Galo burst into the station. "I need to talk to Kray."
"What? Galo, slow down!" Aina looked at him, worried. She had never seen this look in his eyes before. He looked solemn, far from his usual upbeet self. The energy usually bursting from him whenever he entered a room was gone.
"No time, Aina. It's important." Galo grabbed his bag from the back of his bike and stuffed it into his locker. He rushed back to his bike, "I'll be back soon, I just need to talk to him. I need answers."
"Just don't do anything reckless," Aina shouted after him.
And with that he was gone. Aina, the last one awake at the station, wandered the garage. Her aircraft, the RM03 was on the floor next to Lucia's now empty workstation. She had been tinkering with it to try and fix the damage caused by the Burnish Lightning, although Aina didn't even pretend to understand what Lucia was doing. At least the damage wasn't too bad. She didn't quite understand why the lightning failed to hit her this time, but she wasn't one to complain about good luck. She made her way past the tools and to her bed in the garage. She plopped herself on top of the blanket, soft and red with a number 3 on it, the number of the station.
Relaxing and winding down for the night, she put on her headphones and continued to scan the empty garage. Varys had left his weights scattered about. She was sure Remi would tell him off in the morning, although Ignis wasn't much neater with his engine oil all over the place. She could already imagine the conversation.
"Varys, you can't just leave a mess out in the middle of the garage! What would we do if there was a fire and we needed to rush out, but I tripped over your weights?" Remi would ask, completely serious.
"Well, maybe you should watch where you're going! Besides, Ignis gets to leave his car junk all over the place? Why don't you rag on him?" Varys would bite back.
"Ignis is my boss, Varys. I can't just tell him what to do. You, on the other hand, Ignis put me in charge of making sure the station stays up to expectations; neat and tidy." Remi would, of course, defend himself, possibly a little flustered. He never was one for confrontation. Varys would just laugh at this with his usual boisterous laugh. It was the kind of laugh that was contagious, making the whole world laugh with it. Of course, nothing would come of this exchange. Varys would continue to leave his weights out like he always does, and Remi would continue to be upset about the mess as he always is. Galo would be there, he always is, trying to hold the team together. He could always tease, but he knew Burning Rescue had a bond that would never go away. He was like glue for the team, keeping their spirits up even when things seemed bleak.
Aina's thoughts slowly began to drift away from this hypothetical situation and towards memories from her childhood as she began to sink deeper into her slumber.
She remembered playing with Heris. They would always play rescue; helping people was what they both wanted to do, even when they were little. Through their child eyes their bedroom would burst into flames. Aina, eager to help the dolls in trouble in any way she could burst into the room head first. Dodging the flames she made her way to the hiding dolls, being led by the calculated Heris the entire way. They worked better as a team, balancing each other out. They had a bond that both of them knew could never be broken. Without Heris, Aina wouldn't have the knowledge of where to go. Without Aina, Heris wouldn't have the strength to burst in. They were always a team, working together since they were little. Recently though, Aina missed her. Heris was always busy with her research. Aina wasn't exactly sure what it was, but she knew it was going to help a lot of people. Heris was strong like that, Aina always believed it. Her thoughts stayed on her sister's strength as she drifted off to sleep.
Aina had always been an early riser. She liked to get a little exercise in before everyone else woke up. It was quiet and gave her time to think. Sometimes she would even run with Galo, although that wasn't as quiet as she would like. She couldn't quite remember her dreams from last night, but she felt energized and like a run would do her good. She looked all over for Galo to see if he wanted to run with her, but he was nowhere to be found.
"Did he leave without me?" Aina asked herself. That wasn't like him, but he had been acting strange yesterday. It would be fine to run alone. It would give her the quiet time she normally wanted.
By the time she returned, the rest of Station 3's Burning Rescue had woken up. Although, it seemed a little quieter than usual.
"Is Galo not back yet?" Aina asked the group.
"Back? You mean he wasn't with you?" Remi asked back.
"No, I tried to find him this morning but I thought he left to run without me."
"Did he come back last night?" Ignis asked, starting to get concerned.
"I mean, I assumed he did. I didn't see him after he left to go talk to Kray."
"He went to talk to Governor Kray? What about?" Ignis started to sound a little relieved that he at least was with someone responsible.
"I don't know, he didn't say. But I don't think I ever saw him come back in."
"Y'know… I could check my cameras…" Lucia chimed in.
"Cameras? Lucia, do you have cameras set up around the garage? You know I sleep down here!"
"How else am I supposed to make sure nobody touches my stuff," Lucia asked hunched over her screen, "It looks like he never came back. Do you think he's ok?"
"It's not like Galo to miss a shift," Remi added, "Aina, do you think you should go look for him? You've known him the longest; you could probably guess the best out of any of us where he could have disappeared to."
"Yeah, that's probably a good idea," Aina responded, "I'm sure he's fine, but I should go check on him. I have some ideas as to where he could be. You all can handle any fires for the time being, right?"
"We've got it, Aina," Varys assured her, "Go and find that idiot for us."
Aina grabbed her bag from her locker, taking a good look at the picture of her and Heris before closing it back up. The picture always gave her hope; hope that the two of them could do anything, save anyone, as long as they did it together. Vinny hopped up into her locker to see her off.
"Vinny!" he said, worried.
"Don't worry, Vinny, I'll be back soon."
Hopping on her rescue bike, freeze handgun strapped to her hip just in case, she was off to find Galo.