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The day had started out so nicely, too – but then it had went somewhat sour. Mostly since she had dropped by the mall on lunch break and figured out that she had lost on the daily snowglobe contest yet again. Some people had hoards of the things, and they kept entering ! They kept on winning ! This was so entirely unfair ! Everyone had one of these things. Beside her, that is. And she wanted one. She wanted one so badly ! Ashley wasn't usually a jealous person, yet her inner thoughts did not seem abnormal to her in the least. Who wouldn't want one of these globes ?

She dragged her feet back to class, not noticing that the sky was clouding up almost as badly as her mind had. She sulked though her last two periods, and by the time she got out of class, her mood hadn't really improved... and neither had the sky – as lovely as it had been that morning, it was now completely dark.

Still, Ashley set to walk home, just like she walked to Meadowview everyday. It was a 45 minutes walk, but she never minded it. She walked it through the rain, though sunshine, and through snow, only opting to have her father and brother drive her if the conditions where truly exceptional.

Had she waited 5 minutes before setting on her way, then she would have definitively called – the snow started falling, and it fell hard at that. In all of her life, she had never seen so much snow fall on Destiny City ! Not even a few minutes in the storm and she looked like a walking snowman, having to take off her hat every few steps to knock the snow off it. Thankfully she was bundled enough that the temperature wasn't too harsh on her, but the visibility ? What visibility ? She could barely see a foot ahead of her, this was insane ! And it wasn't like she could call her dad ! How the hell would he see where he was driving ?!

Stupid snow. Stupid snowglobes. Stupid winter. Feh. She had half a mind to simply duck in a building and wait it out, but the snow gave no sign of stopping. By gods, she was so going to be a solid cube of ice by the time she made it home... Whenever that would be.

Ashley had ducked under the roof of a coffee shop to once again dust off the small mountain of snow that had been building up on top of her hat when she saw... it. First it looked nothing unusual, just snow dancing in the distance, until it got closer. And that was where the purple-haired girl froze. What... What was that ? Her eyes had to be playing tricks on her...

No, they weren't ! It was three figure – three ladies, pale as snow – dancing their way down to earth. Litterally dancing, like a trio of ballerinas, and Ashley stared, green eyes wide. What else could she do but stare, anyway ?! The three hit the ground roughly at the same time, elegantly, and then scattered off, each in their directions. It seemed that none of the three... beings... had noticed the young girl at all.

Ashley blinked. Once. Twice. By gods... “Never a dull moment in this city, uh...” Terrorists, unexplained coma waves, and now pale ballerinas falling from the sky. She'd say she'd seen everything, but she lived in Destiny City. Things were bound to get wierder. Always.

For now, however, she still had a long way to get home...

Eventually, the terrorist that had been so intent on 'saving' her lost her trail. Either she had outran him, or he went to hit the huge snow b***h with the rest of his buddies.

Ashley, for her part, wasn't so brave. So far, she had had been lucky. No run in with either faction, no run in with the monsters that roamed the streets late at night. She heard plenty, of course – it was all over the news, it was talked often at school, at home by her parents, and she had to deal with new restrictions since this whole mess started. But that was nothing next to this, and all she could do was hide behind her bench, eyes wide, as she watched the chaos unload in front of her eyes.

How could they even understand each other ? One yell overcame all the other noise – hit the base ! - and suddenly the chaos became less rampant and more focused, as if the two sides had come to a temporary truce, minus a few notable exceptions. Like the brown haired boy and the dark-haired woman who were hitting the base... with each other, throwing and clawing and screaming in a way that couldn't be normal, couldn't be human. The girl's arm, dark and twisted, couldn't be human at all.

All sort of things were shooting though the air – all the elements she could think of, and then some – crystals that didn't came from the strange woman on top of her throne who was no longer talking smack now that her weakness had apparently been noticed. Good thing someone had shut her highness up, at least.

But still, she stared, for once shocked right into place – eyes wide, and shivering. She was freezing, and they were up there... fighting... some of them were wearing freaking miniskirts. What the hell ? These people weren't human. How the hell could they be ? Just how ?

This whole thing was surreal, but she couldn't stand it anymore. She had to get out of here – the cold was too much for Ashley now, and the second that it looked like no one was looking in her direction, she ran, as fast as her legs could carry her. She ran without pausing, without looking back to see if any of them had seen her and was not on her trail. This couldn't be real, this couldn't be real, her mind argued, but she knew very well that even if she wasn't actually sober, she wasn't -that- hammered. And she never made up s**t with her mind when she was drunk.

So this had to be real, no matter how much she wished for it not to be. There was a very real war going down in Destiny City, and all she could hope to do now was to avoid it the best she could.

Bass Beat [REG3]

She had struggled with falling asleep on that friday night.

It had nothing to do with the drinking that had happened before the came home (she wasn't even hungover !) and Ashley liked to think that it also had nothing to do with the odd silence that had surrounded her bedroom. She didn't live in a bad neighbour, but she did live smack-dab along one of Destiny City's main streets. It was much too easy for terrorist run-ins and monsters to happen on a street that was more or less bound to be filled with people at all hours of the day and night.

There had been no strange noise, no yelling voices, nothing at all. Nothing but the odd car passing by there and there. Damnit, the lack of oddity couldn't be what made her unable to sleep. Usually it was the other way around ! If this was really the case, then the oddity of Destiny City annoyed her even more than she thought it did.

And yet, there had been nothing all night. Ashley was very keenly aware of this because she had spent most of it awake, green eyes wide open and left to stare at the ceiling of her bedroom. She did manage to catch an hour there and there, but it didn't seem to do her much good – in fact, she was pondering if she should have forgone trying to sleep entirely.

It was exactly what she did when the sun finally rose, grumbling as she tossed aside her comforter and wandered to the kitchen. She did not drink coffee often, but she figured if there was ever a day for an exception, this would probably be it. She was, however, surprised to see her father and mother in the kitchen, looking every bit as disgruntled as she was.

That she had slept horrible was a thing in itself – but that her parents had done the very same thing ? Strange.

Then the water ran cold, and proceeded to do so for quite awhile before warming up. Stranger.

She had breakfast with her parents, then pulled out her cellphone to call her brother. She was getting low signal in the house, which was something that never happened. Ashley then proceeded to go on a walk, checking her phone all the while.

She actually got to Matthew's apartment before the signal was strong enough to let her call him. Further down the rabbit hole, Alice. She stood there for a moment, going from her phone to the window of Matthew's apartment, blinking in disbelief all the while. Well, she'd made it this far, and she could see the shadow of a body passing behind the curtained window. Had to be her Matty.

First, however, Ashley turned to head down to the coffee shop nearby. Maybe if she brought an holy offering of tea, then he wouldn't be as annoyed with her dropping by so early...

A Bird, A Plane... [REG6]

You're Short Like Someone Else I Know ! [REG5]

Lieutenant to Captain count starts here

Figuring Out The Ropes [REG6]