Ari sat there, listening quietly as her squadmates argued, as some of them seemed on the verge of breaking down. What could she do in response to this? A voice haunted her, the voice of Eric Astelion, over and over she heard "[i][color=f7941d]That patch on your shoulder doesn't make you one of us.[/color][/i]" It hurt to think that, but this incident had just highlighted it for her. She had no right to think of any of them as her comrades, it seemed. They may be the ones she flew with, but she'd nowhere near earned the right to fly with them. She wasn't good enough yet, she wasn't experienced enough yet, all she'd done was earn three kills in the field, a mere fraction of the kill counts of the others. Any one of them could out-fly her, probably blindfolded, and she dared have the audacity to call herself a true pilot of the 7th? It was blind optimism, nothing more, that had lead her to be believe that a squad of special operations pilots like these would ever accept a pilot fresh out of boot camp like her.

Just as it seemed that she could escape, suddenly Trent called out to her, saying she was with him and she was "On Point". Now, she'd seen enough movies in her day to know what that meant. That meant he wanted her to go first, and lead the way, which did render her somewhat nervous. She got to her feet and quietly nodded, her legs carrying her to the door. When she arrived, she turned and nervously waved at the other members of the squadron, saying to Trapp"[color=0072bc]If it's okay with y-you, sir, I'm accompanying Mr. Trent somewhere.[/color]" To the other members of the squad, she said "[color=0072bc]See you later.[/color]" With that, she bashfully turned from the door to start walking down the hallway.

As she stepped out, however, she couldn't help but remember another place and time. It wasn't too long ago that she too had been in the loose laws of survival training, and she felt a strange feeling of nostalgia. As she walked down the hallway with Trent, in her mind, she watched a show play out...

-----

[i]"[color=00a651]Williams! You're first! Off the truck![/color]" Ari was pushed from the truck with a heave into the pouring rain, and she took a moment to stand and collect herself. She had a .223 survival rifle, a pair of magazines, her knife and a basic UEE survival kit. Her objective was to survive in 'enemy' territory for 3 weeks, a long period of time to be sure. If the instructors captured her, she'd be washed out and forced to repeat the course. Now, they had at least done her the courtesy of issuing her a matching pair of magazines of training rounds to use when shooting at the instructors. Of course, this wasn't resistance training, so her goal wasn't to eliminate them, it was to survive, so that was what she had to do.[/i]

Just as Ari began to picture herself making her way into the woods, she was shaken from it by the sound of words nearby. She saw the techs being rude to Alice, and glared daggers at them as they walked away with her. She'd not been part of the 7th long, but she liked Alice, and it bugged her that people seemed to treat her as something less than human. Hadn't she just gotten done saving their asses out there, risking her life in combat? What the hell right did they have to talk to her like some piece of military ordinance? She resolved to talk to Alice about this later, reassure her that she was just as alive as them, not just a piece of hardware with a designation. Of course, she couldn't be too hard on the techs, all they'd done was refer to her as her designation and not her name. That, alone, was enough to show they didn't think much of her, of course, but as far as Ari knew they were perfectly civil with her 99% of the time, and were just frazzled by the crash launch of the Lincoln into the battle. So, she wouldn't try to take it out on the technicians, instead she'd just make sure Alice felt a little better about it. After all, Ari would sure feel really bad if somebody didn't use HER name, and instead referred to her solely by her military serial number.