—Chapter 9—

My Family and I started to share stories from the past year, telling them about how flight school went and all the people I've met, when I ran into the Hawkins siblings who were talking with their parents.

“Mom, Dad, this is Evaldo and Lily, the brother and sister duo I told you about.”

“Oh Royland wait, that's gonna get confusing really quick. What's up Marcus! Finally catching up with your family? Evaldo waved me over

“What's up squad lead? Finally making the rounds to introduce yourself to everyone's family?” Lily asked as she started to explain who I was to their parents.

“Yeah I thought I'd also introduce my family to all the people I've written home about.” I shrugged, the twins’ father stepping up and extending his hand to me, though I was surprised by how shockingly similar the twins looked like him.

“So you're the Marcus these two have told us so much about, I would like to personally thank you for looking out for them and being their friend.” Taking the Man's hand I noticed his grip was the strength of a hardworking man but the feeling that surrounded it matched the look in his eyes of a kind and appreciative father. Behind him was a woman who looked fatigued or sickly who had matching eyes to that of the siblings.

“Sorry how rude of me not to introduce myself, my name is Landon Hawkins and that beautiful lady back there is my wife.” Landon started to apologize

“Honey, I can introduce myself. I am a grown woman after all.” The tired looking woman came walking over, moving with a quiet elegance and grace quite the opposite of Landon’s imposing and powerful strides.

“Are you feeling better now dear?” Landon asked, worry showing on his face.

“Yes. Now where was I? Oh that's right my name is Aguila Hawkins, Evaldo’s and Lily's mother. I do appreciate you being there for them.” Her tone was a lot more refined than that of landon but they both seem to share a strong and caring personality, just shown in different ways.

“I heard you weren't feeling well ma’am is everything alright?” The familiar of Ade’s Mom popped up from beyond me.

“Yo Marcus, I'm back man. Also Mom, there's already a first aid tent. If she was that sick she would be there not out here in the sun.” Ade spoke up as he and his family joined the now gathering group of the different families of the squad.

“Son you know when it comes to people your mom can’t seem to put the doctor's coat up outside of work. Apologies about my wife interrupting your conversation.” Ade’s father chimed in.

“No no it's alright it's quite nice to have a stranger to go out of there to check up on you but not to worry, I just don't deal too well from air travel it tends to make me nauseous for a day or two then I should be right as rain.” Augila responded with a smile.

“If that's the case I might have something that could help with the nausea” Ades mom started to dig through her purse and pulled out some candy. “Ginger is actually good for helping settle one's stomach, which in turn could help ease nausea symptoms. So I tend to carry these ginger candies for on the road”

“Mooom you’re not at the doctor's office right now.” Ade sighed.

“Hey I think it's neat your mom knows all this stuff Ade.” Lily spoke up as everyone's parents started to get to know each other. “By the way has anyone seen Rebecca or her family?”

“No, I haven't. Not since she got tapped out but I have an uneasy feeling about that.” Ade said as he looked around for her.

“Hey Lily, would you mind taking all of our parents on a small tour to the barracks or of the campus while Evaldo, Ade and I go look for her? Something tells me there's something up.” I asked while waving the guys over for a quick group huddle.

“Yeah I got it, be sure to bring her back alright boss?” Lily smiled nervously before turning and getting the families attention, letting them know she's gonna give a tour and came up with a quick lie for why the three of us were stepping away. Right as I was about to turn into the huddle to let the guys know what I'm thinking I saw grandpa wink at me and mouth the words give them hell. I guess he noticed that we felt something was off.

“Now guys I'm not saying this cause I want trouble to start maybe this is nothing but just in case-” Evaldo cut me off before I could finish.

“You're expecting a fight or at the very least trouble aren't you boss?”

“Yeah just give the work Marcus we got your back. Besides she's a squad member, we all got each other's back.” Ade gave his devilish smirk almost like he was hoping there was trouble

“Well since you guys are already aware just know we're probably gonna get chewed out or worse if something does happen, so if you're okay with that let's go see what is going on with our squad member.” As we started to search for her we decided to split up to make it easier to navigate the large crowd, agreeing to meet up again at the entrance of the parade ground. Passing through what gaps I could find between people, I noticed the amount of people started to thin out the closer I got to the other side. Finally breaking through the crowd I took one more look at my surroundings to see if I could locate Rebecca or anyone who looked like her. A second later Evaldo and Ade rejoined me.

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“You guys find her?” I asked as they jogged up next to me.

“No dice, sorry” Evaldo shrugged.

“Wow some people sure have big families, look at that one over there” Ade perked up, distracted by a group off the side of the parade ground. As we turned in the direction he pointed out some commotion started up in the group we were looking at.

“You don’t think” Evaldo started

“Well only one way to find out lets go get into trouble then” I said, leading the way. Finally getting closer we saw there were at about six people, two adults and three younger looking boys around the same age if not a year younger than us in front of them was our missing squad member looking visibly upset.

“I told you I'm going to stay here at the academy. I want to learn to fly and do something good with my life instead of being stuck up and looking down on everyone who isn't from some rich high class job! You know what? I'm done here. I don't care if you disown me, I should have never invited you here to begin with.” Rebecca fumed as she started to turn to walk away, but not before one of the boys grabbed her by the arm.

“Hey, we're still your family even though you decided to come to this dump of a school.”

“Excuse me but are we gonna have a problem here? If not, I recommend you let go of our squad mate.” I spoke, mustering up every once of authority in my voice, grabbing the boy's arm in the process.

“This is family business, stay out of it soldier boy” the youngest of the three boys snapped snidely.

“Man I really was hoping there would be some trouble but you guys seem hardly worth the effort” Evaldo walked up beside me cracking his knuckles, already anticipating the altercation to get physical.

“Oh look it's three on three I would say it's even but we are so gonna kick your pretty boy asses” Ade took up the other side of Rebecca so in a moment's notice the three of us could step between her and whoever was gonna cause trouble.

“Let go of me you government trash” the boy berated as he tried to shake me off.

“You first buddy, don't make this harder than it needs to” Trying to deescalate the situation I started to ball my other hand into a fist when Lieutenant Serena stepped in from behind us.

“Royland let go of him and the rest of you better cool it. Now as for the Mirn family I'm not sure if you're too stuck up to read paperwork before you sign it but as soon as your daughter enrolled here she became government property. Meaning she is all but disowned from you till graduation and if you feel like legitimizing that then feel free to do so. Till then she's under Esmeraldeian military guardianship.”

Go lieutenant Serena, I thought to myself. With Serena now here the boys started to back off and without thinking I pulled Rebecca behind me. Continuing her intervention Serena started to wave the four of us away. I was still unaware of the fact I grabbed Rebecca by the hand.

“I'm sorry you guys had to see that… As you can tell my family isn't really a fan of the military or the government.” Rebecca's voice started to tremble with the realization that there's a good chance her family might actually disown her.

“It's all good, every family has its quirks. Besides you can't be totally related to them, you still hang around with us government dogs” I joked trying to help her relax.

“Marcus, you really are bad at dealing with women's feelings. What he meant to say to Becca is that we're gonna have your back no matter what happens since we are all practically family.” Ade corrected me.

“Speaking of family, do you know where Lily actually took all of our parents?” Evaldo brought up, changing the subject

“Well after sitting in this heat I want another shower, so maybe we go freshen up at the barracks and see if everyone is there for Lily's sudden tour.” I decided.

“Sounds good squad lead” they all sounded off, Rebecca regaining her self confidence with her squadmates standing by her side. After walking for a bit Ade and Evaldo decided to take off ahead leaving me walking with Rebecca hand in hand.

“Um Marcus I didn't want to bring this up with the guys around but you're still holding my hand.” Rebecca's face flushed bright red while she pointed it out to me.

Crap, I didn't even realize I was doing that. I hope she doesn't think I'm creepy. I started to think to myself, hoping my thoughts aren't showing on my face.

“Sorry, I did it without realizing it. I promise I didn't have any ulterior motives.” I quickly started to pull my hand away, my ears starting to burn as embarrassment creeped up my neck.

“Wow, such a quick recoil, you're gonna hurt my feelings. I was kinda hoping there's a slight ulterior motive” she started to tease before realizing what she said and turned her head away to hide the embarrassment. We kept walking for a couple minutes before I worked up the courage to break the silence.

“Well we already walked that far hand in hand, we can walk the rest of the way to the barracks the same way. If- if you want, of course.” I stuttered despite my best attempt to not sound embarrassed.

“I think I'd like that. And… Thank you for stepping in earlier. It was pretty cool to see a more confrontational version of you.” She took my hand again while we walked and talked on the way back to the platoon X barracks.

“If i'm being honest I probably would have never done that if it wasn’t for this place. I was always the one to avoid trouble and when it did arise Ade always used this charming personality to talk people down. Now here we are acting tough and threatening to get into fights. I'm sure Evaldo is in the same boat as us now that he seems to look forward to getting into a brawl.” Catching myself rambling on, I quickly cut my self off looking over to see if she noticed the hard stop of my words.

“Well I think what you guys did was pretty daring and brave. Though I can guarantee my brothers are not the type to go away quietly, unfortunately. Anyways, on to happier topics I can't wait to meet everyone's families.” Finally approaching the barracks we decided to let go of each other's hands, noticing a rather large crowd in the front yard almost like when we first arrived here a little under a year ago. Lily came running over from the crowd to greet us and made sure Rebecca was okay.

“Aww man your make up’s all ruined! Marcus how could you let a beauty like her cry?”

“Hey what's that supposed to mean? I think we arrived right at the perfect time.”

“Fiiine I’ll let it slide this time. Anyways let’s go fix your makeup Becca and I want all the juicy details since you two took your sweet time to get back here.” Grinning ear to ear, Lily led the way as the two of them headed inside. When did everyone start to wear such evil smiles? I started to think my squads possessed chuckling to myself as I thought of everyone as little devils on my shoulder. I finally rejoined the Platoon for family day, mentally preparing myself for the next big event on the door.