needed to prove himself, his old lack of confidence plaguing him again now that he was older and younger men were undeniably performing better than him. This resulted in him taking chances he shouldn’t have taken and getting injured many times.
Finally, after a mission where he’d been severely stabbed in the elbow and left with it permanently affected somewhat, followed by one where he’d gotten shot next to the heart, Karen had had all she could stand and broke down crying when he said the doctor cleared him to return to full duty. Affected by her tears, and his youngest’s comment that “And you’ll get to see me grow up if you retire, so you’ll know me better than you do Cassie, so maybe we won’t fight so much”, he retired only seven years after his father.
Cassie and he were barely on speaking terms by then, as he’d offended her a great deal when she became a leytgelez, as he was apparently incapable of comprehending the difference between a leytgelez and the whores he’d hired between girlfriends in his youth. Char didn’t much care for him as he’d not been supporting her burgeoning athletic career much. Ben tried to just stay out of the way of the family’s fighting and blamed Bobby for it. So by this point, his youngest daughter was the only member of his family who he had a good relationship with.
During the early days of his retirement, boredom led to him drinking heavier and getting in some minor scrapes with the law, usually dragging Vincent into them as he always had. Finally Karen had had enough and forbade him leaving the house without adult supervision — with their seven year old counting as adult supervision.
A few korvare later, his drinking now worse than ever, he said some very stupid things to Sal and Lori when their relationship started. The young lovers didn’t notice. He ended up pissing Vincent off severely. Vincent’s husband, usually a rather calm man, got so aggravated when Bobby repeatedly failed to comprehend why Vincent was so upset that he punched Bobby, leaving quite a bruise.
When Bobby got home that night, Karen demanded to know what happened. Then he proceeded to, in the course of the conversation, insult all of his children and their significant others, except, of course, Melissa.
Karen ordered him to call Vincent and apologize for what he’d said. In the course of that conversation, Vincent told Karen how much Bobby had been drinking lately, knowing that Bobby’d been lying to her about it. As Vincent had had a drinking problem himself in the past, he recognized what Bobby was going through and had been trying to get him to quit or at least cut back for a while. While Karen was fussing at Bobby, Melissa came in the room and said the words that very nearly damned her father to spending the rest of his life alone: “I didn’t tell her, Daddy! I swear! It’s still our secret!”
Karen had put up with a lot from Bobby, but convincing their daughter that lying about how much he drank was no different that not telling her when he’d sneak her cookies and such before dinner was almost too much. She was very close to kicking him out and cutting off all contact with him. This possibility sobered him up very quickly.
As Karen did still love him, she pretended he’d been too drunk to know what he’d said that night and gave him a second chance. She called Kenshin, as he was the only person who’d ever had much luck getting Bobby to see reason when he was at his most stubborn, who immediately rehired Bobby at the dojo.
Bobby tried to turn his life around, but his ego was thoroughly trounced by how close he’d come to throwing away everything that mattered to him and how horrible his relationships with his oldest children were. The once cocky man now said things like “Of course I’m wrong. I’ve never done anything right in my life” and meant it. His ego bounced back a bit as his youngest, who was already quite a martial artist, took up competing more seriously and he was able to have a connection with her he’d not had with any of his other children.
He had surgery on his damaged elbow shortly before the birth of his first grandchild and the restored range of motion helped his mood, as did the arrival of his granddaughter.
During a trip to Zeiper to buy brandy for the bar, he and Viktor ended up forced by circumstances beyond their control to fight to save the world. Bobby proved to still be quite a fighter, though he discovered that he’d grown a bit too used to sleeping in his own bed every night and could barely sleep on the floor of the hut they were staying in.
He made a diligent effort to improve his relationships with his children and, on the advice of his eldest, he started seeing a psychiatrist last year. She’s helped him quite a bit, getting him to see that he hasn’t been a total screw-up his whole life. At her suggestion, he got back in touch with his old girlfriend, now a widow, and finally apologized to her. They quickly became friends again.
After some korvare, he realized he still had some feelings for her and asked Karen’s permission to open their marriage. Proving that he has finally grown up, he first asked Kenshin for advice on how to phrase his request, being fairly sure that the first way that came to mind would’ve upset Karen greatly, and then when Karen was hurt that he even asked, comforted her and took her out dancing and to dinner at a nice restaurant to let her know that he was still madly in love with her.
A few korvare later, one of his colleagues from his days as an assassin, now in charge of Anerix’s children’s martial arts’ team, tried to recruit Bobby’s youngest. The two men very nearly got into a fight. The man then tried to get Melissa disqualified, unsuccessfully.
This was just the beginning of an obsession with using her to hurt Bobby. The next tournament both teams were at, one of the Anerix coaches attempted to poison Bobby’s daughter. The other ninja master with Bobby physically restrained him so the law could deal with the would-be poisoner, as Bobby would’ve killed the man and been spaced for it under that planet’s laws.
Less than a korva later, some of the man’s friends attacked the dojo. This was not a wise move on their part.
And then, a few sulida later, the man himself broke into Bobby’s house one night and, pointing a blaster at Karen, told Bobby to hand over his daughter, or he’d fire. Karen ended up killing the man herself, which left her rather shaken. And left Bobby very firmly convinced that he never, ever wanted to piss his wife off again.
Presently, Bobby’s life is rather boring. After the excitement of the last few korvare, he’s glad for the break. He’s spending what time he’s not working at the dojo or tavern spoiling his grandchildren. He was even able to calmly accept his 15-year-old son’s engagement to the 13-year-old daughter of one of his fellow ninja.
