[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] Quarantine (W) [i][b][color=4682b4]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/6Hdr7Rp/Holloway2.gif[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] [color=4682b4]"Pair of fours,"[/color] remarked Ash, showing his cards before dropping them face down on top of Guy's in the discard pile. [color=4682b4]"I asked for a crap hand, Guy. You did not disappoint."[/color] It was a apt summary of the game thusfar. Even though he technically won the exchange, it was a hollow victory at best. Stakes wouldn't have made it much better, either. But the technicalities of the situation did have him winning, so he felt it perfectly logical to begin gathering the cards up to deal. Two or three shuffles in, a thought trickled through Ash's brain as to the possible identity of Guy's mystery lady. Or more specifically, the only lady that he remembered working in Medical, though there had to be more than just one. [color=4682b4]"Hold on, it's not S.B., is it?"[/color] The look on Ash's face was dubious, even a little sarcastic, but the image of those two holding hands at a social event struck him as amusing. [color=4682b4]"Look, I'm not an [i]advice[/i] guy here, so grain of salt, huh?"[/color] He grew more serious, a little more like the version of Ash who came before the lighter, more relaxed one at present. [color=4682b4]"Don't be me. Talk to this lady. Life's too goddamn short, nothing holding you from a conversation. Is there?"[/color] It's not like concepts like "class divide" were still viable in any but the most abstract of philosophies. And Guy was a really stand-up, well, [i]guy[/i]. Hard working, decent, loyal, and a fellow Esmont native. Those qualities alone should have gotten any number of women to turn their heads already. Ash shook his head, [color=4682b4]"Looking at the ratio here, I'd say something sooner rather than later."[/color] Ash looked across the room to Wayne and little Jaime, his more serious expression cracking a bit. Maybe there was hope for the Human race after all. Then he got back to the cards. Another quick shuffle or two and he lay the deck in between the two of them, offering, [color=4682b4]"Cut?"[/color] [color=lightgray][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][table][row][/row][row][cell] [h3][color=dc143c][i][b]Thalia[/b][/i][/color] [i][b]&[/b][/i] [color=B8860B][i][b]Nigel[/b][/i][/color][/h3][i][b][color=lightgray]Location:[/color][/b][/i] Gymnasium (K7) [i][b][color=lightgray]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] [color=dc143c]Hard Martial Arts[/color], [color=#B8860B]Hand to Hand[/color] [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/5rQc2nm/x-Thalia.gif[/img][img]https://i.ibb.co/LrnKm2S/Nigel-Hadrian-1.jpg[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] As soon as the open spot in the makeshift gymnasium was open, its last occupants having pummeled each other sufficiently to sate their need for sport, Thalia made her way over. She wasn't kidding that she had someplace to be. The exact location just wasn't known until moments ago. Still, lingering doubts of her own remained concerning her own ability to defend herself which might be acknowledged here and now. The loss of Thalia's forearm had wrecked more than her ability to open ketchup bottles. She had to relearn balance. Retrain feats of manual dexterity that were second nature beforehand. Her fighting style could no longer rely on her being the fastest and most accurate person in the room. But Thalia still had her stamina, which had seen her through many difficulties. So this was one hell of a litmus test for how she went forward. The fight between Medic and Volt had been brief, but engaging. Nigel had payed close attention to it, trying to conjure up past knowledge in the art of hand-to-hand combat which he hadn't practiced for years. Fighting against raiding survivors and hungry animals had been one thing, but other survivors with actual expertice? No, compared to them, Nigel was rusty. So when he followed Thalia's lead into the spot and began the fight, he knew he'd have to be on the defence. [color=dc143c]"You good?"[/color] Thalia asked of Nigel, raising her hands and adopting an almost textbook boxing stance. [color=#B8860B]"As ready as I can be. Arte et marte."[/color] [color=dc143c]"Ahll right, let's do this."[/color] As the fight commenced, Thalia wasted no time lunging forward. She was not tentative, nor cautious, persay, but it looked like she might have been at first. She threw a series of jabs intended to gauge responses, reaction time, overall technique in her opponent, but nothing landed accurately enough to be anything more than a warmup exercise. The first few punches from Thalia came with surprising speed, her lunging attacks almost catching Nigel off-guard. Good thing he was trained in defensive fighting, using his shield and sword to make the fight his own. He threw up his arms in a defensive pose, catching Thalia's blows. A hard hitter, but nothing he couldn't handle at the moment. Thalia half-stepped back, fearing a counter incoming, and smiled just a little from behind her fists like a mischievous child. Nigel noted Thalia's step back, and went onto the pursute. He stepped forward with a couple of blows aimed at arms, intending to force her defensive stance to the side like a shield. His defensive posture made him too slow for those jabs however, like an Iberian skirmisher. Once again taking up a defensive position, Nigel beckoned Thalia to try once again. To his surprise, this was getting fun. [color=dc143c]"So [i]that's[/i] what you look like on the offensive."[/color] remarked Thalia, smirking. [color=dc143c]"Yeah, let's try that again."[/color] [color=#B8860B]"You know what they say; The best defence..."[/color] Nigel's defensive approach had payed off, gaining the initative after his last jab at Thalia as he as in position to strike her again. His left hand swung with force at her defensive posture, pushing her arms away enough for his right hand to get a good punch at Thalia's ribcage. [color=#B8860B]"...is a good offense."[/color] Nigel quiped back, grinning. As long as fortune favoured him, this was going well. [color=dc143c]"Nnn..."[/color] grunted Thalia, acknowledging the hit and involuntarily slipping into a more serious frame of mind. She dropped one hand to bring her elbow more in alignment with the opening that Nigel had opened around her ribs. It was all fun and games until a hit actually got through, and she had to hand it to her sparring partner, she was scored upon fairly. It reminded her of her own shortcomings as compared to the previous year, and galvanized her will to return the hit with a predatory instinct. A snarl on her face, Thalia pressed her attack. She moved inward, aiming to get inside of his reach where she could really put pressure on him. A flurry of short, quick blows exploded from her, designed to push him back and exploit openings where they formed. Nothing solid. Either this man had training that he hadn't spoken about, or he had the Devil's own luck. Still, she did not relent. [center][h3][color=darkgray]To be continued...[/color][/h3][/center]