Lets have a blast {OPEN}

[Ashley Shaw]

Sometimes there were moments when guys just didn’t know when to quit. They kept trying and trying no matter how harsh they were being on themselves. They kept trying to get stronger, trying to get faster. All in an attempt to either impress a girl, or to just show they could actually do something. Which was probably why Ashley Shaw had found himself in the gymnasium after school. It had been an idea he had just had, a flash, a small epiphany. He didn’t know what the epiphany had been about, to say. But he had gotten a large urge to train, to try and get somewhere with his rather weak power, which had gotten nowhere.
He wasn’t sure if he was even allowed to train in here, but he was going to anyway.
He had no idea how to start, setting his bag down by the door. He scanned the room; find something that could help.
He shrugged and stood in the centre of the room. He pressed his thumb against his ring finger, wondering if he should. He didn’t want to accidentally blow up another school. He’d had enough of that, and it didn’t go very far with your reputation. No-one wanted to be around someone who could potentially blow your face off.

Ashley sighed, and the generic flashes of rubble filled his mind. Smoke rose from the chaos, there was no end to the ruined school, the pained moans of people were the only things he could hear before he faded to black.
He shook his head and groaned. That was in the past, he shouldn’t be worrying about it now. It was all over and he was free to practice here. At leas he thought he was.

He brought his hand up and clicked his fingers, opening up his palm simultaneously. A small ball of red light curdled and pulsed, before there was a small squeak and it expanded, rolling over itself, fading as it reached the edges of his hand.
There was no improvement on it visually. He could control it, and if he did it would be to small to use usefully. He let out a sigh. Surely there should be someway to improve this stupid power. It was positively ineffective at the moment, he couldn’t do anything besides power electronics.
Ashley began to feel the effects of using his power, a nausea filled his gut. He gripped his hair in frustration.
There had to be someway to improve, to make the explosion bigger, to wear of the sickly effects. He shook his head and tried again.

[Antosha Vikenti]

The cat was curled up in the gym, simply sitting and watching as nothing happened. It had been sitting here for an hour, and still no one came. How was it supposed to practice if no other students came? Antosha purred as an old friend finally showed up, though he was definitely distracted. Without any sense of doubt he leapt out of the shadows and stood, tail lashing wildly, in front of Ashley.

Now he knew he wouldn’t be able to talk in this form, so maybe it would require a change. Always painful, but unavoidable. Ant let the shudder run through his body, the sleek black fur slowly receding until all that was left was a pale human form. Wearing only pants. Just because he’s strange that was. “Hey Ash, still working out that power?” the voice was hoarse as his vocal cords made the adjustment. The only remains of the cat were his slowly dimming amber eyes.

He clapped his hands with a smile. Time for practice, if a friend was here. Well, there went all his plans of jumping out and scaring someone shitless. “Or are you searching for my little sis?” he chuckled darkly, bumping his hip against Ash’s. It was a total jest, because even if Ash was a close friend. There was no guy alive that would be good enough for his precious sister!

[Ashley Shaw]

Ashley was going to try again, but was halted by a very familiar black cat walking out in front of him, flicking its tail like a beauty pageant contestant. It looked like a plain, ordinary cat, but Ashley knew all to well who it was. He cracked a smile as Antosha returned to normal, surprisingly half naked. Ashley knew Antosha would do something stupid like that. He might have not been able to avid it, he couldn’t tell. Ashley smirked and shook his head.

“Hey Ash, still working out that power?” Ant asked, clapping as the final amber disappeared from his eyes. Ashley shrugged. More like trying to improve it. At the moment it was all bad and no good.
The sickly feeling in his stomach got stronger, he took a deep breath to try and wane it. He was beginning to lose his patience with himself, he’d been coming here every night to practice and there had been zero improvements.
He cheered himself up, he couldn’t remember what he was thinking about that improved his mood so fast.
Ant bumped his hip to Ashley’s. He smiled and looked up, making eye contact with Ant.

“Or are you searching for my little sis?” he suggested Ashley laughed and patted him on the back.
“I assure you, I’m here just for practice,” he answered, not even sure if that was what he was doing. He was more likely to be faffing around and beating himself up on how his ability hadn’t changed in the last five weeks. At all. And perhaps that was the reason why he was spending his time thinking about how he could possible improve it in order to have a power that actually matched an others. Since, like he'd said before, his power would only work if the UN broke the peace treaty and bombed Hammel for all its worth, which was quite a lot.
"Unfortunately, I seem to be getting no-where,"

[Antosha Vikenti]

Depression? No no, depression wasn't allowed! Antosha wrapped Ash up in his arms and nuzzled his neck, still slightly in tuned to his feline instincts. Sure, he turned into a black panther, a deadly killer. But it was a tamed deadly killer. See the difference? There was a certain cuddliness to the second option. Something definitely good.

"Oh don't worry, my cute little friend. You'll get the hang of it, and then it'll improve." He chuckled into Ash's neck, because a guy like him could just laugh. Guys like him chuckled darkly to scare others. Guys like Ash. Are we seeing the connection? Good! Ant let go and chuckled again, his amber eyes lighting up as he literally shimmied away.

"Me. You. Shopping for May's birthday? It's coming up soon and I haven't got a damn thing to give her! Plus I know you haven't either, naughty naughty!" he waggled a finger at Ash, one eyebrow slightly raised to prove a point. A point that he was victorious? Either way they played it, Ant and Ashley were going to go shopping. Even if they didn't get shit.

[L.C. Milliner]

*--outfit

L.C. was pissed. But that was obvious.

She pressed her hand against the wall and the white paint began to fly, falling in flakes like flat chips of snow. Her fingers and palm were covered in tiny one inch spikes, the iron capable of destroying just about anything. Furrows were made in the concrete wall so deep that it was likely that the school officials would never be able to fix it without having to drywall it or something. With her hand dragging down the wall, the blond made her way down the hall slowly, stomping feet punctuating her anger like heavy angry periods. She pulled her hand from the wall as she passed a hallway and began to punch lockers as soon as she crossed the gap, leaving quarter-sized holes in just about every other one. Her knuckles hurt, but she didn't care- even if one of them was bleeding.

The hand that wasn't busy causing property damage was clutching the shredded and mutilated remains of a Christmas card.

She should have known not to pick up any mail from the office. For the entire duration of her stay at Hammel, she had not been sent one speck, not one iota of mail, from anyone. And now, the people at the carnival thought they could just send her a card? What the hell? It wasn't the sending itself that pissed her off, it was the fact that they all knew where she was. It meant that all those years without visitors, all those family days that they sent out invitations weeks in advance for, every year she had sat in the cafeteria alone and depressed while other kids talked and laughed with their parents, they knew exactly where she was sitting. Everyone at the carnival had signed that damn card. Even her brother. Even her Mom.

Her Mom knew where she was. And she never even cared. Not one birthday card or phone call.

The thought of that alone made L.C. scream, and she whipped around and punched another locker, dragging her hand downward to rip the front open. Pausing, she looked down the hallway at the path of destruction she carved, and, panting, turned away. Her temper was starting to fade, and the aftermath was clear in front of her. She was going to have to talk to Sean and let him be disappointed in her. Again. She walked slowly down the hallway and pushed the door to the gym open, looking for a quiet place that she could just sit in for a while. Instead, she found two boys, attempting to look badass but really just looking like two skinny-ass emo kids, one of which was saying 'naughty, naughty', which made her snort. Loudly.
"Oh. Er. Hi." She held up a hand, trying to pretend that they didn't likely hear the screaming and rending of metal from earlier, or that she didn't likely look like shit because her eyes were rimmed with red and she looked like she had been crying. "Umm... So. Do I know... Either of you?"

[Ashley Shaw]

It was not hard to understand why a perfectly heterosexual teenage boy was rather shocked when his best friends turned into a black panther and hugged him. For one, it was not everyday a teenage boy from sunny San Francisco had a panther on his arm, and adding the fact in was a male panther on him didn’t help either. Ashley never thought a day would come when he got stuck in an awkward moment like this. In fact, he didn’t even imagine that far in awkwardness. This was plain weird.

“Oh don't worry, my cute little friend. You'll get the hang of it, and then it'll improve,” Ant said, turning back into a human after a few seconds of nuzzling Ashley’s neck. Oh yeah, that was right. Antosha was homosexual. That explained everything. Well… most things. Wait, did Ant just call him cute?!
Ashley sighed and ran his hand through his hair.
You think? he thought, a hint of wit in there somewhere. It wasn’t like it was going to improve anytime soon. In fact, he doubted it would anyway, but he had a theory he was dieing to test out. Unfortunately, it was on a no-tell bases.

"Me. You. Shopping for May's birthday? It's coming up soon and I haven't got a damn thing to give her! Plus I know you haven't either, naughty naughty!" Ant suggested, wagging his finger at Ashley in disapproval. Sarcastic disapproval at that.
Ashley sighed and looked away, a smile cracking his lips. Oh joy. Shopping! A boys favourite pass time! But to hell with it, this was Mayu they were talking about, and Ant would do anything for his little sister. Ashley was surprised that he would, his sister (and brother) never even talked to him that much when they lived with him.

“Sure, why not? I’ll check how much money I’ve got at home, I haven’t spent in ages so I’ll probably have quite a bit to throw around,” Ashley agreed, nodding and looking back to his black panther homosexual very awkward -best- friend. Now, best friend was a title that made the mixture… rather gauche. Ant was homosexual, and his best buddy was a seventeen-year-old boy. Heterosexual. But then again, Ashley was under the suspicion that Ant thought Ashley had a fancy for his sister Mayu. Right or wrong, Ashley himself couldn’t tell. He was so focused on giving an answer to Ant, that Ash hadn’t heard the lockers being smashed in by either someone on a hissy fit, or a chav with a score to settle.

"Oh. Er. Hi." A voice echoed into the gym. Ashley spun around, which did nothing for the nausea starting to build again. Oh geez.
The person at the door was a female. Extraordinarily light blonde hair, and she didn’t sound so pleased. Ashley fetched his jacket and slipped it on again, looking to Ant for advice. He decided not to wait for his word, and stepped up to the girl. Well, a little. For some reason he didn’t want to get to close.

“Oh hi! I didn’t notice you come in!” Ashley spoke, in such a way that seemed like Lee Evans was doing his impression on the distant relatives. But perhaps Ashley wasn’t that good at it, but he seemed to give it a go.

“I’m Ashley,” he said, a little more normality in his voice, “and you would be who?”
Ashley didn’t feel like this girl was going to be cooperative, so prepared to make a dash for Ant if time needed be. Anything could happen when someone looked like they’d just cried for America.

[Antosha Vikenti]

Antosha would do anything for his baby sister, that much was totally true. What older brother wouldn't, after all? It was an older brother's JOB to look out for his baby sis. Even if they weren't related by blood. Since May's birthday just happened to be Christmas Eve, he had to make sure the two events were totally unrelated. Christmas shit on Christmas. Shit she actually wanted on her birthday. This meant spending loads of money on her alone. So if Ant had even a few bucks to spend after all the shopping for her and his friends, it was a miracle.

He stared at Ash, quite focused on his best friend. He used the term 'best' loosely as Ash was probably denying the fact they ever hung out. Many people did that after knowing him for a short amount of time. Yet he was so focused he didn't notice the destruction going on around him. May probably would have, but he was just plain stupid. Stupid and slightly ignorant..

Ant offered a smile to the girl, trying to seem smaller since he easily towered over both of them. Sometimes there were down sides to being close to seven feet tall. Like scaring people. He stumbled back into the shadows and picked up his pink-and-black skull embedded back pack, lifting out a MCR shirt to throw on. See, he had a heart. He wasn't going to be half naked in front of a girl. "Shaw, don't even joke about throwing money around. I still owe you twenty five bucks, plus it's my sis we're talking about. She'll wipe out your bank account on books alone."

He looked down at the girl now, finally getting to talking to her. "I'm Antosha. Call me Ant, it's easier to spell." Ant laughed, running fingers through his bed-head hair. Normally he would have gotten ready today, but the house was a mess and he needed to be on his sister's good side or there would be hell to pay. His amber eyes looked her over, not in the flirting way, but because she looked like she'd been crying. Or beat up. One of the two. Ant stared at her hand. "Your bleeding, did you know that?" he asked bluntly, looking slightly worried at the blood dripping form her knuckles. Nothing else was noticeable to him, but whatever. Little girls weren't supposed to be injured.

[L.C. Milliner]

L.C. stood for a moment, not sure whether to make her exit stage left or to remain in the gym. She watched one guy put on a shirt as they tied up their conversation and was stuck with introductions, which was something she was never quite good at. She groped for words for a second, staring at the shorter boy who had approached her. Her mouth opened, then closed, and finally opened again as she forced words to come out of her mouth. “Sorry, I was, I was looking for... a place.” Obviously, L.C., tell them something they don’t know. And maybe something a little less vague. “My name? Oh. Lyra.”

Wait. Pause. Where’d that come from?

Was it the nostalgia from the Christmas card, still shredded in her hand? After all, everyone had signed ‘we love you Lyra’ because they all remembered her that way. No one had called her L.C. since she first came to Hammel. Speaking of the nickname, she realized she should tell them that’s what people called her, so they wouldn’t go around saying ‘Lyra’ and making everyone else think it was acceptable. Because it still wasn’t. “Most people, they call me L.C. though. So, er, call me that.”

She was stumbling over words like obstacles in a dark room. She didn’t like it, so when the taller (much taller, she realized) boy pointed out her injury, she was happy to focus on that instead. “Well, shit.” There, that sounded more like her. She brought her knuckle to her mouth and sucked on it, ignoring Magda’s lingering voice from her childhood ringing in her head, repeating sternly, ‘blood is for bleeding, not for eating’. She looked to her other hand to see that the shredded Christmas card was still there. “Uno momento.” She muttered, holding up the annihilated paper to show what she was talking about.

Looking for the garbage, she spotted a can and walked to it, throwing the remains of the card in without a second thought. There would be no funeral for such a thing. Heading back to the pair, she realized neither of them were half bad, considering they weren’t eying her like a piece of meat or being snarky with her. Yet.

“So, Ashley and Ant.” She went with the nickname given to her for the older boy, because it seemed only fair since she told them to call her ‘L.C.’. “Sorry if I was, er, disturbing anything.” She jerked her thumb at the door. “I can go. If you two want.” To be honest, her offer was more than a little lackluster in the sincerity department. She was sick of being the bitch everyone left alone, and she was trying really hard lately to attempt to be social. True, this likely wasn’t the best time, but it was a ‘now or never’ sort of moment.

What better way to forget about your Mother kicking you out and leaving you to die, then sending you a card for Christmas five years later with her ‘best wishes’ then to make new friends, right?

[Ashley Shaw]

Ashley was amazed by the girl. While not being the insanity bucket he expected, she certainly was a little unstable. Ant was making good ground already, well, he thought he was anyway. The girl didn’t seemed to be pleased, she probably wasn’t expecting them to be there at this time. Ashley could understand where she was coming from. Most people would be in their dorms by now. Ashley watched as the girl began to suck on her bleeding knuckle. She explained who she was, giving a vague explanation of what in the name of Jesus Christ she was doing. Well, it didn’t explain whey she was bleeding. Ashley looked at the remains of a Christmas in her hands. It reminded him of his own family, how they never contacted him.

“Lyr-L.C, are you alright?” He asked, stepping up to her intending to take a peak at her wound. She didn’t seem to good. He hated seeing other people upset, it made him a little sad too. He didn’t want to make that to obvious though, and tried to keep a little cool. It wasn’t like he was up against the angst-queen of the world. He would probably get the urge to kill himself if he was, and that was something he didn’t want.

“Where’d you get that, anyway? Fall, hit something? Hell, I would probably get that by failing with a cheese greater,” Ashley smirked at that. He was generally a very bad domestic. He preferred to just leave everything to pile up, eventually spending an entire weekend cleaning and washing while cussing and cursing.
L.C didn’t seem to be fond of the card in her hand, it seemed to him like she would rather see it burned and buried for a million years. Ashley felt the same way about a little parting gift his parents had given him, unfortunately he was compelled to keep it on his wall.

“I guess that card is from your family?” he asked, after the letters ‘MU’ flashed from the pieces in dark ink. Mu. Mum. Her mother? Why on Earth would she have torn up a card from her own mother? Ashley would do anything to hear from his family again, even after they had been jerks.

[Antosha Vikenti]

Antosha gave her another glanced over, his eyes scanning the entire length of her body. She was a tiny thing, especially to him and seemed to have a fiery personality. He could almost feel the amount of effort it was taking her to be civil. Lyra reminded him of how he used to be, so he knew the signs well enough. At least she didn't look like she would start falling apart. Crying girls confused him, especially ones who might hit you for trying to be comforting. "Alright, I know I can't say much-with turning into a cat and all-but blood is disgusting. And I'm pretty sure it's bad for you.." His face twitched into a smiled and he dug around in that bag for a good minute.

Now it wasn't rare for Antosha to carry around random shit in his bag, but when this random shit was useful there was a slight problem. "Yes Shaw, we all know just how clumsy you are with cheese graters. Remember last Christmas?" he chuckled, pulling out a box of gauze and a cool Nightmare-before-Christmas ace wrap. He had bought them earlier and just forgotten to unload them from his bag. "Now L.C., get that hand out of your mouth." He grabbed it from her mouth, not giving her time to tell him no.

Ant winked at her, holding her bleed hand in his own larger-and black nailed-hand so he could examine the wound, he was careful to have a firm yet gentle grip on it. "Doesn't look broken.." he leaned down, licking the wound with the tip of his tongue. Somewhere, a long time ago, he read that cat saliva was good for wounds and even if he wasn't in cat form every little bit helped. With that Ant wrapped up her knuckles in gauze and the cool ace wrap.

"Now I want that back, it's just too fucking awesome to lose. The ace wrap, not your hand I mean!" he let go of her, stepping back and behind Shaw while chuckling. Unlike his friend Ant had yet to notice the card clutched in the girls hand-he was more worried about blood- but now his attention was drawn to it. He couldn't share in the sympathy of not being in contact with one's family, they had never wronged him and he still called them at least once a week. Rayne had even had his presents shipped out to him. Something which he returned in a favor, with their presents already in the mail and on the way. To leave his little sister in the dark would be something unfathomable to him. "Shaw, that's not exactly subtle."

[L.C. Milliner]

It felt weird to have somebody worrying about her, even if the people worrying were only two guys that she would normally be able to wipe the floor with; it was still two more people then usual. What was the line from that weird kid’s book? ‘A person’s a person, no matter how small’, or whatever? That probably didn’t apply to the current situation too well though, considering she was the shortest out of the three. She looked at her knuckles and the line across them that was still dripping red, and back up to Ashley, who was asking how she got it. “Don’t know my own strength, I guess.” She muttered, a lame excuse for an excuse. She knew her own strength perfectly well. Could you call it self-harm if it was unintentional but you still didn’t bother to deal with it? She took a moment to ponder that, but then Ant snatched her hand from her mouth, and, of all things, licked her. Most girls would be wooed. L.C., however, was not most girls.

“Oi oi oi!” The blonde’s face contorted from neutrality to shock to disgust in a matter of seconds, and her other hand automatically raised in retaliation, not quite growing spikes yet, but still hovering in the air as he bandaged her hand up nice and neatly. For some reason he reminded her of Vincent, though it was likely because of the black hair and the black nail polish. She contemplated his hands for a moment and debated whether to spike him or not in retaliation for licking her, but then he was done and she was looking at a fixed up hand instead of a bleeding one. Oh. Well then. She’d let the licking slide for now. She blinked and looked at the wrap on her hand, giving a half-smile of approval. ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’ was one of the few movies she liked to watch with other students her age, instead of forcing herself to leave the room when someone began spouting off gossip or whatnot. She could sit through that movie and not barf, which made it good in her book. She nodded to Ant when he proclaimed that he wanted it back. "I won't steal it." She said, though to most people that would've sounded like an empty promise. She was surprised they didn't know her by reputation alone.

As Ashley started in on the next topic, though, L.C. was reminded of why she had gotten the injury in the first place, and the smile on her face vanished as her usual pissed off expression came back with full force. However he managed to deduce the card was from her family was beyond her. (As for the two letters, the ‘mu’ was not from ‘mum’, but from ‘Murphy’, the strongman. Her Mother had signed her name.) She couldn’t think of any witty comebacks off the top of her head, so she simply went the easy route out. “None of your damn business.” She started, but she suddenly felt bad, because at least he cared enough to ask. Vincent or any of her other friends would’ve wrote it off as her being pissy again. “But if you really wanna know, yeah, it was from them.” She didn’t dare say ‘family’, for fear of the word making her break down. As far as she was concerned, her family had died with Magda, all those years ago. “Any other questions?” The old L.C. was starting to pick back up again, the façade of ‘stoic bitch’ starting to rebuild itself. The color in her cheeks was draining back to making her pale again, and her eyes were no longer rimmed with bright red, but instead had subtle shades of it here and there.

[Ashley Shaw]

Ashley smiled as Ant just did his thing. The reaction from L.C was priceless. She wasn’t used to having a half cat lick her wounds. Well, Ashley had had it plenty of times after failing to use various household objects. It was a disease he had, being naturally awful at household chores. Needless to say, his dorm looked a little like that. By little it means like a landfill site with a structure to it. Ashley stepped back a little as L.C began to do a little rant. He shrugged and sighed, her face was losing colour. Was that normal, or was she sick? Ash didn’t dare ask, in fear of the girl doing a doomsday massacre on their arses, which wouldn’t be a good idea, with the time nearing Christmas and the New Year. It wasn’t exactly 2012 yet.

“I don’t think I’ll say anymore. It seems I’ve run my welcome,” he said with a smile. Being safe was something Ashley was getting accustom to, when it came to people and other such things. But when it came to sports and whatnot, he was still a little fuzzy of ‘what not to do’. He was planning to see 127 Hours, to see if he could knock some sense into him. With it being based of a true story, it might just give him time to re-think a few things. He didn’t want to go and get trapped anytime soon.
He looked to Ant and tried to think of something to say.

“Wanna go to Europe some time soon?” he asked, out of the blue and rather eager.

[Antosha Vikenti]

Antosha offered the girl a comforting smile. Most people didn't know what to do when a guy just licks your hand, and her reaction. PRICELESS. Like a little kid finding out they got a frog for Christmas instead of a pony. No, you really don't want to hear that story. But trust him, the story was amazing. And a true one at that. He leaned back on his heels, arms folded while he watched her face.

Dear god, was she going to faint on them? That would ruin any plans of getting shit done today.

He reached out and patted her cheek comfortingly. "I'll hold you to that." Noticing the bitchy attitude wasn't really something Ant did, plus he figured, if something happened. He could kick ass. Kick it with teeth and claws. OH YEAH! But now with nothing else to add, he turned his back to her and smiled down at Ash-who just happened to be looking at him. And then... Where the fuck was Europe coming from??

"Sure, Shaw. Why the fuck not. Let's go to Europe. Just... Not my home country. God only knows how much trouble I'd get us in." Now he knew Russia technically wasn't apart of Europe, but Moscow was on the Europe most side of it. Which meant they could indeed go to his country. "But you know we'd have to take May, I'm not leaving her here for the wolves." He mimicked biting in Ash's face before chuckling. Loudly. Ant swooped down and gave his friend a huge bear hug, enough so that Ash was well off the ground. Then he let him go and swung an arm around his shoulders. "Discussion over coffee, yesss?"

[L.C. Milliner]

Patting L.C.’s cheek was not okay in her book. Fortunately for Ant, he had already peeled his hand away before several half-inch spikes erupted on her cheek, then slid back into her skin like a shark back underwater, waiting for the moment. She told herself that she would get him back, somehow. She wasn’t talking a full frontal spike hug, like her ‘Iron Maiden’ nickname would imply, but a prick or two wouldn’t kill him, and it would certainly put him in his place- the fact that they hadn’t made a connection with her and the property damage around campus left her wondering about their intelligence.

If Ant was surprised about the question Europe, L.C. was doubly so. When she had asked if he had anymore questions, she meant questions pertaining to the subject they were on. But if he was asking about Europe, well, she could play ball. “Italy would be nice.” She murmured, hoping that answer was correct in his book. She looked over at Ant, wondering what country he was talking about. She decided not to ask. “Maybe Ireland too.” She did want to see Romania too, because she was interested in Transylvania, but she was worried she’d come across more freakish then she already did. Then again, with these two, it might be welcome. She kept her mouth shut anyway, choosing to stay out of the discussion. She heard a name she didn’t know come up and she knew she was going to be excluded now, because it was hard to be a three person group if the third didn’

The mention of coffee made L.C. gulp and salivate. God, she wanted coffee. French Vanilla coffee, the gas station kind that tasted sweet and was perfect while she was sitting in the front bucket seat of a truck cab, feet on the dashboard, while listening to Magda mutter and curse as she drove twenty miles over the speed limit. She once watched the old gypsy curse out a police officer while she sipped coffee. Best day ever. In the present, however, L.C. was sure the coffee invitation wasn’t extended to her, so she slowly took a few steps back, turning to make a quick and quiet exit. She didn't want to crash the party.

[Ashley Shaw]

He knew he should have seen it coming, he was his best friend, after all! But how curious was it that Ashley Shaw was stunned in surprise as his best friend Ant and picked him off the ground in a huge hug. While Ant was talking, Ash over shadowed by continuously shouting ‘let me go’ like a petrified cat if it had a voice. Ash was relieved to touch ground again when he was put down, and Ant swung his arm over his shoulder. This made this substantially less awkward, and much more realistic. Being picked up by a panther transforming human homosexual who was seven foot one inch was probably one of the least possible events in everyday life, but when you were Ashley Shaw, it was quite common.
Ash ran over everything Ant had said and suggested. Russia? He wasn’t planning on going to Russia! He smiled awkwardly as L.C joined in, Ireland and Italy? No! he wasn’t going there either. Where he wanted to go was in the sake of experimentation. He wanted to see if his environment effected his powers, and so Russia, Italy and Ireland were not on the list of where to go. And he wasn’t to comfortable when he realised Ant was going to bring May with them.

“I don’t think brining May would be a good idea. See, I was planning to go to the Ukraine for an experiment,” Ashley said in a contemplative tone. He didn’t really want Mayu or Ant to be put in any danger. But if he had to chose, Ant would be more suitable for the location he was hoping to get to. Unfortunately, he was a meta-human, and they’d have to sneak past the guards. It wasn’t exactly going on holiday. It was business, the idiots way.
He looked up to see L.C shuffle away a little bit, making him worried.

“Hey hey hey! You don’t have to leave!” he yelled, “if you want to stay, that’s cool!” Ashley paused there, with little else in his mind that would contribute to what was going on. Jeez they were already planning the trip? He just hoped to hell Ant would still go, even though what he was trying to do was something illegal. But then again, it wasn’t like Ashley didn’t already have a criminal license. He had murdered twenty people.