AFTER HANGING OUT AT THE BEACH, THE GROUP all went their own separate ways, mentally preparing for whatever mission they'd be tasked with the next day. katia and skye both ended up passing out on their couch, a tub of uneaten popcorn between them and captain america: civil war playing in the background. 

skye was the first to wake up, squinting at the bright contrast of the room now that the sun had begun to rise. "wake up." she mumbled, nudging katia, whose head was on the other end of the couch. "you're going to drool. wake up." 

the two eventually got their uniforms on and drove their motorcycles to the base, seeing that nearly everyone else was already there. "you two always seem to be late." phoenix said with a smile.

"fashionably so." skye shrugged, lifting her aviators to her head. "did deadzone give us our mission for today yet?" 

phoenix shook her head. "nope. my guess is he's gonna go a bit easier on us, you know, since only four people passed the last assignment." 

this made both skye and katia laugh, performing their handshake at their sides. "hopefully it's a bit easier, it's only eight am." skye joked, looking over at the monitor. 

the mission ended up being a bit easier, but skye, katia, and rooster were put up against hangman, phoenix, and fang. "we're up against your man, how do you feel, hav?" rooster teased, laughing as katia glared at him.

"did she tell you about that?" she looked over to skye, who pretended not to hear her. "that was confidential." 

skye laughed. "you guys should stop making googley eyes at each other, then!" she giggled as katia pretended to make a move as if to wrestle her. "okay, we need to stay a team. if phoenix and hangman have a disagreement, then their group is at a disadvantage, right. so we need to just all listen to each other and we should be good." 

rooster nodded as he grabbed his helmet. "yeah, sounds good. and if i make another stupid idea, stop me."

"no, your idea was good. we just know now that it won't work." skye replied as they walked towards their respective jets. "keep your comms on, we'll tell you if we come up with better ideas." 

he shook his head with a smile, putting his helmet on and watching as skye and katia helped each other into their jet. 

"stop staring, rooster." a voice sounded, and he looked over to see hangman standing with a smirk. "what's going on between you guys anyways?"

"none of your business." he responded, suddenly becoming stiffer. 

hangman shrugged. "just don't let it distract you, rooster. you're slow enough up there as it is."

his brows furrowed with anger. "what's that supposed to mean?"

"nothin." he smiled. "just that, if you're gonna have any hope at being one of the top five to graduate here, you're gonna have to pick up your speed. you stay there on your perch just.. waiting."

bradley rolled his eyes. "i don't have time for this. i have a mission to kick your ass in."

this made his sickly-sweet smile widen. "yeah? don't sound too confident. i remember what happened last time your group was confident about an exercise." 

rooster turned back around to him, pointing a finger at him. "hey, you keep that out of this, alright?"

"i'm not saying anything." hangman said, holding his hands up. "all i know is that, if riot hadn't choked, maybe you guys would've had a chance at beating me." 

the other man smiled. "so you wanna play dirty, huh? bring it." without another word, he walked over to his jet, climbing in. 

skye and katia had been watching the interaction with furrowed brows. "what do you think's going on over there?" katia asked.

"they're probably just puffing chests." skye replied. "you know, making their heads grow bigger and getting them more likely to do something reckless up there." 

"oh, okay. great." 

once rooster was seated, skye looked over at him. "you good, roost?" she asked on their line, watching as he looked back over at her to give her a thumbs up. "what was that about with hangman?"

he shrugged. "just same old hangman." 

"that's nice." she said, turning her engine on and beginning to head towards the runway. once all of the planes were in the sky, they had a minute to fly to a location to start from. skye, katia, and rooster all headed to the left, where they could easily keep an eye on the other two planes, which had gone upwards.

"do you have eyes on them?" rooster asked.

skye nodded. "yeah, we do." she waited until the one minute timer had gone off before she began to fly after phoenix and jake. "this isn't personal, phoenix." she said, watching as the other woman increased her speed and attempted to shift around the mountains. 

"no, you don't." she grunted, tilting her plane and staying out of their shooting range. 

katia looked over her shoulder, tapping skye's headrest as she did so. "hangman behind us." 

skye turned for a brief second to see the other plane, which was sure enough approaching. "roost, you got him?" 

he grunted from the other end of the line. "yeah, i'm after him." 

skye focused back on phoenix while katia watched for rooster, making sure he was on hangman's tail. "rooster, you're gonna break the hard deck if you keep trying to do that." she warned him. 

"what's he trying to do?" skye asked, tilting the plane to weave between the mountain. 

"he's trying to dogfight with him." katia replied. "i think, it's hard to tell."

rooster's teeth were clenched as he responded. "we're kind of just flipping over each other right now, but i guess you could call it that." 

"aw, that's cute." skye joked, increasing her speed to gain on phoenix and fang. "i'm gonna try something." she then said to katia, who groaned.

"of course you are."

she flipped the plane over, moving over phoenix and then flipping back over to land what would be a dead shot on her plane. 

phoenix cursed, but there was a smile on her face. "i'll hand it to you guys, that was good." 

skye smiled. "thanks."

"we appreciate it." katia added, waving at both phoenix and jake in front them. they all then turned to look for rooster and hangman, who seemed to still be going head to head. 

"jesus, okay." skye mumbled before flipping their plane again and heading off towards the other two. "rooster, we're coming after you guys. level out."

he listened to her, and stopped doing whatever spin maneuver he'd been doing. he began to lead hangman away from the mountains, to which he followed right behind him. "you got me, riot?" rooster asked, trying to keep away from hangman. 

"yeah, i got you." she mumbled, moving closer.

he almost laughed. "okay, speed your ass up then, please." 

as soon as he said the words, she lined her targeting system up with hangman's tail, cheering as it turned red. "because you asked so kindly." she joked to rooster, moving a hand off the console to high five katia behind her. "that's a kill, hangman, in case you hadn't noticed." 

he rolled his eyes while phoenix laughed, moving her plane over to where the rest of them were. "were you trying to redeem yourselves, riot and havoc?" he asked.

skye smiled. "no need, hangman. we've always been better than you." 

he shook his head. "we'll see about that." 

katia tilted her head. "it all comes down to whose names are on that plaque, right?" 

skye stretched her arms lazily. "yeah. good thing they've already preordered ones with skye mitchell and katia kazansky on 'em, right?" 

fang looked between all of them. "okay, enough chit-chat, guys. let's head back to base." 

everyone followed phoenix's lead back, and rooster laughed. "are you guys gonna do a fly by again?" 

skye shrugged. "likely not. i already got one out of my system, i think i'm good." 

nonetheless, she flipped her plane in small loops in the sky before she prepared to land it, and all the people listening at the base could hear was her and katia laughing.