AN: dances in and posts this chapter/ hahah hi guys. omg. the reactions in the reviews to me having Hiro let go of the ground ONLY was amazing. I mean, he wasnt even in the portal yet and so many of you were yelling "noooooo" ah I feel evil and powerful. hehe. anyways, hopefully this chapter will make up for the cliffhanger I left the last one off on!
Disclaimer: I do not own Big Hero 6
Enjoy!
"Hiro!" Everyone screamed, watching as the little boy they had come to rescue was sucked towards the portal at an alarming speed. Callaghan too was shocked, and watched with an open mouth through the windows of the control room. He was distracted long enough for Wasabi to finally carve his way through the second door.
"I've got the controls, anyone have any idea how to turn this thing off?!" Came Wasabi's frantic voice over a loudspeaker, but Tadashi didn't listen, he only watched his little brother fly, as if in slow motion, through the air towards certain doom.
And then a wire snaked its way out through the air, caught Hiro around the middle, and held him fast against the portal's force.
Tadashi breathed again.
"Tadashi!" Hiro yelled, sweat dripping worryingly down his face. He was extending his abilities too far, he was pushing himself too hard. "I know you have my microbot! I can- I can feel it in your pocket!" Tadashi jerked in surprise. Hiro being able to feel technology in the area was something new. Hiro extended a hand toward his shocked brother, as his body wavered in the air, "Toss it here! Hurry!"
"Hiro." Baymax interrupted, "My sensors indicate that your brain activity and neurotransmitter levels have greatly increased. You are under tremendous strain and I recommend-"
"Baymax." Hiro said to the robot, silencing it with one look that Tadashi suspected was a little bit technopathically enforced. "I'll be fine." The younger Hamada continued, tone far calmer than it should have been, with a slight tremble of fear that Hiro had tried and failed to hide. Tadashi knew Hiro wasn't just saying that to Baymax, but also was speaking to his brother and himself as well.
Tadashi was proud, so proud, of his little brother. As the rest of the team talked to Wasabi and worked to somehow shut the portal down, Tadashi dug a hand into his pocket, fished out Hiro's unfinished, lone microbot, and released it confidently into the air.
The microbot shot straight into Hiro's hand, and Hiro pulled it to his chest and gripped it tightly. Hiro bowed his head into his hands for a moment, as if saying goodbye or apologizing to his small invention, before he twisted against the wire, stared into the swirling colors, and launched the microbot with all the power he could muster directly at the technology making up the portal.
For a moment after the microbot had disappeared into the storm of debris being sucked toward the portal, there was nothing.
"There's a big red button here and I think I should-"
"Wasabi if you push that button I swear to all that is good I will-"
"Callaghan isn't telling me anything! I don't know what to do and you guys just keep screaming at me-"
"And for good reason! Don't press the-"
"Tadashi, are you al-"
Then, with his body twisted to face the portal and the back of his head to Tadashi, Hiro clenched his fists, and an entire piece of metal plating of one of the portal segments popped open to reveal the advanced technology within. Hiro let out a short, breathless, bark of a laugh at that, as if he hadn't believed dismantling the portal would work what with the microbot unfinished as it was. Tadashi couldn't stop a small grin growing on his face as well, and squinted through the chaos to see the small dot that was Hiro's microbot dancing and rolling from one segment to the next in order to repeat itself.
"Nice going lil' man!" Fred cheered.
"What's he doing?" Honey shouted to Tadashi.
Hiro heard her though, and twisted around again in the air and wires around him to grin at the group, "I'm saving your butts is what I'm doing." He responded, but the effect of his bravado and relieved grin was somewhat lost due to the splatter of blood on the bottom half of his face, coming from his nose.
"Hiro, you're hurt!" Gogo shouted before Tadashi could, and Hiro blinked, as if he hadn't realized. He reached a hand up, struggling against the force of the portal behind him to pull his hand through the air, to wipe his knuckles through the blood. When he pulled his hand back so he could see, his eyes went round as he saw the red there against his skin.
Another plate of metal swung open on the portal, and the entire structure shook tremendously. Hiro swayed and jerked in the air, all wide eyes and messy hair and red blood. Tadashi blinked, and something changed. Hiro's expression looked dazed all of a sudden, and he turned slowly back to face the portal, as if possessed by something.
"I don't know if there's a way I can shut it down!"
"Wasabi just shut up for a minu-"
"That's what I needed Hiro to help me for. It's unstable. The containment field is failing. There's no way to turn it off and there's no way to escape it. It's going to tear itself apart and-"
"Please Professor I used to respect you but right now I'm very close to laser handing you, in the face!"
"Hiro are you-"
"I am detecting signs of life." Baymax's voice whispered.
"... me too, buddy." Hiro responded, feeling a thick, frozen presence lodge itself just behind his eyes. Then, as his microbot worked faster and harder to dismantle the gateway, the wires around Hiro's waist unexpectedly, quietly, released him.
"Hiro no!"
The Silent Sparrow swallowed Hiro up in one bite.
The microbot kept working though, and so Tadashi didn't let out the scream that clawed and struggled and tried to escape from his chest.
"Tadashi-"
"Hiro's fine." Tadashi cut off whoever tried to speak with him.
"What did he mean by signs of life though?" Honey questioned softly, staring at the portal where Hiro had disappeared, looking curious and concerned and completely torn up.
Tadashi bit his lip, "I don't know, but we have to be confident in my little brother." He answered, still feeling the wires and technology holding him tightly and securely.
Baymax responded to Honey's question easily though, "I too am detecting signs of life from, w-w-within." The half deflated robot, still being pulled toward the portal, lifted a hand and pointed at the sickening swirling colors. "The life signs are: female. That is all I can detec-t-t."
"Woah, but how did Hiro sense her too?" Fred said, in awe.
"Hiro, in the time sp-p-pan since the helicopter crashhhhed, has experienced multiple jumps in cognitive ability to higher level functioning than a normal human." Baymax said, once again, easily providing an answer.
"His powers." Fred breathed, and then grinned wide enough that his teeth could be seen beneath the lip of his Kaiju mask, "Oh man, this is so cool! Hiro's technopath abilities are only getting stronger!"
Tadashi watched Fred's reaction for a moment, remembered the blood on his little brother's face dripping down from his nose, and said nothing.
The microbot worked away, rolling and sliding with ease through the thick pieces of technology that made up the portal. Plate after plate of metal was falling, wires and sparks flying out only to be sucked into the portal moments later. It was terrifying and somewhat beautiful and Tadashi could not look away because his brother was in there.
"Guys, what's going on down there?" Wasabi's voice boomed. "I've still got Callaghan here, he's unconscious now though. He started freaking out the moment Hiro went- yknow. And I had to knock him out. So, what's the plan?"
"We wait for Hiro." Tadashi responded without missing a beat. "I'm not letting him out of my sight for a million years after this."
"Okay what's the real pla-"
"We wait for Hiro." Gogo snapped at her friend. Wasabi huffed, but shut up quickly, the speaker from the control room buzzing with static as he fell silent.
They didn't have to wait for Hiro long.
The portal continued to shake and groan with each piece the microbot tossed from it, and the entire group's panic rose the more unstable the portal became with time. It was at the point where everything was being so strongly sucked in that even the wires wrapped tightly around them were becoming weak against the pulling force. Baymax somehow still managed to not be sucked in, deflated and slumped against the edge of the canyon as he was, and for that Tadashi was grateful. He didn't think he'd be able to take it if both his brother and the robot who helped his brother were both lost to the portal's hunger.
The portal groaned, and suddenly cracked inwards, bending on itself as it finally began to implode. What Callaghan had said about the magnetic containment field being dysfunctional was true, as if it were operational, the portal would have just continued to consume everything that wasn't itself, but instead, it was eating away at its own edges while Hiro's microbot continued to pick it apart.
With that inwards crack though, something else happened as well. Another distortion to the metal, and another happened, until the portal was very nearly as bright as the sun and as strong as a tornado. Then, with one last shuddering breath, something huge and heavy shot from it's depths, before the entire Silent sparrow imploded, leaving the one hoop that had been intact just as burnt and warped as its dysfunctional brother beside it. The sucking wind that the portal had been producing died down immediately, and the wires wrapped around Tadashi and his friends slumped weakly down. Hiro's microbot gave one last shudder from its place still on the edge of the portal, before it too fell uselessly into the depths below.
The huge and heavy thing was a pod of some sort, and it sailed down and forward, crashed into the wall of the metal canyon, and then hit the ground with enough force to make the room shudder. Tadashi was the first to the edge, skidding to a stop next to Baymax, who was trying to pick himself up and make his way down to the pod - whatever it was. And it was indeed a pod, made of large and sleek white metal, with a shadowed figure lying inside, and a far smaller figure that had been clinging to its side but was now sliding bonelessly away.
"Hiro!" Tadashi yelled, scrambling his way over to the electrical ladder, which was bent and hung at an angle sticking out into the air forever now. But he paused, turned, shouted, "Guys, go to Wasabi and contact someone to help us, I've got Hiro." Before climbing across the ladder and searching for a spot that was low enough that he could drop and not be injured.
Baymax simply, gracelessly, fell down the edge until he hit the floor with a heavy thud, and then started to re-inflate himself. Tadashi couldn't help but smile at that, as he leaped from the ladder and allowed for his electromag wheels to catch him with minimal jarring to his actual legs or self.
As soon as he'd hit the ground, Tadashi was at Hiro's side. The pod, with the ice that crawled across its side and painted patterns on the darkened window, could come second. Tadashi fell to his knees beside his brother and tugged the small limp body into his lap, feeling for a pulse and finding more relief and joy there than when he had first seen Hiro's face on the stairway and gone to scoop him into his arms all those moments ago. He then worked to wipe away the thick blood that stained the lower half of Hiro's face, not caring at all if the blood stained his gloves.
"Tadashi. I will scan Hiro now." Baymax said, wobbling over with one leg still popped and torn.
Tadashi stared up into the white robot's black blinking eyes, and nodded. "Alright, go ahead." Then, the pod began to hiss, and the ice began to melt, "You should scan her too when you're done, ok?"
"I will d-d-do so." Baymax said in the same moment his cameras clicked and swept up and down Hiro's body. "Hiro is: alright. He is suffering from extreme exhaustion right now, both mental and physical. Recommended treatment: bed rest, scheduled well balanced meals, and care from loved ones."
Tadashi's head jerked at the final treatment recommendation, not expecting the emotional tone with which Baymax said it, but the robot was already turned away and working to open the pod's hatch so as to get a better look at his second patient inside.
Not wanting to leave Hiro slumped on the ground, but knowing that the robot with his thick vinyl fingers would need help, Tadashi slowly lowered his brother down before standing up and going to help Baymax. Blood smeared across the frozen metal as he touched it and tried to search for a pressure point where he could pop the top of the pod off, and he found it after a few moments of prodding and probing.
The darkened glass of the pod hissed open, and within was a young woman, looking just a bit older than Tadashi himself, obviously deep in cryo-sleep. Tadashi could recognize in her face the jawline and nose of their professor though, and the world seemed to spin around him. He returned to his brother's side in a sort of half numb daze, lifted Hiro into his arms, and allowed in silence for Baymax to scan Abigail Callaghan. All this was done before his friends poked their heads over the edge of the drop-off and announced that help was on the way.
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