A/N: Oh my goodness, it's been a while! So sorry for that, guys. Real life gets in the way of the fun sometimes. But I'm back now for the final chapter of this story. REMEMBER: this is just a prologue for the series I'm starting. And the first chapter of the new story will be released NEXT WEDNESDAY (the day after the movie comes out on DVD/Blu-Ray). Consider it a celebration. Guess what? BH6 is now the third highest grossing Disney film OF ALL TIME! Just behind Frozen and the Lion King. That's HUGE news! But I digress. Enjoy the final chapter of "Earthquake" and I hope that you'll leave me a review when you're done! ALSO: Tadahoney in this story. Or at least allusions and references to it. Hope that's okay with all of you!
"Think," Hiro admonished himself aloud, pacing around a street light that had been snapped in half as the team looked on with concern. "There's gotta be a way we can fix this!"
"The suits are draining fast," Wasabi noted glumly, attempting to activate the laser blades on his hands. They were only running at half their normal capacity, judging from the weak glow they gave off, proving the physics major's point.
Hiro let out a deflated sigh. "There has to be another way. Something we can do to power up the suits or get the grid back up and running…something. We can't just sit here!" He flopped down on the cracked, dusty sidewalk, gripping his head in his hands. What would Tadashi do if he wasn't in the hospital recovering from his head trauma? How would he find a creative solution to this problem? The others sat silently, each trying to work out a solution.
"What if we don't try to restore the grid, but instead we try to power essential buildings in the city and buy the maintenance crews time to get the actual power back?" Wasabi suggested.
"Good idea," Hiro agreed. It certainly seemed much simpler than trying to repair the city's infrastructure in one night. "But how are we going to come up with enough power to keep even the essential buildings running?"
"I got it!" Fred declared triumphantly. "We get Honey Lemon to cause an explosion using a top secret mixture of chemicals. Then, we harness the energy of that explosion and use it to power the city! It's genius!"
"It's...really not," Honey Lemon spoke up dejectedly, watching her friend's shoulders slump in defeat. "Even if I could make an explosion with enough energy to power the whole city, we have no way of harnessing that power."
"We could invent something in the lab! Right?" Fred suggested brightly.
"Wait!" Hiro leapt up from the ground in excitement. "That's it!"
"It is?" the team cried out in almost perfect unison. Even Fred looked astonished that his idea had been accepted.
"Yes!" Hiro could feel a giddiness building in his chest, rising. He couldn't hide the smile on his face. "The lab! There's got to be something there we can use or repurpose…something!"
"That's…actually a good point," Wasabi conceded.
"I hate to sound like a pessimist but we have to be realistic, guys," Go Go spoke up. "We don't even know if the lab is still standing."
"It's our only shot," Hiro replied. "We have to at least see."
The journey to San Fransokyo Institute of Technology usually took exactly twenty-two-and-a-half minutes by foot during rush hour. Hiro had it timed down to the second so that he could sleep in as late as possible. If he and Tadashi took the street car, it was about fourteen minutes. Ten with traffic if they took the moped, Aunt Cass's truck, or Wasabi's car. Fifteen if they hit every red light along the way. But fumbling around in the darkened city streets full of pot holes, debris, and fallen obstacles, the journey took considerably longer. It was nearly an hour later when they finally reached the edges of the SFIT campus. Hiro breathed out a sigh of relief when he saw the lab, still standing in all its modern glory. He could see through the large, floor-to-ceiling windows—some shattered—that the building's interior was bathed in pale light.
SFIT had its own generators, solar panels, and power grid due to the temperamental nature of the projects undertaken there. Some materials were volatile if they reached a certain temperature, others if they were not exposed to the correct amount of light. Still others needed to be constantly powered to avoid catastrophic side effects. In short, the school could not afford to leave these projects' fate to the public power grid. And that would be the team's ticket to hopefully finding a solution to this problem.
"Okay guys," Hiro instructed the team when they entered, "check your work stations for anything that could help us out—batteries, power cells…anything! We need to find a way to restore power to the city's major buildings."
The boy genius made a beeline for the enclosed lab that he and Tadashi shared. Tadashi had been given the private lab when he was conducting undergraduate research under Professor Callaghan. Some of the materials and schematics he had worked with were sensitive and needed to be kept under lock and key. After the project ended his sophomore year, Callaghan had pulled some strings to let the older Hamada keep his workspace. Hiro had reaped the benefits of that when he was first given the lab, and he was more than happy to share with Tadashi now that he was…back.
The fourteen-year-old yanked open every drawer, opened every cupboard, checked every work bench for anything that could be used to charge up a generator or power a device. It was easier said than done. In ten minutes, all he'd managed to come up with was a handful of lithium-ion batteries, two old lead batteries that he was fairly certain didn't work, a phone charger that was useless without a current, and a small solar power cell that he had ripped from a calculator. And Baymax's charging station, which was not at all helpful unless plugged in.
Throwing his finds in a box, he went out to join his friends in the lab. Fred was unscrewing the back of an action figure.
"What are you doing?" Hiro asked.
Fred held up the plastic collectible. "I was trying to leave my complete Captain Ultramegaman collection in the original packaging, but this is kinda important. Check it out," he opened his fist to show Hiro a handful of lithium-ion batteries. "They're powered by these. I thought they could help." Hiro nodded, awestruck as Fred dumped the small, circular batteries into the box.
"Here," Go Go approached him, toting a car battery that must've weighed at least fifteen pounds.
"Where'd you get that?" Hiro questioned.
She shrugged. "Had it lying around. I'm not using it. Maybe it can power a generator or something. There's three more over by my lab table."
Hiro thanked her and moved on to Honey Lemon's corner of the lab where she was eagerly prying apart any battery-powered device she could find. Her scale, calculators, timers, and microscope had all been stripped of their batteries, which she deposited with the other power cells they had found.
"This is great and all," Hiro said, looking into the box of assorted power cells and devices, "but if we want to power a building we're going to need something a lot more powerful…"
"Well…" Honey Lemon began. "There is…" she glanced nervously at Wasabi.
"No!" Wasabi's eyes widened. "No way. You can't! We worked too hard on…"
"There's no other way!" Honey Lemon interrupted him.
"What are you talking about?" Hiro questioned, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
Wasabi sighed, realizing Honey Lemon was right. "Two semesters ago, Honey Lemon and I teamed up on a project to power a laser grid. She helped me develop these small power cells to power the project."
"They run on a series of chemical reactions," Honey Lemon filled in. "They're small but very powerful. We submitted the designs to the school for patenting purposes but it's taking a while…The prototypes are still here though!"
"And they work?" Hiro asked excitedly.
"Of course they work!" she answered.
"Where did you guys keep them?"
"In the projects room," Wasabi replied more readily. "I have a key. C'mon."
The green-clad hero lead the others toward a locked door in the back of the building.
The projects room was where all completed or half-finished projects went for storage. Files were locked in drawers, actual machines put in locked boxes or covered in drop cloths and hermetically sealed. Things that needed to be kept at a consistent temperature were moved to the cold or hot storage rooms but other than that almost anything an SFIT student had built that hadn't been patented yet was kept here for safekeeping.
"Okay," Wasabi said, making his way around the room. "The device is in here," he indicated a locked storage unit, selecting another key from his meticulously organized, color-coded key ring. This one was labeled with neon blue tape. He inserted the key into the lock and twisted, pulling open the locker with a heavy, metallic clang to reveal a small machine wrapped in a drop cloth. The tag on the inside of the door read Developed by: Rodriguez, A., Williams, D. The advisors were listed as Suzuki, M. and Sagar, A. Wasabi carefully drew the invention out of the locker and unwrapped it.
Hiro was surprised by how compact the laser emitter was. "I'm sorry, baby, it's for a good cause," Wasabi whispered to the device.
"Oh suck it up, we have a power grid to save," Go Go yanked the laser from his grip and began to pry at it with a screwdriver.
"Easy! Easy!" Wasabi gestured wildly. "Be gentle with it!"
"Guys?" Fred called, his voice echoing through the large room. "My suit's power cell is drained. No fireballs."
Honey Lemon glanced at her purse. "Mine is empty too."
"I'm drained also," Go Go growled as she finally pried the machine's faceplate loose, revealing a series of power cells inside. There were at least thirty, each glowing brightly.
"Be careful! They're volatile if you handle them too roughly!" Honey Lemon warned. "Here, I'll do it," she assumed Go Go's place and methodically lifted the glowing power cells from the core of the device. "I'll hold onto these."
"Okay," Hiro nodded to his friends. "Hopefully they'll be powerful enough to power a few buildings until the city can fully repair the grid. We can use whatever else we found to start restoring power to places around the city as well." A beeping noise emanating from his arm indicated that his suit had also run out of power. "Let's ditch the suits here. We can leave them to charge off the generator power and pick them up afterwards. I wanna check out the power station as well, just in case there's something we can do."
The team switched back into regular clothes and proceeded out of the SFIT laboratory. The city's main power station was located in the foothills just past uptown, a sprawling complex that was normally illuminated as bright as day during all hours and ordinarily visible from Hiro and Tadashi's bedroom window. But now, stumbling around in the darkened streets, unable to see their goal, the journey felt endless. Hiro was hopeful that they would at least be able to do something while they were up there, though he doubted it.
The central power station was normally surrounded by a barbed wire fence and numerous Danger! High Voltage signs to deter trespassers. The earthquake had brought all of that down, exposing the station. Blue sparks crackled every so often as the team cautiously approached, weaving their way around exposed wires.
"We need to get to the central control room," Hiro stage whispered to the others, afraid that there might be guards around. They might be willing to write Big Hero 6 a free pass, but right now they were just five college kids stumbling around.
The control room was easy to find thanks to its sheer size—easily three or four times larger than any other building in the complex. It was bathed in red emergency lights and the haphazardly spun-around chairs and knocked over stacks of paper clearly indicated the frenzy of the evacuation after the quake. Backup generators were struggling to keep up with demand and Hiro was certain that most of the power wasn't being pushed through to the city anyway.
"Let me take a look," Go Go suggested, inspecting the room for any indication as to where the main power distribution center was. The others followed the industrial design and mechanical engineering whiz. She seemed to find what she was looking for as she pried off a large panel and began investigating the mess of wiring inside, some of which had become wrenched loose in the earthquake. "Well the good news is that most of the power infrastructure is still intact," she declared finally. "The bad news is that since most of the power lines are down, the city still has no way of accessing that power."
Hiro sighed. He should have known this was the case but it was worth a shot.
"Guess it's time for plan B," Fred declared with excitement. "Time to bring power to the people!" He held up a lithium battery dramatically, panicking when it slipped from his grasp and clattered to the floor, landing on its side and rolling around him in circles a few times before he was finally able to snatch it up with a slightly embarrassed chuckle.
"We should split up," Hiro advised. "Wasabi and Fred, you guys take downtown. Go Go, you hit up the city center. Honey Lemon and I can head back uptown to restore power up there. We'll meet back at the Lucky Cat."
"What buildings do we power?" Wasabi asked.
"Get the essentials first," Hiro suggested. "Hospitals, fire stations, police stations. Then try bringing power back to a few stores and restaurants or places people can seek shelter if you have any power cells left."
With that, the team split up to make the long walks to their assigned perimeters. Honey Lemon walked alongside Hiro, slowing her strides to match the pace set by his shorter legs. She studied him for a little bit, noticed that he looked different. Older. He had changed a lot when they had first thought Tadashi was dead. They had all changed a lot. But since they had discovered the elder Hamada's whereabouts, most of the team had returned largely to their original selves. Hiro, however, seemed to be under just as much stress. Perhaps for different reasons. But if Hiro had looked older before, he looked even older now, with an ashen face, deep-set bags under his eyes, and a slow gait.
"You're worried about Tadashi," she noted without really asking.
"Yeah," Hiro swallowed thickly, the single syllable somewhat strangled in his throat.
"He'll be fine, you know," Honey Lemon tried to reassure him and herself. "It's a concussion. Those can heal."
"I know."
But she knew that wasn't what Hiro was worried about. Nor was it what she was worried about or any of their friends really. It could have been a scrape but it would have had the same effect. They had already lost Tadashi once. The possibility of losing him again was terrifying. In the time before Tadashi's disappearance, she had believed they had a real future together. They had begun a relationship in the first semester of their sophomore year. She hadn't decided yet if what she felt for Tadashi was love, but whatever it was, she felt it very strongly and could sense he did as well. They connected on a very deep level. He understood, respected her intellect and made her feel valued. So his apparent death had hit her very hard, if not as hard as it struck Hiro. After Tadashi's return, things hadn't been the same. Their past relationship seemed to be the elephant in the room, neither referencing it though she could still feel the tension, still feel that same emotion welling up inside her when she saw him, thought of him. But she didn't want to press the issue. He hadn't been back very long, was still readjusting to life in a world that had gone nearly a year without him. He needed time. And the earthquake had nearly cut that time short before they could rekindle anything. The thought of forever living with that uncertainty, forever living without the boy who made her feel this way, was horrifying, especially now that she'd been given an excruciating taste of that life.
Uptown loomed ahead of them, dark and dusty. People were still milling about, sifting through rubble, calling out names of loved ones. Honey Lemon looked at the six power cells she had. "I'll go to the police station, the fire station, then the shelter and grocery stores."
Hiro nodded. "I'm going to get the Lucky Cat so that we have someplace to work out of later. Then I'll go to the clinic, grocery stores, and the hospital." The two parted ways. The Lucky Cat—or at least the remains of it—stood empty and crumbling as Hiro crept through the garage. Mochi, who had been dozing amid the debris, woke up and followed him curiously as he went to the fuse box and began fiddling with the electrical system, hooking it up to the power cell. There was a faint whir as the building slowly came back online, much to the astonishment of the boy and the dusty cat. With one objective complete, Hiro continued on to restore power to the clinic and finally to a few corner bodegas stocking staple ingredients. With his final power cell in hand, he headed off to the hospital to check on Baymax who was no doubt either running amok the way he had after their encounter with Callaghan in the factory or completely drained of power at this point and serving as little more than a deflated floor mat.
In the waiting room, he found his answer. Baymax was slumped over, low on air and completely drained in one of the chairs. The same red-haired nurse from earlier spotted the boy and recognized him immediately.
"Thanks for loaning him to us," she said earnestly. "He ran out of battery but before he did he was able to see and diagnose over three hundred patients. He really freed up the emergency room…until he started acting crazy towards the end."
"Sorry about that," Hiro apologized, approaching his deflated healthcare companion and inserting the power cell where his other battery normally was. Baymax immediately came to life, filling with air as he ran through his introduction sequence.
"Hello. I am Baymax, your personal healthcare companion. Hello, Hiro."
"Hey, buddy," Hiro smiled, relieved that the robot was still functioning normally. He turned to the nurse. "How's my aunt and brother?"
"Well we got your aunt into a cast for her broken arm and she's doing fine. A few weeks in that and she'll be back to normal. Your brother needs to rest due to the concussion but the doctor expects him to make a full recovery. You can go see him if you like. He's just through here," the woman led the way, pulling back a curtain to reveal a tired-looking Tadashi reclined in a hospital bed, Aunt Cass sitting beside him, arm immobilized in a dark blue cast. She looked relieved to see her younger nephew.
"Thank goodness you're alright," she said, squeezing him to her side with her good arm. "I mean, we always knew you'd be okay but I'm still so happy to see you," she said.
"We got power going for most of the major buildings in the city," the boy informed her.
"I'm proud of you, bonehead," Tadashi spoke faintly from the bed, a playful smirk spreading across his features. Hiro returned the smirk with a gap-toothed grin that clearly showed his elation at finding his brother relatively safe.
There were voices outside and soon the family was joined by Fred, Wasabi, Go Go, and Honey Lemon.
"Mission accomplished!" Fred declared triumphantly, a little too loudly, causing Tadashi to wince involuntarily as the other five hushed him in unison. "Sorry," Fred whispered. "Mission accomplished!" he cried in a much softer voice.
"So you got power back for all the major buildings?"
"Yup," Go Go snapped her bubble gum. "Piece of cake."
"There's a problem, though," Wasabi announced, eyes a little wide. The others turned to him. "While I was helping the police station get their power back, I heard something bad. Really, really bad."
"What?" Hiro asked with baited breath.
"During the earthquake, fifteen criminals managed to escape San Fransokyo State Penitentiary. They're still at large."
A/N: Okay, so I'm evil and ending the series on a cliffhanger. BUT, I already promised a new story that will be based off a continuation of the events here. That story will debut THIS Wednesday evening at approximately seven PM eastern US time. I'm sure you know where it's going… I hope you guys liked this story. I tried to wrap up plot points while also establishing new ones for the next story. Please leave a review letting me know what you think and again, I appreciate all of you for taking the time to read this story through. It really means so much to me!