You've Been Here Before
"What on earth was he thinking?! The bonehead, the knucklehead, the IDIOT! How can just up and leave like this? After all the effort we went to in order to rescue him in the first place! Why did he not come to me for help? He can tell me anything! I thought he knew that." Tadashi ranted sounding both hurt and confused as he paced across Hiro's bedroom in a scene that was becoming entirely too familiar.
"Are you sure he's gone? Maybe he just went out to run an errand." Honey Lemon suggested, nervously playing with the hem of her dress. The moment he'd realized Hiro was gone, Tadashi had called and gathered the entire gang. Part of him had been hoping to find out Hiro had gone to visit one of them, to no avail which brought them to this moment. Honey Lemon was perched on the edge of Hiro's bed. Wasabi was sitting on Hiro's PC desk chair, Gogo was leaning against the wall directly beside the staircase and Fred… well Fred was being Fred.
"He isn't anywhere in the café. Aunt Cass doesn't have any errands that need to be run and I didn't see him leave. I was in the kitchen and would have seen him if he'd come down the stairs which means he must have snuck out the window. He wouldn't have done that if he was simply running an errand." Tadashi explained turning to pace the other way.
Pop. "Did you ask Baymax to run a scan on the city?" Gogo asked glancing at the subject in question.
Baymax was standing in his charging station silently watching the proceedings. "My enhanced scanner has been tampered with." He reported back before Tadashi even had a chance to respond to Gogo's question. "Important components have been removed thus rendering it useless."
"See." Tadashi raised an arm, using it to point at Baymax. "See what I'm dealing with? The idiotic, knuckleheaded brother of mine was smart enough to disable the one thing we could have used to locate him but wasn't smart enough to come to his family and friends for help. Why can't he use that big brain of his for something useful for a change? For someone who apparently has the IQ of a genius, Hiro certainly isn't very sm…"
"Uh… guys… I think you need to see this." Fred interjected, interrupting Tadashi's rant. Fred had draped himself across Hiro's bed upon arrival, half hanging off it as he listened to Tadashi's rant. Paying only partial attention to Tadashi's words, he'd been running his eyes across the room looking for anything that might be out of place. The corner of something interesting had caught his eye from beneath Hiro's bed. Reaching under the bed he pulled the object of interest out.
Gogo raised an eyebrow the moment the object came into view. "Your Godzilla comic. Seriously Fred, we don't have time for this right now. Hiro has snuck off to do who knows what and you want us to pay attention to one of your stupid comic books?"
"Not just any stupid comic book." Fred, retorted raising a finger in illustration as he sat up. "My Godzilla comic book. I happen to know that I left this comic book in the garage." Fred flicked the comic book open, rapidly paging through it. "While we were still searching for Hiro, I wrote down some theories regarding who might have taken Hiro and why. Hiro probably found it and brought it up here. Which means… Aa ha!" He stopped flicking through the comic book when a familiar ketchup stained white page came into view. Picking it up he held it out for the gang to see. "Hiro highlighted one of my theories!" Fred declared, victorious. He'd been right all along.
Tadashi frowned and reached for the page, rapidly skimming the content, his eyes drawn to the lines that were highlighted in yellow marker.
Oooooh oh, we're on the subject of weapons
4)Godzilla! They want to bring back Godzilla so he can use his atomic breath to blow this joint to smithereens!
Tadashi blinked looking up at Fred once more. "You mean to tell me that weapons have been their target all along? Why would they go to all the trouble of building a time machine just to obtain a couple of old World War II torpedoes? We have more effective weapons available today."
Fred shook his head, got up and began to pace, still clinging to the comic book. "No man. You've got this all wrong. I don't think this is about torpedoes though I'm sure they were stolen by the same guys that took Hiro." He marched up to Tadashi and poked a finger at the highlighted point on the page. "It's about Godzilla?"
"Godzilla?" Tadashi echoed, completely lost.
"Listen here, you idiotic, impulsive lizard." Gogo marched towards Fred. "Godzilla, just like shrink rays and invisible sandwiches doesn't exist. He's a comic book character, a figment of someone's imagination and a plot device used to tell a story. He never existed nor will he ever exist. Building a time machine won't help anyone bring him into existence."
"Oh but that's where you're wrong." Fred leaned in with a smile, waving the comic book under Gogo's nose, another white page slipped out of the comic book, falling unnoticed to the ground. "Godzilla did exist. Godzilla was created to represent the atom bomb that was dropped on Japan during the war."
Atom bomb.
Tadashi's skin went ice cold, the chaos in his mind stilling to focus on those two simple words and the sheer implications of what they represented. "Oh no," Tadashi whispered rushing to Hiro's PC. "This is far bigger than we ever imagined. This is about bringing nuclear warfare back into play." Tadashi pressed the button to boot Hiro's machine up only to stare in disbelief at the message that was displayed on the screen.
Operating System Not Found!
Bang.
Tadashi's fist connected with the wall beside the PC.
"Aaa." Wasabi jumped in surprise, reflexively rolling the PC desk chair away from Tadashi.
"Tadashi?" Honey Lemon inquired softly getting up to join Tadashi beside Hiro's PC.
"The knucklehead formatted the hard drive." Tadashi growled glaring at the PC for a moment longer before marching across the room to grab hold of Hiro's tools. Marching back to the PC, he dropped the tools down, pulled out a screw driver and began to dismantle the machine. "Smart, little brother, really smart but when it comes to this I'm smarter." Tadashi pulled the cover of the machine off reaching in to disconnect the drive in question.
"What are you planning to do?" Wasabi cautiously rolled the chair back in, having already recovered from his initial fright.
"I'm going to retrieve the information Hiro thinks he's wiped off this hard drive and you're going to help me." Tadashi informed him disconnecting wires.
"I am?" Wasabi peered into the PC casing.
"I need your laptop and access to the internet."
"I'm on it." Wasabi confirmed getting up off the chair. He turned and moved towards the staircase only to stumble to a halt when an innocuous piece of paper caught his attention. "Seriously guys." He muttered, bending down to pick it up. "Is it really too difficult to throw rubbish where it belongs?" He moved towards the trash bin in the corner of the room and was just about to drop the piece of paper into it when a spot of color on the other side caught his eye. He flipped it, eyes going wide in shock. "Uh… guys…" He echoed Fred's earlier words. "I think I know why Hiro left without speaking to us."
Tadashi glanced up from the now dismantled PC, question in his eyes.
Wasabi turned the page around so the gang could see what was on it. It was the photograph Hiro had found in the café. It had been taken the day Hiro returned home from hospital after being rescued. Tadashi was helping Hiro into the café. A target had been drawn on Tadashi's head.
"Awe man." Fred breathed, turning a shocked gaze towards Tadashi. "The little dude's trying to protect you." Heavy silence followed his declaration, the realization that this was still far from over hanging thick in the air.
- BH6 - BH6 - BH6 –
A/N: My favorite quote from this chapter: "Smart, little brother, really smart but when it comes to this I'm smarter."
Guest: I won't be correcting you as you are not wrong. XD XD XD
Kiki Anderson: He's not quite insane yet. Hang in there. Have a little faith. :P
CrazyBlueOwl: * Hiro pushes CrazyBlueOwl away and gives her a dirty look * PS: Guest has responded to you. You now officially have a partner in crime/crime fighting.
shooting2stars: I agree, Hiro would make an AWESOME detective but as you say he may be in over his head here.
Ern Estine 13624: Glad I was able to surprise you!
Iron Rose Writer: Your review has left me with mixed feelings. I know the story is rather dark. It's meant to be. This story brings Tadashi back but I don't believe that should come without a price. Hiro is in essence paying that price. I feel I need to warn you that this story is going to get darker before it gets better as all of this is just the build up to the price he has to pay. PS: What does ATM mean? I tried to look it up and all I could find was At The Moment but that doesn't make sense in the sentence?
Catcrazzed: It's my pleasure XD
RazzlePazzleDooDot: Let's see if I can help. Hiro basically found out that Alistair Krei is the one trying to build the time portal and his reason is money. Nuclear weapons do not exist in my story but they did exist in the past. Alistair Krei is trying to retrieve these from the past so he can sell them on the black market to the highest bidder. He knows there are governments are willing to pay a lot of money for them as owning these weapons will give these governments the political upper hand.
Dreamer: Are you a soothsayer or something? Of course Hiro's plan is not going to go as 'planned'. The journals have been a very useful story telling tool in this story. They allowed me to provide details I wouldn't otherwise have been able to include and I'm glad they worked. I definitely see what you are referring to when you say your mind rambles and know what its like to be able to predict stories. I consider it a massive achievement that I was able to surprise you at time even though I have been dropping hints towards various outcomes all along. As for Inquisitors family... he doesnt have one in my head, don't stress. Onto the account: Many people create accounts just so they can follow a story consequently getting notifications in their email when it gets updated and so they 'favorite' a story. They never write anything and it is perfectly acceptable so I don;t see why you couldnt do it if you wanted to! Who knows... maybe you;ll get a visit from a muse and will have somewhere to display the results of your labour.
Rosycat: Thanks for reviewing all the chapters you missed! Hiro doesn't want to get Tadashi involved. It's his way of protecting his brother. And you are correct with things tying together. Everything is linked. It's why this story became the monster it did. Hiro did not get kidnapped again. He willingly approached Krei with the proposition. You're not missing anything. All will be revealed in time.
Cosmickatsu: I wouldn't completely disregard your hunch. There is some truth in it. I also wouldn't worry too much about weird looks from the parental units. I'm so used to it I don't even notice anymore. As for Dashi... oh, he has a plan, alright XD
