Talon • B. Bradshaw

e l e v e n

ROOSTER SAW THE CRASH and his heart stopped. Tears came to his eyes as he looked at the large ball of fire that erupted from Arden's plane.

"Arden!" He cried, he had to go down there and look for her. She couldn't be dead. Not after surviving a two on one fight with the bandits. He didn't even have time to process anything, before he saw smoke in the air, and another missile came flying towards him. He pressed the flare button, but nothing happened.

"I'm out of flares!" He yelled, and seconds later he saw Maverick fly over him, deploying flares. Then Maverick got hit.

"Mav!" Rooster said in shock, turning to see his plane crash down near Arden's.

"Dagger one is down. I repeat Dagger one is down," Phoenix reported into the comm. Rooster barely heard anything after that. His girl was down there, along with his estranged father figure. No matter what the admirals ordered, he wasn't going to leave them. Especially not Arden, not when there were still so many things they needed to talk about.

"Rooster, they're gone. She's gone," Phoenix told him, her voice breaking. Rooster realized just how crushed Phoenix was over Arden. He wasn't the only one that loved her.

"I have to go down there," he said. "We have to circle back."

"They're gone man," Payback repeated. Rooster drowned out his words. Both pilots knew that Rooster wasn't going to leave them behind, so they both decided to just let him go.

"Be careful," Phoenix told him. She could see him, so he only nodded in response. They flew off, and Rooster's eyes locked on an enemy helicopter down below. It started firing. He couldn't see what, or who, it was firing at, but it gave him hope. He quickly swooped down as the helicopter turned around, and he saw Maverick hiding behind a log, Arden's body laying limp next to him.

'Oh god. Please don't let her be dead,' he thought. He got missile lock, and sent a missile flying into the side of the helicopter, successfully blowing it up before it could do any damage to Maverick and Arden. However, Rooster managed to miss the fact that there was one more missile flying towards him.

The missile hit his plane, and he was jolted around, but not too much that he couldn't think. He reached down and grabbed the ejection handles, safely ejecting. He landed on the snowy ground, and started gathering up his parachute before he heard someone shout his name.

"Bradley! Are you alright?" Maverick asked. The older pilot was running as fast as he could, while carrying Arden on his back. Her eyes were closed, so Rooster wasn't sure if she was alive yet or not, and it was killing him.

"Yeah," Rooster called back, as Maverick got closer. "Are yo-"

He was cut off by Maverick running into him, and knocking him to the ground. The force was enough to almost send Arden falling off Maverick's back, but the man was able to secure her before she fell.

"What was that?" Rooster asked as he stood up, his eyes locked on the blonde.

"What are you doing here?" Maverick asked. "You think I took that missile for you, just so that you could be down here?"

"I saved your life!" Bradley responded. He thought he saw Arden stir, but he wasn't sure if it was a trick of his imagination or if it was real.

"No, I saved yours! That was the whole point!" Maverick replied. "What were you thinking?"

"You told me not to think," Rooster retorted. That shut Maverick up quick. There were a few seconds of silence before, Rooster spoke again. "Is she alive?"

"At the moment, yes," Maverick told him, nodding. He moved around Maverick, gently taking Arden into his arms. He immediately checked her pulse just to make sure, and was relieved when he felt her heart softly beating. He kneeled down and rested her on the ground while he examined her. She was pale, almost too pale. There were a few small cuts on her face, but nothing major. She probably had a concussion, but that was also manageable. That's when he saw the tear in her flight suit, on her side. He gently turned her slightly so that he had a better look at the wound. Maverick kneeled down in front of him, on the other side of her so that he could also examine the wound.