[hr][hr][center][h1][i][b][color=steelblue]Ash Holloway[/color][/b][/i][/h1] [img]http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a203/D__S/michael%20biehn/american%20dragons/tonyluca3.png[/img][/center] [hr][center][b]Location:[/b] Gilbert Street & LaGrange, in front of Building [b]1[/b] [/center][hr][hr] A second explosion rocked the streets of the Newnan settlement, just as Ash was crossing the street. He looked around to see yet another casualty laying on the pavement, this one fully aflame. The usual emotions flashed through him; shock, fear, anger. Cruising up from a pit of nowhere, though, deep inside of himself, Ash felt a growing, encompassing fatigue. He was tired. So very tired. Everything seemed to pile up all at once, as if perpetrated by some unseen force with a sick sense of omnipresent humor, like a vast, sadistic child with a magnifying glass standing tall over an anthill on a sunny day. Two of theirs were in trouble, far from their walls. Then inside their walls, someone else dies. Then another one. Injured parties, more people important to the community. Friends. Family. An explosion that threatened to engulf the Armory, then another that dashed the life out of a newer arrival. The Captain had enough. He looked to the guard that had just been assigned to escort Bazhooli, commanding him in a loud voice, [color=steelblue]"You're with Dick on repairs. Help him gather the tools, do whatever he says. Go!"[/color] He then hopped on the radio. He even sounded tired over air and light static. [color=steelblue]"Okay, we've been hit. People are down. Security teams: [i]Stay on the Walls[/i]. Last thing we need is someone taking advantage. Domestic teams: Need people to get our down and injured to the Infirmary. That's a [i]now[/i] thing. Sally, organize this. James: You are now my Acting Second and Acting Security Lead. You and Guy get your asses up to the Tower, after you bring me what I asked for. Drag out the new guy's box, it's marked "Jack". We are still going out. Our people still need help; they are surrounded by the Dead. I expect this place to be in order by the time we return. Rescue team leaves in two minutes, everyone who's coming meet me at the 'Buster, across from the Courthouse."[/color] [color=steelblue]"[i]And someone find out what that second explosion was.[/i]"[/color] [hr][hr][center][h1][i][b][color=c0c0c0]The Great Bazhooli[/color][/b][/i][/h1] [img]https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/f619b8f0-bb27-4eb3-8056-c98ba46ea9fa.png[/img][/center] [hr][center][b]Location:[/b] Headed North on LaGrange Street -> Armory [/center][hr][hr] Explosion number two killed yet another person. This wasn't a horrible attack from the outside, oh no. This was infrastructure coming apart. Usually a damaged infrastructure didn't randomly kill people, but today seemed special somehow. The Great Bazhooli stopped, if but for a moment, to attempt to help with the injured. The Armorer, Tom, was carried past them to the Infirmary. Not much for him to do there. The Second, a lady that he didn't remember seeing before, lay dead with a cloth over her face. Not much to do there. The other... just died from shock and fire. Bazhooli felt awful. He could do nothing to help these people, just as he could do nothing to help his Circus in what seemed like so long ago. The Great Bazhooli existed to entertain. At least he used to. He would like to take up that role again, but he sincerely felt it would be a very long time before such trivialities would become important again. He was as his environment had made him, in his solitude and will to survive, despite the best efforts of living aggressors and the Returned. All of the qualities at his disposal that might be of use to these people, actual use, revolved around his physicality, his accuracy with a blade, and his ability to remain stealthy in the face of adverse conditions. While Bazhooli was unsure as to how any of these would be of use in the coming rescue mission, he knew with near certainty that he would be of even less use inside the Walls. [color=c0c0c0]"Can do nothing, Mr. Jack. Nothing I see.Let us get your things, and go back to angry man. Save damsels in distress, da?"[/color] He picked up the pace, running into Armory, hopefully with Jack in tow. He turned back for just a second to share a thought, [color=c0c0c0]"Hey... if I die, you and bride take care of Schrody?"[/color] [hr][hr][center][h1][color=firebrick]Black James(!)[/color][/h1] [img]https://v.cdn.vine.co/r/avatars/6AE78329E91063505631975227392_pic-r-1396533712688c4afde8ecf.jpg.jpg?versionId=ZnGOSit0zozlhxpJk0w6QVx4cSozVRdq[/img][/center] [hr][center][b]Location:[/b] Building [b]6[/b], Armory [/center][hr][hr] He heard Ash's orders. They seemed fitting. Tactically sound, even. The kind of hard decision that a Commanding Officer would make, and the kind of trust that needed to be placed in the right people under his command, phrased in such a way as to inspire confidence in one's abilities yet still prop them on with a sense of urgency. You know, just in case the multiple deaths and explosions didn't already instill enough urgency in the first place. There was just one flaw Ash's logic, from James's point of view, one which he most wholeheartedly expressed over his radio. [color=firebrick]"Um... Bossman? I'm with ya, but you gotta understand... I ain't no leader, Ash. Just ain't."[/color] It would be a basic observation for one to make. He was a farmhand, first part of his life, and became an excellent Hogger. Probably the best one on the continent. Definitely the best one now that the population had been near annihilated. And true to form, he had gotten the agricultural needs of the community started, before he handed it over to Maria. Then took it back after her demise. He had a lot of help with the actual work of it, but did not make him a great, multitasking leader, capable of making hard decisions in seconds of time. The people that could do that were either leaving town, or laying dead in the streets. Oh, dear God. Zoie. James's heart hurt, actually [i]hurt[/i] when he thought of her extremely recent passing just moments before. The shock of the situation covered it up almost instantly, but he could tell that it was still there, lurking until blood cooled again, waiting to destroy him. Zoie was his friend for years before the Outbreak. It was a matter of pure chance that they met up again, here in Newnan. A single spot of pure, uplifting joy in the middle of a world that suddenly seemed designed to kill them all, and in the most horrifying ways imaginable. Now she, the last living link to a time back when the world sucked far less, lay deceased. She took a gentle part of James with her. Meanwhile, Ash didn't seem to give a more or less decent rat's hindparts about any insecurities James might be having at that moment, and decided to let him know. The radio barked with his now-strained Virginian accent, [color=steelblue]"Goddamnit, James. You are a leader [i]today[/i]. Newnan knows you, Newnan trusts you. [i]Move your ass, and move it now.[/i]"[/color] The ebon-skinned hog hunter sighed. [color=firebrick]"Yeah, Boss. I'm on it."[/color] Alright, fine. Just for today, he was a leader. James moved to do exactly as he was ordered, locating and moving out the box labelled "Jack". Then a Russian-sounding man barged into the room, mumbling something about his "Schrody". That was awkward. Just for today.