Chapter 7
It was day two of being a sophomore at SFIT, and Hiro was not having a good time thus far. Like the day prior, he'd been forced to take Rishi all around campus, which made it difficult to coordinate with the team. At lunch he'd managed to sneak away to his lab to try and interrogate Trina via the Captain Cutie drone on potential whereabouts on Noodle Burger Boy, but that had been a bust. On top of all of that, someone had broken into Richardson Mole's comic shop and stolen High Voltage's electric orb, so there was a potential supervillain duo back on the streets. Last Hiro checked, Honey Lemon and Fred were looking into it. After going to his own classes and making sure Rishi knew what he was doing and where he was going, Hiro finally had some time to himself.
And he was going to spend that time with Karmi. Not that he minded. A few months ago, this would've been the thing he'd been dreading all day, but now it was the thing he was looking forward to most. He still felt like he should be doing something to try and find Noodle Burger Boy, but without any leads, Hiro would just worry himself to death. Maybe blowing off some steam with a friend was just what he needed. He knocked on the door to Karmi's lab and it opened automatically. The lights were off, and the lab was dim, save for the flashing of a soldering iron. Karmi turned around to look at Hiro through her goggles, giving off a menacing evil-scientist vibe. As opposed to when they first met, Hiro found this humorous instead of creepy or disturbing. Karmi flipped on the light and raised her goggles with a smile.
"Hiro! There you are." She placed her tool down and peeled off a safety glove. "How were classes today?"
Hiro tossed his backpack on the ground and groaned. "Fine, just had to deal with Rishi again today. But, the first two days are done with, now I just have to check up him like once a week."
"Not fun being forced to hang out with the youngest kid at SFIT, is it?" Karmi asked with a smirk.
"Oh, ha ha. So, you working on the glove?" Karmi moved aside so Hiro could see the deconstructed inner workings. He bent down and peered at it on the counter, poking and prodding at it in places. "Where's the power source?"
Karmi peeled back a layer of material in the palm, showcasing the battery casing. "Here. Right now I'm using a small lithium-ion battery, it's all I could get my hands on at the time."
"All you could get your hands on for your glove?" Hiro smirked. Karmi gave him a playful shove.
"Shut up!" Karmi returned his smirk as Hiro went back to looking at the glove.
"Well, I can tell you what you already know, this won't be enough to power it. Do you have the original prototype?"
"Right here." Karmi opened up a cabinet and plopped the original bulkier gauntlet down onto the table. She felt around on it until she found what she was looking for, popping a clasp and revealing the battery storage compartment on the wrist. Several larger lithium-ion batteries were stored there, giving the gauntlet its needed power. "Cannibalized a few of the family's old cellphones for these. Worked out pretty well."
"So I see. Yeah, the new one isn't getting a fraction of the power it needs. Have you tried extending the glove a bit, more like a sleeve to fit the batteries in?"
"That was my original idea, but it felt weird having batteries just hanging off of my forearm. That's why I switched to the smaller battery."
"Well, let's maybe take a page from Go Go and get rid of the lithium-ion. A magnetic field battery could theoretically power this thing with kinetic energy alone."
"Sounds great, but I've never worked with magnets before."
"I haven't either, but we put our heads together and I bet we can figure it out."
"Let's do it."
Karmi broke out her laptop as Hiro grabbed his, both diving into research and beginning to sketch prototypes. Hiro ran to his lab to grab materials and a couple of sodas, returning to find Karmi had a finished prototype blueprint up on the large screen. They got to work. An hour passed by in a blur, the clock nearing 5 PM by the time they had a model built. Karmi connected the wires to her glove as Hiro stood by the switch to their new generator.
"Ready?" he asked.
She nodded. "Ready."
Hiro flipped the switch and their generator powered on. The glove began to glow, a holographic battery symbol on the side reading full power. Karmi gingerly slipped it on, careful not to bump the wires off connecting it to the generator. A holographic keyboard hovered over the glove and Karmi typed in a command. After a moment, a Chibi Captain Cutie appeared, walking off the palm of the glove and hopping onto the countertop. It waved at both Hiro and Karmi.
"Test one complete. Let's see what else it will do." Karmi typed in another command, and the Chibi disappeared, reconstituting in Karmi's hand as a sword. She pointed it at Hiro and gently tapped him in the arm with it. "Feel that?"
"Yeah, I feel it."
Karmi typed in another command, the sword now becoming a pistol. She turned and aimed it at one of the empty soda cans. She fired and a holographic bolt raced from the barrel of the pistol and impacted with the can, sending it flying around the room. Hiro ducked to avoid being hit as the can flew over his head. He picked it up once it stopped moving and examined it. There was no obvious damage to the can, but it had reacted to the force of the shot anyway.
"Incredible! This goes beyond three dimensional holograms, Karmi, real objects are reacting to the physics of the holograms! This tech could revolutionize… so much. And Hardlight wanted to use it as a weapon."
"Glad he got thrown in jail." Karmi powered down the glove and slipped it off. "I couldn't have done it without you, Hiro. Thank you. We really do make a great team."
"Yeah, we do."
Hiro and Karmi smiled at each other, just enjoying the moment. They didn't have long to enjoy it, though, because that's when the shaking started.
Noodle Burger Boy skipped gleefully back into the generator room, the electric orb floating just above his outstretched hands. Stealing it had been easy once he'd located its unique energy signature, now all he needed to do was plug it in. His vision began to blur again as another video message from Obake appeared.
"Now that you have a power source, there are a number of options for what to do with it. Turn on one of the generators now, and you can overload it and send a disastrous tidal wave of energy through whatever district of the city you're closest to. Or you can wait and turn on all three generators at once. If you do that, the seismic activity generated will send San Fransokyo sliding into the bay, however, you won't be able to do so alone. While some of the exuberant buffoons that like to cause trouble can be annoying, they're not without their uses. I'd recommend using Trina to guide them. A hammer can be a useful tool, but it requires a skilled hand to utilize properly. No matter what you decide, the city will get what's coming to it."
The message disappeared, leaving Noodle back alone with his thoughts. Father had mentioned Trina. It had been a while since he'd seen his big sis, but she'd been moved to the large super prison that had been constructed over the summer. It's the reason he and his other siblings never attempted a rescue. If he was going to get her out of there, he'd need something more than a few burger puns and laser eyes.
He pulled up his location and studied the math Obake had left behind for him. If he were to activate the machine right now, the resulting energy would send a massive earthquake through the shipping yards… and the prison. There was a reason the prison had been built where it was, to cut down on potential collateral damage should any villain somehow miraculously escape. But it also meant that it would take time for Big Hero 6 to respond to it, and with an earthquake keeping them busy…
Noodle leapt forward, sliding the orb into place. It began to charge up the machinery and the lights in the room. Noodle stood back and watched it work.
"We've got a two-for-one order coming right up! Prison break and a city shaken, not stirred! He he! He he!"
The energy building was already too much, with a hundred years' worth of dust coming off the rafters in the ceiling as the room began to shake.
Hiro and Karmi looked up as the building around them began to shake. The newly bought set of test tubes and beakers vibrated off the countertop and fell to the ground, glass going everywhere. The two teen geniuses looked at each other, both speaking at the same time.
"Earthquake!"
Hiro opened a thankfully empty cabinet and crawled inside, yanking Karmi in with him. The two grasped each other for dear life as they closed their eyes to ride out the shaking.
Mochi the cat was sitting in a sunbeam on the window seat overlooking the street outside. Suddenly a flowerpot on the windowsill outside toppled over and broke on the street below, scaring the cat and sending him running into the café so he could leap into Cass's arms. Cass was about to ask the cat what was up when she felt the all-too-familiar rumble in her shoes. Her patrons felt it too, looking around in fear. Cass lifted the board separating the café from the kitchen, pointing to the back room.
"Alright everyone, into my storage room, let's go!"
Everyone got up and ran toward where she was pointing.
Fred looked around as everything around him began to shake. A few small cracks began to form in the walls of buildings around himself and Honey Lemon. A car, its driver caught off guard by the sudden quake, spiraled out of control and crashed into a fire hydrant. Honey Lemon ran up and helped the man out of his car, quickly spreading a chem ball on his face to deal with the quickly spreading bruise from where his head impacted with the steering wheel. A streetlamp broke and began falling toward the two, only to be caught by Fred.
"It's not safe out here!" he said as he tossed the broken lamp away.
"Let's get inside!" Honey Lemon pointed to a restaurant the three of them were standing next to, its patrons getting under tables or being led into the freezer in the back by wait staff. Honey and Fred helped the driver get under a table, the two of them doing the same quickly after. A young boy was cowering under the next table with his parents, crying. He looked at the two heroes.
"Can you stop the earthquake?" he asked between sniffles.
"Sorry little guy, even we can't take on mother nature." Fred said, watching as the sign on the front of the restaurant crashed onto the concrete outside.
A crack in the earth opened up near Prison Max, setting off the early warning systems. The Buddy Guardians began to take emergency precautions and shifted to anti-grav levitation mode, making them immune to the shaking. Prison Max itself began to run countermeasures to deter the earthquake, starting to send out seismic tremors equal to the ones that were coming in. However, the AI prison wasn't fast enough, and a wall crumbled and fell on a power generator, cutting power to the main cell block.
All of the plasma bars lowered, allowing the villains to step out of their cells despite the shaking. After a moment the shaking began to fade and the villains looked around at the open cells. Steamer threw his hands up.
"Free once more! San Fransokyo will rue the day that-" Steamer was cut off as Di Amara and Chris ran past him, knocking him back into his cell. "Rude!"
Hardlight and Cobra each ran for the double doors that lead to the holding room where all their stuff was kept. Steamer righted himself and followed them, eager to don his military blues once more. Trina, however, sat motionless, being a head stuck to a table.
"Don't leave without me! Hey!" She yelled for one of the others to come collect her, but none came. So much for honor among thieves. She looked ahead of her. Robert Callaghan remained sitting in his cell, not moving. "Hey, old man. Help me get back to my body, would ya?"
"I don't think so," he answered. In all the time she'd been here, Trina had never heard him utter a word. "I belong in this cage just like you do. I may not be able to stop the others from escaping, but I can at least make sure you stay put."
Callaghan sat back on his bunk, content to wait for the guards to arrive. After a few minutes, Trina could hear explosions coming from the courtyard, probably Steamer and the others fighting the Buddy Guardians. Another few minutes passed, and Trina heard the doors to the cell block open, followed by the shuffling of tiny feet. Noodle Burger Boy stopped in front of Trina's cell, waving to her.
"Howdy big sis!"
"Noodle! What took you so long?! And what's up with your eye?"
Noodle tilted his head at that question. "My eye? Well golly gee, that's going to take some explaining. How about we blow this pop stand and I'll fill you in on father's plan!"
Trina's eyes widened as Noodle plucked her off her stand, ripping out the power cord and relying on her own built-in battery. Noodle turned to walk away, bumping into Callaghan as he did so.
"You're not going anywhere." He stated, menace dripping from his voice.
"Uh oh. Guess I'll have to make that order of bones crunchy style!" Noodle used his extended arm claw to grab Callaghan and toss him back in his cell. With the old man out of the way, Noodle skipped on into the storage room, where Trina's larger attack body was waiting for her.
"Payback is going to be sweet." She said as an evil smile spread across her face.
The shaking mercifully stopped. Hiro and Karmi opened their eyes and looked around. The lab hadn't been damaged anymore than it had in the initial moments and the two were unhurt. They crawled out of the cabinet, mindful of the broken glass, They listened as alarms blared around campus and people called out to make sure everyone was alright. Hiro's phone buzzed, the team already saying they were suiting up or were suited up and helping out. He quickly tapped a reply that he and Baymax were on their way. He also texted Cass and Rishi to make sure they were ok and turned to Karmi.
"You ok?"
"Yeah, I'm fine."
"Great. Sorry to just run off, but I need to go check on my Aunt."
"I get it, go. Just stay safe."
"You too."
Hiro turned and ran out of Karmi's lab, signaling for Sky Max to meet him and Baymax just off campus with their suits.
So there Chief Cruz was getting takeout to bring home so he could have a night in with his daughter, when suddenly an earthquake hit. He rode it out with everyone else at the fast-food place and started coordinating search and rescue with the other departments when his worst fear buzzed on his phone. Prison Max had been breached. He'd rounded up as many officers he could spare, and they were speeding toward the prison. Bad enough that an earthquake had just hit, there didn't need to be supervillains on the loose as well.
"All units, Big Hero 6 is assisting with rescue in Night Market Square."
Cruz picked up his radio and spoke into it. "This is Chief Cruz, someone tell them that the supervillain prison has been breached, they're going to be needed ASAP."
"Ten four, informing them now."
Cruz turned, finally spotting the newly built prison. The damage didn't look bad from where he was. Then, a wall exploded, and a Buddy Guardian could be seen going flying away from the prison in pieces. So much for that. The small squad of police cruisers rolled in past the entrance and stopped, the officers getting out of their cars. The scene was bad. Robotic cobras slithered around a Buddy Guardian, ripping open its armor and slithering inside. Hardlight commanded holographic trolls to smash another Guardian, while Steamer caused a third to trip over some rubble by clouding its eye with a puff of steam.
"Attention supervillains!" Cruz yelled, raising his weapon. "Drop your weapons, turn off your robo snakes, or whatever other gimmick you've got going on, and surrender!"
Before any of the villains could answer, the wall to the cell blocks blew open. Trina stood with plasma canon still smoking, looking down on Cruz and the officers. Noodle rode on her shoulder, laughing his little robotic head off.
"Well, well. Chief Cruz. What a familiar situation we find ourselves in." she sneered. Cruz looked at the armor plating on Trina's body and the small pistol he held in his hands. With most of the Buddy Guardians down for the count, the villains all set their sights on Cruz and his small squad of officers. Cruz wasn't liking his odds. "Because I'm in such a good mood, I'll offer you the chance to surrender. I promise no harm will come to you or your officers."
"Like we'd believe you."
"Smart man." Trina aimed her canon at Cruz. There was nothing he could do, nowhere he could run. He simply closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable flash. But it never came. Just as Trina fired, a shield on roller skates deflected the shot. Go Go collapsed her shield back into her vambrace and stood in front of Cruz defensively.
At the sound of rockets, Cruz looked up. Baymax flew in, carrying Wasabi, Fred, Honey Lemon and Hiro. The team dropped and created a defensive wall between the villains and officers.
"You've probably heard it once already, but I'll risk repeating it," Hiro said from atop Baymax. "Stand down and return to your cells."
Trina sneered. "You're not as smart as I thought if you expect us to surrender."
"Didn't expected it, but I'm an optimistic person. Team, let's take them down."
Big Hero 6 charged at the line of villains, and the villains pushed back. The courtyard soon devolved into madness, with heroes fighting villains and the police trying to assist however they could. Fred fried several holographic ogres that were heading for Go Go. Wasabi sliced up robotic cobra after robotic cobra. Honey Lemon erected spongy barricades to give the police cover to fire their stun guns at the less armored villains. Naturally, Hiro and Baymax were dealing with Trina and Noodle.
Trina caught a punch from Baymax and used the momentum to toss him and Hiro out of the way. Baymax skidded on the concrete and hit full thruster burn, flying back toward the robo duo. Trina ducked to avoid the strike, but Hiro used his magnet launcher to grab Noodle and yank him away from Trina. Hiro yanked the burger bot up to his face so he could open up the top and start ripping out what components Noodle had left.
"I'm shutting you down for good, Noodle!"
In response, Noodle threw up a sizable portion of pickles in Hiro's face, causing the young hero to drop him. Noodle landed on the ground and used the momentum to jump into Honey Lemon, who had just subdued Cobra in a gooey mess. Noodle fired lasers into the chemical trap, allowing Cobra to break free. She sprinted at Fred, throwing a robot cobra at him. Fred launched fire at it, melting the drone, but it left him open from attack on the side, allowing Cobra to sidestep the flames and kick his legs out from underneath him.
Go Go slid in and blocked the next blow that was coming, grabbing Cobra with her arm and tossing her away. She helped Fred to his feet and the two launched themselves into battle once more. Wasabi jumped over a cloud of steam, the bottom of his pants becoming damp due to the proximity. He landed close enough to Steamer that he began swiping with his plasma blades, trying to disarm the old man. In once sense, literally. Despite being old, Steamer somehow managed to be pretty spry, dodging the attacks and hitting Wasabi with an uppercut from his metal arm. Wasabi landed on the ground and laid there dazed for a moment, feeling his chin for any potential permanent damage. Finding none, he leapt back up and started swinging again.
Chief Cruz and his men focused their attacks on Hardlight, who was walking toward them with a holoshield raised. With them distracted, Steamer paused his attacks on Wasabi and fired a cloud of steam at the officers. The steam had cooled off enough that it didn't harm the officers when it reached them, but it left them surrounded in a smokescreen. They looked all around them, unable to see two feet in front of their faces. Suddenly, one was dragged away and the officers trained their weapons, but there was nothing there. Another was suddenly lifted skyward, disappearing from sight. The remaining officers started to panic, waving their stun guns around wildly.
"Keep it together! We stay calm we'll make it out of this." Cruz tried to sound confident, but even his voice faltered. From the point of view of Hardlight's mask, he could see all the remaining officers clearly thanks to the thermal imaging he had. He conjured up another holobat to yank another officer into the sky and some imps to carry away the others. Soon, only Cruz was left. Hardlight readied his weapon and charged to strike, but something suddenly held him back. He stopped to fight off whatever had him, but he soon found his cape being brought over his face and tied to his legs. He stumbled and tripped as the steam cloud finally dissipated. Cruz noticed that his rescuer was none other than Mini-Max, who had flown in heroically at the last second.
"Fear not, Chief! Nothing shall quench my thirst for JUSTICE this night!" Mini-Max rocketed away, using his mini rocket fists to obliterate a robo cobra. Cruz looked around and found a pile of his officers. He ran to check on them. They were unconscious but alive. He had barely started to straighten out when one of Go Go's disks flew over his head, almost taking it off. Go Go did a backflip over a stray plasma blast from Trina and retrieved her disk where it had imbedded itself in the wall.
"Sorry, chief!" She raced back into the fight, yanking Honey Lemon out of the way of Steamer's robotic arm. Tired of the fight dragging on too long, Honey Lemon activated her chem canon and started spraying chem balls randomly. Hardlight picked himself up only to be hit in the face with a blue sticky ball. Cobra ended up using Fred as a shield to block an ice ball, freezing one of Fred's arms. Honey scanned the field of battle, noticing Hiro and Baymax still engaged with Trina. She typed some commands into her purse and aimed at Trina.
"Hiro, Baymax, MOVE!" Hiro looked behind him as Baymax vacated the immediate area. Honey began firing again, focusing on Trina. The chem balls began to hit their mark, each lime green orb hitting and starting to eat away at Trina's armor. One hit her in the face, melting away some of the faux skin to reveal the cold metal underneath.
"Acid?! You want to play rough? Fine!" Trina opened up with every weapon she had at her disposal, sending both heroes and villains running for cover. Noodle rejoined his sister on her shoulder, clapping happily at the wanton destruction. "Noodle, you said father has a plan?"
"Indeed, big sis!"
"Well, maybe it's time to get out of here so I can hear it." Trina stopped firing. As the smoke cleared, everyone slowly began to peek out from whatever cover they had found. Trina reached behind her and grabbed something, placing it at her feet. "Well, I'd love to stick around, but this prison and the next three blocks are about to become a giant crater. Until next time, heroes."
The bomb Trina set down began to countdown, only three minutes on the timer. Trina rocketed into the air, Noodle still laughing crazily. The remaining villains took this as their cue to leave, escaping as the heroes rushed toward the bomb. Hiro reached it first, removing the casing. Everyone grimaced at the inside. It was a mess of wires, and while pretty much everyone present were geniuses, they didn't have time to figure out how to disarm it.
"We'll fly it out over the harbor until it's out of range of the city and then throw it." Hiro answered the unspoken question. He grabbed it and hauled it into Baymax's hands, climbing onto the robot. "Let's go, Baymax!"
Baymax lifted off, going vertical at first before straightening out and flying out over the bay. Baymax was at full power, flying at speeds that normally would make Hiro uncomfortable, but time was of the essence. The two passed by the Torii Gate Bridge, gaining even more ground away from the city. Hiro peered at the countdown timer. Even upside down it looked bad.
"Okay, Baymax this'll have to do. Throw it!"
Baymax stomped on the metaphorical breaks, slowing their speed and righting himself so the robot could throw it successfully. Baymax used all of the power in his servos to throw the bomb as it continued to count down. Hiro patted the robot and he turned, rocketing in the opposite direction to put some distance between themselves and the blast radius. Only a few seconds into their flight, the bomb exploded, the shockwave hitting the pair. They tumbled briefly before Baymax was able to steady them. The duo watched the explosion dissipate safely in the air without anyone being harmed. Hiro breathed a sigh of relief.
"Ok, back to Prison Max."
Hiro and Baymax landed a few minutes later, the team sitting or lying down to catch their breath. Honey Lemon yanked Hiro into a hug the second his boots touched the ground.
"Great work, Hiro."
"Thanks. You were great with the acid attack on Trina. Smart move."
"What now?" Wasabi asked. The team looked to Hiro as he thought up a plan of action to catch the escaping villains. That plan quickly got pushed aside as the sirens from emergency vehicles could be heard all over the city. Hiro sighed.
"We'll deal with the escaped villains later, they're probably in need of a rest like we are. Only unlike them, we've still got work to do. Chief Cruz, get on the horn and ask where we're needed, and we'll be there."
"On it!" Cruz stepped away from his recovering officers and began speaking into his walkie-talkie.
"That's it? We're just going to let them get away?" Go Go asked.
"I don't like it anymore than you do, but the people need our help right now. We'll be of better use helping where we can instead of chasing down villains that have probably already found new hiding spots."
Go Go huffed but she didn't argue. Fred ran a hand through his hair, one of the arms on his suit hanging limp from having been frozen.
"Could this day get any worse?" Wasabi asked, exhausted. Fred and Honey Lemon looked at one another sadly. Go Go caught it immediately.
"Guys? What's up?" Honey hesitated. Finally, she sighed and decided to rip the band-aid off.
"I got a call from the company I applied for yesterday. Good news is I got the job." There was a small moment of happiness as the others congratulated Honey. But then they knew the other shoe was about to drop.
"So, then what's the bad news?" Hiro asked.
"I… have to move out of state."
The shock was palpable They all knew it was probably going to happen sooner rather than later, but actually being confronted with it in the present was way different than the vague dread of knowing it would happen. The team was finally pulled out of their stunned silence by Cruz.
"Search and rescue needs help on 6th and main street. People trapped in a building."
The team shook themselves back to alertness. Hiro climbed on Baymax and looked over the crippled city.
"Ok team, let's go lend a hand."
The team sprung into action to help out where they could.
Notes
Well, this is a surprise. You're here. Reading this. When I decided to pick up where S3 of the series left off, I didn't think I'd really have anyone reading and totally expected to be throwing this story out into the void. But here we are seven-and-a-half chapters in and this story has accumulated a decent following. So whether you're new as of this chapter posting, been here since the Prologue, or are reading this well after the fact, thank you so much! I hope you all enjoy the story so far and are looking forward to more! Speaking of more...
Really quick I want to outline where the story is heading and some of what to expect. This chapter concludes the initial story arc, setting up most of what I want to cover going forward. There's been little that's been mentioned/featured that hasn't been some form of set-up for future chapters and story arcs, and going off of my guesstimations as of now, we're looking at 30-ish chapter run for this story, so strap in, we're just getting started! From here, things are going to get a little more episodic. Think of these first several chapters as an hour-long season premier, with regular half-hour episodes to follow. Story arcs will run as long as they need to, so sometimes there'll be multi-chapter story arcs (such as the next one) followed by single chapter one-off story arcs. This will enable me to shift focus around and give lots of different characters the spotlight as opposed to Hiro. Of course Hiro is the franchise's main character, so we'll spend plenty of time with him, but we'll also shift focus around to the other members of the team, the villains, former villains, etc. The show pulled this off pretty well, and I hope to do so as well, so get ready for lots of fun backstory and antics from our favorite big heroes.
As of right now I'm several weeks ahead in terms of chapters written, so for right now expect weekly updates to continue uninterrupted. If that changes, I'll let you know how long to expect a break for. I pretty much started writing the day or so after S3 of the show ended, using theories I had generated after episodes to begin filling out the story and plan things out. My writing process is a little scatter-brained, with weeks of nothing followed by days of non-stop writing until I've written like four chapters or something in a really short timespan. Probably not healthy, but hey, I'm only 23. I can take it. LOL. Hopefully this process can help me stay ahead of the curve and keep you guys updated constantly, but if not, I apologize in advance and hope that whatever breaks happen won't be long ones.
I'll probably check in once a story arc to explain some thoughts and respond to comments. Thank you to those that have been reviewing, and sorry for being silent up until now. I try to keep myself from responding as to avoid potentially spoiling things. Someone saying they like a character followed by a response by me saying 'too bad, I'm killing them next chapter, haha' probably doesn't do anyone good, lol (and no, I'm not killing anyone next chapter :P). Again, I hope everyone has enjoyed the story so far and enjoy what's in store. I'll see you all again next week!