[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] Education Center (M) [i][b][color=4682b4]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/3Ymcdzh/Ash-FC-4.jpg[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] It finally looked like the Court Martial was about to begin in earnest. There was a contrast to this trial and other military tribunals of its ilk, that being a decided presence of calmness, even compassion on the part of the General when dealing with Hunter. To Ash's experience, these matters were typically handled with a level of stoic detachment, an amount of dispassion necessary for all concerned to focus on what could be stated and proven conclusively during the proceedings, no more and no less. Not even witnesses of character spoke with much in the way of inflection designed to sway opinion. But sure enough, this guy was being handled in a way that reminded Ash of an interview, not a Court Martial. It was a hell of a list of charges nonetheless. Drunk and Disorderly Conduct, in a setting more than five years ago, might be a career ender depending upon what transpired during. Six months in a stockade and pay forfeiture as a maximum didn't seem so bad at first but having this on your record destroyed any chance at promotion unless you could somehow mitigate it with a Bronze Star or better immediately following, which was perhaps why so many soldiers who weren't already in a forward position would request this after time spent in lockup. But the other charges stacked together like this? Yes, Hunter screwed up big. Of this there was no doubt. Had he not military experience himself and knowledge that he was entering an area controlled by military remnants, Ash might have called for some sort of leniency, even clemency based on the idea that Hunter didn't know what was expected of him. Not that his words bore the same kind of authority they once did. In a proceeding such as this, many voices might be heard nonetheless. It was a moot point overall; Hunter did have military experience, he did know what he was walking into, and he was given an opportunity to leave as soon as Quarantine was over. This was a path that he set himself upon. Ash was curious, then, to see that Hunter had opted to remain when given the chance to leave without further incident, with supplies enough to give him a head start. Was he going to take his lumps and see this through, or was there a factor that Ash has not considered? He refused to allow himself to pass a judgement right at this moment, having keen interest in how this proceeding would go now that it was decided that all parties were intent on staying put. With the demeanor of a professional soldier, Ash sat straight in his chair and cast his eyes forward, awaiting the next phase of the tribunal. [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] Education Center (M) [i][b][color=dc143c]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/D9f1NPS/Thalia-Irritated.jpg[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] It was hard to remove the woman that Thalia used to be from her completely. The last few years had changed her irrevocably, this was for certain. Yet despite this change, the moment that Hunter and those guarding him entered the room she felt her legs tensing, feet sliding beneath her to carry her weight upward. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that that Joaquin was with the group, taking the rear guard position with what was most certainly his "work face" activated. Her senses quickly tuned to the surroundings, this time regarding other details about the room than those specifically for personal survival. She swiftly scanned the exits again, this time to determine which would be the most likely means of egress if Hunter tried to make a break for it. Likewise, the readiness of the guards for response if called upon, which she figured was adequate. But more than that, Thalia gave fast acumen to what she might do in Hunter's position, if she was certain that it was going to go badly for her. For starters, she sure as hell wouldn't have allowed herself to be led into a building. Enclosed walls limited survival options in this circumstance. But if it couldn't be helped, and she was unarmed, the first thing she might do would be to look for an improvised weapon. Something sharp would do if she couldn't get her hands (hand) on a pistol. In her state a revolver would have been preferable so that she might take a hostage with her blunt arm and quickly operate the weapon, but seeing as the accused had two working hands at his disposal a semiautomatic would suffice well enough. And from the look of the distance to the nearest exits, a hostage would be necessary. Not someone who was in a good position to defend themselves. Sadly, Aeron was the best target for this, if only he could be gotten to before others pounced. He would be able to recognize his situation, not freak out, and attempt to deescalate rather than directly attack. Well, she thought, anyway. Calculated risk. Her thoughts might have gone farther, hypothetically delving into full escape plans from the community altogether, but actually attempting this was not her goal. Like a break-in artist hired to penetrate a secure facility to troubleshoot their defenses, this entire, four-second assessment was to establish what options that Hunter had were he to try an escape and subvert them before he could accomplish anything. It was her initial career training reasserting itself, coupled by the fact that another member of [i]La Familia[/i] was in the mix here. A kneejerk reaction made her want to be involved. In fact, Thalia only came to her senses and stopped herself when she realized that she had raised slightly out of her seat. Between that and the scrutiny she had just given to key points of the environment, she hoped no one was paying too close of attention to her. Moving to join the security detail would have been extremely foolish. The list of charges, protocol involved, and everything following seemed simple enough. Streamlined from what she was accustomed, again, and with a more personal touch from the man in charge. Thalia calmed herself and as before, merely tried to absorb the proceedings as they continued. She was sure that the detail here had everything under control and the kid seemed to be responding with calm enough deference. She took in a breath, let it out slowly, and settled back fully into her chair that thankfully did not give away their position again.