After the first week or so had passed and no one turned up dead with throwing stars lodged in various parts of their anatomy, some of the team began to relax a little. A very infinitesimally tiny fraction that mostly consisted of only giving the ex Cobra agent ten feet of clearance instead of fifteen, but it was still progress.

This was due not a little to the newly popular entertainment of watching BeachHead scream at Storm Shadow every morning at PT. Storm had earned himself quite a bit of respect from the rest of the team for taking the verbal abuse and hellacious physical exertion without blinking or complaining. It might be somewhat grudging respect on the part of many of the Joes, but still…shared pain leads to feelings of camaraderie, willingly or not.

Then there'd been Roadblock. The nineteenth time Storm had mentioned the heavy machine gunner's cooking in almost reverential tones, Roadblock had apparently decided that he enjoyed flattery no matter who it was coming from. He'd actually had a fairly civil conversation with the ninja in the rec room the other night, which had lost Ace eighty bucks; he'd had money on it being Stalker.

Ace had been in the rec room too, losing rather badly to Spirit and Dusty at darts. He'd almost dropped his handful of darts when the ninja and the machine gunner had started chatting. Then he'd decided that Storm was, in fact, just as nuts as Snake Eyes. The ninja had referred to one occasion when Roadblock and he had tangled, which had resulted in an unconscious and rather bruised ninja getting dragged back into heavily guarded custody over one of Roadblock's massive shoulders.

Storm had been complementary about this. His exact words had been "Not many men your size are that fast. I wasn't expecting that kind of speed out of you…foolish of me, but it was a good hit."

Roadblock had had a smug look on his face the rest of the night. Scarlett, Ace had also noted, wasn't being openly hostile to their new teammate anymore. More guardedly hostile, and she wasn't actually threatening out loud to shoot him anymore, which for her was quite a step. Ace figured this had a lot to do with the fact that Snake Eyes had been in an uncommonly good mood for the last week or so.

Slight warming up by a few Joes aside, most of them still didn't trust the man, and quite a few Joes were nursing private fantasies of revenge, chafing at the knowledge that actually acting on any of these would probably both get their ass kicked in a thoroughly humiliating fashion and earn them the Wrath of Hawk to boot.

Ace was not one of the exceptions to this rule. He, however, was anticipating very highly his very inevitable revenge. To be fair, both Wild Bill and Slip Stream were also anticipating their reassuringly certain payback. All three of the veteran pilots had some issue with the fact that for several years, Storm Shadow had more or less viewed their darling aircraft as annoyances best dealt with either via RPGs or simply jamming a ninjato through the fuel tanks.

Or, on that one particularly memorable occasion, casually jamming a sizable rock into the motor on the rotors of Wild Bill's favorite Tomahawk just prior to the pilot attempting to start the chopper up. The helicopter had been totaled; Wild Bill had been livid.

Thus, "glee" was probably the closest term to what Ace felt at the prospect of taking the ninja up for live-flight equipment training. Despite some protests to the effect that he already knew how to fly a plane, Hawk had been firm; Storm would go through the standard qualification procedure that every new recruit was subjected to before being allowed to pilot the Tomahawks, Sky Strikers, or Ghoststrikers.

Well, standard qualification procedures and a little more 'let's make sure he's not going to kill us in our sleep' time. But the prior was what had Ace actually tapping his toe on the air strip tarmac in anticipation a little over a week after the BeachHead incident.

Storm Shadow had made fairly short work of the simulators over the last few days. The man had ungodly reflexes, which rather made up for his lack of experience on the fighter jets that G.I. Joe used. Ace had seen a lot of pilots train, and he'd gotten pretty good at assessing the potential of recruits. Storm Shadow was decent…just that. Like most of the Joes, he'd be good backup in a cockpit if necessary, but best kept out of dogfights or stunt shows. He wouldn't ever be a pilot of Ace's caliber, but then pilots of Ace's caliber were few and far between even in the Air Force.

When Storm Shadow showed up, he was being trailed by a small crowd of off-duty personnel. The first day of live-flight training was a highly anticipated event throughout the Pit.

Bill and Slip, who'd been chatting with Ace as they waited, grinned. Slip Stream sighed. "Lucky bastard…I'd been hoping to get him first."

"Kill him, Ace." Bill said, the barest hint of sadistic anticipatory glee in his voice. "I've got fifty on four minutes."

"I know." Ace was running the pool, after all. "And it's the lowest bet…I'm somewhat disturbed by the apparent lack of faith in my skills. You'll get your money if it takes me that long."

Still twenty yards away, Storm Shadow raised his eyebrows. "I have flown before, you know. I don't have a weak stomach. I used to fly the CLAW gliders...those take better reflexes than one of these." A nod at the waiting Sky Striker.

Ace grinned more widely. "I think that was a challenge, don't you?"

Bill nodded. "Oh, definitely. And I think he dissed your lady, Ace. You ain't gonna stand for that, are you?"

Slip scowled. "If he badmouths my baby that way, I'll eject him without a parachute."

Ace patted his plane affectionately. "It's okay, honey. We'll get back at the mean man, won't we?"

Storm Shadow shook his head, muttered something about psychotic pilots, and pulled on his flight helmet.

Fifteen minutes later, and they were four thousand feet up and at the end of the checklist. Storm had, predictably, done well enough.

Ace smirked to himself and radioed down to the ground. "Checklist finished. Going to hit the afterburners and take him for a little ride now. Over."

The snickering that came back over the radio was completely gleeful. "Roger that."

A slightly bored sigh from behind him. "Is this really necessary? It's just a plane…"

He was cut off mid sentence by the G-forces as Ace opened the throttle all the way and jerked the nose of the Sky Striker almost straight up.

The plane hummed almost eagerly; they screamed upwards fifteen, eighteen thousand feet. Ace felt the moment when the jet almost, almost stalled, and leveled them off. He opened the throttle again, and they blasted past Mach one within a few seconds.

A long loop out, fairly tame, if very, very fast. Ace hummed happily to himself. "And that was ten gees and mach one point five. How are we feeling?"

"Is this really necessary?" Storm sounded rather irritated.

A voice over the radio. Ace recognized Slip Stream. "He's still talking, buddy."

"I know…fixing issue." Ace turned the plane nose up again, but this time he cranked all the way back on the stick and kept it there.

The world inverted. Ace smiled out of the cockpit as the ground and sky switched places. There was a strange sort of beauty in the way sky and horizon and ground spun around you when you pulled spins and loops and rolls and other assorted fun variations on regular, boring, flat and level flight.

He flew upside-down for a few seconds, admiring the view, and then flipped them back over. "How about now? You feeling okay back there?"

"FINE." It was almost a growl, but…Ace grinned…a very slightly shaky growl.

He picked up speed again; they blasted past mach one once more, and this time Ace lovingly jockeyed the control stick just so…

Fighter pilot was a job that more or less required a stomach of cast iron. Barrel rolls could make most civvies puke, but fighter pilots considered them a staple maneuver. Barrel rolls at just over the speed of sound could make even the most hardened of digestive tracts rebel. Ace grinned happily as the horizon spun around them, the Sky Striker responding almost eagerly to his prompting.

He distinctly heard a pained sort of noise behind him. His grin turned wicked, and he straightened them out again. "What? Thought it was just a plane."

"You are utterly mad." Storm Shadow was very definitely sounding a little unhappy.

"He ain't lost it yet." Bill's voice. "Ace, you've got two minutes to get him retching if I'm gonna win here. You're flyin' like a sick toddler…you need me to come up there and show you how to do it?"

"Bite me, Bill." Ace snorted.

Stunt pilots were pretty much universally acknowledged as crazed adrenaline junkies with a death wish. Ace had been to more than a few air shows in his life, and had seen literally thousands of pilots who claimed that they were 'pretty hot stuff'. As far as he was concerned, ninety percent of them were amateurs.

"So, Storm." He said conversationally. "I've been doing some experimenting lately…in honor of your transfer to the team, I invented a new stunt just for you, and I think I'll show it to you now." He smiled wickedly. "I call this one 'Lets See What The Ninja Had For Breakfast'."

He slammed the control stick all the way forward. The plane went nose down, and they were screaming towards the ground at speeds that could only be described as 'ungodly'. He twisted, and they were spinning, faster and faster, the world whipping around them as they spun like a top, almost to the point of losing control all together but not quite, and at the last possible moment he pulled them out, jerked the plane nose up, hit the afterburners, and spun them again, then jerked them back and they were upside down, and then right side up, and then upside down, and they were still going at close to fifteen hundred miles an hour …

The sounds of gagging from the seat behind him were sweet, sweet victory. Wild Bill's crow of victory over the radio was estatic. "FOUR MINUTES! Ace, I'll take that in large bills please, as soon as you get your ass back down here."

"What was that remark about me flying like a sick toddler, again?" Ace leveled them out and tamely headed them back for the runway.

"Okay, you ain't flyin' like a sick toddler. Maybe like my gramma."

"You're just jealous that I got him to lose it first."

"You're sadistic." Storm Shadow sounded entirely miserable.

"Suck it up, spooky." Wild Bill sounded smug. "Wait 'till I get you in a Tomahawk."

That…that was definitely a groan.

A few minutes later and they were back on the ground. Ace climbed down and sauntered over to the group of watching Joes with an air of extreme self-satisfaction. Slip Stream and Wild Bill emerged from the radio hut and ambled over.

Slip slapped him enthusiastically on the shoulder. "Nice…ooh, now that's an interesting color."

Ace glanced around. Storm Shadow was leaning against the Sky Striker. He'd just pulled his helmet off, and what little color was in his face was an interesting shade of pale green. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, visibly steadying himself before stalking away from the fighter jet.

"Fine." He said, apparently to thin air. "I'm just fine, in case anybody was wondering." He shot Ace a look. "Remind me never to volunteer to be your co-pilot."

Ace buffed his fingernails casually on his jacket. "What was that earlier about 'I've got a strong stomach?' Incidentally, how'd those scrambled eggs taste the second time around? You did hit the bag, right? I hate scrubbing vomit out of the upholstery."

This earned him another glare, and the ninja stalked off in the direction of the Pit.

Ace was in a great mood for the rest of the day.