[color=lightgray][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][table][row][/row][row][cell] [h3][color=4682b4][i][b]Ash Holloway[/b][/i][/color][/h3][i][b][color=4682b4]Location:[/color][/b][/i] CMB Graveyard -> Bus [i][b][color=4682b4]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/WKy5jG8/Ash-Faceclaim.png[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] Thoughts lingered on the fallen. Ash knew that they would. It was more than a possibility; it was certainty wrapped with a big red bow. The trick was to prevent those thoughts from stealing awareness of the moment away. Even Ash had to admit that it was more of a redundancy, however. These people looked to be trained and following a protocol with little in the way of verbal discourse, suggesting practice, experience, and familiarity with the procedure. A squad of trained soldiers could scarcely do any better. It brought more attention to the fact that, in a community run by former military, they were pretty much all trained soldiers in one way or another. It made him anxious to get involved with that sort of ethically managed organization again. Even if he wasn't the guy in charge. But his thoughts still went to their friends and allies interred here, at least in a peripheral way, as he held his position and scanned the area. An eyebrow went up as he thought that he heard something inappropriate come from the mouth of that Gonzalez woman. His head turned just enough to confirm his suspicions, though two questions bugged him: Why this moment for a situationally unanswerable question, and why those two? His eyes narrowed a little, putting this away in memory. At least the woman didn't touch off a screaming match in the middle of uncertain ground. Continued diligence on his part was necessary for only a second or two more before the Padre made the call to pack it in. He waited until Amelia and Riley had walked past him on the way to the bus before making his move to do the same. It put a body between the two women and whomever else might come up behind them. A hair chauvinist or instinctively protective of his small knot of those close to him, only his psychiatrist might be able to fathom. As he neared the bus, Ash went through the police and military procedures for the return of a firearm. He'd done it hundreds of times in his life, easily. It was centering, in a way. The act showed not only that he was Army, but that he hadn't abandoned the principles. Further, it promoted safety standards for their guards and showed a willingness to follow the rules set forth for them. With this in mind, Ashton stopped upon entering the bus activated the safety on his lent sidearm and racked the slide of his .45, freeing the chambered round. He ejected the magazine into his hand, and handed the three items separately to Bass for verification before returning to his seat. [color=lightgray][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][table][row][/row][row][cell] [h3][color=dc143c][i][b]Thalia Carmichael[/b][/i][/color][/h3][i][b][color=dc143c]Location:[/color][/b][/i] CMB Graveyard -> Bus [i][b][color=dc143c]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/D9f1NPS/Thalia-Irritated.jpg[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] Still in the immediate vicinity of Atticus, Thalia cocked a lightly amused expression as the two Newnan women started back to the bus. It was impossible for her not to have heard the call, given her proximity to the guy. Still, she hung back a little bit, lest there be quiet rumors circulating about aggressive promiscuity on her part. Naturally, the lack of fuck-giving concerning rumors about things of this nature was strong with her, nevertheless this was not the time nor place. The main reason Thalia even broached the topic was to distract away from the harder expression and combative stance that she has adopting involuntarily. And to mess with people. It was an excellent way to reveal character. As she started back to the bus, two interesting details [i]did[/i] come to mind about her tiny piece of sarcasm. First, the redhead didn't say [i]no[/i]. Second, the singer chick, Riley, didn't say anything. Contemplative, maybe? Mulling it over, perhaps? Probably not, but the idea amused her enough that she let out a single, quiet growl that could have passed as a laugh. Also a factor, involving one's self physically in a way that couldn't result in pregnancy was ideal. Fluidity of this nature was a recent-ish development for Thalia. Adaptation to the times, or revelation of character on her part was still up for debate. Nearing the bus, it was painfully apparent that she was going to have to give up her arms. The gun was no big deal, but that shield was [i]her fucking property[/i]. And sentimental at that. It hardened her face significantly. Before boarding, Thalia went to one knee and placed the weapon behind her other one, using muscle pressure to hold the slide while she actuated it to eject the chambered round. The magazine came next, and Thalia took the additional second or two to reinsert the single round into the clip, her one natural hand cradling the apparatus as she pressed the bullet home with her thumb. She then replaced the magazine, checked the safety, and entered the bus to hand it over to Bass. The shield went a little less easily. She looked the man in the eye, glanced Joaquin and Daytona for a half second, and turned it over with a grim nod. They were supposed to trust. It just didn't come readily. This was life now. Less open and free, better chance at overall survival. Thalia took her seat and looked around, hoping to spy her friends from the long road before. Alexander and Manny might not look like people out of Mad Max, but she knew they had history just as valid as hers. Why then was she so angry? [color=dc143c]”Let's get back, Mugs. Stuff to do."[/color] Process emotion through work. Then it hit Thalia, she had yet to hear any sort of jaunty nickname for Manny. Something to think about.