Tenebrosity
"Remind me again why I agreed to this?" Tadashi whispered. Tadashi and Hiro were in the showcase building, creeping through it in an attempt to retrieve Hiro's micro-bots. Okay, in the interest of full disclosure… Tadashi was the one that was doing the creeping. Hiro was hitching a ride on his back as Tadashi didn't want him placing any weight on his broken ankle.
"Because you're my brother and you love me?" Hiro answered, looking around the dimly lit hall. Someone really needed to install better windows into the building. The sparse daylight that managed to filter through the windows on the far right of the hall wasn't nearly enough to light the large space within. Especially when most of those windows were obscured by wooden screens and large experiments.
"Don't push your luck, Hiro." Tadashi readjusted Hiro's weight on his back. "No amount of love justifies resorting to a life of crime. We're not supposed to be in here and you know it. All the entrances have been cordoned off by police tape, just like I told you they would be. This is tantamount to breaking and entering."
"Yet here we are." Hiro declared, waving an arm in illustration. They were in a particularly dark corner of the hall, heading gingerly towards the stage. It was slow going as the way forward was blocked by a myriad of experiments still scattered about the hall.
"Hiro." Tadashi said in a waning tone. "I can still turn around and leave."
"No, nonononono!" Hiro said in a rush, reaching out to grab hold of Tadashi's shoulders. "Not until we fetch my micro-bots. I promise, I'll behave."
Tadashi snorted in disbelief. "I'm surprised the word is even in your vocabulary seeing as I highly doubt you know the meaning of it." He carefully stepped around the podium that contained what appeared to be two helmets with several wires coming out of them, barely missing tripping over it in the dim to non-existent light. "I can't see a thing." He complained.
"Wait. I have something that might help." Hiro announced suddenly wiggling on Tadashi's back, twisting in order to reach into the pockets of his hoodie. The neurotransmitter attached to the belt loop of his pants swing with the motion, gently connecting with his thigh. He'd brought it with the intent to use it in order to get all his micro-bots home in one trip.
"Hey!" Tadashi stumbled to the right, Hiro's sudden shift in weight nearly sending them tumbling to the ground.
"Sorry." Hiro stilled and allowed Tadashi to regain his footing before cautiously reaching into the pocket of his hoodie. He removed his hand a few seconds later, gripping a torch which he promptly turned on, illuminating the space before them. "Viola! Let there be light. Am I a genius or what?"
"You couldn't have pulled that out sooner?" Tadashi asked dryly, ignoring Hiro's self-praise in favor of resuming his journey forward. "Like, I don't know, before I walked into the sphere stand earlier?" Tadashi had already stumbled into three stands on their journey in and wasn't exactly impressed to find out his suffering could have been avoided if his little brother had just paused to use his head a bit more.
"I completely forgot I had it." Hiro responded sheepishly, directing the light towards the right corner of the stage. Hiro, Tadashi and the gang had stowed the bins that contained Hiro's micro-bots there shortly after Hiro's presentation, intending to retrieve them at a later stage. Having expected to find the bins missing, Hiro heaved a sigh of relief when the light reflected off of the familiar light blue plastic. "There they are!" Hiro raised himself on Tadashi's back, momentarily forgetting their precarious position in his relief and excitement.
Tadashi stumbled again, running forward a few steps in a bid to regain his balance. "Hiro! There's a person busy carrying you here. I'm not a horse. You're heavier than you think and I can't exactly focus on making sure I don't run into anything and make sure I don't fall over in reaction to your antics."
"Sorry." Hiro repeated shifting his weight back down once more. "But you can let me go now." He moved to twist out of Tadashi's grasp.
"Hiro!" Tadashi attempted to readjust his grip in a bid to keep hold of Hiro. "You're not supposed to put any weight on that ankle."
"Yeah, yeah, I know." Hiro managed to slip his uninjured leg out of Tadashi's grasp. "I'll hop." He slid down Tadashi's back and allowed his good leg to connect with the ground forcing Tadashi to release his injured one for fear of taking them both down. The moment he was free, he made good on his promise and hopped over towards the plastic bins silently counting them as he approached.
"Hiro." Tadashi hissed in reprimand, close on his heels. "That was dangerous. I could have dropped you and we both could have gotten hurt. You can't just…"
"Quiet. Just give me one moment." Hiro raised a hand to silence Tadashi, a worried frown creasing his brow. He raised a hand and began to re-count the bins silently mouthing each number as he went.
"Did you just tell me to be quiet?" Tadashi asked in a low tone, anger and disbelief creeping into his voice. "You can't just tell me to…"
"That can't be right." Hiro exclaimed in a hushed whisper, cutting Tadashi off for the second time in a row. He turned to face Tadashi, eyes wide.
The expression in Hiro's eyes put Tadashi on high alert, sending all thoughts of lecturing his little brother out of his mind. "What can't be right?"
"We brought twelve bins full of micro-bots, right?" Hiro asked.
"Yes, we did. You wanted to create a big impact and figured that would be more achievable with twelve bins full than with two." Tadashi pointed out. "Rightly so I might add. Your presentation blew everyone away."
"Well one of them appears to be missing." Hiro declared, turning the torch back towards the bins, illuminating the eleven bins stacked neatly against the stage. The space that should have contained a twelfth bin was pointedly empty.
Tadashi stepped forward with a frown, taking the torch from Hiro to see from himself. He quickly re-counted the bins just to make sure Hiro's calculations were correct before moving the torch to illuminate the rest of the stage in the hopes of finding a displaced bin. The bin had to be somewhere after all. It couldn't simply vanish into thin air. "Maybe we didn't stack them correctly when we packed them away." He theorized, squinting into the shadows. "Or maybe we missed one."
"No, we didn't." Hiro retorted. "We fetched all twelve. I know everyone was excited and we were all talking a mile a minute about my acceptance letter but I counted them just before we left the showcase building. There were twelve bins and now there are eleven which means someone stole one of them." Dread coiled in his gut, the dark suspicion that Callaghan had already managed to get his hands on some of his micro-bots forming in his mind.
"Let's not jump to conclusions, Hiro." Tadashi declared moving the flashlight around the area in the hopes of spotting something they had missed. His words told Hiro that Tadashi still wasn't on board with Hiro's wild theories but his body language was starting to shift introducing a more cautious stance to his entire demeanor. Tadashi was on the alert for danger which could only mean one thing… Hiro was finally making progress!
Wait…
Did that shadow just move?
Leaping forward, Hiro grabbed the torch from Tadashi and ran towards the shadow he had spotted when Tadashi had illuminated the far side of the stage, completely ignoring the sharp pain that coursed through him the moment he put weight on his injured ankle.
"Hiro!" Tadashi called out and ran after him, his tone indicating that he more than a little unhappy. That probably had more to do with the fact that Hiro was now running on his injured leg than anything else but Hiro didn't have time to explain what was going on. "Get back here!"
The shadow was getting away.
"Hiro!" Tadashi tried again, his outcry followed by the sound of hit body impacting with something hard which quickly was followed by a few choice cuss words that Hiro most definitely hadn't realized were in his brother's vocabulary. It seemed Tadashi was not a perfect as he liked everyone to believe. Hiro filed that information away for later appraisal beneath the following category: Potential Blackmail Material and continued to run, not even pausing to check if his brother was ok. It was, after all, as Tadashi had so accurately pointed out a few minutes earlier, not the first object Tadashi had stumbled into since entering the building and Hiro had more pressing matters to take care of.
The shadow shifted once more and headed away from Hiro, towards one of the exits. Oh no you don't! Hiro put on an extra burst of speed, biting his lip through the pain that continued to jar through his nerves each time he took a stride forward. Someone was here. That someone was more than likely Callaghan and Hiro wasn't about to let a broken ankle stop him from catching the man in question. Not when he finally had proof within his grasp. Proof he could use to convince Tadashi that Callaghan wasn't the man Tadashi thought he was… Proof that he could use to convince Tadashi, and perhaps himself, that he wasn't going crazy.
Tadashi simply had to believe him once he had Callaghan in his grasp. Right?
The shadow suddenly twisted and changed direction, heading past the robotic clapping hands in a bid to shake Hiro off his tail but Hiro was not so easily dissuaded. He easily changing course to keep up with his target. Even though his younger body didn't have the training his older self, had managed to attain, his older mind more than made up for it. Years of chasing down various perpetrators had taught him to anticipate such tactics thus providing him with that vital edge he needed in order to catch up. Two strides later he had his target in range.
Got you!
Transferring all of his energy to his feet, Hiro launched himself off of his good foot and tackled the fleeing man. His shoulder connected with the fleeing shadows midriff and the two of them went tumbling to the ground, rolling a few times across the floor before coming to a halt with Hiro seated on top of his prey. Lifting the hand that still held the torch, Hiro directed the light down onto his target to face to face with an all too familiar white and red mask.
Yokai!
- BH6 - BH6 - BH6 -
A/N: This chapter was supposed to continue into the next but once again the chapter simply got out of hand forcing me to split them into two once more. On the bright side I have been granted a momentary reprieve from everyone's reactions to what is coming next.
GuitarGeek: I've never perceived readers telling me to update soon as a negative thing. I rarely get so involved in a story that I can't wait for an update but when I do I do so with a vengeance and I seriously understand the strong desire to get an update. To me its a compliment that means my story got someone so engaged that they really can;t wait to see what happens next. I can understand how it can be perceived as pressure to the author as you don't like leaving your readers hanging but I doubt there is ever any harm meant by it. Personally I am a terrible author when it comes to this. I have stories I abandoned years ago due to my life turning into a royal mess and now I don't know how to even think about picking them up anymore. I left readers hanging for so many years I wouldn't be surprised is someone decided to throw a book at me should I decide to re-appear on that forum again. As for something happening to Hiro... this chapter is the build up to the events that are going to happen in the next chapter but I get the feeling they are far from what you had in mind. Forewarned is forearmed right? Take a deep breath before reading the next chapter and remember this story is not done yet, ok?
Guest: I'm glad you are enjoying this. Things are going to take a rather dramatic turn now. Just hang in there and remember we are not yet done with this story. Yes, I'm warning my readers about the next chapter now...
Interviner: He may be back in the land of the sane but things are from sorted. I hope this chapter satisfied your desire to see what Callaghan is up to even though it is not quite what you had in mind? This confrontation was planned from the moment I started this story though and I have a feeling I'm going to leave behind a few mad readers before this is done :( I originally planned for it to occur in the Lucky Cat Cafe and not the showcase building but it seems my story had other ideas. As for having an idea on how to end it... now you've got me curious as to what you are imagining.
SaiyanPrincess: I also liked Hiro's decision that it didn't matter whether he was insane or not as it all amounted to the same thing. His micro-bots were a potentially dangerous invention and he wanted to make sure they didn't fall into the wrong hands. Unfortunately, as usual, things don't go quite according to plan. Baymax would be more than a little useful!
CrazyBlueOwl: I see you are trying really hard to get my review count on this story up. Your effort is duly noted and greatly appreciated XD. I agree... its frustrating when something accidentally gets posted before you are finished typing it and you can't undo it. Having an idea and actually executing it are two entirely different things. Talking about hitting people over the head with pans does not me a criminal make. Actually doing it... now that's a different matter and all on you. As for your second comment... Oh how well you know both Hiro and me...
Guest DH: His reaction wasn't as bad as you thought it would be. He did, after all, agree to take Hiro to the showcase building. Now for the rest of your review.
Tadashi's response to the first blow: OW
* Sounds of inflating fill the room *
Tadashi's response to the second blow: Hey! Stop hitting me over the head with a pan! Not cool!
* The sounds of inflation end. The third blow does not connect as there is a vinyl arm holding you in place *
Baymax: Hitting people over the head is hazardous to their health. I recommend you stop your current course of action.