Chapter 53, everybody! Tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of this fic being posted AAAAAAAAAAAA—

So as with all my fics, the climax and ending give me grief sometimes because aaaah sitting down and writing it aaaah—I mean I wrote down an outline so I know where to go but STILL. Got some knuckling down to do and just power through to the end wish me luck guys.

Continuing blanket disclaimer: I still have not finished Season Two. We're flying blind, boys. And again, I am still in denial of the end of "Countdown to Catastrophe" don't at me this is how I cope, okay? D: And now Ducktales is in its final episodes….As I said before, send all salt to Disney corporate every nastygram they get that represents fifteen people who couldn't be bothered so WRITE TO THEM.

Also the movie scene—that movie scene…I had been planning this for a bit, whether fully intentional or not. And THIS SCENE—this scene I have been consciously planning since I first started this I have waited almost TWO YEARS to tell you all this and it turns out there's some extra bird info that works with this so here we go:

Remember how a while back I told y'all about the failsafe tendon in bird legs that keep them from falling off a perch while they're asleep? Predator birds have them too, but with extra ridges that can lock the talons in place so they don't lose their prey (it's called 'footing,' according to my one source). This has some crushing power too—theoretically from 400 to 1,000 PSI, which is strong enough to crush the bones in your leg. You know, the super-strong weight-bearing ones? NOW WITH THIS IN MIND—take a moment and look up eagle feet, specifically in relation to human hands. Go ahead, I'll wait. Now, you might have noticed the huge meathooks and how they're all muscle. NOW, scale that up to about a size nine to a size eleven. Yeah. Tadashi might as well have an F on one foot and a U on the other.

In other news: SFIT would TOTALLY have a fire-breathing mascot if not for that one incident that required them reseeding the football field. Also Shrek 2 moment—I saw an opportunity and I seized it. X'D

Also ALL THE MOVIE REFERENCES—including The Road to El Dorado that's a good movie. And yeah, Fred's got a point, if it wasn't for Big Hero Six Obake would have been able to go through with his star plan without a hitch so…eat it, Cruz.

In other news…yes, buildings have to have stairs in the design in case of fires or other disasters since the elevators would fail in those situations. And like Gogo said and Yama can confirm, it's too easy for the big bads to stop the elevator and do things to it. Also…using witch instead of the other word Gogo would rather use gives a nice reference back to Sycorax being a witch in The Tempest and if you can't tell I'm still not over that. The whiter shade of pale is a song reference, by the way.

Angelwings2002, thanks for the review! Yes they do! :D Yes. :D And yes! On the list of things that would have been nice in the series (did she ever in the series? IDK I gotta watch the rest of Season 2 when I finally finish this fic). Oh yes he does totally. And…eheheheheh….

Big Hero 6 © 2014 Disney

Ducktales © 2017 Disney

Tadashi felt sick about leaving his brother, told himself that as soon as he got the kids to safety he was running right back for him—

No, that wasn't the only reason he was feeling sick. Hiro—Hiro's expression, just then—

Desperate, panicking, the same sort of expression he had on that night, when he was worried for his brother about to make a stupid decision—

"Someone has to help."

Only the words weren't coming out of his own mouth—their positions had been reversed, him looking up at Hiro, hearing those four words that drove 'Kase crazy, knowing how his face must look—

"We got this."

His mind wanted to insist no, every fiber of his being insisted no—this was Hiro, this was his little brother that he had travelled across country to get back to—if he had to tear him bodily off of Baymax and run he would—

But the other kids, screaming and screeching and soaked in terror—

And Hiro, changed by his absence, armored and spoiling for a fight despite the fear he obviously felt, because it was the right thing to do despite not being the easy thing to do—

"I can do this."

You can only save one of us, 'Dashi—which will it be?

But it wasn't just him—someone had to help, but it wasn't just him that had to—his stupid decision had left a gaping void in Hiro's life that he had done his best to fill, and he was currently sitting on the results of that. He…didn't need his big brother to come swooping in to save the day.

He let go.

He wasn't sure if it was that, or the fact that he had left Hiro, or the fact that they were blindly fleeing through the halls with no assurances that they'd find each other again—reach another intersection as Violet caught up to them—

One of those whale-monsters was charging for them.

"Left right go!" 'Kase barked, pointing before bolting—she went one way, Tadashi went the other, mind screaming scatter-dive-avoid—the whale-monster went skidding, could hear it trying to scramble around—

Another one bound into view.

Tadashi swore, tightening his hold on the bird-kids as he fled—reach an open area, like a warehouse for storing planes or helicopters or giant crates—

"Go! Go!" he barked, tossing Lena up. "Fly! Get out of here!" Hug Nox tight, leap, wings powering down—

Screamed and threw Nox free when he felt a yank at his tail, went crashing down to the floor—spun around, saw the whale-monster bearing down on him—

Self-preservation trumped any fear singing through him—kick out with both feet, grip hard[KW1] , roll, using the monster's momentum to fling it over him, claws digging in tight and ripping as its continued momentum tore it free. Scramble to his feet, slipping from the slick red on his toes—

The monster flailed, bellowed, charged—tried to leap free, slipped—hit the ground hard—over—it was all over—

"Mini-Maximum Interception!"

Tadashi had NO idea what to make of the little blue thing slamming into the monster's face hard enough that teeth went flying, definitely didn't know what to make of the larger blue thing with three eyes bounding in oh great another monster that was it he was toast—

"Super jump!" it bellowed, leaping up—splayed its limbs as it came down. "Gravity press!"

The monster spun, snarling and sending pink spittle everywhere—

Got whammed in the chest again by the smaller blue thing, knocking the breath out of it and preventing it from avoiding the blue monster dropping on its head.

Said blue monster leaped back, bouncing around while assuming a fighting stance, shot fire at the first monster—combo of that and the little blue thing sent it packing—

"Oh great," Tadashi muttered, plastered against the wall and trying to edge sideways to spot the bird-kids oh please have kept running. "She's making kaiju now."

"Ooh where?" the blue monster asked, sounding painfully familiar—

Leaped back, gesturing at him and making a noise not unlike a strangled goose before charging him. "TADASHI!" Got him in a crushing bear hug before he could react, not phased in the slightest by him beating on its back upon recovery. "TADASHI MY DUDE YOU'RE ALIVE!" Let go, hold him at arm's distance. "I KNEW YOU WERE JUST OFF HAVING AN ORIGIN STORY DIDN'T I SAY THAT MINI-MAX!?"

"You did indeed!" the little blue thing said, hovering nearby and saluting.

Mini-Max? And better yet—

"FRED!?" Tadashi squawked, horrified at his friend's appearance. "A—are you okay what happened—"

"Oh no wait right do not be alarmed this is not my real face and body," Fred assured him, popping the top of the blue monster off and poking his usual grinning face up out of it. "It's a suit, see?"

Tadashi knew his expression had to be priceless, knew the dumbfoundedness was increasing as Fred crawled out of said suit to tackle him in a hug again. "But MY DUDE it's good to see you back from your epic origin story do you have a superhero name yet I'm totally calling it for you you know I'm good for it—"

Okay so his first thought of did SFIT get a new school mascot quickly fizzled when he figured that they probably wouldn't equip the suit with fire breath (mostly out of safety concerns over whether or not a mascot shouldn't have such a thing), realized what the next logical step was. "Fred—"

"Okay yeah so my first thought was Birdboy upon seeing the feathers but I'm thinking that's too generic, yeah?" Fred asked, leaning back and waffling a hand. "I'm thinking…Sunfire."

So while he was kind of chuffed that his first guess was right—"Fred. PLEASE tell me you all haven't been moonlighting as superheroes—"

"Pff, dude, no," Fred said, waving him off. "That totally implies we only do it at night—heroism never sleeps!" he declared, assuming a heroic pose.

"FRED—"

"Okay I have NO idea how these kids got in here or if there's some sort of—of second batch of identical clones or something but I am not having—Tadashi!?"

"Wasabi!?" Tadashi squawked.

"'Dashi!" Violet said, pointing.

"Violet!" Fred exclaimed, pointing back at her.

"Mini-Max!" the little robot declared, flying between them to pose.

"Yeah YOU I'm going to question at a later date," Tadashi said, glaring at it.

"Oh this dude?" Fred asked, giving the little robot a sideways hug. "This is TOTALLY my epic superhero sidekick Mini-Max—Hiro made him for me isn't he AWESOME!?"

"My purpose is to reduce all Fred-related incidents and root out perfidy where it sleeps!" the robot declared, pumping a fist.

"No volume control?" Tadashi asked.

"Heroism CANNOT be contained!"

"Mine," Lena said, tugging Mini-Max down to hug.

"Heroism can be slightly contained," Mini-Max amended.

"Hugging definitely makes you a better superhero, bro," Fred told it.

"Uh, Fred," Wasabi said, tone flat but leading. Gesture a little when Fred looked up, one hand still preoccupied with supporting Violet, tapped the other against his own green armor—

Fred practically dove back into his own suit. "Ohcrud I forgot I'm still on patrol!"

"Uh…yeah," Wasabi noised—Tadashi felt a ginger tap on his arm. "Are…you okay?"

Maybe give him a few more minutes of having his face buried in his hands, he needed some time to compose himself—nope, nothing doing.

"Whatever happened," Tadashi said finally, lifting his head up and begging skywards for strength. "To YOU being the sensible one?"

"Hey, don't look at me NONE OF THIS was MY idea," Wasabi protested, making a flat cutting motion with his free hand. "I was totally against this, we are nerds and I do not like what happens when the adrenaline wears off."

"No man it's cool," Fred said, now fully back in the kaiju suit and gesturing. "Wasabi was like, the last one in on the whole thing—me, personally, I think he was holding out because he was mad about his car."

"My car I think I had a right to be mad about my car don't you?"

"My dude, we fished it out of the bay and polished it up for you it's all good."

"How. Did Wasabi's car. End up in the bay," Tadashi gritted.

"Right totally the team's first collective brush with our very first supervillain—oh wait yeah Callaghan was secretly a supervillain this WHOLE time—"

"Fred."

"Oh right you were there for his dark origin death-faking—wait that makes him intrinsically tied with your origin story you must tell me details," Fred said, hugging him close.

"Fred."

"I mean it must be impressive taking this long and there's SO MUCH you can do with the not really dead trope—"

"Fred," Tadashi said flatly. "I'm still mad at you. And you," he added to Wasabi. "And the rest of you," he said to the bird-kids. "You two for not stopping Hiro and being responsible adults, and the rest of you for not listening ever. Still don't know what to make of you," he added, looking at Mini-Max.

"I am but an innocent in this blame assessment," Mini-Max said.

"'Dashi," Nox said, tugging on his feathers.

"Well let's be real here," Fred said, planting Tadashi back on his own feet again. "If we weren't superheroes the city wouldn't even be here AND we're still kind of in the middle of doing the superhero thing so…be mad later?"

Tadashi was starting to worry his face would freeze in the dumbfounded state. "What?"

"Uh…yeah, not now," Wasabi said, waving his free hand. "Because we're still in the middle of the whole getting everybody in danger OUT of this building bit and I'd really like to keep Fred on that track."

"Yeah hold on let me see about getting a hold of the others," Fred said, sounding like he was messing with a walkie-talkie. "Oh wait—does Hiro know? Did you two have the touching reunion? Were there tears? Did you make the readers cry? The writer? That's like the most-anticipated chapter did it deliver?"

"Fred," Wasabi said, sounding totally done. "Remember when we agreed to tell each other when we weren't using real words or talking sense? Yeah guess which one you're doing."

"I…vote the second one," Fred said, raising a kaiju paw before pointing.

"Yes," Violet said.

Well the good news was this hadn't changed.

The bad news was, Fred just reminded him why he had fled into this room.

"Hiro knows, the last time I saw him and Baymax they were fighting more of those things," he said, pointing at the unconscious whale-monster. "And Gogo and Honey Lemon are in trouble—they said the Visitor's Center and I have no idea where that is AND there's still more bird-kids loose."

"And other bird-people, and Karmi," Wasabi said, exchanging dire looks with Fred.

"Our time has come," Fred said, posing before bending over Lena. "Hey, Lena my dudette, can I have Mini-Max back for a moment? We have to go do the hero thing."

"No," Lena said, hugging the robot.

"Actually we do, not exaggerating."

Tadashi rolled his eyes, fished in his pockets for something to trade, pulled out a pinecone. "Here, Lena—trade you Mini-Max for this?"

Lena's expression brightened at the offer—quickly swapped Mini-Max before she could change her mind.

"Very nice, my dude," Fred said, accepting Mini-Max back. "I see you have plenty of experience navigating bird-kid issues—might have to stick with Birdboy."

"No," Nox said, pointing at Mini-Max. "No-no-no bad—"

"I mean I agree Sunfire has more of the visual goodness but—"

"No," Nox said, finally getting a hold of Mini-Max and handing him back to Tadashi.

"Oh right. I mean, I used to have a half-eaten burrito in here I could have traded, but Wasabi made me throw it out."

"Do I have to explain why?" Wasabi asked, sounding totally done.

Fred looked ready to counter—danced away from the monster on the floor groaning.

Tadashi was quick to scoop up the other two bird-kids. "All those in favor of postponing that conversation say aye."

"Aye," Wasabi and Fred said, the three of them scuttling down a side hall before the monster could do any more. Reach the first intersection, make a turn to get out of its line of sight, pause at the next one.

"Okay," Fred said, bouncing around before picking a direction. "Visitor's Center is…this way!"

"No," Violet said, causing Fred to backtrack.

"Okay then—this way!"

"No."

Fred came back, pointed at the last available hall.

"Yes," Violet said, nodding.

"Okay then," Fred said, shrugging.

"You've been here before, haven't you?" Tadashi asked her.

"No," Violet said.

"Okay people keep moving please," Wasabi said, shoving Fred down the hall. "Because you know what the Visitor's Center has? Doors—doors I would like to get everyone out through."

"Yes."

"You know that firstly we haven't found everyone and secondly the building is in total lockdown," Fred pointed out.

"You know I have laser blades that can cut through steel can we go now?"

"Wait, what?" Tadashi asked, adjusting his hold on Lena when she tried to crawl to his back. "When was this!?"

"Explain the details on the way!" Fred said. "I just tried getting the girls on the walkie-talkies and something is going down!"

Oh great—like his intestines weren't doing enough self-knotting right now.

Oh please oh please oh please let everyone be all right, he begged skywards. Please let them be okay.

Please don't let me be the reason everyone's in danger.

Gogo had been mildly glad when they found the Visitor's Center—it meant they had a familiar location to reorient themselves on. Less glad when Honey Lemon commented on its creepiness—mostly because she couldn't disagree with her.

"See if you can get the others," Gogo told Honey Lemon. "I'll scope the place and see if I can't find the stairs."

"Not the elevator?" Honey Lemon asked.

"No—it's too easy to get trapped in there." And there had to be stairs this building wouldn't have been okayed without them in the design. Skate around, pointing Hiro's jamming device at some of the cameras but just as often throwing a discus at them—watching them explode in a burst of sparks was oddly cathartic.

Eat it, you witch, she thought, smug smirk as she caught her discus. Yes, this was petty and property damage and probably not necessary, but dangit someone had to do it and it was going to be her. And if the bird-kids were to be believed…then she deserved it on principle.

She just wished she had been able to do it to the last guy who tried this with Hiro.

Speeding back to the café to check on Hiro after Noodle Burger Boy and his little dumplings had stolen the dynamo, after they realized that they had been tricked, had their worst fears thrown at them as distractions—

Reaching him to find him shaken and distraught, eyes wet, to learn that of all the things he had seen, it had been a ghost of Tadashi, that he used to try to trick Hiro into joining him—

Part of her kind of hoped Fred was right—that no body meant Obake was alive. Mostly so she could deck him hard enough his ancestors could feel it.

And now this witch was trying to do the same thing, only with something real and tangible that could do them some real harm should it choose. Those bird-people had been very real and armed with sharp talons—the blue one had even grabbed Wasabi and lifted him into the air, and he was not a small man. And if the little one, Nox, was anything to go by….

Nox is a clone. Of—of Obake.

Another camera went down to her discus at that thought—no, being salty at a little genetic cocktail of a kid wouldn't solve anything and wasn't fair to Nox. Did that make any of this easier to swallow? Absolutely not.

And if one of these monsters had Tadashi's face on it….

She could see the mental image clearly as she skirted around the water feature, barely sparing the little waterfalls a glance. Them, stunned and thrown by the sight of Tadashi—

Which then gave the monster a chance to attack them.

Huff at that thought, testing a door, dismissing it when it didn't lead to a stairwell—yes, that was cold, but someone needed to be critical and thinking of the worst-case scenarios; figuring out where things could go wrong meant you had plans for when they did. Better yet, they meant you could avoid where they went wrong altogether. It would be nice if this were really Tadashi—fantastic, even—but someone had to be realistic. It was very likely that Tadashi was dead in the SFIT fire like everyone thought, and that this—this monster had taken his DNA for the express purpose of screwing them over.

Which meant she knew who they were, really.

There was no sugarcoating it—if she knew who they really were they were screwed. And she might—she had guessed that Karmi had called Hiro, had mentioned Aunt Cass and the Lucky Cat and even knew she had Mochi—

Lena also shares genetic similarities to: Momakase.

Okay. Say that she got Obake's DNA from his bloated body that she fished out of the bay—that still left Momakase, who also most likely knew their identities. Basically: yes this witch knew who they were and if she didn't before she certainly knew once they set foot in the building and the biometrics started scanning.

They needed to resolve this, and fast.

"Well?" she asked, skidding to a halt next to Honey Lemon.

"The comms are still jammed," Honey Lemon said, fiddling with the walkie-talkie. "I'm trying to get the others on this now."

"You don't really think that'll work, do you?"

"It's worth a shot," she said, turning the channel to seven. "Hiro? Hiro!"

"Hey!"

Honey Lemon grabbed Gogo's shoulder in relief, sagged a little. "Hiro, are you all right?"

"Yeah I'm fine," Hiro said, voice a little crackly—probably from the walkie-talkie. "Fred was right about the walkie-talkies."

"Don't tell Fred that he's insufferable enough as-is," Gogo groused, ignoring Honey Lemon rolling her eyes at her as Hiro responded.

"Can you get him or Wasabi? Where are you guys?"

"We're in the visitor's center," Honey Lemon said, looking around. "We should be able to get to Sublevel Nine from here…but the doors are all locked," she said, when Gogo shook her head.

"Yeah, we're working on that. Baymax?"

"My scanners are still non-functional," Baymax announced, thinner and more distant for not being right next to the walkie-talkie.

"Figures."

Gogo looked at Honey Lemon, was getting ready to suggest maybe boosting the trackers their gear had (which she had insisted on after Globby had stolen Honey Lemon's purse the first time)—was cut off by a different voice saying "Your friends are that way."

"Hiro," she said, trying to wrestle the worry that just leaped on her head down. "Who's with you?"

"We can start with 'the bird-kids are grounded,'" Hiro groused.

"Good luck with that one."

That—

That should not have been as much of a gut-punch as it was she had just been planning for that inevitability she shouldn't be surprised at hearing a voice she figured she'd never hear again outside of recordings—look at Honey Lemon, who had gone past that whiter shade of pale—

"Hiro," Honey Lemon said gingerly. "How far away from us are you?"

Good, good—put a hand on Honey Lemon's arm to steady her as Hiro tried to figure it out—they'd be ready—

No idea—I think we're on the right track though?" Hiro said, obviously still trying to navigate with….

"We'll wait here a few minutes," Gogo said, steeling herself. "You be careful—"

"Gogo look out!" Honey Lemon yelped—

Leap forward, grabbing Honey Lemon, both of them rolling—the walkie-talkie went flying, crashed on the floor—roll upright, Honey Lemon scrambling to do the same as—

She tried to make sense of the thing that landed in front of them, blue and black and sharp angles and wild fur and teeth and long claws a pale glowing blue—like graphene—

Oh, you have got to be kidding her.

"Hey, Momakase," Gogo said. "You've looked better."

The monster that used to be Momakase screamed, launched itself at them—

Gogo was already skating away, flinging a discus at her face—wincing when it got sliced in half—dodged into the dining area, hoping that slowed Momakase down as Honey Lemon launched several chem balls after her—nothing was slowing this monster down though—leap the banister—yelp when she felt claws slice through one of her lower discuses, went skidding when she didn't have two to land on—Honey Lemon ran up, Gogo checking her ankle to make sure it was still there as she scrambled upright—

Monster-Momakase lunged for them—Gogo was already swinging a discus, knew it'd be too late—

Blinked when the attacking monster was just—gone. Look—

A blur of blue was rolling, part of it separating, bouncing back and up, landing on one of the beams above and shrieking—

The blue bird-lady from the other night.

"Hi there," she snarled. "Remember me?"