[color=lightgray][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][table][row][/row][row][cell] [h3][color=steelblue][i][b]Ash Holloway[/b][/i][/color][/h3][i][b][color=4682b4]Location:[/color][/b][/i] Bus [i][b][color=4682b4]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] Leadership, Science (Military) [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/YDbGSVd/Ash-Outstanding.gif[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] Ashton kept mostly to himself, giving himself the internal mindset of a man going back out into hostile territory. It was a decent enough approximation of what the world had become outside of whatever security could be carved out for one's self. Being inside of walls for the last number of months didn't serve to make him weaker or more intimidated by the outside world as it might have others in their position. Quite the opposite, he now had even more for which he felt a need to provide, or at least contribute. A much more soldierly version of Ash was asserting itself, still as quiet as ever but taking in and processing operational information from Maddoc as best as he could. One thing which grabbed Ash's attention was that, despite the fact that there would be a senior officer present, no one was going to be giving guidance or speaking to protocol. In short: these teams, which had not yet been tested in the field together, were flying without leadership. Depending upon people and circumstances, this might not be a huge issue. Then again, for the same reasons this could be very, very bad. When his name was called, Ash made his way over and was lent the use of a no-frills M4 carbine. Standard since the 90s, and a weapon that he extensively used since basic training. A field knife followed this, which he tucked into his belt. Ash took couple of seconds to inspect the firearm handed to him, going through initial safety procedure before returning to sit. Ash was mulling over his concerns in his head, debating whether saying something was appropriate, when it occurred to him - the CMB officials were [i]observing[/i]. They were trying to see how the groups would function while armed and without oversight. They wanted to see what would happen. In his case, they had already seen that Ash would follow orders with humility and purpose. Maybe this run was partially about something else. Be it possibly a mistake on his part, Ash felt the need to speak. However, someone wound up speaking to him first. Nigel. He was proposing a deal. Ash regarded him for a moment and nodded, [color=4682b4]"I'm no expert. But sure, if you like."[/color] He leaned forward with a smile, continuing, [color=4682b4]"Provided we get the okay from brass. And a voucher for ammo."[/color] There was going to come a time when once standard, cased ammunition became a relic of the past. It was already a rare cottage industry at best. But if he wanted to learn pistols, great. He could help. Just now, Ash took the opportunity to voice his concern from earlier. He raised his voice a little and projected mostly in the direction of the team to which he was assigned, but pitched so that the others might also be able to hear if they were trying to listen. [color=4682b4]"If you've made it this far, you're a survivor. I don't want to insult anybody's intelligence, so, grain of salt, please."[/color] It looked like he was gearing up to say something. [color=4682b4]"A building to building sweep is nothing new for any of us."[/color] It was accurate enough; he'd been part of many of them during his military career and many more since the Outbreak. Anyone who scavenged from once-civilized areas did their own version of this. He took a glance around to eyeball the people that he was speaking to, then nodded and continued, [color=4682b4]"My intent is this: Scope a building's exterior first, quietly if possible. Then organize into a four-man fire team, fifth takes rear guard to cover our collective asses. Hit one room at a time until the building is secure. After, break into teams of two and three and go down our list. Move to the next building and repeat."[/color] He took a second to take in a breath. Either he just did something positive or he overstepped. In his mind, the team needed someone calling shots and keeping people together for the safety of all of them. Not to mention that, if the other team was listening and didn't have a solid idea of their own, there was something from which to build. [color=4682b4]"If anyone's got a better plan, I'm all ears. If you're willing to follow mine, I'll kick in the first door."[/color] [color=lightgray][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][table][row][/row][row][cell] [h3][color=crimson][i][b]Thalia Carmichael[/b][/i][/color][/h3][i][b][color=dc143c]Location:[/color][/b][/i] Bus [i][b][color=dc143c]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/WzH78J5/Thalia-Gun.gif[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] While the others in the bus were speaking among themselves, Thalia was taking mental note of the direction the bus was going in relation to the gate they had just left. Moreover, she attempted to make out the street signs and general landmarks. Her more observant (mildly paranoid) nature was coming forward and she was already planning on worst case scenarios, in this case having to make her way back to CMB without the aid of the transportation they currently enjoyed. When "the talk" from Maddoc happened, Thalia was not amazingly surprised. She was not very happy with the situation, seeing as this looked a lot like an unnecessary risk for what was a moderate reward, but she was not surprised. Testing time. Maddoc and Hank were their proctors. It was like college all over again, but with guns, knives, and animated corpses. So, almost [i]exactly[/i] like Suffolk University. [u]Go Rams[/u]. When her name was called, Thalia rose and went to collect her weapons for their little outing. Her case became a little troublesome, as her square peg didn't exactly fit the round hole that was their policy for distributing shooting and stabbing implements. A large melee weapon wasn't in her immediate future. Having only one articulate hand made that more difficult than it would be for most. Her skill with a spear, which she might have used one-handed, had been abbreviated and it wasn't in her training regimen to recover that ability. So with a sigh, Thalia took a 9mm Beretta and a knife. It was less firepower than the others had overall, so she might have to make up for this in other, less tangible ways. The first thing she did to make herself ready was to place the knife in an underhanded grip, blade facing outward (because those horror movie slashers were [i]dumb as hell[/i]) in her artificial right hand, then compressed her metal fingers around it and locked them in place. It wasn't like her grip would tire. The Beretta found decent lodging at the back of her belt, shortly after she chambered a round by pressing the slide against the heel of her shoe and making sure the safety was on. While she was most comfortable with a Glock 17, Thalia had to admit that the safety feature on the Beretta was a more ergonomic option. Her initial appraisal of her sidearm out of the way, she settled in to get as much rest as she could considering the circumstances, as Thalia was certain today would be a long day. Looking around at the people in the bus around her, Thalia realized that she had not been out in the world with any of these people. Thana, Alexander, and Manny were back in CMB. Nigel, while a decent enough sparring partner, was not someone she had gone on a run with ever. The same went for Tatiana. She had been teaching Thalia ballet, for which she was grateful, and they had some interesting psychological qualities in common that she found gruesomely interesting, but again, they had no experience outside of walls together. In their group, she was the odd one out and she knew it. Wayne and Nigel had history. Ash and Tatiana also had history. Thalia? For all she knew, they were looking at her, wondering if she was going to find a dark corner someplace and screw them all over. Logically, objectively, if one of them was going to, she was the most likely suspect. Sarcastically, Thalia pondered that this was a really fun position to be in. And par for the course for her. She listened to Nigel's response, taking in the words about finding their place in the group and having a baptism of fire. It sounded colorfully epic, like people who write books about the glory of war, yet did not stick with her heart. To Thalia's mind, either they would do their job successfully, hopefully with all of them surviving, enough timed until something worked out. Until actual trust was formed. It would be a difficulty for Thalia to fully trust someone, though she had no intention of screwing over the others in the meantime. [color=dc143c]"Yeah,"[/color] she said simply. This was not a discussion she felt comfortable responding to with overt optimism. [color=dc143c]"I'm sure we'll be fine."[/color] Her words felt hollow. Thalia was partly glad that the conversation turned away from her and over to Ash. It allowed to to put more of her attention outside of the bus to scan for things which might be useful to her later; more landmarks or even places she might be able to hole up for a night, worst case scenario. Then without warning, Captain America began to speak again. She wanted to say that he was being condescending, or talking down to the people in the bus as if he was the One Great Authority on doing shit like this. But considering that her assigned group didn't add anything, the people in the other group weren't talking much, and those in charge blatantly said that they were on their own, she was slightly relieved that [i]someone[/i] spoke up. Even him. Thalia didn't like taking orders from people she didn't know and trust. Whatever. It wasn't the worst plan ever and she knew that personal factors were probably coloring her attitude. So she added, [color=dc143c]"Anybody else capable of being quiet?"[/color] in a cold voice with a hard edge to it. If she had to pair with someone, she'd rather it be someone who wouldn't immediately give away her position. But, beggars and choosers.