[color=lightgray][table][row][/row][row][cell][right][h3][color=4682b4][i][b]Ashton Jameson Holloway[/b][/i][/color][/h3][sup]"Get behind. I'll clear the way."[sup] - Combat Engineer maxim [/sup][/sup][/right] [b][color=4682b4]⚘ Looking Inside[/color][/b] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Ash is a person of some duality. Those who have seen him at work will tell you that he is a man driven to mathematical precision in his thought and action. He is a skillful planner and deliberate executor of said plans. Ash is disciplined, intelligent, patient, and driven. Anyone who knew him before, outside of work will tell you a different story. They would describe him as a hard drinking, laid back, casual kind of guy who knows how to slow down and enjoy the simple things in life. Also, fire might be involved. His rural Virginian upbringing comes to the forefront on these occasions, as does a more pronounced accent. Since the outbreak began, his casual side shows less and less frequently. He felt some responsibility for the deaths of his people over the last two years (starting with his novia), which caused him to withdraw from many personal interactions. The irony of this: he needs people in his life to balance out his psyche. Without people, Ash can become very dark. For a time, his mental stability was questionable. Ash took Newman's loss hard to begin with, but it filled him with a sense of purpose. He has a mission, for himself and the people he calls family. The continuing irony in his life is that, with next to nothing left and hope coming in an eyedropper, his mind is clearer and he is more alive than he has been in a long time. His sense of compassion, while still present in his psyche, has grown into an empathetic sense of responsibility. He still cares, still has mercy - but no longer allows it to affect the hard decisions. [color=4682b4][b]⚘ A Brief History[/b][/color] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [hider=Pre-Outbreak] [color=4682b4][b]Growing Up:[/b][/color] Raised in a rural mountain town in Virginia, Ash was the youngest of three boys in a financially challenged household. Ends were met, and occasionally profit made, by the family tradition of the manufacture and distribution of illicit grain alcohol. Eventually, the family went legit after enough savings allowed them to purchase the necessary permits and a building. It was marketed as "Homestyle Appalachian Sippin' Whiskey". His childhood was somewhat rough, but manageable enough. Upon completing High School, he was accepted into the Virginia Military Institute, where he received a Bachelor's in Engineering, followed by Sapper training and stationing at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri. He had a keen mind and attention to detail that lent himself well to his new profession. [color=4682b4][b]Adulting:[/b][/color] Upon field assignment, Ash spent the next few years assigned to various places of interest internationally as a combat engineer (mostly in South America and the Middle East), all the while accumulating the credits necessary to achieve his Master's degree before being pulled back to the States for reasons unknown at the time. Ash was assigned to work with the Army Corps of Engineers, Conservation Dept. in Marietta, GA, working alongside various medical organizations and investigative agencies on a project involving disease containment, urban evacuation, and the setting up of caches and safe zones to help facilitate these endeavors. Several unintended deaths later, he received a battlefield promotion from Lieutenant to Captain. He literally had to pull his Captain's Bars off of the corpse of the man he replaced, before putting a blade through his skull. Circumstances being what they were, the “battle” never technically ended, and his rank stuck. [/hider] [hider=Post-Outbreak] [color=4682b4][b]Your First Walker Encounter:[/b][/color] Ash's first encounter with a Walker took place in the streets of Atlanta. He was one of the officers in charge of constructing the various "safe zones" in the city limits, providing water service, barricades, etc. Unfortunately, his orders gave detail for containing a viral outbreak with possible rioting. Local police were expected to handle looting and handle most of the crowd control. The Powers That Be either didn't know what was really going on, else they simply didn't want to tell the soldiers on the ground. Either way, they were ill-equipped to deal with the threat when it came. The safe zone he was presently in charge of was overrun from the inside, courtesy of the already infected let in for "treatment". His first experience with a Walker came when it, and several others, burst out of a prefab medical shelter and began to eat his people. Realizing the problem was far worse than he was led to believe, Ash got as many of his people that he could over to the nearest established military installation - Dobbins ARB. [color=4682b4][b]Those First Years:[/b][/color] When Atlanta fell, most of the Dobbins staff scattered, taking away everything they could carry or fit into a vehicle. Ash debated staying, fortifying a few of the inner buildings, but eventually abandoned this idea as it was impractical for the small number of personnel remaining to fully secure the area. This was exacerbated by the situation: people broke off into their own factions, resulting in massive infighting to hold onto what buildings and provisions they could claim. Survival was more likely were he to leave. The next year saw him slowly returning to his hometown to see to his family’s safety. Heartbreak hit him when he found out that his mother was taken by Walkers and his long-term girlfriend had been missing since the outbreak, presumably run off or dead like so many others. He stuck around to see to friends and family. Fortifying his father’s distillery, he moved a good chunk of townsfolk in or around the complex. A megahorde from Charlottesville shambled right up to their home unannounced and laid siege to the distillery. Some of the people inside thought it would be best to make a run for it, unwittingly letting the dead breach their defenses. Half of the people inside were killed in the ensuing battle, and what remained of his family was missing or dead. Plan B: In the event that a scared, drunk asshole ruins the good thing they had going, the survivors were to hole up in the distillery’s motor pool and form a convoy, led by Ash’s personal engineering project, “The Hordebuster”. (looks a little like [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4qZTdMOJBk]this[/url]) The ‘Buster is a large, hoary ware carrier/industrial truck, older model with easily machinable parts that runs on diesel (and alcohol). It has been armored, fitted with a monstrous cow-catcher, and loaded with enough spare parts, drums of fuel/booze, and supplies to keep it going for a long while. It’s even got a small sleeper cabin. Leading the way, the Hordebuster brought the remaining survivors, a good amount of supplies and a metric shit-ton of alcohol out of the chaos and onto the trucking roads of the Appalachians. (He’s entertaining outfitting it for light offroad work.) Trekking westward, he found a lot of (formerly) high populated areas amid otherwise wide stretches of grass and nothing. The former populations (now undead) stayed clustered near the cities, for the most part, making supply runs dangerous to the extreme, the next place to restock usually perilously far away. Ash’s string of crappy luck and loss of more life, coupled by the harsh winter soured him to the prospect of making a life out that way. New Plan: Find a warm place with a very long growing season, preferably surrounded by deep water with a smaller original population. One of the smaller islands in the Florida Keys seemed ideal. A stop in Kentucky refilled their supplies of pure grain alcohol (the scamps), and the Virginia group barreled down through Tennessee. Somewhere near Murfreesboro, a supply run at a truck stop had Ash meeting up with fellow Dobbins ARB survivor Lt. Colonel Leann McCormick. Convincing her that the northern route was slightly more suicidal than returning south, Leann and a particularly off-putting Doctor joined his group. They traveled back into Georgia, moving around I-285 at first to pick up military caches his Engineering teams set up before Atlanta fell to supply their new mission. On the way, their caravan grew as they found other survivors willing to help and accept their leadership. Around the Atlanta South area, Leann (whom he still referred to as “Colonel”) approached Ash with a suggestion: Newnan, GA. Tactical and practical reasons were given as to why it would be a favorable location. After some discussion on the matter, Ash relented with the proviso that, if it fell through, they resume his plan for Florida.[/hider] [hider=Since Entering RP] [color=4682b4][b]Newnan:[/b][/color] The sniping death of Leann McCormick led to Ash taking over as the leader of the Newnan settlement. Between the impossibly unavoidable and sporadic attacks of Eden, the tumultuous weather (including a Zombnado), and difficulties from within, this was not an easy task. He took the loss of life as his own responsibility. Eventually, another settlement (Franklin) merged with Newnan, bringing its own challenges. All the while, responsibility and death weighted heavily on Ash, who had entered into some psychological difficulties of his own. [color=4682b4][b]Searching:[/b][/color] As fate would have it, Newnan fell. Several factors contributed to it, and no one was at fault. Mother Nature took a hammer to their community, and almost everyone died because of it. The few survivors were scattered, but they had a fallback plan. Unfortunately, a megahorde, unpleasant strangers, mechanical issues and a host of other setbacks kept holding his small group up. They had deaths, they had reunions, they lost everything and are still trying to hold it together. A year passed in total, and his group is still confident, still driven at this time. They still had a goal, which was more than most had. [color=4682b4][b]Camp Mexico Beach:[/b][/color] The arrival to CMB was very structured and orderly, though assumptions of Thana's death marred the event for him. The eventual discovery that she was alive had more than revived Ash to something a little closer to what he was before the Outbreak, and though very new to this new home, Ash became content with Camp Mexico Beach. What few people he was able to save from Newnan were finally on stable footing. On both counts - Mission Accomplished. One of his goals became to prove himself to the community, starting at the bottom with a daunting piece of janitorial work. [/hider] [color=4682b4][b]⚘ Relations[/b][/color] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [hider=Major][right][sub][h3][b][color=0072bc]Thana Martin[/color][/b][/h3][/sub] [sup]"We had our trials, survived, and found each other. Now we get to be together." [sup]- Ash to Thana after reunited in CMB[/sup][/sup][/right] A chance meeting at the gates of Newnan in a heavily modified ATV kicked things off. There was a shock that she had Zoie's face, but some quick Captain-ing had her back behind closed doors (his) before she uncovered her face again. They attended the wedding and reception together, parted only when he performed the ceremony. The two ditched the reception partway through and returned to his home, where their attraction for one another turned to the passionate. The next day, things became difficult. James's murderous actions which led to his exile, Thana's ex arriving (and alive), and a flurry of emotions that Ash had difficulty expressing. Eventually, they both admitted feelings for each other that went beyond physical attraction. It didn't take very long for Ash to fall for her. He appointed Thana to the position that James vacated, Agriculture Lead, and decided to go on a run to scout a nearby location with her. They were sidetracked by the imprint of tank tracks in the snow, and cautiously followed. During this time, Newnan fell. The ground ripped open and they were on either side of the chasm. Ash was tossed her dog tags, and promised to find her and return them after his duty to the survivors was fulfilled. Ever southward, as best he could, Ash traveled to Zebulon and then Mexico Beach. After being processed into Quarantine, it was impressed upon him that she was deceased, though ever actually told outright. Thinking that she was dead, Ash began to mourn. It wasn't until his entrance interview that he saw a huge truck, resembling his nonfunctioning Hordebuster, and Thana climb out of it. A very charged reunion ensued, and Ash has taken up residence with her in Officers' Quarters. He remains wholly devoted to her. [right][sub][h3][b][color=a187be]Tatiana Korvo[/color][/b][/h3][/sub] [sup]"I'm good. Wait, something I should know?" [sup]- Ash to Tatiana, before she decked him for holding his emotions in[/sup][/sup][/right] Tati is like a little sister to Ash. Sometimes an annoying little sister. Also, she insisted that he be named the godfather of her and Jack's baby son, Jamie. It is safe to say that they are close. Considering the circumstances of their reuniting, Ash knows she went through an ordeal to keep her and her baby alive, the details of which are her business unless she feels like sharing. The Newnan Group, led by Ash, kept moving to try to find her when they got separated after Newnan fell. When they finally did, it ended in a firefight and heartfelt reunion, after he was treated for his injuries. When they arrived at Mexico Beach, she helped Ash work through a lot of his bottled up feelings, the start of which occurred with getting punched in the face with a rather ornate wedding ring. Far prior to this, Tatiana was a counselor for Newnan, under the tutelage of Dr. Victor Bonheur (Froggy). He suggested that she sharpen her psychological skills on Ash, who while fully functional, had some issues to work through. They rather grew on each other, and a sibling-ish relationship developed. (Surname formerly Korvo) [right][sub][h3][b][color=8dc73f]Amelia Vincenti Payne[/color][/b][/h3][/sub] [sup]"GAAH! Jesus FUCKING CHRIST, Amelia!" [sup]- Ash to Amelia, after she (accidentally) poked her finger in his bullet wound. (p.83) [/sup][/sup][/right] Amelia tended to stay to the background of Newnan for the longest time, recognizable mostly as being Riley's significant other. After its destruction, Amelia joined up with the Hordebuster crew and they spent the next year and a half, almost, trekking in search of survivors and slowly making their way to Zebulon and Mexico Beach. During this time, she showed Ash that she was a capable survivor, team player, and not too shabby with a blunt implement. Now if she could only work on first aid more... Her time since was spent much as her time in the Hordebuster or back in Newnan - keeping to Riley to the exclusion of almost everything else. Ash understands, being in a similar situation recently. At least she seems relatively happy. [/hider] [hider=Minor][right][sub][h3][b][color=white]Guy[/color][/b][/h3][/sub] [sup] "GUY! Oh, you shifty son of a bitch! It's damn good to see ya, man!" [sup]- After reuniting at CMB[/sup][/sup][/right] Quite possibly the last survivor of Ash's old hometown of Esmont, VA, Guy is the man whom Ash has known the longest. He used to work at the Holloway & Sons Distillery for Ash's family, though after the Outbreak he distinguished himself as being a hell of a survivor who wasn't afraid of hard work, and for being a fine shot with a long gun. He has been with Ash since almost the beginning, though the collapse of Newnan caused them to take different paths for a long while. Eventually, those paths converged at Camp Mexico Beach. [right][sub][h3][b][color=662d91]Alexander Polawski[/color][/b][/h3][/sub] [sup] "Any military in here?" [sup]- aloud in the showers, first day; it was began their first, brief exchange. [/sup][/sup][/right] Ash recognizes that Alexander is an old soldier, long retired even before the world went to Hell. They haven't had many opportunities to in depth conversation, but those times they did were generally benign, good faith exchanges. [right][sub][h3][b][color=#B8860B]Nigel Cooper[/color][/b][/h3][/sub] [sup] "See you around, Nigel." [sup]- first day of duties in CMB, after a brief exchange.[/sup][/sup][/right] Ash trusts Thana's instincts, and her opinion of the man seems positive enough. If nothing else, shared knowledge of engineering feats might lead to conversations about things such as torque, thresholds, azimuths, and other interesting scraps of the physical sciences. Ash finds Nigel a little odd, though nothing so serious as to warrant caution. If nothing else, another quiet-ish member of the fishing brigade wouldn't hurt things at all. [right][sub][h3][b][color=dc143c]Thalia Carmichael[/color][/b][/h3][/sub] [sup] "When we have time, I'll tell you everything you want to know." [sup]- when Thalia asked about the details of her friends and family's deaths.[/sup][/sup][/right] At initial meeting, Ash though there was something disquieting but familiar about her. When he learned who she was, this did not change. Their exchanges have been short, mostly her trying to get information about her people or making monosyllabic intonations. Ash does not hold much hope that they will ever be fast friends, but it does make him feel better knowing that her family's bloodline remains in the world. [right][sub][h3][b][color=00aeef]Emanuel "Manny" Newman[/color][/b][/h3][/sub] [sup] "..." [sup]- lacking memorable discussion.[/sup][/sup][/right] Though they came in on the same bus, spent time in Quarantine, and are now both citizens of CMB, they never seemed to cross paths enough to hold a solid conversation. Maybe this will change in the coming months. [right][sub][h3][b][color=f7941d]Lisa Mason[/color][/b][/h3][/sub] [sup] "..." [sup]- having zero intereaction.[/sup][/sup][/right] Ash as seen Lisa, knows her name by association, and could pull her out of a lineup, but otherwise can say nothing about the lady, positive or negative. [right][sub][h3][b][color=00a651]Hunter Monroe[/color][/b][/h3][/sub] [sup] "You're trying too hard." [sup]- upon having the concept of cleaning a bathroom explained to him by Monroe.[/sup][/sup][/right] Ash's patience is tried by Hunter, though this is tempered by the knowledge that some of his behavior is tinged by trauma. This is not uncommon. But it is a liability to the community. After the incident with Tatiana he had attempted to view that situation that was Hunter with cautious objectivity, even support when he thought it might have been helpful. Ash's consideration remains with community over this individual, which he maintained during the trial. It is his hope that Hunter will emerge from psych with a more balanced outlook. [/hider] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [/cell][cell][center][img]https://i.ibb.co/8g13JQw/Ash-Avatar.jpg[/img] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Male [color=4682b4][b]↕[/b][/color] 34 [color=4682b4][b]↕[/b][/color] Caucasian ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 5'11" [color=4682b4][b]↕[/b][/color] 180 [color=4682b4][b]↕[/b][/color] Athletic ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Blue [color=4682b4][b]↕[/b][/color] Brown [color=4682b4][b]↕[/b][/color] Light ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [color=4682b4][b]Psychology[/b][/color] [/center][hider=] [b][color=39b54a]Positive Traits:[/color][/b][list][*] Resolute [*] Responsible [*] Disciplined[/list][color=c0392b][b]Negative Traits:[/b][/color][list][*] Sarcastic [*] Stoic [*] Brooding [/list][color=2F4F4F][b]Fear:[/b][/color][list][*] Clowns [/list] [/hider] [CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [color=4682b4][b]Abilities[/b][/color] [/center][hider=] [list][*] [color=4682b4]Strength:[/color] 23 [*] [color=4682b4]Dexterity:[/color] 34 [*] [color=4682b4]Fitness:[/color] 29 [*] [color=4682b4]Intellect:[/color] 30 [*] [color=4682b4]Will Power:[/color] 28 [*] [color=4682b4]Perception:[/color] 20 [*] [color=4682b4]Attractiveness:[/color] 20 [*] [color=4682b4]Luck:[/color] 18 [/list][/hider] [CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [color=4682b4][b]Languages[/b][/color] [/center][hider=] [list][*] [color=4682b4]English (Native):[/color] 39 [*] [color=4682b4]Spanish:[/color] 30 [*] [color=4682b4]Russian:[/color] 30[/list] [/hider] [CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [color=4682b4][b]Skills[/b][/color] [/center][hider=] [list][*] [color=4682b4]Bow:[/color] 70 [*] [color=4682b4]Knife:[/color] 70 [*] [color=4682b4]Pistol:[/color] 80 [*] [color=4682b4]Rifle:[/color] 80 [*] [color=4682b4]Sword:[/color] 80 [*] [color=4682b4]Hard Martial Arts:[/color] 71 [*] [color=4682b4]Brewing:[/color] 100 [*] [color=4682b4]Hunting:[/color] 50 [*] [color=4682b4]CPR:[/color] 40 [*] [color=4682b4]Demolitions:[/color] 50 [*] [color=4682b4]Driving:[/color] 50 [*] [color=4682b4]Explosives:[/color] 50 [*] [color=4682b4]First Aid:[/color] 40 [*] [color=4682b4]Leadership:[/color] 50 [*] [color=4682b4]Profession (EMT):[/color] 30 [*] [color=4682b4]Profession (Engineer):[/color] 60 [*] [color=4682b4]Science (Engineering):[/color] 60 [*] [color=4682b4]Science (Military):[/color] 50 [*] [color=4682b4]Stealth:[/color] 40 [*] [color=4682b4]Trade (Mechanics):[/color] 60 [*] [color=4682b4]Trade (Sapper):[/color] 60 [/list][/hider] [CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [color=4682b4][b]Profession[/b][/color] [/center][hider=] [list][*] Combat Engineer, Lieutenant: U.S. Army (Pre) [*] Combat Engineer, Captain: Atlanta Metro (Outbreak) [*] 2nd In Command: Newnan (Post) [*] Commanding Officer: Newnan (Post) [*] Leader: Team Newnan (Post) [/list][/hider] [CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [color=4682b4][b]Family[/b][/color] [/center][hider=] [list][*] Lawson Pearse Holloway - Father (Deceased) [*] Caroline Callahan Holloway - Mother (Deceased) [*] Aspen Tullamore "Tully" Holloway - Brother (Unknown) [*] Elmore Shanahan Holloway - Brother (Deceased) [/list][/hider] [CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [color=4682b4][b]Character Trivia[/b][/color] [/center][hider=] [list][*] [color=4682b4]Sexuality:[/color] Heterosexual [*] [color=4682b4]Likes:[/color][list][*] Alcohols [*] Caffeine [*] Reading [*] Tinkering [*] Mythbusters [*] Puzzles [*] Working with his hands [*] Rock Music (Rolling Stones) [/list] [*] [color=4682b4]Dislikes:[/color][list][*] Artificial sweeteners [*] Useless people [*] Lone Wolf types [*] Ticks [*] Shoddy work [*] Car alarms[/list] [*] [color=4682b4]Scars:[/color] Several small ones, bullet scar left shoulder, facial scar right cheek (from Tati) [*] [color=4682b4]Piercings:[/color] None [*] [color=4682b4]Tattoos:[/color] None [*] [color=4682b4]Blood Type:[/color] O+ [*] [color=4682b4]Religion:[/color] Methodist [*] [color=4682b4]Serial Number:[/color] 231-84-6806 [*] [color=4682b4]Birthday:[/color] March 9th [*] [color=4682b4]Face Claim:[/color] Michael Biehn [*] [color=4682b4]Nickname:[/color] Ash, Captain [*] [color=4682b4]Theme Music:[/color] [url=https://youtu.be/Ud7n8URtDss]Ashton Holloway - Tribute[/url] [*] [color=4682b4]Items Of Note:[/color] [list][*] [url=https://i.ibb.co/s2ZBgQ6/Thanaoverseas.jpg]Picture of Thana[/url] [*] Leann McCormick's Flight Jacket[/list] [/list] [u]Fun Facts[/u]: Refers to zombies as [color=4682b4]"The Dead"[/color] [/hider] [CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/cell][/row][/table][/color]