"What now?" Rapunzel asked. "Can't you...I don't know...track her or something?"
Hiro shook his head. "We don't know where she is. She has to be in San Fransokyo, though."
"But it's a huge city," Wasabi added.
Rapunzel's eyes widened in fear. What if they didn't find her mother? She couldn't lose her mother!
"Hey, Goldilocks, don't worry. We'll figure this out!" Fred came and slung an arm casually around the girl's slim shoulders. She jumped in surprise.
"M-my name's Rapunzel."
"Yeah, but your nickname's Goldilocks." Fred grinned.
She stared at him in confusion before slipping away from him awkwardly. What exactly was a nick name?
"Just kick him," GoGo called from a corner, snapping a bubble that appeared from her mouth.
This new reality was weird.
Eugene ran his hand through his hair, grabbing tufts of his own hair to pull in frustration. "Why don't you just send us back and clean up your own mess?"
"Because we need her to find Mother Gothel," Hiro jerked his thumb towards Rapunzel. "Before she can cause any trouble."
"Mother would never cause trouble!" Rapunzel jumped to Mother Gothel's defense.
"Well.." Honey Lemon started to speak up, but she cleared her throat and bit her lip to keep whatever she'd been wanting to say in.
After the team discussed their game plan, they set out in search of Mother Gothel.
"Wait, wait wait!" Honey Lemon stopped Rapunzel nearly as soon as she left the building. "You two need to fit in. And...your hair..."
Rapunzel glanced at her long locks protectively. "Wh-what about my hair?"
"You'll need to braid it up so it doesn't get stomped on. And you need to come to my house - we'll get you fixed up in some clothes straight away! Ohh, this'll be so much fun!"
"O-okay," Rapunzel laughed, letting the tall blonde lead her off.
Eugene shook his head. He was not letting anyone make him dress differently. He hugged his satchel protectively to his side.
"Hey, kid."
"Huh?" Hiro glanced up at him, a screwdriver held between his teeth as he packed a bag and fiddled with something simultaneously.
"You know where there'd be any black markets around here?"
"Sorry, no. You're coming with us."
"You know, I could make you rich beyond belief if I get to sell this thing," he made his way over to the pipsqueak of a kid, flashing open his satchel just enough to show the glimmering gems of the crown he held inside of it. Hiro's eyes widened. "We'd split the loot and be on our separate ways."
Hiro shook his head so hard his thick black hair trembled. "No. You've got to come with us. It's kind of my fault this whole thing went awry, and I can't let Honey Lemon suffer the consequences."
"Why do you even care about her? She's older than you, and so annoying! And if you think for a minute that I'm gonna fall in love with that-that...Blondie, I hate to tell you bud, but you're out of luck and your history books are flawed."
"She was my brother's girlfriend before he died," Hiro said curtly. "And our history books are definitely not flawed. We have DNA tests to prove it if you want to see."
"DNA?" Eugene scoffed, shaking his head.
"Look, Eugene-"
"How do you know my name?" It scared him now. Scared him out of his wits. Nobody knew his name except for him and his dead mother.
"History books," Hiro grinned, displaying a tooth gap that Eugene wanted to widen via a good punch in the face.
Rolling his eyes and groaning, Eugene sat down on some sort of squishy blob of a chair and waited.
Pretty soon, Rapunzel and Honey Lemon returned. Rapunzel's hair was braided and bundled up her back, leaving the end of her incredibly long hair tickling her ankles. She wore a fitted pink shirt and jeans, but she was still barefoot.
"We ready to go?" Eugene asked. He wanted to get this over with as soon as possible.
"Yep!" Wasabi strode past, hitching a small pack over his back. The rest of the team did so as well, and Hiro handed Eugene and Rapunzel their own. Pascal rode on Baymax's shoulder, and Rapunzel fully trusted the odd balloon man to take care of her chameleon friend.
As they walked down the streets of San Fransokyo, she tried to strike up a conversation with the man she'd taken hostage earlier that day. "So...Flynn. Where're you from?"
"Whoa, whoa, Blondie. I don't do backstory, okay? However, I'm becoming pretty interested in yours. Why is your mother such a-a danger?"
"She's not a danger," she shook her head. "She'd never..." She trailed off. Her mother would hurt a fly. She'd fallen victim to multiple beatings on her mother's accord, due to some things she supposed were dreadful and she should have never done or brought up, such as asking about where her father was or when she could go outside, or why she always felt better after having being sung to. "She'd never hurt anyone," she finished, but just barely.
"Hmm." Eugene shook his head. Something was up.
That's approximately when the car crash happened.
Rapunzel gasped and pushed past the team, trying to see what had happened.
Mother Gothel was in the middle of the road, having it out with someone, and she'd apparently caused all of those metal carriages to crash into one another, causing a chain reaction. But who...?
"One of the Stabbington brothers?" Eugene breathed. Whirling towards the group of teens, he gestured at the scene. "How did he get here?"
"He-he must have been nearby Gothel when she stepped into the portal. Is he a good guy or a bad guy?"
"Bad! Very, very, bad. Ohh, this is bad. This is bad. This is really bad!" he ducked down so he couldn't be seen, grabbing Hiro's thin frame and pushing him so he could hide behind him.
"Oh, woman up!" GoGo rolled her eyes at the tall man that was literally hiding behind a five-foot-two fifteen year old.
In the confusion, Rapunzel pushed towards her mother.
"Mother! I was so scared!" she cried, running towards her mother.
"Rapunzel!" Gothel stared at her in surprise and an emotion Rapunzel couldn't quite place.
That's when the Stabbington brother, Roy, grabbed her.
As she screamed, a burlap bag was thrown over her head. In the confusion, none of the citizens noticed. Eugene and the rest of the group did, however.
"You grab her, we'll go get Rapunzel!" Hiro yelled, gesturing to Wasabi.
Wasabi nodded, pushing through the throng of people to capture Mother Gothel.
Eugene outdistanced the younger people as he ran for Roy. Sure, he had made a pact with himself, promising that he'd never, ever fall for that weird princess, but he couldn't let Roy get his hands on her, either! Who knows what would happen to her!
He tackled Roy, only to be knocked out as well. The menace slung him over his shoulder firefighter-style and disappeared with both of them before anyone from the Big Hero 6 could make sense of what had happened.