✔ᵉⁿᵍˡⁱˢʰ Starscream [Top Gun Maverick]✔

12

It was about the twelve becoming a team, a unit, along with the idiosyncrasies that each of them brought. Whatever it was that Iceman said to his longtime friend, it had worked. In the middle of the night, just before twelve, Kim's phone lit up, and she grumbled, reaching for it and looking at the far too bright display. The message was so short that she didn't even need to unlock the phone to know what it contained.

'Tomorrow evening meeting at the beach'

You too, a voice in Kim's head announced, whereupon she pulled the covers back over her head and tried to fall asleep all over again. Nice to know her dad had accomplished something, but this, she did not need to be told at this late hour.

•●•

Really fit Kim was nowhere near when she reached the beach. Not by a long shot. After yawning once and smacking her lips tonelessly, she looked at Pete and would have liked to go right back to bed, no matter how early it was. The night had been too short.

His idea could have been a good one, but the captain had to turn simple into complicated. Forcing the pilot squad to arrange themselves as a team by playing football was good, but not in the way the man envisioned.

"You serious?" the question left Kim's mouth because it was so stupid what Pete had come up with, "Football.... Football with two balls. What's next? Basketball with four baskets or, much better, two batters so that if one can't hit it, the other can? If you think it works, great, however, I'm out."

"One team," Maverick called after Kim, who trudged across the beach to the bar, shaking her head and raising two fingers in emphasis for why she was leaving, "Killjoy."

Adding a second ball in a game that was all about taking the ball away from the opponent or making sure it didn't get into their possession pretty much, ruined the entire principle of the game. Two teams, two balls, there each team possessed their ball and there was no reason to try for the ball anymore. Dogfight football, as Mitchell had christened his game.

Let's see how Mitchell's flyers felt about this game when they finally came.