Chapter 4: Girls, Guns, and Explosives

"If we do this..." Hiro said, trailing off as he scribbled on their working diagram.

"We can also do that! And if we change this..." Mary added as she also scribbled on said diagram, changing things further.

"That will fit there! Yes!"

Working with Mary Ito was... amazing. As a rule of thumb, Hiro didn't work well with others. It was a bit of a side effect of being way smarter than the people who were nominally his peers. The team was a bit of an exception and even then it was mostly him leading except where their expertise took precedence. For example, the placement of the buttons and what chemicals went into Honey Lemon's purse were her work, while making it all work was Hiro. With Mary, however, there was a type of synergy he normally only achieved while working with Tadashi.

"This is amazing! We'll definitely get an A!" Mary enthused as she looked over their rough but mostly finished design. Some of the math would need to be double-checked and it would need to be cleaned up, but it looked pretty awesome to Hiro.

"Yeah! I could probably whip up a prototype just from this," Hiro replied, looking up at Mary.

They were sitting across from each other, although they'd both practically climbed on top of the table in their enthusiasm in order to reach all of the parts of the diagram. Her hair was in a big fluffy ponytail right now, which made her look a year or so older than normal and her eyes were lit with the brilliant fire of an idea going well and, for one long moment, all Hiro wanted to do was press his lips against her sunshine smile. Then he realized what he was thinking, paled, and backed away.

"Is... something wrong?" she inquired with a confused frown.

"No!" Hiro squeaked before coughing and stating in a lower tone, "No, I just remembered that bad joke my friends made about us dating."

"Oh. Yeah," Mary stated, leaning back with a grimace. Hiro wondered if the idea of dating him was really that bad before he quickly slammed a trashcan lid down on that train of thought.

"So... you're going to make these for that Big Hero in purple?" Mary asked after an uncomfortable moment of silence. Hiro latched on to it with the desperation of a drowning man.

"Yeah. I mean, if that's okay with you, it's partly your design too, but I think they might find it useful."

"Fine by me. I've never designed something for a superhero before. What's she like?"

"Wha... you... What makes you think they're a girl?!"

"It's obvious, duh. She's wearing purple and is clearly some sort of tomboy."

"Well, for your information, they're a guy!"

"Really? What guy is that short?"

"He... he just is, okay!" Hiro sputtered, red in the face.

"She's a girl and you just don't want to admit it," Mary insisted, folding her arms across her chest.

"He is not!"

"Oh yeah? Prove it."

"You... gah! I'm not giving away secret identities just because you think someone's a girl when they're not!"

"That just means you can't prove it and they're really are a girl," Mary stated with a smirk.

Hiro clenched his teeth to keep himself from grinding them and hissed, "Let's just change the subject."

"Fine," Mary agreed. After another awkward silence, she finally asked, "So... is your brother dating anyone?"

"Tadashi? He doesn't date. He has no luck with girls. The only ones who like him are crazy and/or evil," Hiro replied, thinking of Kaitlyn and that one Fujita from the roller derby.

"I am not crazy!" Mary stated heatedly. Hiro blinked in confusion.

"I didn't say you were."

"Oh, so I'm evil?! Thanks a lot!" Mary hissed as she grabbed her stuff and stormed off.

"I didn't say that either!" Hiro called to her retreating back before slumping with a sigh. Great.


Tadashi was testing something with Baymax in the break room when Hiro came in, flopped face down onto the couch, and stayed there unmoving.

"It is not recommended to sleep on ones' face as that could lead to suffocation," Baymax advised even as Tadashi walked over with a fondly exasperated expression. He pulled Hiro's head up by the hair and asked, "Bad day?"

"Ugh," Hiro said, rolling his eyes. Tadashi hummed and dropped Hiro's head so his face hit the couch cushions again. Hiro rolled over in response and propped his feet up on the arm of the couch.

"Why are you working on Baymax in here?"

"Because I don't want to give Gogo the opportunity to lock me in my lab," Tadashi replied as he scribbled something down when Baymax tried and failed to pick up the soccer ball because he'd accidentally kicked it out of his reach.

"Is she still mad at you?"

"Furious last I checked, but I'm still not certain if it's that I'm going to be seeing Callaghan or that we decided Wasabi should be my bodyguard."

"Probably the latter more than the former. She knows you're a big enough dork to give someone a chance when you shouldn't, but the idea that she's not good enough to protect you would really torque her off."

"Wasabi's the only one with a weapon that works in small spaces, if barely, aside from me - well, I suppose Honey Lemon can technically work indoors as well, but only if she doesn't make anything melt or explode. Anyway, I can't bring the microbots. They'll make me take off my hat when I go see Callaghan."

"Tell her, not me. I agree Wasabi's the one who should go."

"Right," Tadashi agreed before Hiro quickly cut him off before he could ask the question he obviously wanted to ask.

"Since you're working on him, have you thought about giving Baymax a tracker since he tends to wander off?" Hiro asked. Tadashi blinked.

"He already has a tracker."

"Well, that would have been nice to know!" Hiro complained, tossing his hands above his head only to wince when he accidentally hit the arm of the couch.

"About the trackers..." Tadashi began.

"We're keeping them," Hiro stated with finality. "We all agreed it was a necessity. Right now it's just you and me and apparently Baymax out of the suits, but the others are getting with the program."

"But-"

"Are you planning on letting a bunch of evil roller geisha borrow your phone again?"

"What? No!"

"Then I don't see the problem."

"Fine. So what had you down earlier?" Tadashi replied before quickly switching the subject. Hiro winced and then shrugged.

"I don't get girls," Hiro complained.

"You seem to get Honey Lemon and Gogo just fine," Tadashi pointed out.

"Okay, fine, I get girls. I just don't get Mary Ito."

"Oh? What happened?" Tadashi asked as he set aside his notebook to look at Hiro fully.

"She accused me of calling her crazy and evil and stormed off."

"And did you call her crazy and evil?"

"No!"

"So... who did you call crazy and evil?"

"The girls who like you. You have really bad luck, you know," Hiro informed him. Tadashi grimaced at that, then his eyes widened.

"Wait, she likes me? But she's you're age!" Hiro blinked at Tadashi's exclamation and then winced when he realized exactly what he'd said to tick off Mary. Then he stood up and started pacing.

"Dang, I'm an idiot! Of course she likes you! I mean... look at you! And then I implied the only people who like you are like Kaitlyn and that one creepy Fujita."

"What did you mean, 'look at me'?" Tadashi wanted to know.

"Uh, duh," he replied, gesturing at first himself and then Tadashi and adding, "I mean, how can this compare to all of that?"

Tadashi gave him a weird look that nevertheless spoke volumes about what he thought about Hiro's train of thought.

"This," Tadashi said, gesturing at himself, "Isn't going to impress her as much as this." He tapped Hiro on the forehead. "Impress her with your brains, genius."

"Whoa! What makes you think I want to impress her," Hiro quickly backpedaled. Tadashi gave him an incredulous look.

"Oh, so that wasn't you that came in here pining because you made her mad and weren't sure why."

"Che. No way! I'm just... worried about finishing our project, is all," Hiro defended. Tadashi's look changed to one of disbelief as he shook his head.

"Unbelievable."

"May I ask some questions?" Baymax suddenly spoke up from where he'd gotten the soccer ball stuck in the corner. Hiro shrugged as he plopped back down on the sofa.

"Yeah, go ahead."

"Do you ever feel... nauseous in Mary Ito's presence?"

"Oh, yeah, all the time," Hiro snarked, rolling his eyes. The screen on Baymax's chest lit up and a marked check-box appeared next to the word 'Nausea".

"Do you ever feel heart palpitations that only appear in her presence?"

"Meh, let's go with that." Another line and another marked check-box appeared.

"Have you ever had problems focusing on things when she is present?"

"Nah, I seem to hyper-focus," Hiro replied, starting to take the questions a bit more seriously now that Baymax was continuing with them.

"So you focus on one thing to the exclusion of others?" Baymax tried to clarify.

"Yeah, I guess," Hiro agreed with a shrug.

"Have you ever experienced time dilation in her presence?"

"Are you trying to imply she has her own physics system?" Hiro wondered, eyebrows rising.

"A simple 'yes' or 'no' will suffice," Baymax patiently stated.

"Uh, well, we did get kind of caught up on the project and miss Professor Squires' class once so... yes?" The check-marked list disappeared and Baymax straightened before holding up one finger in that odd way of his.

"Diagnosis complete: you are in love."

Hiro choked on his spit while Tadashi stated, "I'm... pretty certain I didn't program that in you."

"My programming includes learning and emulating human emotions. While learning, I have discovered the emotion known as romantic love is very well documented and has several physiological effects that I have added to my database. These include the sensation of butterflies in the stomach-" Baymax's stomach displayed the list again and highlighted 'Nausea' followed by "Heart Palpitations" and so on down the list.

"-the heart beating faster and even skipping a beat while in the presence of the desired person, trouble focusing on anything that doesn't involve the other person while in their presence, and a sensation of time slowing when together yet it not feeling long enough. Then there are your neurotransmitters."

"What about my neurotransmitters?" Hiro demanded.

"You are... nervous whenever you are about to meet her again, and several neurotransmitters seem involved, particularly the ones responsible for... fear and... elation. After seeing her, you are always calmer and your neurotransmitters suggest... satisfaction. Fulfillment. Excitement."

"We're working on a project together! I always get that way when working on a super cool project," Hiro protested. Baymax blinked and tilted his head.

"My previous scans suggest otherwise. While it is true that your neurotransmitters are similar when coming down from a project, they are not precisely the same and you have never been nervous before starting a project. Once you have an idea, you tend to start immediately. The elation is there, but not the nervousness."

"Look, just... just stop, okay?" Hiro asked, pinching the bridge of his nose while waving a hand at Baymax. He started when Tadashi's hand landed on his shoulder.

"Can I talk to you?"

"Uh, yeah, sure," Hiro agreed.

"Baymax, I am satisfied with my care," Tadashi informed the robot, who waddled over to his recharging station and collapsed.

"There. Now he can't hear us or interrupt. Now about this whole Mary Ito thing-"

"I'm not in to her! Really, I'm not!" Hiro insisted.

"Okay," Tadashi stated with simple belief, "But if you ever change your mind..."

"I am not going to change my mind," Hiro insisted hotly.

"I said 'if', not 'when'," Tadashi stated reprovingly.

"Sorry."

"Anyway, what I'm trying to say... I... Look, I..." Tadashi halted, ran a hand over his face with a sigh, and then admitted, "Kaitlyn is an excuse for me."

"What?" Hiro asked, wide-eyed.

"She's my excuse for not dating. Which isn't to say she didn't traumatize me, because she did but... dang it, I'm not explaining this well. I didn't want to date her to begin with, okay? I only did because I felt pressured to do so. Then I felt pressured to be her prince charming even though that wasn't who I really was and it made me miserable to pretend. But I kept doing it because I was scared. I was scared of what people would think and do and I was scared of her, long before the, uh, the incident in the café.

"The entire time we were together, I felt coerced and used and... and trapped and I'm terrified of feeling that way again. But I'm also angry that it kept me - is keeping me - from figuring out an important part of myself. I don't know if I'm asexual, aromantic, both, or neither and I don't know if I'll ever figure that out now and ever stop wondering if I'm that way because she made me that way.

"And if you ever feel the same way - whether it's with Mary Ito or someone else - if you feel pressured to be together or she frightens you or anything like that, don't do it or, if you already have, then get out as soon as you can. But... I don't want you to miss out on something that could be amazing if you just let it be just because I had a bad experience. Okay?"

"Okay," Hiro replied in a small voice, not certain what to do with this information now that Tadashi had laid it all out. If nearly seeing Tadashi die in that fire had driven home that his brother was mortal, then this just cracked the pedestal he'd placed the other on further.

"Just... think on it, okay?" Tadashi suggested.

"Yeah, I will."

"Good," Tadashi said before ruffling Hiro's hair hard enough to make him squawk in protest and bat his hands away. Then Wasabi leaned past the open doorway and peered in.

"You ready to go, Tadashi?" he asked.

Tadashi straightened and asked, "It's that time already?"

"Close enough. We still have to swing by Fred's to pick up my supersuit. Fred's arranged a car and Mazda's got a police escort that's going to meet us there so we don't have to try and force our way through the media circus hanging outside the jail."

"Right," Tadashi agreed before turning to Hiro, "See you later?"

"Of course," Hiro agreed before holding out his fist. Tadashi bumped it with his own and grinned as they both made an exploding noise.

"I'll see you later. And don't forget your last class!"

"Yeah, yeah," Hiro waved him off. Then, once he was gone, Hiro collapsed back onto the couch. He had a lot to think about.


"Personal items here," the guard at the desk intoned, pushing over a plain tray with the number fifteen painted on it in black paint that had nearly worn off. Tadashi put his wallet, keys, and a set of screws he'd forgotten he'd pocketed earlier in the tray before sighing and taking off his cap when the guard stared at it pointedly. He ran a hand through his hair, trying to make it look somewhat presentable, before turning to where two more guards were waiting by the door that led further into the jail. He let himself be quickly patted down and then they were leading him through, the younger of the two telling Wasabi, "Don't worry. We'll take care of him from here."

Tadashi met Wasabi's eyes and Wasabi nodded before leaning against the wall with his arms folded to wait, something that didn't surprise Tadashi as he'd seen the look Wasabi had given the filthy waiting room chairs when they'd come in. The fact that it made Wasabi look bigger and more superheroish than him perching on one of the chairs would was probably an advantage.

The door they led Tadashi through was at the end of a hallway that was bifurcated by a wall of mesh grating with a matching door that acted as a check point. After that was a turn down another hall and a room obviously meant for visitors who required a modicum of privacy as they discussed legal matters. It wasn't a private room by any means, but since this was a jail and not a prison, they obviously didn't feel the need for safety measures like a wall of glass with telephones. That would likely change once Callaghan was convicted but for now he was allowed to talk to someone without it being recorded or purposely overheard by a hovering guard.

"Here we go, Mr. Hamada. Give us a moment and he'll be brought right in."

"Thank you."

The wait felt interminable to Tadashi but the clock caged up high on the wall said it hadn't even been five minutes before Callaghan entered the room. Tadashi frowned slightly as he studied the older man. Callaghan seemed to be... resigned, although something in him visibly relaxed when he saw Tadashi.

"Thank you for doing this, Tadashi," Callaghan murmured once they were situated at the table and the guards were a safe distance away.

"Don't thank me yet. This is a just a visit. Nothing has been decided yet," Tadashi stated coolly, although he winced internally. Apparently, he wasn't taking Callaghan's betrayal as well as he'd thought. He'd been so busy calming his friends' and brother's upsets that it wasn't until he was alone facing the man that the ugly combination of hurt, rage, and betrayed trust decided to raise their slimy heads, slither through his blood, and nibble at his brain.

"So you're gathering more data to see if your hypothesis is correct. Smart boy," Callaghan stated with a hint of a proud smile that disappeared quickly to a more solemn expression, an echo from when they'd been student and mentor. Tadashi felt sick, especially considering what the man had told him during the fight at Krei Tech. Not strong enough, notsmart enough, not good enough. Callaghan obviously realized it was the wrong thing to say, because there was a long, uncomfortable silence until the older man broke it.

"I'm glad it was you and the others who stopped me. I mean, I'm not glad I was caught, but it was rather inevitable. And you got Abigail back. I can't thank you enough for that."

Tadashi looked up from studying the table and asked coolly, "Is that all?"

Robert Callaghan grimaced and opened his mouth, before closing it, and then opening it again to ask with sincere curiosity, "Why are you here?"

Tadashi sighed, ran a hand through his hair while wishing for his cap, and said, "I don't know. I guess... I just wanted to know one thing. Do you regret it? Do you regret what you did at all?"

Callaghan blew out his breath.

"Yes," he replied, "and no. I regret the loss of my old life and I regret being caught and I regret dragging you and your brother and all the rest of your group into my mess and I regret the actions I took to try and get you to back out. But the end result brought my daughter back from what was supposed to be her grave. Because of that, I don't think I can ever entirely regret what happened.

"A better question would be: do I intend on repeating it? The answer is no. A thousand times no. But we can't go back from this point and being behind bars is a small price to pay to know my daughter is alive and well."

"You deserve to be behind bars," Tadashi insisted vehemently, only to grimace at saying what he'd intended to keep private in his head. Callaghan raised an eyebrow but shocked Tadashi by agreeing.

"Yes, I do. I don't deny that. That's why I'm pleading guilty. Your part in this... all I'm asking you to do, is that you help me so that, when I'm old and frail and no longer a threat to anyone anymore, that I'll be allowed to leave here and spend the last of my time with my family."

Tadashi bit his lip and breathed through his nose before asking, "Why me?"

"Of everyone I know, you seemed the least likely to hold a grudge. It's possible I've misjudged that, but you've always been good at giving people a fair chance before," Callaghan replied. Tadashi snorted.

"So this is all I'm good for? Being your patsy. I don't think so." Tadashi stood but didn't get more than a step away from the table before Callaghan's next words brought him to a halt.

"I didn't mean what I said to you. About you not being good enough," Callaghan called. Tadashi paused, then sighed and turned to face Callaghan.

"Then why'd you say it?"

"Because I needed to take you down hard and fast and it was the only way I could think of that didn't involve killing you," Callaghan replied. "You've always been your own worst enemy, Tadashi. Your lack of self-esteem works against you. Even then, it took all I had to keep control of the microbots. If you'd truly believed you could take control of them, I'd have lost any hold I'd had over them earlier. As it was, your self-esteem issues and that robot distracting you were the only reason I managed to get away from the island with the microbots at all.

"I get why you have low self-esteem. I really do. Having your brother out-shine you has to get disheartening sometimes. But you really do need to learn to use it to your advantage more. You got Krei just a minute after beating me because he noticed Hiro but not you, to his detriment. The only reason people walk over you is because you let them."

Tadashi pursed his lips, but nodded, accepting this last bit of advice from his former mentor.

"You know," Callaghan added, "For a little while I thought you and Abigail were... Heh. It was all the fantasies of an old man, I know, but let's just say I would've been proud to call you son."

"I wish I could still say the same," Tadashi replied as he turned to walk out of the room. A loud buzzer-like noise made him stop in confusion right before the full weight of Robert Callaghan drove him to the floor.

"Wha-"

The explosion literally deafened him. His ears were ringing and he was having trouble breathing between the dust filling the room and Callaghan's weight on top on his back. He managed to look up in time to see the two guards enter the room, shouting something that he couldn't make out above the ringing and then there were two barks of noise he could barely hear and Tadashi watched in horror as the guards slumped to the ground, each bleeding from a neat bullet hole in their forehead.

Then Callaghan's weight disappeared from his back at the same time a gun entered Tadashi's field of vision. There was more noise, impossible to make out as everything sounded like he was deep underwater, but going off the gestures made by the gun, he was being ordered to stand up. There was a half-dozen men in some sort of weird armor, their faces covered by helmets and guns in their hands. Fred probably would've compared them to stormtroopers if they hadn't been dressed in gray. Tadashi scrambled to his feet, casting desperate looks around himself and wishing he hadn't left his cap and thus the NCT at home.

"-told you... tell your boss 'No!' ...not going-" Callaghan was yelling but it sounded distorted and he kept missing chunks of it. His former professor looked livid and was struggling against the hold of two of the six men who'd just entered the room. The man Callaghan was yelling at obviously didn't like what Callaghan was saying, because he stuck him with the hand that was holding his gun. Tadashi's eyes widened at the sight and he stumbled back, only for his butt to hit the wall. Then the volume snapped back into place and Tadashi was nearly overwhelmed by the sounds of sirens and people shouting and screaming and the beeping of the van as it pulled up to the hole in the wall. Then everyone seemed to be focusing on Tadashi and there were hands on his arms and a gun in his face again.

"Leave him alone! It's me you want!" Callaghan shouted, despite the blood flowing down the side of his face.

"Of course we want you," the man who seemed to be in charge calmly informed Callaghan, "but it would be pretty remiss of us to not grab a Hamada while we have the chance."

Then the solid metal door that led into the room seemed to rise off its hinges and plow into two of the men, Wasabi being the driving force as he put his shoulder to it like a linebacker for a really geeky sports team.

"Wasabi, look out!" Tadashi shouted as the startled gunmen started to react. One of them pointed his weapon at Wasabi but Wasabi, with the precision he would become famous for, split the end in half lengthwise with a single sweep of a glowing green blade. Another weapon was aimed at him but Wasabi smoothly cut the end of the barrel clean off. The man holding it wisely dropped it, cursing as the smoldering remains caught the traces of gunpowder in the barrel and made the weapon misfire.

Everyone ducked but the man holding Tadashi by the arm quickly pulled him upright to use him as a hostage. Wasabi froze and his eyes met Tadashi's. Tadashi glanced at his captor and then back at Wasabi before inclining his head ever so slightly. Wasabi nodded back just as subtly while tensing.

"Whatever you're thinking, you'd better stop!" the man holding Tadashi warned. Wasabi shifted his back foot.

"I said stop!" the man demanded, gun wavering away from Tadashi and towards Wasabi. As soon as that happened, he'd regret it as Tadashi proceeded to show exactly why he had a black belt in karate.

A quick and devastatingly accurate stab by Wasabi with his right blade destroyed the gun before the man could bring it into play and then Tadashi was safely behind Wasabi and the man was running for the back of the van the others had pulled Callaghan into while Wasabi had been occupied saving Tadashi. The man barely made it in time as the van pealed away with a screech of tires.

"Well, shit," Wasabi stated, standing there and staring at the mess.

"What are you waiting for? They're getting away!" Tadashi shouted, moving to leap out of the broken wall and follow the van, only to be pulled back.

"Whoa, there! You're not the one in the supersuit here," Wasabi reminded him, "And I say we get you medical attention. You're bleeding."

"What?" Tadashi asked, surprised. Wasabi gestured at his temple. Tadashi touched the spot gestured at, winced at the throb of pain, and pulled his fingers back when they encountered something warm and sticky and entirely too bright a red for his comfort.

"Medical attention. Now," Wasabi repeated. Tadashi could only nod.


A butterfly bandage on his temple was the only sign Tadashi had gone through anything at all, even though his brother and friends all studied him closely to try and catch any other signs, like a bruise or something. If there was, it was hidden under his clothes and agitation.

"I can't believe we let them get away with kidnapping Callaghan," Tadashi was moaning.

"You were out of suit and injured and thus my first priority," Wasabi stated dryly as he gave his friend a look before adding, "Besides, I'm not the fast one. What was I going to do? Chase them down on foot?"

Tadashi slumped with a sigh.

"I know, but this looks really bad, doesn't it? Especially for Callaghan."

"Are you still defending him?" Gogo demanded incredulously.

"Yes! I believed him when he said he was pleading guilty because he deserved to spend time behind bars. But he also really wanted to get out with enough time left to spend it with Abigail. This? Doesn't help him achieve that in any way."

"He's right. Being on the run wouldn't get Callaghan any closer to his daughter and, when he's caught, makes it more likely he won't get out again at all," Fred insisted.

"So you think it's probably an outright kidnapping and not an escape?" Mazda asked from the head of the conference table.

"I can't really see any reason for Callaghan to willingly go," Hiro stated thoughtfully.

"He didn't. They pistol-whipped him, for crying out loud," Tadashi added.

"But who would kidnap him?" Honey Lemon inquired. There was a pause.

"Well, he is a brilliant roboticist."

"And what would these guys do with robots?"

"Well, they did break Callaghan out of jail by taking down the wall to the visiting room. That means these guys have access to explosives, at least one person capable of getting past security cameras long enough to set them, and enough information to know Callaghan was going to be in that room. In fact, it's all too likely they were waiting for someone they knew was connected to Callaghan to show. That level of planning... these aren't just some two-bit thugs," Mazda stated, "But they're also not someone we can take down right now."

"So that's it? We're just going to let them get away?" Hiro demanded.

"Unless you have a way of tracking them that we don't, you're just going to have to wait and let the police do their jobs," Mazda informed them a bit testily. The team subsided at that.

"We need to up the bodyguard visibility again, don't we?" Wasabi mentioned, trying to change the subject.

"I don't think I was the target," Tadashi protested.

"Not a target? They waited until you were in the same room as Callaghan and tried to grab you both!" Gogo challenged.

"They might have just been waiting for someone who was obviously there to visit Callaghan. And, well, Tadashi and I were pretty obvious," Wasabi tried to defend.

"Yeah, yeah," Gogo replied, backing down before adding, "I'm not taking the night shift."

"We'll do the standard one where we put Baymax on the roof at night. Any other scheduling can wait," Hiro insisted, practically laying on the table. Wasabi felt for the kid. The late nights were obviously starting to get to him if he was about to fall asleep now. It was barely half past six in the evening. A knock on the door made Hiro jerk back upright and everyone look at the rookie cop who'd just opened the door, only to freeze at the sight of them.

"Well? What is it?" Mazda prompted.

"I'm sorry to interrupt," the rookie stated nervously, "but you said you wanted anything involving certain people and locations forwarded to you immediately, even if you were off the clock. So, um... here!" The rookie cop handed over a piece of paper with a squeak and fled. Mazda quickly read what it said with a grim look.

"Looks like this day just got even better," she muttered sarcastically before looking up at them and stating, "There was a bomb threat at the Lucky Cat."

"WHAT?!"


Notes: Sorry about the long wait. I actually had most of this written out and waiting to type up ages ago, although some it was like three different versions of Tadashi and Callaghan's talk. I've been a bit distracted by original fiction lately. You guys might even love it as much as I currently am as it's obviously been inspired by Big Hero 6 and some of the characters are even expies (*coughHiroandTadashicough*) but the whole thing is different enough that it definitely qualifies as original.

If anyone is interested, I'm looking for some... well, not beta-readers, although if any grammar mistakes or plot holes are noticed, I'd appreciate the heads up. Mostly, the job would entail reading the chapters as they come out, telling me what you think, and basically encouraging me to keep it up until it's done because I work better when I have more people than just me invested in what I'm doing. In exchange you would, of course, get full access to the work before it's even published, acknowledgment in the final work, and, if I can swing it, a free copy of the ebook once it's published. PM me on ffn or email me at the email in my AO3 profile if you're interested in knowing more.

And yes, this will still be updated. It's just going to be a bit slower, like every two weeks or so. Thank you for patience.