Three Strikes [✓]

Destructive Tendencies

Chapter Fifteen: Destructive Tendencies

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444th Air Base, Zapland.
July 20th, 2019.
1500hrs.

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Naomi frowned as the familiar roaring of jet engines faded into the distance and she lost sight of the four F-15s. Cyclops Squadron was gone, and so were the only allies she had left around the base. Pulling her gaze away from the sky, she noticed a pair of her fellow inmates smoking with one of the guards. They saw her and muttered something to one another before sending a glare her way and returning to whatever it was they were talking about before. Naomi put on a blank expression and took a deep breath, shoving her hands into her pockets and turning to enter the hangar that now housed Spare Squadron aircraft once again. There was no trace that the LRSSG pilots had ever been there.

Count's Flanker was parked next to Naomi's F-2, and Tabloid's Mirage was tucked away in the very back, barely visible unless someone were to turn on the lights in the dingy hangar. Full Band's F/A-18 was parked in a similar manner on the opposite side of the hangar. And just as she expected, on each of their tails, the reminder of their crimes was still there. It was practically mocking them every day. Naomi stared distastefully at her own plane, lingering on the three sin lines across her personal emblem and the Osean flag. Count, Tabloid, and Full Band were lucky. They each had only one sin line for minor crimes that they wouldn't tell her about, likely because none of them cared enough to. She could probably guess what they were, though, just from the little she knew about them.

She continued to stare up at her plane before the sound of uneven footsteps alerted her to the arrival of another person. Naomi turned her head towards the open hangar doors and saw the familiar form of her cellmate, limping and carrying a toolkit in her hands. The slightly older woman set the box down as she stopped, shifting her weight off of her bad leg and placing her hands on her hips. It seemed that she didn't notice Naomi standing there, so she tried to slip away unnoticed, but Avril's dark brown eyes flicked towards her the second she tried to move out of sight. "I know you're there, dumbass," Avril said flatly, a hint of her usual smirk on her lips. "If you were trying to be sneaky, then congratulations, you already failed."

"Hilarious." Naomi ducked underneath her wing and slowly walked towards Avril, eyeing the plastic box on the ground next to her before looking back up. "I kind of wanted to be alone right now."

Avril raised an eyebrow, the only sign of any concern that Naomi got from her. After a moment, her expression softened to one of what could be considered pity. "Tabloid told me what happened," she said after a while. "About...well, everything, actually. That, and Count's pretty good at stirring shit up, so word spread around base fast. As you can tell."

Naomi flinched and looked down at the ground. Tabloid had been distant ever since the confrontation with Count and the others. At first, Naomi thought that he'd hang around, but instead he began to join Avril in the hangars and actively avoid Naomi. Bandog began to shun her, and Count went back to hating her guts. Full Band was the only one that seemed interested in remaining on good terms with her, probably because he was convinced that she was like her father. Convinced that she was something that she never wanted to be.

A part of her blamed herself, although she knew that it wasn't really anybody's fault. And yet at the same time, she still was upset with her family for lying to her. Roland and Samantha knew. Her mother — quite obviously — knew. And her father...of course. Naomi hated herself for not noticing it sooner. He was Belkan, that much she knew, but she never thought much of it. Her entire life, she'd grown up in Osea. And now everyone but Full Band seemed to think that she was some sort of monster with no good reason behind it. Had the world really become so hostile and fearful towards Belkans? Is that why her father hadn't told her that, not only was he Belkan and a mercenary, but he became a terrorist following a flawed ideology? Naomi didn't know the reasons behind her family's decision to hide that part of their lives from her, but she found it hard to stay mad at them. As much as she wanted to be mad at them, to hate them, instead she just hated the circumstances under which she'd come to learn of this.