Hiro Hamada takes a deep breath in as he tosses a purple helmet onto his desk. He gazes around at his dirty garage and shakes his head. How is it possible that he spends all day tracking bad guys, but can't take five minutes to clean the garage? The amount of crumbled up papers on the floor was enough to build a small fortress.
Hiro pulls out a chair from his desk and plops down as if he hasn't gotten a chance to sit in ages. He pulls up to his computer, his battle suit still on. He hadn't done much fighting this time, the team agreeing it would be best to try to capture this new villain rather than fight them head on. Hiro had stayed above the scene, soaring through the sky. Low enough so that he could still see, but high enough to where he wouldn't raise as much suspicion.
"Are you satisfied with your care, Hiro?" A robotic voice calls behind him. Hiro laughs to himself, pushing his messy mob of black hair out of his face, "Hiro?"
"Before you go, Baymax, can you upload everything you saw today into the servers?" Hiro says pressing a few buttons on the computer in front of him.
"Done," The large white puffy robot responds, "Are you satisfied with your care?"
"I am satisfied with my care." Hiro laughs to himself. Baymax bows slightly and hobbles over to a little red box. He lifts his stubby right leg and places it into the box. He slowly lifts his left leg and places it in the box. Hiro watches as Baymax powers down and begins to deflate. Finally the box completely closes.
It had been four years since the incident concerning Professor Robert Callaghan and Krei Tech Industries. The world had been pretty shaken by the news, but it was slowly coming to be a regular as Big Hero 6 never disbanded. They only grew stronger and took down mass villains on a daily basis. It was even harder for Hiro to realize that in a matter of days, he was going to be turning 18. That was a big number to him and kind of hard to swallow.
Hiro shakes his head and returns his focus to his computer. He swipes the air with his hand and the information Baymax had sent displays in 3D in front of him. Hiro surveys the footage of their battle with a woman they were calling PixelChick. PixelChick is beyond any villain Big Hero 6 has ever faced. She completely baffled the police.
PixelChick never shows her face and her outfit was all white but in the night it glows a bright white color. It was beautiful but menacing. Her helmet glows the same as her suit. The team has had a hard time countering her attacks since everything that she touches with her bare hands turns to computer code. PixelChick always works alone and only ever robs arcades. She never takes any money though. She destroys most, if not all, of the machines, completely putting arcades out of business. She has hit more than fifteen arcades surrounding San Fransokyo and Hiro has yet to find a pattern.
Hiro rewinds the footage to the beginning of the battle. An African American guy pops up on the screen. His suit looks of steel and is an electric green color. His helmet covers spiky brown hair. The guy is running towards a tall building, following a recognizable shadow. It was PixelChick.
Another, tall Hispanic girl with a purple and red dress and black leggings appears on the screen. Her helmet covers her face, but her long blond hair still flows in the wind. There is a purse strapped around her body. She clutches to it tightly as she runs along the tops of the buildings. As she nears the end of one roof, she presses three buttons on her purse and a blue orb disperses. She tosses it on the ground and it hoists her over and onto the next building. The girl stops and points.
A shorter Japanese-American girl in a bright yellow suit zooms past the green guy (known as Wasabi) and the taller girl (known as Honey Lemon) on a yellow, disk based bike. The bike seems to glide across the sidewalk as the GoGo wizzes by the emptied streets. Hiro still does not understand why PixelChick decided that the arcade in this area was a good target. This is the side of town where the bot fighters come out at night. The rest of the day, these streets are abandoned.
Hiro stops the footage, watching as PixelChick suddenly disappears. He notices first that her shadow disappears before the rest of her. It is almost as if she had deleted herself from the fight. One second she is there and the next she isn't. It is no surprise that the blond haired guy in a monster suit with three eyes, horns, and flames, was so confused when he turned to attack the air.
It makes no sense that anybody could simply disappear into thin air, yet this villain could. There has to be something he is missing… some factor that is in play that he can't see. It is driving him nuts that he can't find it. He shouldn't be working this hard days before his birthday. The birthday that his older brother won't be there to witness. The birthday that his dead brother won't be there for.
Hiro walks over to a machine and waits patiently as it begins to take off his suit. He watches as his suit is tucked away into the wall. Suddenly his garage transforms from a battle hub into a normal garage. All of his high tech devices are stowed away by the touch of a button. Hiro puts his hand to his head as he walks out of the garage and back into civilization.
Hiro's garage was detached from the rest of his house. It made it easy for him and the rest of the team to have some privacy while they workout or hang. But as Hiro walks to the front of his Aunt Cass's café, in the setting sun, he really wishes that his friends were there at that moment. The café should have been closed but yet, there his Aunt and another woman are sitting at a table talking.
Aunt Cass's café was quaint. It has green walls and a line of bookcases. She has just finished upgrading the tables to small dark wood tables and modern, steel chairs. The plush seats were green as well, accenting the walls. The front counter matched the color of the floors and the new tables. Hiro personally liked the new look. It was nice to see that his Aunt's business was expanding.
Hiro glances between his Aunt Cass with short auburn hair and the lady with black hair pulled into a bun sitting across from her. The two were laughing uncontrollably. The woman with the black hair looked familiar but he couldn't put a finger on where he had seen her before. She looked American from what he could tell.
"Oh Hiro!" Aunt Cass suddenly exclaims, "I was wondering when you were coming back!"
"That's okay Aunt Cass," Hiro smiles nervously, "I was just about to go upstairs and take a shower. I just got back from SFIT."
"How'd the meeting with Abigail Callahagn go?" Aunt Cass smiled her sweet, mothering smile.
"It went great," Hiro nodded, still walking towards the stairs that led up to the house part of the café, "I really think she is getting the hang of taking over her father's place as overseer and professor of the robotics division."
"That's wonderful! Before you go I would like you to meet someone. You met her once a long time ago,"
The woman smiled up at Hiro with bright white teeth. She extended her hand for Hiro to take. She had a soft touch and her nails were freshly trimmed and colored to match her dark purple dress.
"Oh what a little honey bunches of oats! He's so grown now!" The woman exclaims.
"Hiro, this is Ms. Schweetzeneger."
Visions of a younger looking version of this woman floods his mind. He remembers her from when he was little. He remembered one specific day when he was at the park and this woman was standing to the left of him and his daughter smiling down at them. She was slimmer then and a lot less curvy.
Another man waved to her, a man Hiro assumed to be her husband. He was short and rounded with choppy brown hair. Who were these people?
"It's nice to meet you," Hiro says instead, trying not to let his mind wander, "I'm sorry, I really don't remember much about you."
"What a sweetheart!" The woman laughed, "You were so little I wouldn't expect you to remember, hun! Would you like some candy?"
The woman reaches out her hand displaying a handful of candy. Hiro laughs nervously and shakes his head, "No thank you... I uh... Think I should go now,"
"No matter! I should be going anyway. Thank you again Cass, I really needed the advice," the woman's smile faded as she turned to Cass with sad eyes, "Please tell me if you hear anything, okay?"
"I will, don't you worry," Cass tells Ms. Schweetzeneger with a sympathetic look in her eye. The woman waves back to Hiro one last time as Cass locks the door behind her on her way out of the cafe.
"What was that about?" Hiro asks as Cass puts a hand on his back and leads him up the stairs that lead to their house.
"You were so young," Cass sighs as they reach the top of the stairs. To the left is an outdated, messy kitchen. If one were to continue going straight instead of turning, another set of stairs would lead upwards to an extended bedroom. But for now, they remain in the kitchen as Aunt Cass reaches for a glass, some sleeping pills, and donuts.
"So you have said. Aunt Cass, what's going on?" Hiro asks, leaning against the counter.
"Well, when you were still with your parents and Tadashi... You couldn't have been older than two or three... Anyway there was this little girl the two of you used to hang out with. She was a little ball of energy that one. This little girl was Ms. Schweetzeneger's daughter. They called her Vanellope," Cass laughs at the name, "Vanellope was a very special child. Everyone loved her! Her father's company wanted to use her as the new face of a video game that is well known nowadays."
"What game?" Hiro raised an eyebrow.
"Some racing arcade game called Sugar Rush," Aunt Cass shook her head, "Anyway one day Ms. Schweetzeneger woke up and her husband and Vanellope were gone. A few weeks later this phenomenon of a game is released and becomes one of the most popular arcade games in the world."
"How does someone just disappear and then release an arcade game? His name would have had to been on the developers list or something, right?" Hiro raises an eyebrow.
"Beats me. The police haven't been able to track him or Vanellope down but the game lives on. Ms. Schweetzeneger informed me today that they are coming out with Sugar Rush 2.0 with the characters more grown up and they are on bikes instead of cars. New levels, new interface... Same characters though. Vanellope being one of them."
"Tadashi and I used to play Sugar Rush at that arcade down the street all the time. I haven't been back since-"
"The accident," Aunt Cass says sadly, "I know honey. I know. But there is nothing we can do but hope that they find that lying sneaky man and her daughter."
Hiro nods his head, sympathizing with her. He would go after this guy but one, Aunt Cass has no idea that he is a part of a team that takes down super villains and two, his team would never go for it. Everything lately has become about taking down PixelChick. But of all times… why now is this missing girl and arcade game such a big deal? It almost didn't seem like a coincidence.
"Go ahead and go upstairs," Cass says dismissing Hiro, "Those new sleeping pills work fast! I am going to bed. Goodnight Hiro!"
Hiro laughs as Aunt Cass exits the kitchen and turns left to enter her room.
"Goodnight Aunt Cass," Hiro says darting upstairs to his room.
Hiro ascends the stairs and immediately takes a left, not bothering to go anywhere near the closed dividers to his right. He rarely goes in there after Tadashi was killed in a fire.
His bed stood alone next to a desk full of junk. He has been trying to come up with new project ideas for his next assignment at SFIT, but his big brain can't think of anything. Hiro wasplanning on working on the project since he had been out with the others earlier, but now he couldn't stop thinking about this woman. Why has Aunt Cass never brought this up before? Why is this the first time he is seeing this woman in such a long time? And who names their child Vanellope?
Hiro clicks on his computer and begins to look up the history of the game Sugar Rush. He scans through article after article but cannot find any information of a man under the last name of Schweetzeneger. It is almost as if this man has dropped off the face of the Earth. Hiro doesn't blame him. If he were to have stolen his own child and debuted a 4.7 billion dollar arcade game, he would be hiding too.
Finally he stumbles across the character that is supposedly based off of this little girl. Vanellope Von Schweetz. Hiro snickers a bit at the younger Vanellope with candy in her hair and a goofy grin on her face. The teenage Vanellope from 2.0 however... She is a different story. Hiro actually has to do a double take. That is serious HD quality, Hiro finds himself thinking. The 2.0 version looks so real it's scary. She looks more real than the other characters.
The new Vanellope's hair is down and she was wearing a teal crop top with the words Sugar Rush plastered on front and she had on a black jacket. She is wearing a high waisted black pleated skirt and wore teal and white stripped leggings. Her boots are ankle high and have spiked straps. In most of the pictures she has on a long, flowing pink dress and a tiara.
Hiro shakes his head and powers down his computer. He figures if he is so curious about this whole situation, maybe he will do a little digging on the side. He hasn't been to the arcade in a long time, and it will get his mind off of PixelChick.
Then it hits him like a brick. PixelChick has been raiding arcades, stealing nothing, and ruining the machines. But his brain suddenly thinks about the location of each arcade. His mental mind map opens and Hiro's mind begins to work overtime. He pulls up a map of San Fransoyko.
"Aww man," Hiro says mentally marking where all of PixelChicks rampages have occurred. They follow a swirling motion like a lollipop. She is starting from the outer edges of the city and working her way in. Like a bullet, Hiro types in the word 'arcade' watching as the map brings up every arcade within and around the city limits. PixelChick is spiraling inwards towards the heart of the city and Hiro now knows the next Arcade to be hit. It is going to be the one him and Tadashi used to go to. Double O Finn's was about to be raided.
"Vanellope! What are you doing?!" A girl with short blond hair calls.
She looks down into the candy track ditch shaking her head. The air smells sour and she rolls her eyes, glaring down at the sour gummy earth worms scooching around her feet. She is wearing a pink gumdrop baseball cap and had a red lollipop in her hand. Her pink and red shirt drapes off her right shoulder and her jeans were ripped at the knees. Her pink high tops dazzle in the snow cone sun. The teenage girl adjusts her hat, protecting her white skin from the sun.
"Get off my back, Taffyta!" Another teenage girl shouts, her hair jet black and streaked with teal. Her hair extended all the way down her back, stopping at the top of her tail bone. She has on a teal romper and a black spiked jacket. One thing she never changes is her shoes. She can never go without her black, ankle high spiked boots.
"Come on, Vanilla! You are the president! You aren't supposed to be LOSING!" Taffyta glares, "I don't understand what your problem is. Do we need to make you a better bike? All we have to do is go to the factory and—"
"Okay the cars were WAY easier to ride than the bikes!" Vanellope argues, picking up her graham cracker bike with licorice as the exhausts and hard chocolate handles. The wind shield is made out of a thin, hardened sugar coat and the wheels are two jawbreakers.
"It's in your code Vanellope! it's not supposed to be easier or harder," Taffyta raises an eyebrow, "Look, Double O Finn's Arcade debuts Sugar Rush 2.0 TOMORROW. You are the star player! How is that going to look on us if the main character isn't on the day's roster?"
"Hey I still think there is something weird going on," Vanellope states, dragging her oversized bike back up the chocolate ice cream hill and over to where Taffyta is standing.
"How is this weird?" Taffyta rants, "We got an upgrade. You should be happy they didn't unplug us. How weird would it be running into someone that looks exactly like you?"
"You don't think it's weird that we started growing with the game?" Vanellope asks, "After the reset when Turbo took over our game, everything got out of whack. ."
"Okay I admit that was weird. We started aging pretty much after that moment. Almost like Turbo had froze us or something.," Taffyta frowns, "But that's why our game is so unique. We had the Dance Dance Revolution dancers dig up some info. This is the original Sugar Rush console. We grow with the generation we started with and then they will reprogram us when it's time for the new generation."
"But who is THEY Taffyta?" Vanellope asks. Taffyta grabs her Vanellope by the hand, puts her lollipop in her mouth and points towards the sky. There is a giant see through screen where they can see into the outside world.
"The first person racer. Come on Van, you know this! You know why we do what we do. We race so that THEY can have fun. And in exchange, THEY keep us alive. It's how it works and it is how it always will. Why did they have to give you such a complex code?"
"Why did they give you such a big mouth?" Vanellope snaps back. The two of them share a laugh together.
"Well they may have given me a big mouth but I also have my fashion sense, and you for a best friend," Taffyta smirks, "it's a gift!"
"Taffyta! Vanellope!" Another girl's voice calls. She has on a cream hat with brown outlines and a brown heart on her large baseball cap. She has caramel colored skin and shoulder length dark brown hair. She has on knee high brown boots and a chocolate colored leather jacket. Her shirt and skirt are both cream colored.
"Crumbelina di Carmello," Taffyta rolls her eyes, "What could you possibly want?"
"Oh I could name a couple things I want right now, blondie," Crumbelina glares at her.
"She's just kidding Lina," Vanellope hops in, "What's crackalackin'?"
"Well some of the other racers and I were headed into Grand Central Station because we heard that there is going to be a mad party going on over in Dance Dance Revolution World Tour, but we decided we were going to stop at Tappers and get something to eat. Have you ever tried food besides candy? It has a funny taste but it is super appetizing-"
"Was there a point to this story, Lina?" Taffyta sneers.
"I was getting to that, thank you and very much," Lina glares, "Anyway we walked out of Sugar Rush when all of a sudden there was this massive power surge! What I'm trying to say is… I mean… What I AM saying is… let's just say our game isn't the only one going to be generating some buzz tomorrow."
"What are you talking about?" Vanellope asks skeptically.
"There's a new game. It's called Tron. It's supposedly the last machine left in the entire world. What's strange is that this one is locked. There is no way to get inside the game and it doesn't look like anyone is getting out. But there's something else…"
"Something else?" Vanellope prompts her to continue.
"Well… we don't get new games very often… but when we do, comes a little trouble make-"
"PixelChick is back," Taffyta crosses her arms, "Vanellope let's go. Lina you got your bike?"
"Never leave without it Taf," Lina smiles.
"Taffyta, grab Candlehead and Rancis and meet us out in Grand Central Station." Vanellope says grabbing her teal helmet and swinging her leg over her bike. She revs it's engine and listens to it roar, "PixelChick is not sticking around this time."
