Overwhelmed

Hiro felt his heart pounding inside his chest as he wiped his clammy hands on his pants. He didn't know why he felt so nervous. After all, he had faced down a man whom he once admired, a man whose actions had led directly to the death of his beloved brother, and won in an impossible battle against his own stolen microbots, so this should be a cake walk for him. On the other hand, he had the other members of his team to help him in that battle, none of which would be able to help him here (perhaps just the opposite, in fact.)

"You seem to be experiencing an accelerated breathing and heart rate, and your neural transmitters are down," the clinical voice of Baymax, the healthcare robot his brother invented and whom Hiro had come to think of as one of his best friends, broke into his thoughts as he had been gathering the courage to make his move, "This seems to indicate you're experiencing feeling of nervousness or anxiety. Is something troubling you, Hiro?"

"I'm fine, Baymax, and I'd appreciate it if you kept the information on my emotional state to yourself, under patient/healthcare provider confidentiality agreements," Hiro told him. He really did view the robot as a good friend, and he was glad he was able to rebuild him using his brother's notes after Baymax's original body was left in the void Alistair's portal had led to. Regardless, Baymax's tendency to tell his Aunt and friends every change in Hiro's emotional state had led to some rather awkward and embarrassing moments, and he was glad he'd learned how to talk to him in order to reduce the number of times that happened.

"Very well. This incident will be logged as per your request, but I may need to override should the symptoms worsen," Baymax acknowledged, and Hiro nodded as he knew this was the closest that he would get to a promise from him that he'd keep his electronic mouth shut.

Hiro took a deep breath, then he started walking over to the area of the laboratory where GoGo was working on her bike. Even though she could go much faster in the suit Hiro had designed for her, which incorporated similar technology to that of her bike, GoGo would not be satisfied until she could get the same kind of performance from it as well. That was one of the things that he valued in her, her uncompromising drive to push the boundaries and never settle for what she'd already achieved.

More than that, however, was what he's seen in her as a person. Hidden underneath the stoic exterior she usually displayed, with what little conversation she had usually punctuated by bluntness or sarcasm, Hiro had seen that she held a vast sea of compassion. GoGo obviously cared about her friends deeply, and Hiro was grateful that she'd include him in that circle. That, Hiro supposed, is part of what was making him so nervous now. The risk he about to take would definitely shake the status quo amongst them, and Hiro wasn't sure what he'd do if his efforts went south on him.

"Uh….hey there, GoGo," Hiro called out to her as he approached, barely able to keep his voice from cracking.

"Oh, hi Hiro," GoGo acknowledged as she glanced up from her work, "What's up? You sound nervous."

"Who, me? Nah!" Hiro lied, unconvincingly, "So, um….I see you've made some modifications to your bike."

"Uh-huh," GoGo confirmed, "Replaced the single electro-mag suspension on each axle with a series of smaller ones, working in tandem with one another. Increased the top speed and acceleration by 40%, improved the braking capabilities as well. Not quite where I want it to be yet, but it's definitely an improvement."

"Wow, that's impressive!" Hiro complimented her, not needing to fake his interest, then he nervously cleared his throat and continued, "Anyway, there're this great new sci-fi/action/horror flick that just opened up in the Multiplex, and I'd heard that it was something that you might be interested in, so I was wondering…"

"Wait…" GoGo interrupted as she set her tools down and looked him fully in the face wearing an unreadable expression, "Are you….trying to ask me out on a date?"

"What? No no no no!" Hiro nervously denied fiercely, then in an uncertain tone he amended, "Well, not really. That is….did you want it to be?"

Hiro felt as though an eternity passed as GoGo blew a bubble with her usual cool expression, then she popped her gum before she continued, "Hiro, you're a great kid. You're smart and funny, and even kinda cute in a sweet way. You're a great friend and, though I hate to admit it, you're an excellent leader."

"But…?" Hiro queried, his stomach dropping as he guessed which way this line was going.

"But as great a kid as you are, you're just that: a kid," GoGo continued, "How old are you now, 14?"

"I'll be 15 next month!" Hiro desperately protested.

"And I'll be 17 in six," GoGo countered, "The point is that no matter how much older you get, I'll still be older than you. We'll always have that age gap between us, so it would never work. You've been such a great friend, let's keep it that way. Okay?"

"Yeah, sure. Of course," Hiro conceded in a dejected tone. He thought he saw something flash in GoGo's eyes as his own followed the shattered pieces of his heart to the floor, but before he could discern what it was he heard the sound of someone clearing his throat behind him. Turning around, Hiro was mortified to see that he had an audience to his spectacular failure: namely, all his friends.

"Sorry, man, don't mean to interrupt," Wasabi said in a low tone, and Hiro recognized that he was the one who cleared his throat, "but we're about to have company."

Hiro didn't need to be told that the "company" Wasabi was referring to was one of those who didn't know about their "extra-curricular activities", so he did his best to pull himself together and he turned to face the lab door as Abagail Callaghan walked in.

Ms. Callaghan, who had been appointed the headmaster of the Institute after her recovery from the incident in which she had been rescued (by Hiro and his friends, no less) and her father had been indicted for both the destruction of the Krie Tech campus and the fire at the Convention (and, by connection, Tadashi's death), looked as though she was still uncomfortable in this position of leadership as she looked at them all and said, "Hello, everyone. Staying late tonight?"

"Evening, Ms. Callaghan," Hiro greeted her warmly, "Yeah, you know how it is when you have a project you just can't put down."

"I do indeed," she agreed, "and please: call me Abagail. 'Ms. Callaghan' makes me feel so old."

"It's fine, really," Hiro assured her, then he asked, "Off to see your father?"

"Yeah," Abagail admitted, "I want to get down there before visiting hours are over. I just need to understand why he did what he had."

"I'm sure that he was just hurt badly by your disappearance and apparent death, and he just felt the need to do something to get 'justice' for it," Hiro told her, "Believe me, I can get where he was coming from."

"Well, just don't do anything crazy, okay?" Amanda asked him, "You're much too young to be throwing your life away like my father had."

"I won't, don't worry," Hiro assured her, cringing inwardly as he recalled just how close he had come to doing exactly that.

"Still, it'd be nice to know just who those mysterious heroes were," Amanda mused, "I would like to thank them for saving me, and for stopping my father before he did something that he would really regret. I'm certain that Alastair really didn't know that Project: Silent Barrel wasn't ready before we showed it to the General."

"You may be right about that, and I'm sure that those heroes are glad just knowing you made it out of there okay," Hiro assured her truthfully. Of course he still had that footage from the test site that indicated otherwise, but even if they could explain how they had gotten it without revealing their secret, it was possible they (and Mr. Callaghan) had misinterpreted what was being said in the control room that day. It's not like they understood the work or science that went into the project, it being classified after all. Besides, the way Amanda talked about Mr. Krie, as well as the glances she gave him when she thought he wasn't looking, made him think that she likely carried a torch for the guy. As such, he was loathe to do anything that might crush her hopes that Mr. Krie might feel the same way in return.

"Well don't stay too late, be sure to lock up behind you, and let your folks know where you are. Especially you, Hiro," Amanda told them.

Hiro cringed inwardly at the subtle reminder of his age even as he said, "Well Aunt Cass is used to me putting in late nights in our garage working on one project or another, and this is basically just a larger garage, and I'm not exactly alone here, but I'll let her know all the same."

As the others said their assurances, Amanda nodded in acknowledgement as she said, "Good night, everyone." Then she turned and walked back out the door.

Hiro counted to ten in his head before he heard Wasabi whisper to him, "Do you think she really doesn't know?"

Hiro shook his head as he answered, "Mr. Callaghan could have tried to make things easier on him by revealing that we had chased him to the quarantined test site, or that I tried to have Baymax kill him after learning of his involvement in the fire and my brother's death, but he didn't. He pleaded guilty to all counts, so I think he's really trying to take responsibility for his actions, and I don't think that he would undermine that by telling his daughter what he hadn't said to the courts. It's a good thing that we have the security in this place wired, though, so we can filter what she can see and hear of what goes on in this lab."

"All the same, I think that we should keep our Big Hero 6 talks here to a minimum," GoGo advised them, "As Ms. Callaghan's visit reminded us, we're not always the only ones here, and while we can alter some security footage we cannot erase from someone's mind what they saw or heard personally."

" 'Big Hero 6'?" Hiro asked her curiously.

"You are the de-facto leader of our group after all, Hiro, and I like that name much better than 'Fred's Angels'," GoGo explained.

Hiro winced slightly at the unintended reminder of her rejection speech, but his heart was warmed somewhat at the thought that she'd chosen to name their group after him, rather than going with something like "Team GoGo". The warm feeling was almost enough to ease away the ache of his broken heart. Almost. "You're right," he told her, "it's perfect."

GoGo smiled slightly at the compliment, but before anyone could say anything more Hiro heard Honey Lemon's nervous voice calling out from Fred's crash area in the lab call out, "Guys, you may want to take a look at this!"

Hiro looked over that way and saw that the same fear that was in her voice also showed in her eyes, so he gestured for the others to follow him that way. Once there he saw Fred was sitting in his ratty armchair as his eyes were glued to his old tube-style TV. It amazed and mystified Hiro that, despite all the money they'd recently learned Fred had at his disposal, that he'd keep such old (and, in the chair's case, nasty) things in this lab, but Fred had claimed that the chair was comfortable and that the TV had "nostalgic value". However, those concerns pushed themselves to the very back of his mind once he saw what had Fred and Honey Lemon's rapt attention.

On the screen was a scene Hiro would have sworn was taken directly from the movie he'd failed to convince GoGo to go with him to see, were it not for the caption of "Breaking news" pasted over the familiar San Fransokyo skyline and the recognizable voice of the newscaster describing (with no small amount of hear in her voice) the scene before them. In it they saw what appeared to be a small circular hole torn in the darkening sky, though which could be seen stars shining brighter than he'd ever seen at night, in configurations and constellations he'd never seen before. Though this hole poured a swarm of flying sled-like machines, each one manned by 2-3 figures. Though the image wasn't close enough to show clearly what they were, from the way they held their bodies and their high-tech weapons, which they fired everywhere, clearly indicated that they weren't human.

"It's an alien invasion!" Fred exclaimed excitedly, "How cool is that!? I mean it's scary, obviously, but how cool! And is that a wormhole they're coming out of?"

"It's impossible for my sensors to determine based on the television image alone," Baymax clinically reported, "but based on the configuration and appearance of the anomaly, it does appear to be consistent with commonly held wormhole theories."

"Awesome!" Fred exclaimed excitedly.

" 'Awesome'!?" Wasabi yelled at him in stunned disbelief, "It's the end of the flippin' world, man! Just what about that is 'awesome'?"

GoGo looked at Hiro with worry in her eyes as she asked, "What are we going to do?"

Hiro turned towards the windows looking outside, where he saw the same scene unfold in the distance, and he said, "The same thing we always do whenever there's trouble. We suit up and go to help people."

As Baymax flew them through the air, Hiro tapped into the link he'd recently added into Baymax's super-scanner, then he routed the image through his visor to those of the others. He almost wish he hadn't, however, as it wasn't a pretty picture. The force coming though the portal in the sky was a massive one, easily 100 of them for each one of his, and they were still coming. There wasn't any large vessels like a mother ship yet, thank goodness, but that didn't matter much against a force with these kind of numbers. The zoomed in image of just one of them wasn't exactly good for inspiring confidence either.

"Just what are those hideous things?" Honey Lemon asked them, her voice squeaking with fear.

"They appear to be an alien life form not native to this world," Baymax answered in his usual clinical fashion, and they all saw the same information as Baymax scanned them all, "Part organic, part cybernetic enhancement. Due to the similarities of their theta brain waves, they may in fact share a hive mind. Although they are from another world, they seem to have similar needs to sustain life as humans do. No other data is available at this time."

"And you want us to go up against those guys?" Wasabi asked fretfully, "Hiro, I know you want to help out, but there's about a thousand of them or more, and only the six of us, and I don't think those laser guns are just for show. This sounds like a job for the military. Why don't we just leave it to them and go back home, huh?"

"Wasabi, I get it. I'm scared too," Hiro told him, "but the fact is that the military isn't here right now, so we're all San Fansokyo's got. Once the army does show up I'll happily let them take the lead while we take a breather, but until then it's up to us to make sure we have a home to go back to."

"Hiro's right, Wasabi. Stop whining, woman up," GoGo added, then she asked Hiro, "So what's the plan?"

"You and Honey Lemon will go streetside. Since you're the fastest amongst us, you'll be in charge of making sure that the civilians get off the streets, either retreating to the basements or to the subway, and don't be afraid to get the police officers to help with that. Meanwhile, Honey Lemon will use her chem-bag to help fortify the safe areas, make it harder for those freaks to gain access and hurt innocent people." As GoGo and Honey Lemon nodded the acknowledgement of their orders, Hiro continued, "Wasabi, Fred, you guys will stick to the rooftops: keep the fighting off the streets and away from the people as much as possible. Remember, these things aren't human and they obviously come to hurt us, so feel free to use more force with them than you would the usual bank robber."

"O-o-o-okay," Wasabi nervously agreed.

"Alright! It's time for Fred to cut loose!" Fred enthusiastically chimed in, "Those alien scum won't know what had hit them!"

"What about you?" GoGo asked Hiro, a worried note in her voice, "What will you do?"

"Baymax and I will take them on in the air," Hiro told her, "During that time Baymax will continue to scan these things and determine if they have a weak point. If he's correct about them having a hive mind, then perhaps there's a possibility that we can disrupt that and confuse them. In the end, however, our main goal is not to defeat them but to slow them down and keep the people safe until the military arrives to finish the job."

"Okay. Just be careful, Hiro," GoGo said to him in concern.

"Same to you," Hiro said back to her.

Baymax then released Fred and Wasabi on the rooftop nearest the edge of the fighting before gripping Honey Lemon and GoGo and lowering them quickly to the ground with his rocket arms. Once Baymax's arms snapped back into place empty handed, the nervousness of the risk involved in this plan hit Hiro in the gut and made him nauseous, but he still kept a straight face as he signaled for Baymax to take off into the air.

"Hiro, I have some concerns," said to him after a second of flying.

After switching his and Baymax's mikes to a private channel while keeping the line the rest of the team was on open so he could still keep tabs on them, Hiro asked his robotic friend, "Yeah pal, I do too, but what are your concerns about?"

"This plan of yours, it involves the injuring and possible termination of the alien life forms attacking San Fransokyo," Baymax explained to him, "I am programmed to heal the sick and injured, and as such this plan goes against my healthcare protocols."

"The ones that prevent you from doing anything that will injure a human being?" Hiro clarified.

"Yes," Baymax confirmed.

"I understand, but buddy these things are not human," Hiro countered, "Whatever they came here to do, they're attacking us with lethal intent. If we do nothing, then a great many humans will end up injured or terminated before the army shows up."

"Understood. Updating protocol database with new stipulation," Baymax responded, then he increased his speed and plunged into the thick of the invasion, plowing through aliens as though they were mere rag dolls. As Hiro saw his part of the plan taking immediate effect, with a good number of the descending aliens altering course to come directly for them instead, Baymax asked him, "What were your concerns of this plan?"

Hiro, who had been intently watching as Fred and Wasabi took on a group of aliens that had come into range while GoGo nimbly dodged laser blasts and counterattacked with her disks under the cover of Honey Lemon's smokescreen, shook his head in confusion and asked, "What?"

"When I told you I had concerns about this plan, you responded by saying you did too," Baymax said again while roundhousing an alien flying sled in front of them and clearing out a group of their pursuers with a rocket fist fired behind them, "What were those concerns?"

"Oh, that? I was just concerned that my plan is going to get us all killed," Hiro explained to him, "just like Tadashi."

"The records indicate that Tadashi had rushed into the building to rescue Mr. Callaghan of his own accord after you had advised him not to," Baymax countered logically, "His death was not your fault."

"But I hesitated, Baymax," Hiro argued back, "I was so scared of the fire that I didn't go after him right away. If I hadn't hesitated I might have caught back up to him again before he entered and the building exploded."

"Again, your conclusions are in error," Baymax told him, "Records show that the building exploded within moments of Tadashi entering the building. If you had managed to stop Tadashi before he entered, there's still a high probability that the proximity to the explosion would have seriously injured or even killed Tadashi as well as you. According to my database on Survivor's Remorse, it is natural for you to feel guilty over being alive when your brother is not, but you must come to understand that you had no hand in his death. My duty is to keep you alive and well, and as you are determined to help this city in its time of crisis my duty extends to helping you as much as possible."

Hiro smiled and tapped his fingers against Baymax's armor, the closest he dared come to patting him on the back during these dangerous aerial maneuvers, and he said, "Thank, Baymax."

"Hey guys, you're being awfully quiet up there!" Wasabi tensely called out, breaking into Hiro's awareness, "What was this concern Baymax had about this plan?"

Hiro had forgotten that the others couldn't hear what they were talking about, and so he switched back to the team band and explained to Wasabi, "He was just concerned that it might violate his protocol against harming humans, and I explained to him that they were aliens and not human, so it was okay."

"Oh, that's all? Okay then," Wasabi replied as he continued to drop the growing swarm of aliens encroaching on him from all sides of the building, "I was worried it was that WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!"

"No, he didn't express any concerns of the sort, so don't worry," Hiro assured Wasabi before briefly switching back to Baymax's private channel to tell him, "Don't."

"You still whining up there, Wasabi?" GoGo asked him through the communicator as she took out one of the ground troops with a thrown disk while she used the second, wrist-mounted one like a shield to deflect a laser blast from hitting a fleeing family.

"No!" Wasabi countered fiercely as he continued to fight, "I was merely expressing my passionate love of LIFE, that's all!"

As Baymax punched yet another alien out of their way, Hiro was surprised to see that its gun arm had popped off at the elbow and landed practically in his arms. As Hiro carefully disengaged one hand to grip the device before it could fall to the ground below, Baymax commented, "It appears that these beings have a weak point in their joints, where the organic meets the cybernetic."

After he cleared the remaining organic material out of the way (which he found totally disgusting), Hiro found some nubs inside that he could wrap his fingers around. When he pulled on one of them, Hiro was surprised as a blast discharged from the end and took out the driver of the sled ahead of them before its passenger could draw a bead on them. With a renewed sense of hope, Hiro adjusted his position so that the magnetic pads on his elbows were in contact with Baymax instead, leaving his hands free to handle and aim the alien weapon, then he contacted the others and said, "You guys heard Baymax. We can take these things apart by working on the joints, and if you relieve one of them of their gun arm you can use it against the others. Chances are that the laser lance-things wielded by those who aren't equipped with arm cannons are just as easy for us to use."

"Alright! Now this part of the plan I LIKE!" Wasabi exclaimed as he sliced off one alien's arm cannon at the elbow before driving the other blade through the alien's chest. Then he disengaged both wrist blades, picked up the alien weapon, and used it to start mowing down the alien attackers Rambo-style as he bellowed, "Come get some!"

Meanwhile, Fred had picked up a dropped laser lance and begun leaping around and twirling it around like one of his signs. As the laser blasts discharging from the end took out aliens all around him, Fred's suit started breathing fire as he called out, "Who wants a piece of the Fredinator?"

GoGo had also acquired a fallen laser lance and she was alternating between dashing around while firing laser blasts and using the lance as a pole vault, launching herself into a high-speed flying kick as she bellowed, "Woman up!"

Honey Lemon had used one of her freezing chem-balls to immobilize one of the arm cannon-wielding alien warriors, then she cautiously set to popping off his weapon. Despite her care, Honey Lemon still yelped in surprise as the snapping motion caused the laser to discharge into its frozen body, shattering it into a thousand pieces. She then shook out the remaining frozen bits and begun nervously firing at any alien soldier that came into her line of sight.

"You see guys?" Hiro chirped at the others as he continued his own laser onslaught from Baymax's back, his voice heavy with happiness and relief, "If we can just keep our heads we'll all come out of this all ri…"

Hiro then cried out in pain as a laser blast struck him in the back, having managed to burn partially though the armor there before glancing off it, and Hiro was grateful that Honey Lemon had thought to formulate a stronger material for their armors after their public debut at the Krie Tech building. As his friends cried out his name in concern, Hiro gritted his teeth as he responded, "I'm fine. It's just a scratch, keep going!"

Baymax had rotated his head around to scan Hiro before he said to him, "You have a third degree burn on your right shoulder blade area of your back. You need medical attention right away."

"It just grazed me, I'll be fine for now," Hiro assured him, "Just keep fighting."

"But Hiro," Baymax argued, "if your injury is not treated immediately, it could lead to…"

"Don't you get it, Baymax!? We have to keep fighting!" Hiro interrupted him in a bellow, "If we don't, we'll all die!"

"HOLY MOTHER OF MEGAZOD! JUST WHAT IS THAT THING!?" Fred bellowed out frightfully. Surprisingly when Hiro heard GoGo speak she wasn't chiding Fred, that her voice was just as full of fear as Fred's as she asked Hiro, "I don't suppose you saw if one of these guys had a weapon that could handle that thing, did you?"

Hiro didn't need to ask his friends were talking about, he would have needed to be blind to miss the monolithic monstrosity now emerging from the wormhole in the sky. The size of a small skyscraper, it looked like the cross between a giant eel and an ugly tortoise, with a cybernetic webbing all around its body. And this alien behemoth had its fanged maw open as it undulated through the air straight for him!

"Uh, Baymax…!" Hiro nervously called out as he stared wide eyed at the doom that was coming to swallow them whole. Before he could expound on his order or they could be eaten, however, Hiro as Baymax picked up a small object shot quickly from the unstable energy that marked the boundary of the wormhole straight towards the creature closing on Hiro. When they collided with an electric crackle and a sound like thunder, Hiro wasn't sure if the bellow the beast made was from the pain of the blow or from the frustration of being denied its prey, but it was knocked off course enough to miss Hiro by mere yards. Meanwhile, the mysterious object continued on its trajectory, only sharply angling its flight path before it collided with the building below, then it started zig-zagging between the buildings across the street below, taking out whatever alien flyer happened to be in its way.

"What was that thing?" Hiro asked no one in particular in stunned disbelief.

Apparently Baymax though the question was intended for him as he scanned the object, which took longer than usual due to how quickly it was moving. "It appears to be a man," Baymax reported, "Although there are some unexplainable anomalies in its genetic makeup, the general DNA and the life signs I'm detecting all indicate that he is human."

"That thing making hash of the aliens is human?" Wasabi asked in disbelief.

"Why is he flying around like that?" GoGo asked curiously, and Hiro was glad she had. He too wondered about the dizzying flight path this stranger was taking.

"He's not actually flying. He's in fact maneuvering through the air by means of a powerful electro-magnetic field he's somehow generating himself," Baymax explained his analysis, "He's pulling himself through the air by attracting himself to the metallic infrastructure of the buildings across the street, then before he makes contact he reversed polarity…"

"…repelling himself from the magnetized building and flying off the opposite way!" Hiro finished for him.

"You realize what this means, guys?" Fed excitedly asked his friends through the communicator, "It means we were just helped out by a real-life superhero! How sic is that!?"

"Uh-oh!" Baymax said suddenly, his head swiveled around to look behind them. Hiro turned to look and his heart stuttered as he saw that the giant alien creature had recovered from the blow it took, and from how quickly it was heading for him it was seriously angry!

"Go, go go!" Hiro told Baymax, and the robot flew full thrust away from the monster. Even though he was moving as quickly as he could away from the beast, however, it was still slowly closing the distance between them. As they flew, Hiro saw the stranger deviate from his unusual flight path and instead drop down directly towards Honey Lemon. Through the camera incorporated into her visor, Hiro got his first good glimpse at this man as he briefly touched down in front of her. Dressed in an outfit that could well have been taken from Fred's "collection" (were it not colored in shades of grey rather than brightly colored like those suits), this man with his tousled hair wore an apologetic look on his handsome face as he took Honey Lemon's chem-bag from her, telling her in a sincere tone, "Sorry, but I need to borrow this for a moment. Thanks." He then leaped into the air again before she could get off a word of protest, his trajectory taking him directly towards Hiro, Baymax, and the creature trying to eat them. Hiro then saw the man quickly enter a formula that was too complex for Hiro to follow and catch a chem-ball that was a shade Hiro had never seen Honey's bag produce before.

"Open wide, big guy!" the man quipped before tossing the ball their direction, then his hand crackled brightly with electricity before a bolt sparked off after it just before gravity took him back down again. Hiro felt the hair under his helmet stand on end as both came within inches of touching him, then the bolt caught up with the ball just as they entered deep within the alien behemoth's maw. Then, with an explosion louder than Hiro ever heard in his short life, the massive alien blew apart in a shower of goo that rained down over everything within a 5 block radius, including Hiro and his friends.

The alien troops, who up until now had been impassively and unrelentingly attacking everything that moved, suddenly stopped in their tracks and stared at where their gigantic ally had been, many of them ripping off their facemask to scream their outrage. Despite what he'd accomplished, however, it seemed that this stranger was far from done. Landing on a rooftop across the street from where Fred and Wasabi were standing still in the midst of a group of equally stunned aliens, the man just stood there for a moment, looking strained as if he were trying to lift an invisible weight. Then, as Hiro watched, the lights in the buildings around him went dark in an ever widening circle even as he lit up increasingly bright with crackling electricity. Then, just as the brilliance grew too much for Hiro to look directly upon anymore, the man released a massive bolt directly up into the rip in the sky, and Hiro watched as the aliens (both living and dead) found themselves sucked helplessly back up through it. Then, as the last of the aliens disappeared into the wormhole's maw, the single bolt of energy branched into many as it spread to its edges, and the hole in the sky collapsed, leaving the horizon whole once more.

With all signs of conflict gone, Hiro breathed a sigh of relief. It appeared that the stranger was equally exhausted, as he simply stepped off the edge of the building and slid slowly down its side. Hiro took that as his cue to signal Baymax to fly over to get Fred and Wasabi and fly them all back down to their friends.

Baymax landed them all just as the man strode over towards GoGo and Honey Lemon, holding her chem-bag out to her as he sighed and said, "Whew, that was rough. I won't be trying that one again anytime soon! Thanks again for the loan, miss."

"It was no problem, mister," Honey Lemon said as she took back her bag with a blush of excitement, "By the way, that formula you made was amazing! Just what was it?"

"Just a little cocktail of my own creation," the man said modestly, "I call it 'C4 with a twist, on the rocks'. I'll be happy to give you the recipe when we have a moment."

Hiro extended his hand towards the man and said, "Thanks for help, mister…?"

"The name is Julian, and even though I accept you gratitude I feel it's a little early for thanks," The man said as he shook Hiro's hand once, the he looked up at the sky where the wormhole was and added, "This is far from over."

"It is?" Hiro asked in shock.

"If those creatures and their master are whom I suspect them to be, then yes, I'm afraid so little hero," Julian told them grimly, "Although the ionization side effect of my closing the wormhole will interfere with their attempts to reopen it for a while, I fear that they'll soon be back, and in greater numbers. The best I can hope for is that I've bought us time to regroup and better prepare for their return."

This pronouncement left Hiro and his friends speechless, though part of the reason Hiro was struck dumb was the belief that this Julian apparently knew his real name. As the citizens slowly emerged from the surrounding buildings to see what was happening in this calm time, Julian looked around at them and said, "This place is becoming a bit too public again. Do you have somewhere private where we can continue our discussion?"

Hiro considered for a moment before coming to a decision, then he said, "Yes, of course," Then he climbed onto Baymax and signaled for the others to get into position on the robot as he continued, "Right this way.