Red Bull

four

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I GRINNED LIKE A CHILD after takeoff. I always do. Luckily no one is ever there to see me like that, I'm sure I'd get made fun of in an instant. My plane evened out from takeoff, and I joined the clouds.

This. This feeling was the reason I chose to be a pilot. There was nothing else like it.

My thoughts are interrupted as our instructor starts our first training session. "Good morning aviators, this is your Captain speaking." Maverick spoke into his helmet. "Welcome to basic fighting maneuvers. As briefed, today's exercise is dogfighting. Guns only, no missiles, and we do not go below the hard deck of 5000 feet. You have to work as a team to shoot me or else..."

"Or else what?" I ask a little bluntly.

Maverick replied,maybe a little shocked by my attitude, "Or I'll shoot you. If I shoot one of you, you both lose."

"This old man needs to get his ego checked." Hangman said.

Such a hypocrite. I thought, rolling my eyes.

"Let's make this game a little more... entertaining." Coyote proposes.

"What's on your mind?" Maverick asks.

Coyote challenges, "Whoever gets hit first should do two hundred pushups."

My best friend is an idiot.

"I don't like doing push-ups." Maverick admits.

"That's why they call it exercise, sir." Hangman says, calling Maverick out on his old age once again. I swear this guy had a death wish as big as his ego.

"Agreed then. The fight starts... now!" Maverick declares and then disappears. It all happened so fast, and I knew that we'd all regret Coyote's challenge.

I said a little prayer in my heart, but I knew ultimately we'd all end up doing the push-ups. There's a reason Maverick has the reputation he does.

"Fanboy, do you see him?" Payback asked.

"There's nothing ahead of us on radar." Fanboy concluded.

Bob says, "Then he's somewhere behind us. Or below us, Phoenix—," and I heard Phoenix groan.

Maverick squeezed in through the little space between Hangman's and my plane, causing us quickly move out of the way before we crashed into each other. Or worse, our instructor.

Maverick chuckled into his headset, and I wanted to murder Hangman. He was going to be the death of us all. Maverick zoomed out ahead of us, straining his F-18 to its very limits, and started to swing around.

"Maverick is coming back!" Harvard yelled behind Yale.

"Let's break up! He'll pick us off easier if we're closer together," I suggested, keeping a watchful eye on Maverick, trying to see his next move.

"Red Bull is onto something!" Coyote said, "Split up!"

Listening to my and Coyote's warning, we all split up into different directions.