[Ashley McKenna-Chase]

The Key to Friendship

The key-bestowing ceremony had been as elaborate as Ashley could manage with the apartment in its current state. She excused herself for a moment and returned with the sacred sparkly shower curtain draped around her shoulders, Alice’s key held out in front of her. She got Alice to kneel down and then ceremoniously “knighted” her with the key, singing a wordless tune as she went. The curtain slipped off halfway through, but it was otherwise a beautiful and memorable event.

Alice had then proceeded to look through the kitchen and draw up a shopping list for Ashley to follow while she headed back to grab her things. Alice was extremely eager to just move in straightaway, which was both delighting and surprising. Ashley had offered to help her with the moving out process but Alice was insistent on Ashley sticking to her grocery duties. She’d even suggested the perfect places to acquire all the ingredients.

After the whole key ceremony, Ashley was feeling particularly gallant, and considered the gathering mission her noble quest that would serve as the base for their moving-in feast that evening. She let Alice talk her into believing its significance so she didn’t feel too bad about Alice moving all her stuff by herself, but there was still an underlying concern. Maybe Alice was going to call on Stephen for help, or something, and she really really needed Ashley to get those ingredients.

Ashley knew when to pry, and this moment wasn’t one of them.

It took a surprisingly long time to find all the right places – jumping on different buses and asking strangers for directions – but Ashley succeeded completely in her quest and was feeling more than a little smug in her triumph. As though buying groceries was this huge adult task that she’d never done before. In a way, she hadn’t. Not for stocking her own cupboards, anyway.

By the time she got back to the apartment and heaved her hard-earned loot through the door, Alice had already populated the space with some of her own belongings. There really wasn’t much, but Alice’s apartment had been tiny. They were definitely going to need to go furniture shopping.

“Ta-dah! I bring fine wares from the city!” Ashley announced, still rather immersed in her make-believe role. Then she stopped and looked around the room happily, pleased to see it marginally more filled. “Did you move all your things in already?”

She marched through to the kitchen where she began unloading her bags onto the breakfast bar. Alice hadn’t actually told her what she was going to be cooking yet, but Ashley could already feel her stomach rumbling at the prospect. Clearly, Ashley had great taste in roommates.

Alice Morrow

451 words

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[Alice Morrow]

Paladin Am I more than you bargained for yet? + Ashley McKenna-Chase + wearing

Equipped with her key, Alice had headed off to collect her things. She hadn't had much, but it was enough that lugging it around would have been a pain, even if she wasn't recovering from today's training session. Instead she split it up, taking two bags with her on one trip on the bus, grateful for her as yet unexpired bus pass, then returning for the rest. She could have sprung for a taxi, but it would have felt dishonest and wasteful, especially considering that Ashley was footing the bill both for the flat right now, and for dinner. After only two trips later, she had dropped off all of her meagre belongings in the flat, and was preparing the kitchen for cooking when Ashley returned from her noble quest. Alice grinned and went over to examine the fruits of her new flatmates labours, but paused at the mention of her things. It hadn't taken her long to move in at all, she'd even unpacked what she could, although she'd be living out of her bags until she managed to find a cheap enough wardrobe. Her belongings certainly seemed paltry when compared to Ashley's. Her stuffed toy collection alone nearly occupied the same space as everything Alice owned in the world. It made her feel a little self-conscious. What she had contributed however, was the TV, which was currently sat on its own in the middle of the lounge area. The single item there besides the sofa. It was a little ghetto, but she'd always kept the tiny flat screen on top of the dresser in her pokey flat, so she'd never needed a TV unit. The oven was currently warming up as she inspected the groceries, putting somethings straight in the fridge and setting others aside to be used for dinner that night. She raised an eyebrow at Ashley's questioning look, "What? You didn't seriously think it would cost twenty-five bucks to make one meal did you? How could all of this stuff go together?" What she planned was not exactly an easy meal however, so she shooed Ashley out of the kitchen area before she could do any damage. "You can stay over there," she indicated the lounge area, "But there's no way I'm letting you in here when I'm using sharp knives." The knife she had just produced was her pride and joy, a gift from Stephen's mom on the day she graduated. It was a fifteen centimetre Shun chef's knife, simple, elegant, and with a single Japanese symbol engraved on the blade. It was kept within a case and wrapped in delicate fabric. She took it out almost reverently and began to chop herbs.

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[Ashley McKenna-Chase]

The Key to Friendship

On the 18th May 2018, exactly three months after Alice moved into the apartment, Ashley and Alice were up late celebrating a huge impending moment in Alice’s career – the launch of the Federal Hero Program. It was going to be officially announced the next day, marking a rise in Paladin’s status from well-loved vigilante to a government-endorsed superhero. The program had been Dominic Weaver’s brainchild and he would continue to act as Alice’s agent, even though he had stepped back from any hero duties himself.

Ashley knew that he was one of the other survivors of the accident that had changed her brother’s life, but she hadn’t really interacted much with the guy or known much about it him beyond his PR prowess. Claire, even less – she and Alice weren’t on good terms – and Persephone, nothing at all. According to Alice, the girl had just dropped off the grid entirely after the Event. As for Mason… He’d lost his life that day. But Alice had only good things to say about the man when she spoke of him.

There were other prominent vigilantes but Paladin appeared to be one of the more well-known. Ashley liked to tease Alice that they were soon going to have to compete against each other in some inane celebrity reality TV show although she’d quickly ruled out cooking shows, for obvious reasons.

Ashley had bought some champagne for the occasion and even bought a couple of fancy champagne flutes to really set the mood. She wasn’t usually one for drinking but she didn’t exactly abstain either. A balanced diet was important, and every good balanced diet included a little champagne from time to time.

“Wanna do the honours?” she asked excitedly, plucking the bottle from the fridge. It had been her dad’s recommendation after she’d asked for something “within budget, but worthy of a superhero” and was probably wasted on her – Ashley was pleased with anything bubbly, regardless of quality – but Alice definitely had a healthy level of food-and-drink snobbishness to accommodate.

She placed the bottle in front of Alice and retrieved the two glasses, setting them down slowly to draw attention to their sophistication. Champagne – in champagne glasses!

“I know,” she said proudly. “We so fancy.”

Alice Morrow

372 words

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[Alice Morrow]

Paladin Am I more than you bargained for yet? + Ashley McKenna-Chase + wearing

Alice had known something big was coming down the pipeline, and she'd had her suspicions about what it might be, but she hadn't quite expected anything on the scale that Dominic had brought about. He really didn't do anything by halves. Tomorrow would mark the public announcement of the Hero program, and the reveal of Paladin and another five heroes who were to be the face of the new paradigm. Some, including Alice, had pushed for a larger complement of heroes when starting. Dominic had stood firm. Soon they would expand to dozens across the nation, but this would affect some of the fundamentals of the United States. They needed to introduce it with a simple cast, as he put it, of Heroes. Then people would easily recognise a few solid and admirable heroes before they started making things more complicated. As it was, Paladin and the others were not alone, they were just the ones on the posters. Her government salary had started coming in as well, and she'd been able to start shouldering her share of the rent, or part of it anyway. Ashley had said she was paying half, but she had her suspicions that the petite singer was keeping the true rent a secret. She didn't mind, if everything worked out as Dom promised it would, then she would be able to pay Ashley back and more. Until then she was content, Ashley was her best friend, she knew that Alice was doing her best to make ends meet. She was stood at the breakfast bar, champagne bar tonight, she reminded herself, waiting for Ashley to produce said beverage. Technically Alice wasn't supposed to drink at all, she was still only nineteen, but Ashley was twenty one, and that meant she could get alcohol when she really wanted it. This was a far cry from the occasional gulp of whiskey sneaked from a friends father's liquor cabinet that she'd enjoyed in High School. Well, enjoyed. She was even more aware these days of drinking responsibly. She had no idea how Dom had convinced the government to accept a nineteen year old for the program, but he had, and she wasn't going to let him down by getting drunk. A couple of glasses of champagne to celebrate couldn't hurt though. She opened the champagne without a grunt. She wasn't exactly a body builder now, but a year of intense workouts and street fights had certainly done something for her physical strength. Pouring both glasses she raised hers, "To finally being a Hero!" She sipped it. She would be a wine snob if she could afford it, after all, it sort of went with being a food snob, but she hadn't really had the chance to taste much wine. All of her knowledge was theoretical. All she knew was this one tasted good. "Mmmmm, best way to celebrate. Speaking of, Dom said to ask if you wanted to come to the opening ceremony tomorrow? He knows we're friends, but to be honest I'm pretty sure he just wants to get a chance to talk to you so he can advertise his services."

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[Ashley McKenna-Chase]

The Key to Friendship

Clink.

“To Paladin!”

Ashley set her glass down, smiling happily, and then remembered she was supposed to take a drink once she noticed Alice giving it a taste. She followed her lead, sipping it lightly. Mmm, fizzy!

“So it’s good?” she asked. “Just kinda tastes of bubbles to me. Which, I guess you’re right, is the best way to celebrate. I should have hired a bubble machine or something!” Ashley sighed wistfully. “Next time.”

She wasn’t entirely sure what the ‘next time’ was that she was referring to. Next time one of them became a Hero? Considering Ashley’s apparent decidedly average gene selection, that was pretty unlikely. It was a little rude of the universe, to be honest, seeing as Will had developed powers and she was definitely pretty related to him, but that was okay. She could count herself lucky that she wasn’t one of the poor souls who were unable to control their powers, at least.

Ashley laughed at the mention of Dom’s never-ending thirst for business opportunities. “I would love to come, I’m sure my manager would be pretty happy to hear about that invite. Is there going to be a carpet? We could wear matching dresses!” she squealed, getting more than a little carried away. “Or maybe not, I probably shouldn’t be stealing your thunder. This is your achievement, not McKenna’s.”

She beamed proudly. Then she tilted her head.

“Do we have plus ones?”

Ashley had been running into this guy in the hall pretty regularly over the last couple of months, though she hadn’t told Alice about him yet. There wasn’t much to say except his name was Imran and he was doing a PhD in …bio-something or other. He seemed nice enough and obviously liked her, so she was thinking of taking him up on one of his many offers of coffee. Or in this case, the Hero Program unveiling.

Which okay, wasn’t exactly coffee, but who wouldn’t want the chance to see history take place?

Alice Morrow

332 words

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[Alice Morrow]

Paladin Am I more than you bargained for yet? + Ashley McKenna-Chase + wearing

Alice threw her hands up in the air in resignation. "You mean there was an option for a bubble machine and you went with a drink with bubbles in it? Clearly you are a celebration amateur." She smirked mischievously, taking another sip of the admittedly delicious champagne. "Although this is pretty good, definitely a B+, I'd still consider hiring you to plan my birthday. Bubble machine better be on the list somewhere though." Alice smiled at Ashley's acceptance, "I'd love to wear matching dresses, but I've got to be there in costume, Hero Program launch remember? People might put two and two together if a non-costumed blue-haired girl turned up and Paladin wasn't there." The question about plus ones piqued Alice's interest. She had been single herself for some time, training, and fighting crime, and working as many hours as she could had not been conducive to a fulfilled love life. Ever since Jason had broken up with her she'd just focused on the hero side of her life. Ashley had no such excuses. Yeah she might have a career and all, but she wasn't saving the world. Or so Alice kept telling her every time she came back with a new reason why this guy hadn't worked out, or that guy hadn't worked out. Alice was beginning to think that Ashley was cursed. That's why the question about plus ones had caught her, albeit pleasantly, by surprise. "Why so interested in the plus ones? Is there a new maaaan on the horizon?" She leaned towards Ashley as she spoke, waggling her eyebrows suggestively. "You should totally ask him to come though. What guy wouldn't want to go to an exclusive event like that?"

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[Ashley McKenna-Chase]

The Key to Friendship

Now Ashley really was regretting not ordering a bubble machine – that would have been so cool. As Alice said, they could always get one for the next time they were celebrating. Alice’s birthday was a long way off now but that gave Ashley plenty of time to plan for the day Alice hit her twenties. Bubble machine was going straight to the top of the list.

“Oh yeah, duh.” Ashley smacked her forehead against the heel of her hand. “I guess it might be weird if we show up together too – don’t want people kidnapping McKenna Chase to get Paladin’s attention…”

She laughed.

“It is seriously weird that both of us can talk about ourselves in the third-person. If I didn’t know any better I’d say we were a little crazy.” She shook her head. “But okay, okay, no matchy-matchy.”

Alice reacted pretty predictably to the mention of plus ones, immediately adopting a very suggestive look once the surprise had faded from her face. Ashley smacked gently at her friend, the eyebrows setting her off into a fit of giggles. “Stop! His name’s Imran, he lives somewhere in this building and I’m sure he looks great in a suit.”

The mental picture gave her no butterflies, but she hoped the added detail would get Alice all excited.

“I could ask if he has any friends…?” They both knew Alice wasn’t seeing anyone at the moment. She barely had time to eat and sleep, let alone pay attention to men. Her thing with Jason had ended before they’d even moved in together (Ashley wasn’t surprised, although she knew it was her advice that had kickstarted the dumping, so she couldn’t say too much). It wouldn’t surprise Ashley if Alice turned down the invitation of a potential plus one outright. Ashley felt similarly – it felt juvenile to prioritise boys when she had a career to focus on. But her mother just continued to ask and ask if there was a man in her life, so she felt obligated to try.

Alice Morrow

338 words

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[Alice Morrow]

Paladin Am I more than you bargained for yet? + Ashley McKenna-Chase + wearing

"Ooooooh, Imraaaaannn. He sounds dreamy…" She batted her eyes at Ashley and clasped her hands beneath her chin, swaying from side to side as if she were a character in a Disney movie. She enjoyed teasing Ashley about her less than successful love life, if only because she knew that Ashley had just as much ammunition to fire back at her. She took another sip of champagne, enjoying the feel of the bubbles on her lips and tongue. It really was nice to celebrate like this. Dom would be celebrating tomorrow, sort of, but he was so caught up in this whole thing that Alice doubted he'd be able to pull himself out enough to relax and actually celebrate. Outside of him, there was no one else to really celebrate with. Since the Event she had hardly spoken to the other survivors, Mason was dead. Claire blamed her for his death, and Will seemed to hold her responsible for the violence in the first place. Persephone seemed to have just dropped off the face of the Earth. Ashley and Stephen were the only ones left that knew about her powers, and Stephen was busy preparing for his first fashion show. Alice was happy for him, his career had taken off since the arrival of metahumans, and he was predicting that 'Hero-chic' would be the next big thing. Still, she wished he was still here. She had Ashley, but after the collapse of her friendship with the survivors and the death of Mason she was feeling decidedly more vulnerable. "No no no. I would love to, but I haven't got time to be dating right now. Not with the launch tomorrow. A guy would notice that I just happened to disappear ever time Paladin shows up. Maybe after people are used to heroes being around it'll be OK. But I should probably hold back until then." She fixed Ashley with a steady, determined stare. "So that means that I can instead use all of my time to set you up with someone. Tell me more about him. What does he do?"

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[Ashley McKenna-Chase]

The Key to Friendship

Ashley smacked at Alice again, her fist stopping dead when it reached Alice’s arm. Sometimes having a superhero best friend was distinctly unsatisfying.

“Grow up!” she wailed, still giggling at Alice’s childish antics.

She nodded slowly as she listened to Alice’s rather reasonable excuses, taking a long sip of her wine while maintaining eye contact. It was true – now wasn’t really the time for Alice to be dating. Maybe once she’d settled into her life as a Hero, once she’d figured out the rules and boundaries of her life as a government-endorsed crime fighter, maybe then Alice would run into somebody who could sweep her off her feet.

Ashley had jokingly suggested the potential of a Romeo-and-Juliet style romance with a supervillain, but Alice had dismissed that idea with surprising forcefulness. She was really quite serious about her role in enforcing justice and Ashley could see just how purely Alice believed that what she was doing was the Right Thing To Do. The girl had an iron set of morals, apparently.

“Alright, I’ll stop acting like my mom,” Ashley said with a sigh of defeat. As if she could possibly be as bad as her grandbaby-deprived mother. Honestly, why couldn’t Will have just kept it together with that nice Charlie person? Now the pressure was back on her.

“What does he do?” Ashley echoed, stalling a little for time. “He’s a PhD student. Something to do with biology, I think. He only mentioned it like, once. Lives on his own and moved here pretty recently – he keeps asking me out for coffee whenever we get talking in the hall, so I’m pretty sure he’s interested.”

She shrugged. “He seems nice, I guess? You can give me your review score after you meet him. Let me know if he seems a good enough catch for my mom.”

Ashley took another sip of her champagne; really, it was more of a swig.

Alice Morrow

320 words

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[Alice Morrow]

Paladin Am I more than you bargained for yet? + Ashley McKenna-Chase + wearing

Alice grinned childishly at Ashley's entirely ineffective attempt at assault. The amount of kinetic energy was effectively infinitesimal. It wasn't that Ashley was weak… well. But normally Alice was used to dealing with people who hit with the average force of a pickup truck. Ashley at least seemed entertained by Alice's attempt at humour. It was nice to have somewhere to get away from it all, where she could just be who she was and not worry about the image she presented as a Hero, or the fact that she had to conceal the fact that she was a Hero. She loved doing it, and she even enjoyed the attention, but sometimes it felt like it was too big. She'd never thought she'd become a celebrity. "You guess?!?" Alice put on a mock look of shock. She'd known Ashley for a year now and somehow in all this time the girl had never been in an even semi-serious relationship. It just didn't make sense. The girl was petite, ridiculously hot, and cute in the way that made her not only attractive, but approachable. The complete inability of any guy to lock her down into a relationship completely perplexed her. She frowned, "You really should take him up on this coffee offer. It's not like the most original way to sweep a girl off her feet but come on, give the poor guy a chance. He's probably terrified of your celebrity status." She produced an invisible clipboard and began to tick off imaginary categories. "First date idea, solid, but unimaginative, six out of ten. Respectability, PHD student, nine out of ten, could only really be better if he already had the PHD."

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[Ashley McKenna-Chase]

The Key to Friendship

September

The run with Imran had been pretty respectable - Ashley had only just recently ended things with him after it became apparent that he was way more passionate about their relationship than she was. Once she found herself trying to think of excuses not to go back to his place, she knew that it was time to disappoint both her roommate and her mother and break up with the guy. He wasn’t keen on staying friends, which was unfortunate as he was an intelligent and interesting person, but Ashley understood.

There hadn’t been much time to devote to a boyfriend anyway, which was probably why things had lasted as long as they had. Ashley had plunged headfirst into the hectic new McKenna Chase schedule and, with shows all around the country coming up, it was for the best that she focused on her career for now.

That didn’t stop her from nagging Alice to stop focusing so much on her career, of course. She’d become absorbed by the Hero Program and still she managed to work a couple of shifts in a kitchen each week. Considering how much Alice seemed to have enjoyed being in a relationship before, Ashley was worried that this long stretch of singledom wasn’t entirely what Alice wanted right now.

Of course, she couldn’t say that, because Alice would remind her of her own rather tragic serial monogamist love life.

Right now, Alice was hosting a guy at their flat - but not like that. Her friend Stephen, who occasionally seemed to be shooting daggers at her when no one was looking (or was she just paranoid?), was a fashion designer who had pioneered Hero fashion. It had been a huge boost to his career and he had an upcoming show in New York of all places, so he was visiting to generally celebrate and ensure that Paladin would be showing up as a special guest.

Ashley was curled on the sofa, stuffed toy elephant tucked under her legs as an improvised pillow, watching from across the room as Alice prepared something that smelled utterly amazing in the kitchen while Stephen sat at the breakfast bar - probably equally mesmerised.

“Paladin as special guest is sure to be a show-stopper,” Ashley agreed, lifting her chin onto the back of the sofa so the others could see her face. “But also woah, how cool to just be in New York! I hope you get fancy hotel rooms free of charge.”

Alice Morrow

417 words

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[Alice Morrow]

Paladin Am I more than you bargained for yet? + Ashley McKenna-Chase + wearing

The meal was nearing the point where she could just leave it to cook for a while. This was perhaps the most frustrating part of cooking, where you simply had to step back and let it take it's time. On the other hand though, it was quite therapeutic and certainly very satisfying to know that all of the hard work was done. Still, sometimes it was hard to put down the knives. Alice kept that thought to herself. She walked around the breakfast bar and dropped down onto Ashley's lap, absorbing the impact so she didn't knock all of the air out of her lungs when she landed. Stephen swung around on the breakfast bar stool to look at them, but Alice was too busy making herself comfortable to notice the daggers he shot in Ashley's direction. "I'm sure that Stephen's stuff is going to be the show-stopper, and I will keep pointing people in the direction of that until they leave me alone. I'm sure Dom will organise something so that I can have my moment and then get out of the way." Just the thought of walking onto the catwalk made her shudder. She didn't much like being the centre of attention, which made it so strange that she was the poster child for the Hero Program on the West coast. Dominic had assured her that it was all necessary, that what she was doing was inspiring more people to come forward and become heroes. She hoped he was right. "I will definitely have to talk to Dom about that. They can't have a celebrity turning up if they aren't paying for my hotel room." She put on a mock snooty accent, "That sort of thing simply isn't done." Stephen laughed, "Don't worry, if they're putting me up they're bound to be giving you a much better room, your name opens a lot more doors than mine does." Alice kicked out at him, "Pffft, only cause of my super-stylish costume."

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