“Good morning, Rip,” Dusty said as he entered the hangar and stopped in front of Ripslinger's cell.

“Go away,” was the snappy reply from the sleeping mat in the far left corner. 

“Hey, I just came in, how are you upset at me already?”

“I don't feel good and I don't feel like putting up with you so go away.”

“What's wrong? Are you alright?” Dusty immediately started asking, worried.

“Oh, don't go having a conniption. I've just had about as much chocolate as I can stand for a while, that's all.”

After the initial victory of them getting Ripslinger to eat that first round of candy from Snook's, they had been simply showering him with chocolate for the last three days. If Ripslinger didn't know any better he'd think they were planning to eat him. After a long moment of trying in vain to hold it in, Dusty burst out laughing. Indignant, and somewhat confused, Ripslinger finally turned around to face him. 

“I'm glad that you're getting so much amusement from the fact that I'm uncomfortable.”

“That's not why I'm laughing, I'm just – you really need to start eating real food,” Dusty explained, trying to calm himself down before he stirred up the P-51's temper any further. 

“Well I was going to eat this morning instead of making that little gray forklift what's-his-aft wear it as a hat but I wasn't feeling well. I was just going to eat it later.”

Dusty stared.

“Really?”

“Really what?” 

“You're going to eat.”

“That's what I just said.”

“Wow.”

“What?!” Ripslinger shouted, getting up from the sleeping mat.

“Nothing I just wasn't expecting you to start eating willingly so fast with how you've been acting,” Dusty said defensively.

“Well don't act so astonished about it; it's either I eat or I die and I refuse to give you people the satisfaction of knowing that you won.”

“Hey, this is nothing like that and you know it! Everybody here has worked hard and been very patient all on your account.”

“Don't give me that!” Ripslinger spat, “They only did all that to keep me secure in here and eliminate me as a threat!”

“That's not true! Why can't you accept that you're sick? I'm having a really hard time believing that you aren't aware that something is wrong with you.”

“That's enough,” Ripslinger's voice suddenly went cold. “I'm done talking, now leave.”

“And something about this attitude of yours is rubbing me the wrong way,” the orange and white racer continued, despite the warning tone in the caged Mustang's voice. “The more time I've spent with you these last few weeks since you were brought here has me thinking that a lot of this was something that was way before you were taken by the Cutters.”

Ripslinger's engine roared as he rushed the bars in a furious charge. 

“Get out, now! I don't care if I rot away in this cell, I don't ever want to see you again! You hear me? I hate you! I've always hated you and I can't wait until the day one of us finally dies so that I can be rid of you for good!”

“Rip... You don't mean that -” Dusty meekly tried to cover himself, knowing that he'd really done it now, although he didn't know why.	

“Don't act like you care about me! You prefer them over me; you always have! I've always been alone! You're way too late to pretend that I mean anything to you so get out!”

“But Rip...”

“OUT!”

Dusty regretfully high-tailed it out of there before Ripslinger could become any more enraged. The outside guard whistled.

“Well that escalated quickly.”

“Shut up, Tommy,” Dusty groused sourly as he rolled past him. 

XXxx

It was turning out to be a really boring day, again. Clarice strolled around town on the rather hot spring day with nothing really to do. Everyone was busy with one thing or another. Dusty was currently in the beefed-up hangar trying to reason with the psychotic malcontent that had been living in it for the past few weeks, an effort that sometimes took hours or just minutes depending on the mood of either party. Her subconscious must have picked up on her thoughts about the two planes because she had soon found that her seemingly aimless wandering had brought her almost right up to Ripslinger's hangar. 

One of the two little forklift guards outside noticed her and gave a shy wave. Clarice hesitantly returned it, puzzled by the sheepish reaction. Then abruptly the doors flew open, startling the three of them. Tommy gave a low whistle and Dusty grumbled something at him before storming off toward the tarmac. Before Clarice could even think about trying to catch up with him, he had taken to the sky and was gone. 

“You'd figure he'd give it a rest after a while, don't you think?” Mike remarked. 

“All they do is fight?” Clarice asked as she approached. 

“Not all  of the time, but I've never seen him in that kind of a mood before,” Tommy answered. “I wonder what went on this time?”

“So do I,” Clarice declared, crossing her arms. “In fact, I'd like to go in there and find out.”

“Uh, I don't think that's a good idea, especially considering what just happened,” Tommy hesitated.

“Hey, I've dealt with Rip before, I know to stay out of reach,” Clarice brought herself up to stand a little taller. “So are you gentlemen going to let me in?”

“I don't know, Tommy.”

“What, you in a hurry to go back in there with him? What could a few minutes hurt? I'll be fine.”

“Okay. But just for a bit. Remember, don't -”

“I know, I know. Spare me the helpless damsel talk alright?” Clarice said as she walked right passed them and let herself in. 

She felt guilty for breaking her promise to Dusty not to go near Ripslinger, but after seeing him so upset, she had gone into full offensive-mode. After an unanswered knock to announce her presence, she peered inside. He was laying on the sleeping mat in his usual position with his back turned toward the door. Clarice slipped on in, closing the hangar doors behind her. For all her bravado outside, now she was nervous. The first time they'd met, he'd tried to kill her. Their second conscious interaction hadn't been any more pleasant. His tense posture told her that he was suspicious of whoever had just come in. 

“Hello,” Clarice started tentatively.

Ripslinger slowly rose up a bit then, his eyes widening at the sound of her voice, recognizing it, and a sickening, sadistic glee ghosted across his face for a moment before he spoke. 

“Now there's a new voice. I'll admit that I'm curious. It's getting about that time for you all to eat, so that means that you're here on your own.” Then he turned to face her. “Isn't that right?”

“Yes,” Clarice answered firmly, trying to keep her voice from wavering at being faced with that cold, olive-colored stare again. 

She took a step back as he approached, and then Ripslinger's eyes narrowed as his body stiffened. Luckily, Clarice was able to cotton on to what her mistake was and stepped back into place. He relaxed a bit. 

“I remember you,” Ripslinger went on, then his face slipped into an expression of mock-concern, “Hope those bruises healed up okay.”

“It took a while but I'm fine now,” Clarice tried to smile nonchalantly. 

“Hmm, too bad,” Ripslinger said, turning back around. 

“Hmph,” Clarice crossed her arms again, “Actually I came here because I was curious.”

“Come to see the big, scary dangerous monster, huh?” he said, turning a bit to look back at her, “Well this isn't a zoo. Now get out.”

“No, that's not it,” Clarice said snappily, “I was just walking by when Dusty left in a hurry. I've only seen him that upset just a few times. I was wondering what you said to make him so angry.”

“Well, why don't you go ask him. You're his pet after all.”

“I don't want to hear it from him, I want to hear it from you. And I'm not his pet, and he's not mine,” she corrected. 

“Could have fooled me.”

“What's that supposed to mean?!” she shouted, starting to bristle as her voice took on that squeaky quality it had a habit of doing when she stated to get legitimately angry. 

Oh, this was going to be fun. These were the type of people that Ripslinger liked to tease. Maybe if he egged her on enough she'd make the mistake of coming too close and he'd pull her right through the bars and finish what he'd started that first night they had met. But then anger flared up in him as his thoughts were distracted by the comment:

“You know you're acting pretty ballsy for someone in a cage.”

“What did you say?!” Ripslinger growled harshly, immediately turning around to face her.

“I don't see why Dusty wants to talk to you so badly. You're rude, irritable, and stubborn...” Clarice continued, counting off on her fingers. 

“You're one to talk!” Ripslinger snapped.

“He must be a masochist or something. It's the only explanation.”

“Hah,” Ripslinger laughed blandly, “He has to be to put up with you.”

That finally got her.

“You're a real pain in the ass, do you know that?” 

“Yeah what else is new?” he lounged down atop his sleeping mat. “You know, I'm actually curious now; what is it that Dusty's thinking with all this coming around and nagging day after day?”

“Well, if you must know, even though he tries to keep up a mask of optimism, he really is troubled about you despite what you think.”

Ripslinger gave a soft snort from his exhausts as Clarice went on.

“That fact that you're unhappy is what's bothering him the most.”

“Now, gee, I wonder where he might have gotten that idea...”

“Not about the imprisonment, smart-ass,” Clarice dead-panned. “Dusty's under the impression that this is some persisting thing that you've been dealing with for a  long time now.” Ripslinger turned away and lowered his nose a bit but said nothing, his expression turning slightly defensive. “He sits up at night just pondering about it.”

There was a short period of silence between the human girl and the suddenly subdued P-51.

“Per aspra ad astra...” Ripslinger said quietly. 

“What? What does that mean?” Clarice asked him, but he had clammed up and refused to say anything more. 

Eventually she left, and Ripslinger remained still and silent long after she left, thinking. 
	
XXxx

Skipper rolled across the grounds, looking above him at the sounds of an angry engine just tearing the sky apart. Dusty was high above Propwash Junction, flinging himself recklessly though the air, diving, rolling, and spinning with frustrated abandon. After he had finally tired himself out he came back down, landing roughly.

“I take it that you're frustrated?” Skipper asked, coming up beside him.

“What makes you say that?” Dusty tried to say coolly through his panting. 

“Because you're out there killing yourself instead of taking it out on who you really want to.”

“I don't want to hurt him, Skipper,” assured Dusty sadly.

“Exactly, that's why you're out here.”

Dusty's engine snorted in annoyance. 

“So what did he do to piss you off so badly this time?”

“I don't know what to do, Skipper,” Dusty started. “He doesn't listen to me, he doesn't talk to me hardly at all.”

“Just keep trying. He's only acting this way because he knows your right and doesn't know how to argue with you. It's annoying. I would know.”

“Hmph,” Dusty smirked at the offhand, hooded insult. 

“And maybe you should give it a rest about the Cutters for a while. Just talk with him; see what he'd been up to before this all happened. Whether or not he responds he has no choice but to listen.”

“If I can get him to talk back. I really did it last time. I'm so mad at him, but I feel really sorry for him too.”

“Well nothing's gonna get done up in the clouds.”

“You're right,” Dusty said, trying to cheer up a bit. “Let's go on back. Wish me luck.”

“I'm not wishing you luck so much as wishing you patience.”

“Hey, I'm patient!” Dusty whined indignantly.

“Yeah, right! Have you seen yourself before dinner? Or luch? Or -”

Skipper was interrupted as Dusty jumped up on him, his body falling heavily against the old Corsair's side as he started biting at him playfully. Skipper laughed, shrugging him off easily enough. Then a short bout of roughhousing ensued that ended the usual way with Skipper deftly fending off all Dusty's “attacks” before simply sitting on him until he admitted defeat

“Okay, okay, you've made you're point!”
	
And the two of them joked and bickered all the way back to Dottie's garage. 
	
XXxx

Dusty entered Ripslinger's hangar, without knocking this time and went to sit in his usual spot in front of the bars. Ripslinger refused to turn around and see who it was, but as the minutes ticked passed, the tenser he got. Eventually curiosity got the better of him and he turned to look. Upon seeing the little plane sitting passively in front of him, he scowled and turned back around. Dusty remained silent, and the minutes kept on going. Eventually Ripslinger's patience snapped. 

“What. Do you. Want?”

“I just want to talk with you.”

“God damn you,” Ripslinger growled lowly. 

“Just talking. No arguing, no debating. I don't even want to talk about what happened. Just... talking.”

A snarl exploded from Ripslinger's engine and he charged the bars again, Dusty leaned back and winced but didn't back away as Ripslinger pulled himself up just before hitting them, turning to go back to his sleeping mat. 

“There's so much that I want to tell you,” Dusty continued steadily. “And ask you too. I've been so busy since getting into racing. I have all kinds of stories to tell you. My friends are awesome, but I feel like I can't talk about a lot of stuff like that. Not even Skipper would understand like you probably would.”

Ripslinger was just getting ready to lay down when he stopped and turned around to face Dusty.

“If that is truly how you feel,” he sneered, “then you'd know what keeping me in this cell is doing to me. What it would do to any one of us.”

All of the steady continence that Dusty had was blasted away by that statement, and with a guilty reluctance he knew that Ripslinger was right. 

“Fine. I admit it; something's wrong. But you know god damn well that keeping me grounded and shut away from the outside world, never so much as seeing the light of day, is not doing me any good either. You have to let me go.”

“But you...” Dusty faltered, his resolve falling apart, “If I let you out... you're too unstable. What if you just go flying off and somebody get's hurt?” 

“And where the hell am I going to fly off to?” Ripslinger argued. “Nobody knows about my little predicament but you and you're stupid friends. I don't need this getting out and becoming the next celebrity-goes-to-the-zoo story so I might as well stay here until it just blows over. Now let me out!”

They stared at one another a long while. He could see Dusty turning it over in his mind, conflicted. Then Dusty sighed. He slowly moved over to the door to the cell and un-did the lock, fully expecting Ripslinger to try to kill him once he set him free, only it didn't happen. Ripslinger rolled out calmly past Dusty and then stopped. He stared forward at the doors to the hangar. Dusty, confused and utterly unsure of himself or Ripslinger, watched him from behind. 

XXxx

The forklift guards, Mike and Tommy, loitered around outside the hangar. 

“It's been awfully quiet in there this time,” Tommy observed.

“Yeah,” Mike agreed. “Hey, wonder if Dusty finally got through to him?”

The very instant Mike had finished his sentence was the moment that the front of the hangar exploded in a tremendous crash and a green blur went flying out past them. 

“What the hell was that?!” Mike shouted as he dusted off the debris. 

Just then, Dusty dashed up in between them.

“Fuck! Did you guys see which way he went?”

“No,” Tommy coughed, “What the hell just happened.”

“I'm an idiot, that's what just happened!” Dusty lamented irritably as he flipped over into his radio. “Skipper!”

“Ah, jeez, Dusty, what's the matter?” Skipper winced on his end. 

“Ripslinger is loose!”

“What?! How?!”

“... Because I let him out...”

“Why would you do that?! What the hell were you -”

“I know, I know, I wasn't, okay? But we've gotta catch him before he hurts or kills himself or someone else!”

XXxx

Upon finally escaping into the outside world, Ripslinger found himself temporarily blinded by the reintroduction of the high afternoon sun to his senses. He continued stubbornly forward in his attempt to escape. Once his vision finally came back he wasted no time in starting his engine in earnest this time. It would be to Dusty's relief that Ripslinger was actively avoiding people, his intent for once being solely to get away and not to cause harm. He wasn't even going to use the tarmac, the fields were flat enough to serve as a good enough runway. He didn't care about the risks to him going back home; didn't care about his image at the moment. He missed his cushy sleeping mat with a million different pillows and cushions, he missed his custom built pool on the roof of the RPX headquarters that you could turn the whole thing into a hot tub with the flick of a switch, he missed his Wi-fi. He was getting the hell out of here! He'll just lay low until it just went away. He'd gotten this better already. It would just go away on it's own, wouldn't it?

He pushed off up into the air, but after only reaching an altitude of around 30 feet Ripslinger was suddenly overcome with a feeling of dread and unease. Something was wrong. He felt his engine lose power and he suddenly dropped down, straining and pushing to get himself back up only to experience the same results. His engine roared and whined down as he throttled and dropped once more as he fought against himself in the effort to stay airborne, eventually plowing into the ground, sending grass and dirt flying. He scrambled back up onto his landing gear, shaking himself a bit. He felt dizzy, and then another feeling creeped into the center of his being; fear. What was happening to him? He practically had a full tank, that was the whole reason that he'd started eating as much as he possibly could so that he would be able to fly away as soon as the opportunity presented itself. So what was the problem?

He was about to start his engine again when Skipper had finally caught up to him. Ripslinger didn't face him, but turned his side toward him as Skipper turned and did the same. The two were positioned facing opposite directions as they both shared guarded stares. 

“That's enough, Rip,” said Skipper calmly. 

“Back off, Skipper,” Ripslinger warned. “I'm not interested in a fight for once, I just wanna get out of here!”

“You aren't going anywhere, although from the looks of things I don't think you have a choice,” the old war-plane continued. “I agree; no one needs to get hurt. You'd do better to just give in. You're a danger to yourself and others.”

At this statement, Ripslinger immediately swung around to face Skipper, his engine throttling back up again.

“Curse you!” he cried as if Skipper had struck a deep, simmering nerve, moving to strike at him with his propeller blades. “Since when have I ever not been?! I'll fucking blind you, you bastard!”

A vicious fight ensued, the two planes engines roaring and rumbling as they wrestled over the grass, digging deep furrows into dirt with their wheels. By the time Dusty and the others had arrived, they broke from each other, panting heavily. By some misfortune, Skipper had not come out on top this time. A good, freely bleeding cut had indeed come close to nearly blinding him, and more watered-down red fluid flowed out of another bad gash in his left side. Ripslinger only had some dents and a few good bites in his wings for his trouble. Corsair and Mustang stared each other down determinedly, although Skipper's expression was laced with anxiety and fatigue. 

“No...” Dusty murmured.

Never had he ever seen Skipper lose a fight. He went to rush onto the torn-apart field, but was stopped by Chug.

“Wait, look!”

The tell-tale tremor had taken hold of Ripslinger and he trembled on his landing gear. The shaking soon became severe and the focus went from his eyes as he swayed where he stood, and then a black fluid started to flow from his mouth before he finally went crashing into the churned up grass and dirt. Dusty then turned his troubled gaze over to Skipper, who was struggling to stay up on his own landing gear. The threat disabled, he finally rushed to his mentor's aid, pushing himself under the warbird's belly where his wings joined to keep him from collapsing. 

“You have to stay up!” Dusty pleaded as Skipper's weight quickly became nearly too much for him to handle. “You'll never stand again if you go down now. Please stay up!”

“Enough,” Skipper exhaled. “I'm alright. Let me down, Dusty, I need to get off my wheels after that. Mother fucker battered me to bits.”

Reluctantly, Dusty helped lower Skipper the rest of the way down before moving to gingerly lick at the wound near his right eye. 

“I'm so sorry, Skip.”

“Don't be, kid. But at least get cracking on what you're going to do about him,” he blew out another tired breath. “I'm getting too old for this.”