Blade Ranger (Character Reference Sheet)
Number 2 of my character ref sheets; this time, the iconic grumpy helo 🚁
I did originally struggle to draw his full body. None of the movie reference images are crisp, so a lot of guess-work is required 😭 I drew the bottom 3 angles using one of @soumarhea 's ref sheets. Thank you again for allowing me to use this for Blade :)
Nicknames: Bladey, Bladey Boy, Grumpy, Stud Muffin (Toni), Chief, Boss
Breed: Hybrid of AW139, AW109 and Bell 429 GlobalRanger
Sexuality: Straight/Hetero
Date of birth: December 1st 1999
Fuselage Colours: Mostly red with a white lower half, with various black and white markings.
Occupation: Ex-actor. Firefighter & Battalion Chief
Birthplace: Lancashire, North England, UK
Mental Characteristics: Serious, introverted, quiet, sensible, responsible, cold, calm, tolerant, intelligent, honest, very loyal. Also resilient and brave. Can be sensitive, sarcastic, grumpy, reactive, and short-tempered. He tends to have a wry sense of humour. In the past, he was very accustomed to solitude and loneliness. Tends to swear (even just casually).
Physical Traits: Lean, tall, strong, bulky/muscular, agile, athletic, fast.
Hobbies/Interests: Tends to watch TV when off duty. Likes listening to his personal music playlists. Enjoys socialising with only a few select people
Likes: Swearing. Likes to immerse himself in coastal areas and forests. Likes nature, sunrises and sunsets. Likes to park up and enjoy the scenery. Likes to travel to other UK beauty spots.
Dislikes: He can be picky with food. Dislikes bad weather. Wildfires. Extreme hot and cold temperatures. Doesn't like being told what to do. Dislikes arrogant or cocky people. Doesn't like to take unnecessary risks. Dislikes crowds or big friendship groups. Takes a while to gain his trust.
Mother: Kate - AW109 S Grand
Father: Henry - AW139 hybrid
Siblings: Aaron - AW139 hybrid
Romantic Partner: Toni (AW109)
- unspecified as Blade is a hybrid. His appearance and performance lean closer towards the two Agustawestland models.
Blade was born into a mixed-breed family, predominantly Agustawestlands. His mother, Kate, is an AW109 S Grand. She works in the admin section of a helicopter transport company. His father, Henry, is an AW139. He works for the Coast Guard and SAR. Blade also has an older brother, Aaron, who is an AW109/139 hybrid. He also works for a search and rescue organisation.
Blade mostly resembles the AW109 and AW139, like his brother; however, he has the height and lean build of the Bell 429 - genes which have derived from his father's side.
As a child, Blade was bright, active and adventurous. Like typical young boys, Blade would spend most of the day playing out on the street with other neighbourhood kids for hours on end. During high school, Blade was a quiet kid for the most part. He had a small group of friends he liked to hang out with, but he wasn't one of the loud, obnoxious, popular kids. Even now as an adult, Blade has never been constrained by popularity or trends.
Growing up, Blade never had a dream job or a plan for his life. His parents, particularly his father, expected him to join the emergency services. Blade, now in his teens, entered a rebellious phase and looked for work in the opposite direction.
At some point in his life, Blade and his older brother, Aaron, grow apart. Although the brothers grew up very close, always laughing and enjoying the same banter, Aaron moved away with a family of his own. Now that the two have gone their separate ways and are living their own lives, they've grown apart, and their bond has drifted. Blade still loves Aaron as a brother, and he misses the laughs they used to have. Sometimes, he feels like he's an only child, which becomes a very lonely feeling for him.
After he left flight school, he began working for various small-time acting companies. He was involved in several small acting roles, which quickly progressed into more screen time and more roles.
After a year or two, Blade landed a big role at a TV company. The producers focused on remastering an old 70s TV show, named CHiPs, and making a contemporary, modern-day version of it, titled CHoPs. They hired Blade and another helicopter called Nick, an MD500, as the 2 main characters for their TV series. This show was Blade's big break. From this role, he began to earn fame, online attention and a decent wage. He also began to bond with Nick, and the two became close friends.
Blade and Nick's manager wasn't the kindest. They were overbearing and micro-managing, even more so with Blade, for some unknown reason. They would try to control every aspect of Blade during work hours. They'd try to control his breaks to the minute, micro-managing him by having quick meetings, once, sometimes twice a day, to check on his performance. They'd harass Blade even if he left just one minute earlier than he should've - meaning he had to make that minute up the next day. They'd also be constantly pushing for 100% productivity at all times, which caused Blade to experience afternoon slumps. All of this constant pressure caused Blade to become anxious. The constant anxiety messed with his appetite and his sleep, and the constant stress in his day-to-day life affected his immune system and made him fall ill more quickly than usual.
At some point, the directors surprise Blade and Nick with a fresh script. Both of them had to follow it to the letter with no opportunity to add their own quirks to it. The scripting was vague, and both of them had to do separate scenes. After the initial raw filming, Blade had a chance to view it. Blade discovered that the scene had taken a dark turn. The directors opted to use CGI and other special effects to create a graphic death scene, essentially killing Nick off the show for drama purposes. Blade was horrified when he watched the pre-release back. This, combined with his boss's constant micromanagement and overbearing behaviour, was too much for Blade to cope with at once, and he ended up having a mental breakdown.
After this, Blade spiralled mentally. He quit his role in the TV show, which led to its permanent cancellation. Nick followed suit, also due to poor treatment. Blade completely pulled away from the public eye and stayed at home for a couple of years, living off his own earnings.
As well as his brother going off to live his own life, Blade also has a somewhat rocky relationship with his parents. They already had their high expectations. Blade's mother and father weren't bad parents as such, but they were the sort of people who don't often talk about their feelings. Neither of them hhasever pulled their son to one side and had a proper talk about feelings and mental health. It definitely explains Blade's tendencies of stubbornly hide his true feelings and answer with the standard "I'm fine" to prevent the conversation from changing onto him. He now has an unhealthy habit of bottling his emotions up.
After a couple of years at home, his father, Henry, gets in contact with an acquaintance. It was a fire chief who was in charge of an old, run-down firefighting base up in Piston Peak National Park in north Lancashire. The chief was old and looking towards retirement, and needed a younger adult to take over.
Soon after, Blade moved to Piston Peak and worked there as the old chief's apprentice. Over time, he learned the ropes of the job quickly and efficiently. He learned fast and trained hard, and within a couple of years, Blade was appointed the new chief and was running the place all on his own.
Cabbie, Windlifter and Maru were already working at the base, and they were quick to welcome the younger apprentice, showing him around the base. They were equally supportive when Blade was appointed as their boss. Not long after, Blade accepted Patch, Dipper and a new team of smokejumpers. But, no sooner had they met their boss, his personality dramatically changed for the foreseeable...
Blade, unfortunately, suffered a few traumas in his life. There was the odd bullying in school, but Blade soon learned that the worst kind of betrayal doesn't come from your enemies - it comes from your allies...
Besides Nick Lopez, Blade had two other best friends growing up. He had a childhood best friend of well over 10 years, and another later on in life.
Blade and his childhood best friend had known each other for a long time; together for 10+ straight years from kindergarten to the end of high school. From there, cracks began to form. His friend would always abandon Blade for the next newest best friend, go off with them for a few weeks before crawling back to him again. This happened for the next couple of years whilst they went to different flight schools. It started happening often. Blade was so loyal to this friend that he just took it. He clung onto the friendship for dear life without question, though looking back, he probably would've ended it sooner if he could go back and change things. This friend ended up taking Blade for granted. He rolled all over him and took advantage of his loyalty. This poor treatment gave Blade abandonment issues, jealousy, and his first bouts of depression.
In the end, Blade just didn't have the energy for anymore games. His childhood friend made another new best friend, and Blade just stopped chasing. He let him go. The two haven't spoken since.
Not long after this departure, Blade met another aircraft on an online helicopter forum. It only took days for both of them to discover their personalities and likes aligned with each other. As time went on, Blade grew closer to this new best friend. He spent his entire waking hours communicating with them - from the first moment he opened his eyes to the last thing before he fell asleep. It soon became a really big, ingrained part of Blade's routine. He honestly thought that this other aircraft was going to be the true friend that would stick around for years to come. They had even planned to meet in person one day.
Then, cracks began to slowly form in this friendship too...
This friend also started to leave Blade for other friends, dedicating all their time to the other person. It happened once, and Blade began to feel those telltale signs ofjealousyy and abandonment creeping in again.
Instead of sharing their attention equally with all of their acquaintances, this friend would jump from one best friend to the next.
Then, when it happened a second time with someone else, Blade was accused of being jealous and bitter, even though he previously explained his behaviour due to past mistreatment. He was accused of stopping his friend from interacting with other acquaintances, which was simply not true. Then the friend accused Blade of not allowing them to like certain things, which was another lie. The sudden unravelling of toxic behaviour was so sudden and out of the blue, it sent Blade spiralling. At the time, he had almost totally disassociated to the point that he couldn't even remember what happened.
It all came to a head one day, right before Blade's birthday. Both the friend and Blade had their own personal problems that got in the way, but Blade was willing to work things through. Again, he was loyal and present despite everything, but after the friend sent him a very cold, emotionless happy birthday, they blocked Blade. That move was so sly and subtle that Blade hadn't even realised until a week later. He believed he was giving his "so-called" best friend some space, but upon discovering that his best friend was unreachable by phone and all social media platforms, he began to panic.
It was only from another acquaintance that he learned why his toxic friend had blocked him. He conjured stories about Blade being a horrible person when, in fact, Blade was just naive and stupidly loyal. The friendship only lasted just shy of 4 years...
This completely broke Blade. He spent his first Christmas in a few years without them. He spent most of it completely dissociated from his own feelings. Again, he hit a downward spiral - worse than before. He fell into depression, self-sabotage, isolation and loneliness. After only just getting to know his team members, Blade immediately pulled away and spent most of his time locked away in his own hangar. He only came out during emergencies. He completely lost his appetite, eating little or nothing at all when he didn't have the urge to eat. He grew completely numb to everything around him and even his own emotions. Although Blade wasn't actively suicidal and would never put himself in harm's way like that, he did often think about not being around, and sometimes wished for something accidental to happen to him, like a storm or a crash happening to him. But, against all those odds, his survival instincts kept him going...
Maru was his saviour during this dark time. He made sure Blade ate something, even when he didn't want to. Breakfast drinks and fuel cans were a godsend when Blade lost the urge to chew anything. He performed regular health and maintenance checks on his boss, making sure he stayed somewhat operational despite the loss in weight and muscle mass. Blade practically ran on autopilot for the next couple of years.
Then, one summer, he meets his first and only love - Toni. After the second best friend broke up, Blade was staying away from potential friends and lovers altogether. The base received a call one day of an unattended campfire, which caused a wildfire, which was closing in on a stranded helicopter that was on a woodland trail.
Knowing the aircraft was unable to fly out safely, Blade prepped the team, and he arrived first on the scene just minutes after the call. This was the moment that they first laid eyes on each other, thus paving the way for their love story that we know of today.
It was Blade who made the first drop. His line of retardant was the most crucial, soaking the trees alongside Toni to protect her from the nearby fire. Windlifter's and Dipper's drops quickly extinguished the fire, whilst the Smokejumpers air dropped down into Toni's location, cutting the fallen tree in front of her into manageable chunks to clear a path. Blade then got her to follow him and the rest of the team back to their base, where she could be checked over.
Upon landing at the base, both helicopters finally had the chance to take a good look at each other. Blade discovered that the woman he rescued was another Agustawestland - a smaller AW109, in fact. She was all white, with hints of midnight blue on her engine compartment, tail and wheel fairings, and she had the most vivid shade of lime green eyes. Her name was Toni.
For the white Agusta, she had fallen hard for her hero; unfortunately, Blade had zero interest in her. He wasn't in the right headspace for relationships.
This moment started an obsessive crush for Toni. Sometime after she quit her last admin job, she went back to the Air Attack team and enquired about a potential job there. Blade was surprised to see her back, and he declined her at first, but after some convincing from Maru, he offered her a half-formal interview. Maru coaxed him into hiring Toni as the Air Attack team's secretary after noticing how much she seemed to like the chief.
Blade met her with coldness and detachment, only speaking to her professionally. He gave her the role of overseeing the paperwork side of the job. He still had a heart, though, keeping her well away from the tough, physical work of firefighting - seeing that she wasn't built for it.
Just like with the rest of his team, Blade endeavoured to treat her differently from how he was treated the last time he was under a boss.
Unbeknownst to Blade, Toni had developed strong feelings for him and was trying to subtly catch his attention. The rest of the team had already paired the two Agustas as a couple, agreeing that this little ray of sunshine was the perfect match for their stormy boss. After all, they were both Agustawestlands, both single, young, and of similar ages.
Not long after, the newest member of the team got to meet Cad. She learned that he provided outrageously low wages, a lack of Internet, and poor working conditions. It didn't take long for the rest of the team to quickly fill her in that they were all controlled by the Superintendent. Their wages, pensions, working conditions, firefighting budget, and even the water allowance were controlled by Cad. She also witnessed how much Cad would give Blade a hard time, observing how closed up and defensive he became every time the SI was within close distance.
One time, she told him in a "not so subtle" way that if he didn't increase their wages or firefighting budget soon, the team wouldn't be able to afford to make retardant and couldn't possibly protect his precious lodge, and he could end up losing it in a fire. As much as the arrogant SI despised losing against a woman, it did the trick. Despite Blade being annoyed at Toni for talking out of turn without his say-so, he was pretty damn impressed with her, but he didn't show it.
When Toni's efforts to catch Blade's attention were going unnoticed, Maru had to pull her aside one day and explain why their boss behaved the way he did.
He told the stories of Blade's past. The toxic boss, the breakdown on the set, the way his family members grew apart over the years, the two toxic best friends and the deep traumas they caused. Toni couldn't believe it. She was in such shock that she had to spend a day by herself in her own hangar to mull it over. She took on Maru's assistance to help gain Blade’s trust and hopefully win him over at the same time.
Around this point, Blade had gotten wind of Toni's crush on him. His employees had outrightly told him, and Blade reacted with anger and stormed off. Behind that anger was deep fear. He just kept thinking, "Why me?"
Blade deserved to be happy considering his past, but he was terrified of friendships and relationships, and he was now petrified of whatever Toni had in store for him now that he learned of her intentions. Unbeknownst to him, Toni just wanted to love him and take care of him, just the way he was...
Toni stuck with it for as long as it took. She spent days, weeks, and months proving herself as a member of the team that Blade could trust. Just being there, quietly, subtly, still maintaining professionalism. Just being the stable rock whenever Blade needed it. In time, Blade began to notice Toni as another member of the team he could count on. This part was now successful.
Now that she could get his trust on a professional level, she then tried to gain his trust more personally...
Slowly but surely, with Maru's help, she began to gradually gain Blade’s trust. Blade began to interact with her more and more, until he came to a point where his mind was in a war, and he pulled back again. Half of him wanted to trust her, but the other half of him was still haunted by his betrayal trauma.
Finally, after much consideration and a lot of convincing from Maru, Blade decided that he couldn't ignore his feelings for her anymore. He had seen the way she laughed, the way her pure smile would make her face light up, the way she could brighten up the room the moment she rolled in, the way she could calmly and quietly handle things behind the scenes or help motivate the crew to stay together despite their chief's emotional absence. Blade gradually began to develop feelings for her, no matter how many times he tried to deny or run from them.
After much consideration from Blade's side, the two of them began to date, taking things slow at first for Blade's sake. At least now, he was willing to look at her and even speak to her. After some time, Blade finally trusted Toni enough to reveal his background and traumas in his own account. That was the biggest breakthrough that Toni got. Finally, knowing the full story of why he was so cold and closed off.
Even though Toni had heard it all before from Maru, hearing it from Blade's side was so heartbreaking that she started crying for him. Blade immediately felt guilt-ridden for upsetting her, but he misunderstood. She had to reassure him that his story was upsetting, but he was not to blame.
Day by day, week by week, month by month, Toni continued to support him during their early days of dating. She promised Blade that she could provide the bare minimum with ease; things like honesty, care, attention, affection, understanding and patience. Things that Blade had no idea how to handle or react to, but thoroughly deserved. Little by little, the cold-hearted AW139 began to lower his walls and drop his guard for her, which in turn brought them even closer. Slowly but surely, she helped him with all his troubles: teaching him not to hide when facing bad days, better coping strategies if he relapsed, helping him put on a healthy weight, better sleep, curbing his drinking, managing his aggression more healthily, preventing him from isolating or staving himself when the bad days did come around, teaching him when to pull away from work to rest and recuperate, teaching him how to cope woth his anxiety when it hit him at night, gradually pulling him out of survival mode, and all the other gruelling bits in between.
It was tough, sometimes brutal. Some days were easier than others. Slowly but surely, they both got through it in the end.
As time went on, Toni was the one who taught Blade how not to just survive life, but how to actually live it too. And in turn, she slowly taught him how to love, too.
At some point, Blade did finally make some new friends. One of them was Micheal, a Concorde billionaire who had just moved to the National Park, looking to find the perfect plot of land for his mansion home. Cad, being a dodgy and corrupt Superintendent, didn't care about looking after the park's wildlife and protecting the environment. He cared more about money and attracting VIPs. He swerved all protective laws and allowed the billionaire to build his mansion. Initially, Blade was furious and despised the Concorde for seemingly using his "high status" to build on protected land for his own needs. Micheal, as innocent and pure-hearted as ever, tried to befriend the Agustawestland and make it up to him. He promised to raise awareness online and within park grounds about wildfire prevention, looking after wildlife and the environment. He also kept close links with his local communities. He even sent snacks and alcohol up to the air attack base as a form of apology. That seemed to satisfy the chief, and he eventually backed off. After Micheal invited Blade for a drink, the two slowly became good friends.
Blade also came to be friends with identical FA18 twins, Steve and Daniel, who also came to live at the park at some point. Blade didn't have such a good introduction with the FA18s either. The twins, being young, playful boys and always competing with each other, challenged each other to a race through the park. Admittedly, they were careless and forgot they were sharing a small airspace with other aircraft. They flew low over a hot spot where a fire had burned earlier that day. Their wake turbulence disturbed hot embers, which reignited the fire again. Blade was furious at this, and the twins, who just didn't know any better, felt guilty about what their silly actions had caused. Feeling bad, they both flew up to the air base, offering gifts like snacks and alcohol as an apology. At first, Blade was going to stubbornly refuse them, but luckily, Toni was there to thank them for their honesty and invited them onto the base.
At another date, Steve and Daniel invite Blade for a pint at the Grand Fusel Lodge. He was hesitant about making friends, but Toni was there to support him. From this day forward, the three of them became best friends, and after learning of his past, they vvowedto look after him and show him what real, genuine best friends do.
Fast forward, and Blade completely changed as a person. Their relationship was more and more serious. It was blooming, from a quivering flame into an all-out bonfire. By now, Toni had moved into Blade’s cabin hangar on the base. The pair had begun to show more forms of affection. Not just hugs and cuddles and the odd contact, but Blade at least allowed kisses now, too. Their forms of affection continued to grow, at whatever pace Blade was most comfortable with, until the two Agustas could no longer hold back and finally started sleeping with each other, opening up a whole new door of their relationship as we know it now.
As their relationship continued growing, so did their sex life. Nowadays, they're an incredibly passionate couple, completely and utterly addicted to each other like a drug. We can't blame them. Toni's paintwork can outshine the beauty of a pearl, and she has the figure of a goddess. And as for Blade? Who could not resist a hot firefighter with a handsome face and a good, strong body to go with it? And for Toni, there's something about seeing her boyfriend returning home from a day's hard work around a gruelling wildfire; all hot and bothered, covered in black soot and dripping in sweat that really turns her feral.
They're both intimate often, to the point where even the crew knew what the Agusta couple was up to, and Maru would often drop an innuendo or two around them, much to Blade's dismay.
Fast forward some time later, a set of new challenges lay ahead for the Agusta couple. By now, Blade had grown so confident and comfortable with her that he proposed to get engaged to her. Toni was absolutely over the moon with this surprise, but there was an issue already. As much as Blade wanted to buy her a suitable engagement ring, the Superintendent of the National Park, Cad Spinner, was making life more difficult by the month with money troubles. Blade couldn't afford to get her a ring, but he promised her that he would try to save up enough money to get her a wedding ring instead, however long it takes. She had literally saved his life, and he felt that he needed to do things properly, as she deserved.
One day, during the annual fire season, Blade offered to train a SEAT plane as a favour for an old acquaintance from the US. Soon enough, the team met an orange crop duster, the world racing champion, Dusty Crophopper. Blade knew who he was from the countless news channels broadcasting his success, but he didn't expect him to be the SEAT that was coming all the way from the US. Their greeting wasn't very warm either. Whilst taking Toni out for a leisurely patrol, the world-famous crop duster flew in between the Agusta couple, inches from taking Toni out by the tail. The fact that the love of his life had almost been hit had angered Blade, and he was in a foul mood for the remainder of the day.
Throughout the month, Blade had to dedicate his time and attention elsewhere, instead of concentrating on planning for his and Toni's future wedding. He expected that training the crop duster wouldn't be so bad, considering it meant some extra help over the summer - but it proved to be way more challenging than he ever expected. Toni tried her best to support him as he took on the extra stress and workload, but there was only so much she could do. Blade, as chief, had to oversee everything. Dusty wasn't making the situation easy. As well as the money problems, Blade also had to deal with the crop duster's low performance and poor excuses, which were beginning to turn into a daily occurrence.
It all came to a head one day when a heatwave caused two wildfires to emerge in different locations of V6 Valley. Prompting the team to split up. Blade took Toni and Dusty with him whilst Windlifter and Dipper split off.
Despite putting on a brave front, Blade was very stressed deep down. He was anxious about how to fight both fires effectively at the same time, forming mental plans of action in his head. Those plans then fell apart when the SEAT made an incorrect drop, which led to him being swept down a river. Blade was already stressed and in a bad mood as it was. He then got his hoist stuck in a fallen tree and watched helplessly as Dusty floated away. It was only by some miracle that he managed to free his hoist without breaking it, and caught Dusty in the nick of time just as he went over the edge of the waterfall.
After the three of them landed, Dusty still continued to be stubborn and difficult to work with. Blade, after weeks of stress, reached the end of his tether and finally snapped, arguing angrily with Dusty as the wildfire drew near. Dusty came clean about his disability with his gearbox. Blade paused, realising this was the source of the crop duster's persistent training problems.
As the wildfire approached, the three of them took shelter in an abandoned mineshaft entrance. Blade, being the chief and being responsible for his team's safety, took it upon himself to get the others safely inside the mine before him. When the flames came close, he pulled forward in front of Toni, protecting both her and Dusty from the flames. He took on the brunt of the intense heat and willingly got himself injured.
After the fire had passed, Blade continued to look out for his team members and his fiancée. He body-slammed the debris at the mineshaft entrance, helping the three of them escape the mine. He made sure Toni and Dusty took off first. Blade took off last. He only got to a few hundred feet before he experienced a sharp pain shooting through his body, accompanied by his engines grumbling and whining, and he was sent into a spin. There was nothing he could do to recover. All he could do was catch a glimpse of the pure fear in Toni's eyes before he crashed into the blackened earth.
Blade had no recollection of what happened after this. The crash and his life-threatening injuries had knocked him unconscious. He was put into a coma whilst Maru spent days trying to fix him and save his life.
Unbeknownst to the rest of the team, the fire from the mines was still spreading in a quiet area of the park. Telegraph wires and signal infrastructure had been disabled and burned in the process, causing the team weird, sporadic glitches in the system, intermittent signals, and no new reports or emergencies had come through since. It was only when the wind changed again and started blowing the fire back on itself towards the park's Fusel Lodge that witnesses finally started putting in reports or making calls straight to the base. It was only by chance that Patch still used an old mobile and caught the emergency calls. By this point, thick smoke had covered the park and spread towards nearby towns and cities. V6 Valley was quickly being taken over by a slow-motion tsunami of fire, fuelled by the new change in wind speed and direction.
Blade had still not woken up, and the rest of the team left to fight the fire under his second-in-command, Windlifter. It was only shortly after this that Blade finally awakened, dizzy and confused about his whereabouts and what had happened.
After having an hour or two to eat something and recuperate, Blade realised what had happened around him and promptly left the hangar, despite Toni's desperate pleas to stay put. He couldn't stay home whilst the rest of his team were struggling to save lives. Even if he was badly injured and needed to recuperate, staying home was not an option.
What followed was a series of events - passing in what could only be described as a traumatic blur - Blade holding up the edge of a burning bridge to save an RV couple, Dusty crashing, and Blade frantically darting around with an old bambi bucket from the base to try and protect his friends' homes from being demolished by fire, and more, all the way up until the blaze finally burnt itself out in the early hours of the next morning.
The next few days were grim. Dusty was brought back to the base for repairs to help save his life. Everyone was completely exhausted and spent the next few days resting in their hangars until the air quality significantly improved. Maru medically grounded Blade until he got better. He didn't mind that too much now. The blaze was out, and things were calm before the press and authorities would come knocking. Toni did the thing she loved doing most; taking care of her fiancè and nursing him back to health whilst he slept off the physical and mental stresses for around 3 days.
As time passed, Blade started to mentally and physically heal with Toni's help, Dusty followed suit, and then came the onslaught of news journalists, press releases, and TV crews that demanded answers for one of the UK's biggest blazes. It later turned out that they had all gone to the Grand Fusel Lodge first, and the Superintendent had been badmouthing the team to them. Toni tried to handle the press herself to keep the strain off of Blade, but it got to a point that even he had to face the heat when he should've been recovering.
On a couple of occasions, their FA18 friends, Steve and Daniel, were passing through and spotted the groups of press hounding the Agusta pair. Feeling sorry for them, they diverted the press away from them, boasting about how amazing the team was, there were no casualties, and talking at length about how incredible the Chief was at his job, despite the horrible working conditions they had to endure. The FA18s, with the help of their Navy colleagues, even put in a complaint against Cad to the governing Forestry authority, determined to help their friends and get rid of the awful Superintendent. Even Toni's friends and family spread the news about the Air Attack team's amazing efforts, whilst badmouthing the Superintendent at the same time. All this attention worked, and Cad was promptly removed from the park for investigation purposes.
But the nightmare for Blade and Toni didn’t end there. The team also had to leave the base while investigations were ongoing...
For the next couple of months, the team had to attend hearings. Blade had to battle it out against Cad in court, with Toni and the rest of the team supporting him the whole way through. Steve and Daniel supported them, even persuading their Navy squadron to get behind it all. They even invited Blade and Toni to come stay at their parents' house when they got kicked out of their own base. Stella and Logan really took to the two Agustawestlands and offered their support. They made sure they ate well and rested.
Stella was even able to get Blade out of his shell and persuaded him to talk about his feelings. She already learned about Blade's awful past and his current dilemma from her sons, and as a strong motherly figure, she treated Blade as an adopted son. He also began to look up to her as a sort of mother figure. He was able to talk about his mental health a lot more than he could with his own biological parents.
Another friend, Micheal, the Concorde billionaire who lived locally to the area, offered to cover the legal costs without so much as a favour back. Eventually, the Piston Peak Air Attack team won the court case and was heavily compensated. Even the Superintendent had to pay the team thousands for damages.
For Blade and his team, it felt like this nightmare may finally be over. For once, he was now rolling in cash. Blade put it directly to the base to undergo intense infrastructure updates, new builds and renovations. Each member of the team got a big bonus. And finally, Blade kept his promise to Toni after all this time and got her a wedding ring, proposing to her on the spot one peaceful evening.
A couple of months later, Blade and Toni officially got married outside the Grand Fusel Lodge, which was now under the command of Ranger Jammer, who had also become the park's new Superintendent. The Agustawestland pair jetted off abroad on their honeymoon to Lanzarote in the Canary Islands, with their Concorde friend treating them to first class and covering their flight tickets.
In the future, both Blade and Toni go on to be amazing parents of multiple children….
