REVIEW REPLIES:
Miss Wipplesnit:
Thanks!
'Independent' is good, but still not quite close enough to what I was going for.
Johnny Spectre:
Well I suppose it could be written from where this left off in the previous chapter, or completely start from the beginning or something. IDK, it was an idea.
*Snorts* You have great imagination, ya know that?
That's once again not exactly what we have in mind, but it's closer!
Superfan44:
That's the thing about Taffyta, once you have Mindy Kaling's voice in your head, you've got her in seconds! Helps that Taffy and Disgust from Inside Out are nearly interchangeable.
Ohh-hoo-hoo! A lot of speculation and wondering going on! Welp, you won't have to wait too long hopefully, because a lot of stuff happens in the next few chapters!
I will!
101olive4u:
Great name BTW =)
Well, we DO see the boys again, but Taffy and Candy don't run into them 'til the end. Vanny meets them though.
No, they are NOT evil! They're just in a bit of spot, they'll realise soon enough that things are not good, and in the end they'll do what they can to fix it. You'll see!
*sighs* I'll update as soon as I can, but you people (and this goes for pretty much everyone, ESPECIALLY the guests) NEED to stop rushing me!
TheDisneyFan365:
Thanks!
SamtasticV2.0:
Spoilers!
AUTHOR'S INTRO:
Aloha! I'm once again sorry for the delay. Late last week I had sleeping troubles, so I was tired, so I didn't get much done on this. But we're here now, and I'm gonna try getting things out faster from now on. This means more sleep, and hopefully more chapters quicker.
Also, my friend's ended up pretty busy, and hasn't had time to draw any more on the comics, so THAT's been held off for a while yet. We'll see how things go from now on, 'cause a lot of things have to settle before she's back on par.
But, apart from those things, I'm back! And here, just for you guys, I have a nice long chapter covering the aftermath of the breakout in the previous chapter!
Enjoy!
P.S. One more thing: I fixed up one line back in ch4 to suit what makes sense and to suit this chapter. If you want you can check out the change, but TBH it doesn't really matter. Just read this one.
Chapter 9: Crime Scene
Next Morning, 7:50 AM
"Last night, a mass-breakout occurred at the San Fransokyo Police Station. According to reports, 90% of the criminals inside escaped, only a few of whom the police managed to round up quickly. Word is that an explosion occurred near the Station, causing a partial collapse on the first jail level. Sargent Tamora Simmons and a number of officers were blockading escaping gamblers right under the blast point when it occurred, killing two officers and three of the jailed gamblers. The Sargent has recovered, but has yet to give us any details on this breakout…"
It was the next morning, after Van's little trip to the café, and Vanellope was planning on getting up after Ralph had left and head over to the café and just talk to Cass, as Hiro would be at SFIT and his friends would be at their jobs. Then she HAD to turn on the TV.
Almost the moment she grasped what had happened, she lunged back to her room to grab her earpiece phone, then jumped back into the kitchen/dining room and jammed the device into her ear to call her friends. She knew their own phones had been confiscated, but at least she could try to find out whether they were still in the SFPS.
After a few moments the tone stopped.
"SFPD." Came the answer from a stressed-sounding Tamora Simmons.
"Aunt Tammy!?"
"Vanellope?" She replied with surprise. "What—why are you calling this phone?"
"That's my friend Taffyta's phone." Vanellope told her. "I just found out about the breakout. Is Taffy and Candy still there?"
Tamora was silent on the other end for a moment before answering.
"I'm afraid your friends escaped in the breakout." She finally replied, tiredly.
Vanellope furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. She could've sworn her friends wouldn't do such a thing. Taffyta was too stuck-up with sticking to the law, besides the gambling thing, and Candlehead was far too innocent to even dream of breaking out.
"No." She argued into the phone. "That's not like them. They would never-"
"Well the proof's all here, in their EMPTY CELL!" She pretty much yelled. "How do you explain THAT, Short-Stack!?"
Vanellope bit her lip and turned to look worriedly back at the TV. Her friends could be anywhere, and for what reason? They shouldn't've done that, been part of the breakout. Now they were somewhere in the city, hiding from the police. Was Taffyta just THAT pissed off that she forced Candlehead to help her break out? Or rather, help her get out amongst the chaos of every criminal and supervillain in jail ALSO getting out.
Finally, Tamora sighed and spoke again.
"Listen, kid." She said. "We're all working to round up the bad guys who got out, in fact I've already called in the Big Hero 6 to help find out what happened with the explosion, as well as get back all the supervillains who got out, but if we can I'll spare some people to put your friends on priority. Just don't get excited. There are now a lot of far worse people at large in the city."
On cue, the reporter on the TV finished her story.
"... have recommended that everyone should stay in their homes while the police and the Big Hero 6 round up the supervillains, and if you do need to go out to take extra caution on the streets. Carmen Garret, Action 7 News." [1]
Vanellope nodded to her auntie, though Tamora couldn't see her.
"Okay, thanks." She said. "I'll keep that in mind."
"No problem, kid."
The Sarg hung up, and Vanellope turned off the TV and slumped where she stood, frowning worriedly.
So, now Taffyta not only hated her, but had specifically broken out of prison with Candlehead among every other criminal in San Fransokyo. Nearly every single bad guy in the city was at large, and somehow her friends had got caught up with them. That only left the question of how on Earth the entire prison got sprung.
She grumbled in annoyance as she imagined Ralph coming home from his stupid job and saying to her "I told you so!". Not that he had any credibility on the matter of HER friends.
"Yes, I know, we've got officers scouring the city for them."
Sargent Gerson paced outside the SFPS, reassuring his wife over the phone.
"Sargent Simmons has tasked me to wait for the Big Hero 6 at the station…" he said. "No, it's… don't worry, we'll make sure Yama doesn't attack you… Okay, love you sweetie."
He hung up, and sighed into his hands. It had been a long and tiring morning so far, and it was bound to just get worse and worse as it went on. So far he'd made calls to all the schools in the city. SFIT had closed for the day, as had the major high schools and public primary schools. The private schools had refused to close, so officers had to be stationed there to keep watch. So far only a few of the escapees had been found, most of them amateur gamblers from the night before last. Apart from that, none of them had been found, including thirteen of the fifteen supervillains the heroes had locked away.
"Ai-yai-yai…"
This was gonna be a LOOONG day.
A sudden sound startled him, and the whirring noise made him look up to see the big red robotic hero hovering down in front of the station, the five human heroes on his back. Rocket touched down, placing a fist on the ground, allowing the Big Hero 6 to disembark, Blast running over to Gerson immediately after hopping off the robot's back.
"Sargent Gerson." He greeted from behind his purple visor.
"Where were YOU freaks last night!?" Gerson quipped.
"Hey!" Disk stepped forward. "It's not as if we KNEW a breakout was gonna happen!"
Gerson sighed.
"Well, you're here now." He said. "Simmons' waiting for ya."
"Thanks, sir." Blast said politely before leading his team up the steps to the building.
Rocket stopped and scanned Gerson before walking in.
"You appear to be : fatigued." He noted robotically, following his primary programming.
"Yeah?" Gerson retorted. "How'd you get that? Too much blood flow in my brain?" [2]
"Actually, you have : dark rings under your : lower eyelids."
"Rocket!"
The robot-nurse-turned-superhero looked up at Blast's call to see the five human heroes waiting for him. Rocket took one last look at Gerson before following the team into the station.
The moment the Big Hero 6 stepped inside they encountered a rather mad Sargent Simmons barking orders at her cohorts.
"I don't CARE that there's a great big hole in the first floor right now!" she was yelling at three startled officers. "Right now I just care about rounding up the escaped criminals! Understand!?"
One timid-looking young Japanese trainee stepped forward.
"S-Sargent? It'd be a bit easier if you were to task the Big Hero 6 to help-"
"Firstly, Nishioka, the fact is I don't order the vigilantes around because they're not part of the police force! And secondly, I only called them away from their own attempts to catch the escaped supervillains because we have a BIGGER problem right now!"
Everyone's eyes widened at that.
"B-BIGGER… problem!?" Nishioka stammered. "Than supervillains!?"
"Ahem."
The four police officers looked up to where Plasblade had cleared his throat for their attentions, spotting the six big heroes standing there. Simmons nodded to them, Blast returning it, before turning back to the officers.
"Mobilise the force." She ordered. "Get out there and catch what bad guys you can. The Big Hero 6 will be there to help when their done with their mission."
All three stood at attention.
"Y-yes, Sargent!" Nishioka saluted.
"Dismissed."
The three officers ran off to the back of the station, Nishioka grabbing his walkie-talkie while the others ran to mobilise the other officers in the station. Simmons, meanwhile, turned and stepped up to the Big Hero 6, Blast stepping out to meet her.
"Sargent Simmons." He greeted. "What's the short-notice?"
Simmons glanced around to see if anyone was eavesdropping before answering.
"Darren Larrix was found dead in his cell this morning when we went to check them." She told them in a lower voice.
The remaining four human heroes looked at each other, Chemi almost bringing a hand to her helmet in horror. Even Rocket tilted his head back in surprise. Blast frowned inside his helmet, still looking at Simmons.
"What was happened to him?" he asked.
Simmons slipped out her tablet and handed it to him, displaying a picture of Larrix's cell, with the obvious difference of a dead man in prison uniform lying on the ground back from the bars, as if he'd been thrown. There were cracks and dents in the concrete, and the bars had been bent and blasted outward from a point. Larrix's skin and clothes had been scorched, both his head and one of his forearms blackened and burnt, and the screen noted injury on the back of his head from where he'd hit the ground, pointing out the pool of dried blood there. Surrounding him were tiny dots, almost like…
"Is that… shrapnel?" Blast asked.
Simmons held her hand out, prompting Blast to hand the tablet back.
"Yep." She answered, disgruntled. "And the bars were bent and oxidised. Seems like someone planted a bomb in there sometime between the night shift and the breakout." [3]
"You didn't see who did it in the CCTV footage?" Disk questioned.
"Already checked 'em." She refuted. "Someone whipped it. Every tape of what happened last night between the shift change and this morning is gone. Not only that, we found that along with every other bad guys' tech, the Cybug suit was missing from impound."
"What!?" Plasblade gasped.
"That's bad." Disk stated.
"Whoever killed Larrix must've taken the suit." Zilla deduced.
"That was our thinking." Simmons confirmed.
"But who?" Blast voiced. "Do you know of anyone who wanted the suit?"
"Nope." Simmons shook her head. "And none of the other supervillains had access to the materials to make a bomb down there. So far the only guess we've got is that whoever Cybug was working for took him out after his failure to get him the generator he stole from Krei."
"Maybe he caused the breakout too." Zilla folded his arms to think. "I mean, great timing, don't you think? Larrix's interrogation was supposed to be today."
But Simmons shook her head.
"No." she stated, almost defeatedly, unusual for her. "The timing was air-tight. No way he could've known. Unless…"
Simmons trailed off and rubbed her tired eyes with her hand. Rocket quickly scanned her.
"Your neurotransmitter levels are : fluctuating." He stated. "You appear to be : anxious."
Simmons scoffed briefly.
"You're quite a know-it-all, aren't ya big guy?" she addressed him.
"You okay Sargent?" Blast asked.
If any of them expected a "What do YOU think?", considering the situation, they'd've been disappointed as Simmons let out a huff of worry and folded her arms.
"Two decades ago, Cybug had this boss who could hack into anything." She told them, memory in her eyes. "This guy's moves always mirrored Larrix's. We always knew there was someone behind most of the villain outbreaks, as well as Cybug's attacks, and back then it was hard enough for us to deal with. When Cybug reared his ugly head, his boss would too. When he vanished thirteen years ago, so did Turbo."
"Turbo?" Chemi asked.
Simmons sighed in frustration again.
"That's who his boss was before." she said. "We sent in our special forces to get him when we could find him, only for him to escape, several times. When Cybug ran into the dirt, Turbo went under, and now it seems like the pale freak is back."
Most of the team was content to let Simmons be, what with her state right then. But Blast was the first to take the initiative and the first step to fixing things.
"Do you know where Turbo might be?" he asked.
Simmons shook her head.
"We only managed to get a lead on his location a few times, and every time he'd slipped up intentionally to trap us." She replied.
"Hmm…"
Blast frowned at the ground, no leads seeming apparent, so he listed what they knew off on his fingers.
"So Larrix is dead, his suit is gone, the security footage is cut and all our potential witnesses are on the run."
Then it was Simmons' turn to frown, this time in thought. Then all six watched as her eyes lit up.
"Maybe not…" she realised. "Come on!"
Simmons led them to the lift and down to the tenth and final level of the prison. Entering the lobby, Simmons stepped to one of the keypads, and Blast, removing his right gauntlet, moved in front of the other.
While the Big Hero 6 weren't technically working for the police, the government had eventually given them authorisation to this part of the building. It took a while for Simmons to trust them even marginally, but eventually she agreed to it, and so Blast was given a password, and his handprint was scanned into the system. None of the others were allowed to access it without their leader's specific authorisation, and had to do it with him AND Simmons along with them.
After a few moments they were in. Simmons led them down the hallway, past lines of open cells, including the dented and blasted one where they knew Cybug must've been kept. She led them to the end where, to their surprise, they found a cell on the right that was not empty.
Sitting on the bench behind the closed bars was an old man, probably about sixty years of age, wearing prison scrubs. He was tall, six feet, and his hair had gone full grey. His head was rectangular in shape, with a defined jaw, bushy eyebrows and a large nose. His blue eyes were clearly tired, having seen a fair amount and paid for it.
Sitting there, still in his cell, was former-professor Robert Callaghan.
OF course, they shouldn't have been surprised. Callaghan had no reason to escape. Since the team had rescued Abigail he had no reason to continue his revenge, not to mention the fact that he'd learnt his lesson in the incident. Now he was down here with a life sentence in the lowest floor of the jail, his only company the other raging supervillains. Or it was, rather.
"Professor."
Blast's greeting drew the old man's attention, and he looked up, smiling sadly as he saw the six heroes and stood up.
"Big Hero Blast." He responded, formally.
The Big Hero 6 obviously hadn't visited often, only coming in every so often when one or two of them occasionally helped the police bring in a supervillain. Even then, only Blast would acknowledge the former professor on occasion before leaving. Even with this rare of an occurrence, and the fact that there was never all six of them down here at the same time, he didn't seem surprised or confused, and for good reason, too.
Callaghan walked up to stand near the bars with his hands behind his back, regarding the six heroes and the Sargent with a calm smile.
"I would ask why you're all down here, but I think I already know." He stated.
Blast looked to Simmons for confirmation to proceed. She nodded. He turned back to Callaghan and spoke.
"We need you to tell us whether you saw someone down here before the breakout last night."
Callaghan nodded, and began to walk back to his bench.
"I assume, since you've brought the team down here, the situation's worse than I thought?" he asked, looking back at the seven law-enforcers.
Simmons answered before the Big Heroes' leader could get a word out.
"That's not for you to know, old-timer." She declined. "Now tell us what happened."
He sighed as he turned and sat down on the bench, hands together.
"Were you awake to see Larrix's killer?" Blast asked, a bit more politely than Simmons.
After a moment Callaghan nodded, and began to speak.
"Yes, I was."
Last Night
The metal screeching of the lift jolted Callaghan awake in his cell. Grumbling, he held his hands over his ears in a tired attempt to block the noise. Thankfully after a moment the lift stopped, and he sighed and tried to go back to sleep again, only to be woken again moments later when the doors to the lobby clicked and slid open.
Grumbling, Callaghan turned his head to look up at the clock on the end wall of the cell hall, which he could only see from there because he was in one of the last two cells in the hall.
He frowned. It was only 11:12 at night. It wasn't time for the shift-change yet.
Right after he thought that, there was a thud and a gasp, followed by the much heavier thud of a body hitting the concrete floor. Callaghan's mind quickly came to the conclusion that someone was infiltrating the prison, with the likely goal of breaking someone out.
Curious, he stood up from his bench and stepped over to the bars, staying next to the wall so whoever it was didn't spot him eavesdropping. Carefully, he looked out.
The short, balding man in a purple velvet suit walked down the hallway from the unconscious and bleeding night guard behind him, hands together behind his back and a malicious smirk on his face. Eventually the man stopped and turned to a cell's bars, not too far from Callaghan's own cell, and rapped on it three times with a long-ish metal stick with a round bob at the end; probably what he'd hit the night guard with.
Inside the cell, a man woke up. Darren Larrix.
He gasped in surprise and rolled off the bench. Shaking himself awake, he stood up and looked up to see the man in front of the bars.
"Boss!" He exclaimed quietly, so as to not alert anyone.
He walked over, smirking as he did, to where his boss now paid him visitor.
"About damn time!" he said, grabbing the bars. "Now get me out!"
But the mystery man did no such thing. Instead, with lightning-reflexes, from behind him he revealed the handcuffs the night guard had and snapped them onto both one of the horizontal bars of the cell AND Larrix's hand.
Larrix's grin changed to a confused frown as he looked down at his chained hand, then back at the mystery guy.
"Boss?" he asked, experimentally trying to pull his hand away. "What are you doing?"
Only then did the mystery guy speak.
"You have been my loyal employee for many years." He lamented in his creepily high-pitched voice, even as Larrix kept trying to tug his hand away. "You have scored many thefts, killed many people who got in my way, and even managed to evade the Big Hero 6 is multiple occasions. But this time you failed me."
Larrix looked up, eyes widened.
"But I got the generator!" he frantically pleaded. "And I threw it away before Plasblade could grab it from me!"
The man nodded.
"You did." The man agreed, admiring the metal stick in his hands "And you are lucky it landed on a pile of garbage bags and wasn't damaged, otherwise I would be sure to make you wish you'd been more careful."
He looked up and now outright GLARED at Larrix, who shrunk back as far as he could in fear.
"But then you revealed yourself to a crowd of people, all of whom saw what you tried to do. Most of them are in the upper levels, but some got away. Then you proceeded to let yourself AND my suit get ARRESTED by the Big Hero 6!" He looked back down at the stick. "And as I can't let Sargent Dynamite get my identity out of you…"
With a sudden movement, the mystery guy whacked Larrix over the head with the stick, and the former supervillain collapsed on the bars and slumped down, unconscious and hanging from the handcuffs. The mystery guy smirked down at his former minion, before holding onto both ends of the stick and collapsing it into the bob at the end and pocketing it in his suit. Then he pulled something else out of the pocket, which he pressed a button on, expanding it into a large hexagonal device with a clamp on one side and a timer on the other.
Callaghan frowned. A bomb.
The mystery madman stuck the bomb to the bars by the unknowing Larrix's handcuffs, then set the timer for five minutes.
He stood back, seeming pleased with himself, before brushing his hands off and stepping back toward the night guard, and the lift. As he left, Callaghan head him say one last thing:
"And now I have to find some new minions."
"A few minutes later all the doors except Larrix's opened." Callaghan continued his description to the Big Hero 6 and Sargent Simmons. "I stayed inside of course, I have no motive to get out. All the other bad guys ran though, as you can imagine. Then, moments later, the bomb exploded, causing what you see there."
Blast held a hand up to his helmet-covered chin in thought while Simmons continued writing notes down on her tablet. Then the hero leader frowned and looked back up to Simmons.
"At what time did the explosion on the first floor go off?" he asked.
"Uhh…" Simmons flicked her screen to the event-log. "11:20, half a minute after the breakout started."
"That's when the bomb down here went off." Callaghan confirmed.
Blast set his face and turned to face Simmons and his team.
"Then that settles it." He established. "Larrix's boss must've also been behind the breakout. With everyone in here escaping her could slip out with his new cronies without anyone noticing."
"You think Turbo could've somehow opened every cell in the facility remotely?" Disk asked Simmons.
But Simmons was frowning as she looked back up from the tablet.
"He could've, but Callaghan's description doesn't match Turbo's." she replied. "Turbo was taller, and had pale white skin and hair. This is someone new."
"Cybug must've picked up a new boss during his downtime." Zilla figured.
"Why would he do that?" Plasblade asked.
"I dunno." Simmons shrugged. "He's never done that before."
Blast sighed and folded his arms.
"So we have a new bad guy that we don't know who is, where he is or how to find him, AND our only lead was killed by failure."
"AND whoever he's hired now is among hundreds that escaped in the breakout." Disk added.
Both Simmons and Blast nodded, before the latter turned back to Callaghan.
"Thank you for your time, Professor." He acknowledged.
"You're welcome, Hiro." Callaghan told him, winking at the stealth pun.
Blast nodded, and finally led his team and the Sargent back toward the lift, all of them soaking in what they knew about the situation. And, from any of their perspectives, it did not look good.
Hiro dragged himself into the garage and dropped his helmet on one of the benches before slumping in a wheelie chair. After the visit to the Police Station, the Big Hero 6 had unanimously decided to ignore the Cybug case for now and focus on recapturing the escaped supervillains. With both school and all of their jobs temporarily shut down because of the crisis, and no leads on the case, they'd had no other choice.
It was evening now, and the six superheroes, tired from catching three of the thirteen escape bad guys who had been robbing a jewellery store of all things, then crashed in Hiro's home-lab/garage that both he and Tadashi had used many times for their projects at SFIT. They couldn't go back to HQ, 'cause they couldn't feasibly drop off at the mansion to change without having to travel the now-dangerous streets after dark without their equipment.
The garage wasn't actually connected to the rest of the house/café that made up the Hamada's home, but sat on the street to the left of the café. It was rather spacious inside, though most of the wood-framed walls were taken up by tons of shelves filled with various files and folders, tools and carbon-fibre 3D-printer rolls, and the rest had a state-of-the-art 3D-printer, a number of benches and two desks on opposite sides of the room with computers, plasma and holographic-screened. There was also a red couch sitting opposite the big, fold-up wall that was the garage entrance, where Fred and Wasabi were currently chilling.
Honey had sat down on a stool, and Baymax had positioned his box next to Hiro, while Gogo couldn't help but pace back and forth in the room, restless. Honey watched her worriedly. As the one on the team with the best qualification of 'team mom', besides Hiro's Aunt Cass if she'd known about their secret, she could always tell when something was up with one of them, and right now she knew that something was eating at Gogo.
Knowing that Honey would be staring at her, Gogo threw a glance back. Honey threw her a pointed look, and Gogo finally snapped and turned to where Hiro was now draped over the wheelie chair.
"There's something I don't get." She said finally.
Hiro brought his head from its resting place over the back of the chair to look at her. Fred and Wasabi looked up too, and everyone knew Baymax would be listening too. Now that she had all of their attentions, she spoke her mind.
"Callaghan said whoever killed Larrix said he'd evaded us several times."
Everyone looked at her quizzically, so she continued.
"We've only fought him twice." She eleborated. "Chemi and Plasblade only even knew his codename because he signed out with it when talking to his boss during the theft."
Hiro sat up better in the chair, but still leant his back into it, folding his arms.
"I think two counts as 'multiple times'." Fred stated.
Gogo threw him the "really?" look.
The sound of ACDC blaring drew everyone's attention to Hiro, who quickly moved to draw his phone from his shorts pocket.
"Gogo has a point." He said as he pulled the offending object from his pocket and checked it. "It's a bit odd for him to say that, but it's probably nothing."
Gogo sighed irritably as Hiro answered the familiar number.
"Hey Aunt Cass." He started.
"Hey, sweetie." She started. "I know you've been busy in the garage all day with your friends, but I've got seven chicken wings together and I think it's time you guys called it a day."
Hiro smiled and sighed at his Aunt.
"Okay, we're coming in now."
He moved to hang up, only for her to say one last thing.
"Oh, and Vanellope came in and asked for you earlier."
This little bit surprised Hiro a bit. Everyone SHOULD be staying in their homes due to the breakout, and his friends only had the excuse that they'd stayed over the previous night playing videogames, or, rather, working on hero-tech. Why had Vanellope ignored that and come over? And even the something didn't make sense. There had to be a catch. Why wouldn't Cass direct her to the garage, where she thought they were?
"Oh." he replied a bit dumbly. "Okay."
"In fact she's still here now."
That was it. She'd been hanging out in the café all day not wanting to disturb him?
"Tell her I'll be there in a sec." he said, waiting for the "okay" from his Aunt before hanging up.
He stood up and put the phone away, looking up to his friends.
"Aunt Cass is calling me in." He said simply. "And I think she's got dinner ready for all of us."
Everyone nodded and stood up, except for Baymax, being a robot, and Fred, who leapt out of the couch and shouted:
"YES! NOTHING is better than free food! Unless it's mouldy!"
A few minutes later, the gang, now in normal clothes, stepped into the café. It was locked and required Hiro's house key to get in, but when they did the group of six found the place pretty much empty, having been closed because of the crisis, not that anyone would be outside to come in anyway. Cass was wiping the counter and had set up a table for everyone in the middle of the room. The TV was on, still tuned to the 24-hour news channel that continued to update everyone on the events following the breakout, including the successful capture of three of the escape supervillains by the gang.
The only major unexpected thing about the café was how Vanellope Von Schweetz was now pacing to the right of the table, with a worried look on her face. The moment she turned at the café bell to see the six entering, she finally stopped, and her worry switched to anger.
"Where were YOU today!?" she snapped.
Hiro turned to his surprised friends briefly before answering.
"In the garage." He lied. "All day. Why didn't you check?"
"I DID check." She replied. "Twice."
"Well, you must've just missed us."
"Oh, so you must've gone out THERE then! Where there are currently a dozen escaped supervillains!"
Uncomfortably realising how dangerous this was getting to compromising the team, Hiro quickly changed the subject.
"And what about YOU?" he shot back. "The trains are down, all public transport is on hold, so you decided to WALK ALL the way here, in a breakout crisis!"
"My apartment is fifteen minutes away."
"Yeah, well—it—that—that's no excuse!" he finally spluttered out. "Why did you even do it!?"
"Because my friends were some of those who got out, and I'm worried!"
Everyone's, except Hiro's, eyebrows shot up, and Cass froze. It took a few moments for Vanellope herself to realise what she'd said, at which she quickly deflated and looked around at everyone.
"Okay, what?" Fred said at last.
"Alright, spill." Gogo ordered. "What do you mean 'got out'?"
The gang already knew about Van's friends from the mission review Saturday night, but they were smart enough to stay in character, and from Van's point of view they didn't know her friends had been arrested.
Van sighed and glared at the ceiling before looking around at them all.
"Look." she started. "I'm a pay-to-play dance battler, okay!? I go out and dance for money in back-alleys! Taffy and Candy are my teammates, we do everything together and split the score! On Saturday we went for another battle but got interrupted by a superhero battle, and we got arrested! I got bailed, but my friends didn't, and they were there during, and even took part in, the breakout!"
"W-wait." Hiro interrupted. "How do you know that?"
She turned her glare on him.
"Because I called Taffy's phone," she retorted, ", and Aunt—Sargent Simmons answered!"
She turned and glared around at all of them, huffing.
"Happy now!?"
Nobody moved except Cass. The older woman closed her mouth and stepped around the counter and walked up to her. She placed a hand on the girl's shoulder, but Vanellope just glared down at the ground and refused to meet her eyes.
"Hey, it's okay, Vanny." She reassured. "We're not mad at you."
Vanellope rolled her eyes at her.
"I'm not a four-year-old." she griped, "Besides, you're not MY aunt."
Cass just stepped around her and placed her other hand on her remaining shoulder.
"That doesn't make me any less caring." she reasoned. "And trust me, I had to raise two super-nerds, I KNOW when a young adult is disressed. AND I've had to deal with the boys in similar situations to you before. You know, Hiro used to bot-fight, and some of Tadashi's old friends from high school once tried to pressure him into breaking into a liquor store once, which got them arrested for theft. I can sympathise with how you feel."
Vanellope finally looked up at her.
"Did Tadashi's friends escape in a mass-breakout of supervillains that left him worried about them?" she deadpanned.
"Well, no, but he WAS worried about them about how it affected HIM, and it was exactly how you're feeling."
Vanellope looked at her for a long moment. Then, finally, she sighed and slumped slightly, her worried frown returned.
"Thanks." She said at last.
"But that doesn't excuse you gambling!" Cass scolded, though she was smiling. "What were you thinking!?"
Van chuckled lightly with Cass at that. The older woman was so motherly that she could even scold her nephew's old best friend.
"I'm sorry, Ms Hamada-"
"Vanny," Cass interrupted, ", call me Cass."
And Vanellope didn't have it in her to resist as Cass pulled her into a comforting hug, resting their heads on the other's shoulders. Van closed her eyes, feeling better already.
Unnoticed by the two of them, Hiro had huddled the gang together back at the door.
"What?" Gogo questioned.
"What is it?" Honey also asked.
"Remember how Simmons said impound had been cleared out?" Hiro asked them.
"Yeah."
"Remember that."
"So why was Taffyta's phone still there?"
All four of the others frowned for a moment, thinking. Then, one-by-one, their eyes lit up.
"Larrix's boss was looking for new recruits!" Wasabi quietly realised.
"So you're saying…" Fred began.
"He led Van's friends out of there without stopping by impound." Hiro deduced. "THAT's why her phone was still there."
"But why would he hire THEM in particular?" Gogo pointed out. "There were a lot of far worse bad guys down there."
"That's what we need to find out." Hiro replied. "And to do that we're gonna need some help."
Hiro turned his head to Vanellope, who had just broken the hug with his Aunt, and the other five followed his gaze there. When he turned to look back at the group, the same idea was plastered in all of their heads.
"No." Gogo immediately refuted.
"She's worried about them." Hiro reasoned. "We're trying to find them. We can help her."
"We talked about this." Gogo argued. "It's bad enough that Krei and CALLAGHAN of all people know. We can't just go telling everyone about us."
"Then why don't we make her ONE of us?"
Gogo raised her eyebrows.
"You want to drag your old best friend into the fight!? Are you nuts? She could get hurt, or worse, killed out there!"
"So could any of us. Any one of us could go down out there at any time, but we go out there anyway. The real reason we don't go down? We have each other's' backs. With her with us she'll be safer than any of us are even now."
The others nodded in agreement, but Gogo still didn't seem convinced this was the right thing to do.
"And to be honest, if we're gonna be able to get her friends back, she may be the only one who can talk to them."
Gogo looked past him at Vanellope, Ethel Tomago fangirl who was just worried about her friends. Too smart for her own good, who had easily become suspicious about where they'd been all day. Snarky, a bit headstrong considering, and a good old friend of her team leader.
But when it came down to it, she may be the only one who could convince her friends to stop working for the bad guy.
Gogo sighed, then turned back to Hiro.
"Fine." She conceded, taking one last glance back at Vanellope. "We'll show her tomorrow."
[1] If you pause the movie on the TV in the Café right after the battle at Krei Tech Industries, you'll notice in the lower-right corner of the TV screen it says 'Action 7 News'.
[2] Just gonna point out that Gerson doesn't know what he's talking about. He's just tired and grumpy.
[3] Oxidised basically means the bars were rusted. The explosion gave the metal atoms in the bars sufficient energy to give electrons to oxygen molecules in the air, forming metal oxide.
Basically the explosion caused the bars to rust where they were hit.
Not entirely pleased by the talk between Van and Cass at the end of the chapter, but oh well. Shitappens.
YIKES this is longer than I planned! Nearly 6K! That's a bit big of a stretch in the OTHER end!
Next time, well, I think I'll let you read for yourself!
Next Time: Chapter 10: Revelation