It occurred to Neil there that this was real curiosity. Sure, he hadn't expected her to be playing him all this time, but at the back of his mind he had always been somewhat wary of her intentions. Maybe it was the fact he had been on the run for the better part of two years, or maybe it was the big point of her having tricked and caught him in the first place. Yeah, both were good points. But still, he felt it somewhat unreasonable now. Hell, the biggest thing that annoyed him at first was that she was a little too nice about it. She had even taken care of his fish! His opinion had gradually shifted (well, gradually for Neil), but now he just felt a sense of kinship beyond the magnetism of physical attraction and her penchant for mischief which mirrored his own. 

He scarfed down the slice of pizza and washed it down with another swig from the bottle, covering his mouth as he gave a low, almost imperceptible burp. 

"Well, I guess you've accumulated enough points to unlock my tragic backstory." He said with a grin. His feet were crossed, left foot on the table with his right atop it. He loosely held the bottle in his right hand, idly swinging it back and forth. 

"When the Valk war broke out, I was in highschool. I was a troublemaker, apparently. Can you believe that? Me? Anyway, I was never really political. Most of my family wasn't either, except one of my big sisters. She was very anti-government. Almost a picket-sign kind of activist. Once I graduated, I took a year of college before I joined up with the Ordo Sanctus, fighting the great fight against the oppressive UNF. I'll be honest, I just wanted to work on big mechs and fight in them, and the UNF needed you to go through all this training, so I went with the rebels. And I was good at it." As if to emphasize the point, a highlight reel of the day's fight flashed on the holovid behind him. 

"I was so good the UNF even had a small bounty on me before things went south. But eventually, one day the 189 got torn apart. I had to run, and I ended up on this small countryside house. As luck would have it, a girl mechanic lived there. One thing led to another, she helped me fix my mech and we fell in love. I kind of wish we hadn't, maybe she'd still be alive." He was staring blankly now, until the world came back to him and he took another swill of the alcohol. 

"Either way, one of her brothers was a high ranking UNF member. Both the UNF and the Ordo found out, but I was way too stubborn to let politics and protocol stop me. The Ordo tried to take away my mech, but I got out of there. They renounced me and said I went rogue. She told me her brother could help us. I thought that sounded alright, but turns out the higher ups in the UNF didn't see it that way. Apparently some official thought this was an Ordo Sanctus ploy. I guess they figured it was too story book to be real, and her brother was compromised. I found out later he had a rival that wanted him dead, but that doesn't matter now I guess. So they set up an ambush for me at MJ's house, my girlfriend I mean, and there was a lot of shooting. She ended up... anyway I was arrested. I was um... I wasn't feeling my best, you could say. So I broke out, hacked into their systems from a terminal, and released their tetryl explosive reserves. It was easy, it was all automated, and then I got on the comms and told everyone to evacuate. Of course I locked the automated doors to the upper floor so all the decision makers had less time to get out, but to this day I still don't know if they did. During that time, I ran and grabbed a military grade shuttle while they were scrambling, and I got off the planet." 

He cleared his throat, shaking his head so the fringe would get out of his eyes. "Of course, teytryl is a toxic substance, not only explosive. I found out later they counted that as illegal chemical warfare, so they stacked that ontop of the earlier 'rebellion' thing and resisting arrest. And since I was a criminal, I went to work for a guy named Sven, doing the usual repairs and system maintenance. Smuggling every now and then. That lasted for about a year. But then I got tired of that and ended up on Hyperion 3, working at a repairshop for about 8 months until this hot biker chick showed up and charmed me into her spaceship." 

He gave her a wink. "Hey, don't feel bad about it. It's been fun so far. Apparently I can't stay in one place too long. Might as well have a partner while fate kicks me across the galaxy."