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I hated this move—it was never easy to pull off and put both the attacker and defender in a shitty position. But hey, I’d been sent up here with the same instructions he had—to not lose.
Pulling my nose through the top of the turn, I made sure my lift vector was correct and lined up with Panther, then I dove ahead of him in a barrel roll. Knowing it was hella important to get my nose down before he got his up, I kicked it up a notch, and as we began to barrel-roll over one another up there in the big blue, my heart began to pound so hard that a normal person might’ve stroked out.
As I came up a second time, I used gravity assist to help increase the sharpness of my turn, and as I rolled over to come back down, I relaxed up on the Gs to keep control of my vertical moves.
Panther was making me work for it. Shit. It was hard as hell to determine any kind of accurate position while doing these maneuvers, and it was even harder to lock in on the one pursuing you. He had me on the run, in the defensive position, and knew it, but as I made the third high nose turn and dove toward him, everything changed. My turns were faster than his by mere seconds, and what had started as a one circle fight soon turned to a two, giving me the advantage and forcing Panther into my 3/9 line.
Now in a full-on tail chase, the two of us continued to try to outfox the other with a series of barrel rolls, but nothing was shaking me now. Panther had one of two choices: he could either wave the white flag and disengage or—
“Motherfucker.”
—he could do this the hard way.
Oh well, he hadn’t left me much choice, and with each roll we made, we got closer and closer to the ground until we were precariously close to the danger zone. But I wasn’t backing down. I wasn’t about to lose this.
“Come on, Panther. Disengage, you stubborn fucker.” But as we hurtled toward the earth, our altitude seriously dropping, the barrel rolls became unachievable and it was time for that final decision. I either disengaged and lost by default, or I forced him closer to the ground, to where he’d have to transition into the flat scissors and level out—or smash his jet face-first into the desert, which I was gambling he wouldn’t do.
Decision made, I went in for the kill—well, the mock kill—and as Panther seemed to realize this was all over for him and I wasn’t about to let up until he did, he flattened out and pulled off to the right at the very last second, surrendering and handing me this one.
As I shot off over the top of him, I knew Panther would be fuming at the way things had gone down—namely him.
He’d come at me hard, and I’d retaliated. Maybe I should’ve let it go when it was clear I had a lock on him, but when he’d decided to keep on instead of surrendering, my competitive side had come out to play.
Plus, no one had gotten hurt, and in the end I’d completed the hop. If Panther was pissed, I’d deal with it, but for now I wasn’t about to let that get me down. I’d just beaten the golden boy of NAFTA, and hell if that didn’t feel damn good.
Panther was out of his plane the second he parked beside me, ripping his helmet off, that gorgeous face of his red and furious.
As I stepped out of the plane, I shot him a grin. “Gotcha.”
“Are you fucking out of your mind? Were you trying to get us killed?”
“That would hardly be fun. No chance for a rematch.” I climbed down the stairs, helmet in hand, and had barely stepped onto the pavement when Panther stabbed his finger into my chest.
“That was stupid and dangerous. We’re not up there to play chicken, you dipshit, not in a seventy-million dollar fucking plane.”
“Calm down. It’s not coming out of your pocket.”
“That’s what you heard from what I just said? You almost got us killed with those final rolls—”
“That you didn’t have to engage in,” I said, brushing by him, not at all bothered by the fact that he was pissed as hell. The high of winning felt gooood.
Panther grabbed my arm, jerked me around, and then gave me a hard shove. “You know what your problem is? You think you’re the only one up there. That your life is the only one that matters.”
“Is that my problem? What about your problem?” I said, moving forward so we were toe to toe. I wasn’t about to back down, not in the air and certainly not on the ground. “You’re just mad you lost. I get it. It sucks. Get the hell over it.”
