Obake Itoko Chapter 3: This Isn't a Scene, It's a Bot-Fight, a big hero 6 fanfic

Hey, chapter 3! Finally finished Chapter 4 of my dissertation for all but a little editing so I felt like posting a chapter to celebrate. :D

Considering the number of times Obake has told Hiro to "Listen to the robot" in my fics, it's probably very refreshing for Hiro to be able to throw the line back at him. Biscuits and bacon is a reference to my Yu-Gi-Oh!/Don't Starve crossover The Frost King, at least in passing.

And that one opponent—got the design, the character, couldn't figure out if they were male or female—finally threw up my hands and said "It's the twenty-first century and it's California—no one knows."

Hiro woke up the next morning through no desire of his own—just the sound of Aunt Cass down in the kitchen getting ready to open the café. Ugh, why was he so tired….

Oh right—Obake. The kid they had brought home who was planning to run as soon as their backs were turned. Great. He rolled over to check, saw Obake's mohawk over the top of his sheets. Well, at least that was still there.

He rolled over the other way to see a giant marshmallow blinking down at him.

"Good morning," Baymax greeted.

Hiro yelped in alarm, flailed back—ended up falling out of bed, jerking Obake awake and earning a glare. Baymax waddled over, peered down at him.

"On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your pain?" Baymax asked.

"Zero," Hiro said, grimacing as he struggled upright. "What are you doing? Why aren't you in your charger?"

"I have spent the night downloading information on dealing with emotional trauma," Baymax informed him. "As well as expanding my health-care matrix. I am now better-equipped to help you both reach full health."

Hiro glanced at Obake, who gave the robot an exhausted, disgusted done face before flopping straight back into bed with a groan. Hiro felt that on an emotional level.

"Hiro?" Aunt Cass called up. "Are you guys awake? I'm making breakfast!"

"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day," Baymax said.

Hiro groaned. "Just making my bed!" he called down.

"Okay! Ready in five!"

Great. And as much as he'd love to crawl back in bed and go back to the way things were two days ago (or even better, two months ago), he still had one minor—no, scratch that, two minor issues: getting Baymax back in his container and dealing with Obake. And it wasn't like he could go about with what had become his usual listlessness with Obake around—at least, not if he was supposed to stay around.

He flipped his covers back into place, made a half-hearted attempt to smooth them out, walked by Obake's bed on the floor on his way around his own…paused, considering the maybe-older boy doing his best to go back to sleep.

He flipped up the bottom of Obake's covers, grabbed him by his ankles, right above the Converses, and yanked him out of bed—despite being taller, he felt like he weighed less than Hiro, and came out of the bed and partially onto the floor with a yelp.

"If I can't sleep in, you can't either," Hiro told him, hands on his hips. "Now get up."

Obake glared at him as he struggled upright, throwing his balled-up covers at the bed—Hiro kept a close eye on him as they headed down the steps, Baymax toddling behind.

"Uh, wow," Hiro noised when they reached the café, only to find a big spread again. "She…usually doesn't go this all out…."

"All right, breakfast is ready!" Aunt Cass said, coming in with two more plates—and then jerking in surprise at the sight behind them. "Baymax? What are you—why is he out of his—the thing?"

"I was alerted to the need for medical assistance," Baymax said.

"Uh, yeah," Hiro said. "See, uh—went to get a glass of water last night, missed a step, and…Baymax is overreacting, we're going to try to get him back in his charger."

He gave Obake a look as they sat down, hoping it imparted yeah, I'm covering for you—don't make me regret it. It didn't seem to register.

"They are both in need of assistance," Baymax said. "I will remain active until they are healed."

The three of them gave him a blank look.

"Uh…okay," Aunt Cass said slowly. "I don't know what…we're going to have to sit down and have a chat, I guess…we'll talk about it later." She looked at Obake. "But I guess…unless you've changed your mind about the doctor—"

Obake looked at her like he'd rather have a root canal with no anesthetic.

"Yeah…anyway, little bit of everything," she said, putting the plates down. "I have to eat and run—have to finish getting the café ready—you boys eat, we'll all talk later, okay? Okay. Good chat. Love you."

They watched her dash back to the kitchen, saying something about the bagels—Hiro looked at Obake, who looked at him, still narrow-eyed; Hiro added an apology during his moment of silence for keeping an eye open. Looked over the selection of breakfast meats, eggs, toast, pancakes—started scraping several link sausages onto his plate.

Obake didn't make a move to eat, other than to shove the scrambled eggs away from himself.

"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day," Baymax informed him. "Studies have shown that skipping breakfast can cause: heart problems, among other concerns."

"Listen to the robot," Hiro said around a mouthful of sausage, grinning cheekily at Obake.

Baymax looked at the spread, picked up the plate of sausage, put it next to Obake.

"Your body temperature is: low, which can be from a low red blood cell count," Baymax informed him. "Of the available food, this would be the most helpful, as it contains: liver, and spinach."

Hiro nearly choked, almost had food go up his nose, was sure that his spit take was something to behold. "What!? AUNT CASS!"

"What? What is it?" Aunt Cass asked, running back in from the kitchen.

"Why didn't you TELL me this had liver and spinach in it!?"

"You never minded before," she said, shrugging.

"When was this? When did it have—urgh," he muttered, taking a quick drink of orange juice to get the thought out.

"Hiro, it's always had that," she said. "Ah—bread's done—gotta go."

Hiro made a face, spotted Obake, leaning away from where his spit take had been and looking like he was well on his way to breaking a rib from holding in a laugh.

Hiro threw a slice of toast at him. "It's not funny. My whole life I've been living a lie," he wailed, looking at the ceiling. "What next, pizza is healthy?"

"Pizza can be very healthy, if prepared with the correct ingredients," Baymax told him, a finger up.

"Baymax, no."

The rest of breakfast went without incident; Hiro had biscuits and bacon, still convinced that those at least lacked spinach and liver. Obake had maybe one piece of toast, and Hiro suspected it had been the one he had thrown at him.

Now, after cleaning up breakfast and vacating the now-open café to the customers, they were back in the bedroom, Hiro stuck on what to do and Obake still with that resting done face, Baymax standing near the steps and watching them both.

"Okay," Hiro sighed, knowing he was going to have to convince Obake to stay somehow, even if he himself wasn't too sold on it. This was important to Aunt Cass—if he ran away…she was in as fragile an emotional state as he was, maybe worse for having to deal with adult issues; Obake leaving would…kind of break her. It didn't matter if he, Hiro Hamada, wanted this kid gone—he didn't want to see his aunt crushed again.

"So, um," Hiro noised, scratching his head as he looked around. "I…don't really know…uh, video games? They're downstairs in the living room, but…."

Obake sat down on Hiro's bed, legs crossed at the ankles; didn't have his backpack on, hadn't found it yet as far as Hiro could tell, but Hiro was pretty sure he'd run again the second he took his eyes off him. At least Baymax was being helpful, what with blocking the entrance, basically.

"Okay, you're going to have to be helpful here, because I have no idea what you like," Hiro pointed out. "Except maybe running away in the middle of the night."

Obake narrowed his eye at him.

"Yeah, I went there. Now are you going to start being helpful or not?"

No dice—now he was looking anywhere but at Hiro. Hiro groaned, stalked in a circle before flopping down next to his desk and fishing out a pair of his older Converses.

"Well if you're going to be like that, I'm just going to go downstairs and work in the workshop," he groused, pulling socks on. Not that he thought he'd be productive, but he wasn't sitting around with someone who wasn't going to be talking. He had already done that yesterday, and it was aggravating at best.

"Participating in a creative process is good for one's mental health, and can be a good way to connect with others," Baymax offered, before looking around the room, blinking. "Playing with toys also has positive effects."

Hiro stared blankly at him, noting Obake do the same; looked around, spotted some of his toys up on the shelves above his corner desk.

"All right, fine, we'll try it," Hiro said, standing up and sorting through the toys on the shelf. "Um…I don't know, did you see this movie?" he asked Obake, holding up his toy cybug. Obake shook his head, pulling his feet up to sit crosslegged on the bed. "Okay, um…what about Ninja Turtles?"

Obake shook his head again, drifting back to disengaged.

"Look, I'm trying, okay?" Hiro demanded, gesturing angrily before trying to get his emotions back under control—deep breath, ball his fists, let it out. Nope. "You have to do something too—you can't just sit there."

Obake looked like he very dearly wanted to say watch me. Hiro huffed, turned—saw Obake's attention slide to something on the desk. Turn to look—

"Oh, that's Megabot," Hiro said, glancing at Obake; the other boy glanced at him. "He's…not a toy. Exactly."

Obake looked intrigued now. Well…he supposed he could show Megabot off without mentioning the little bit about using him to bot-fight….

Hiro grabbed Megabot, the controller, put the robot down on the floor, fiddled with the controls to make sure it was still working after a few months of collecting dust, started moving Megabot around. Obake watched with cursory interest.

"Oh, sure, you look that way now," Hiro said, tugging his chair around so he could sit in it, glancing around before toeing a ball out from under the desk. "Just wait until I open him up. Megabot? Destroy."

Kick the ball over, tug the controller out into fight mode—heard the little whisk of Megabot's face switching—

And then the ball was all over the place, Megabot pursuing and attacking and pursuing again under Hiro's guidance, thumbs twitching and fingers clicking, mind able to clear of some of that awful fugue from the need to focus on controlling the robot.

Hiro glanced at Obake—grinned at the sight of the other boy finally perking up, watching Megabot dart all over the room, completely riveted on the robot's actions. Baymax was tracking the movement too, occasionally blinking at them—probably scanning them.

A few more hits, knock the ball into a basket on the desk, send Megabot to sit in the open space between him and Obake, set him back to nice-face again, and have him give a little bow before slouching down again, inactive.

"Finally got a reaction out of you, huh?" Hiro asked, grinning at the sight of Obake bouncing slightly on the bed, fists pumping, looking at him, the robot, him, the robot—something approaching uncontrolled mirth and excitement playing on his face—

Obake suddenly glanced around, launched himself off the bed—Hiro jumped up, thinking he was making a break for it—stared in confusion when Obake skidded to a halt, grabbed a tote bag off of a hook on the wall, ran back, scooping Megabot into the tote bag before snatching the controller away from Hiro.

"Hey!" Hiro protested, trying to grab the controller back as Obake shoved it into the tote bag—was surprised when Obake slipped the straps onto his arm, grabbed his wrist, and dragged him to and down the stairs.

"Hey wait—where are we going? Stay there, Baymax!" Hiro yelped, glancing back to see his brother's robot start to toddle for the stairs. That would be just what he needed—to lose Baymax.

Had to quickly redirect his attention to the stairs again, lest he slip and fall—hit the ground floor, Obake tugging him to the door, slipping around the customers—

"We're going out, Aunt Cass!" Hiro managed to yelp before they were out the door and heading down the street—he didn't get a chance to catch his breath until Obake stopped, glancing around before looking at the street signs.

"What are we even doing?" Hiro asked, trying to peel Obake's fingers off his wrist—nope, Obake had figured out where he wanted to go, dragged Hiro across the street and down another block, checking street signs again before crossing another street, no signs of slowing down. "Hey! Would it kill you to at least say—"

Hiro stopped short when he realized he recognized where they were—oh no, don't be heading for—

Obake reached an alley with lanterns hanging within, turned and went down it—Hiro finally dug his heels in.

"No, no, no! That's Good Luck Alley!" he hissed. Obake glared at him. "Trust me, I've already done bot-fighting here—there's a bunch of people here who will be really mad to see me again, all right?"

Obake rolled his eye, tugged on Hiro's arm, pointing. Hiro resisted—

Obake shrugged, let go, set off down the alley by himself as Hiro went sprawling.

"What? No, wait!" Hiro yelped, scrambling back upright and running after him. "It's not any safer for you either! Come on, I've been here before! You have to have a really good escape plan if you go here!" Or a brother to save your bacon—Hiro's stomach lurched at the memory, finally prompted him to grab Obake's wrist and tug.

"We have to go back to the café," Hiro said when he looked back at him, trying to inject forcefulness into his voice. "I'm serious, this is dangerous." And a section of the alley he hadn't been down before—here was hoping he could find their way back.

Obake looked him up and down a moment—reached up and knocked on the door that Hiro hadn't realized they were standing in front of.

Hiro froze when a panel opened, eyes scanning them—didn't relax when the door opened to reveal a fridge of a man.

"Heard you died," the man said, looking Obake up and down before looking at Hiro. "What's this?"

Hiro was pretty sure his brain had gone running back up the alley, taking most of his blood with it—tried to restart it, wasn't getting anything—looked down when he felt someone picking at his fingers, realized he had been squeezing Obake's wrist so hard his veins were starting to show.

When he looked back up, something had to have been said—he had missed it with the roaring in his ears—watched the guy carefully as Obake dragged him inside.

"Can we talk?" Hiro hissed at Obake as they made their way down a dark hall. "Listen—sure, I did bot-fighting—but I did it in an open alley—doing it indoors is a level of stupid I never flirted with, okay? I don't—woah."

The hall had turned, opened up into a warehouse with big skylights way overhead, beams crisscrossing and field seating set up—quite a few people were milling about, all of them rough-looking—Hiro quickly scanned the crowd for Yama. Of all the people he had fleeced, Yama would be the one who would be after Hiro's blood.

Bot-fighting—Tadashi would be so disappointed in him right now for even being here.

"Listen," Hiro said to Obake, stepping closer and eyeing everyone nearby; Obake led him over to a table. "I'm—I'm glad you're impressed with my robot, but I can't be here, okay? I need to be anywhere else but here—uh, hi," he squeaked, spotting the woman behind the counter—not sure of her name, but he recognized the hair and that eyepatch, knew she had been ringmaster for Yama's other fights.

"You," she said, eyeing Hiro. "You've got some nerve showing up here."

"Uh, yeah, about that—not really my idea, would love to see the door—"

The woman looked at Obake, as though suddenly noticing him there. "You! I thought you died."

Obake shrugged, tugged Hiro forward, pointed at him.

"This was not my idea," Hiro said quickly.

"He's blacklisted anyway," she said, looking at Obake.

"Oh well, we tried," Hiro said, shrugging and turning to go—Obake caught him by the shoulder, yanked him back—fished in his hoodie before pulling out a wallet and tossing it onto the table.

The woman picked it up, opened it, rooted through it, checking cards before looking at Obake, at Hiro, at Obake—shrugging, opening a drawer and dropping the wallet in.

"Fine—but Yama asks, it's your fault. And Obake?" she asked, turning back from her walk away. "Get a better eyepatch."

"Uh, what?" Hiro managed to get out, before Obake grabbed him by the shoulders and steered him towards the battlefield. "Wait, what—no! Nonononono—" trip over the little raised edge, catch himself, spin to glare at Obake.

"I am not doing this," he hissed at him. "I got out of bot-fighting, I don't want to get back in, it's hazardous to my health—especially if—"

"You!"

Hiro yelped, got about a foot of air, was off like a shot when he touched ground again, only to once again be caught by Obake and spun back around, unfortunately to face a mountain of a man—one he had last seen through prison bars.

"H-h-hi, Yama!" Hiro greeted. "You look good! New haircut?"

Yama had not gotten a haircut, Yama looked very much like he had the last time he had seen Hiro, right down to the murderous glare—Hiro flailed backwards as the meaty hand reached for him—tripped over the edge of the ring again, fell in the sand—

Was surprised when Yama stopped, jerking back, was even more surprised when he realized the reason why.

"You!" Yama barked, glaring at Obake as he fell back a step; Hiro took the opportunity to scramble upright. "I heard you died!"

"I'm starting to detect a pattern here," Hiro said to Obake. Obake twitched a shoulder, not taking his attention off of Yama, arms crossed, posture straight, twist of his mouth looking stern.

Hiro glanced at Yama, noting the facial muscles twitching—glanced back at Obake, back at Yama. Was he missing something? If he didn't know any better, he'd say that Yama was intimidated by a kid that had to have been slighter than Hiro.

You could have knocked him over with a leaf when Yama finally backed off a step.

"Fine," Yama spat, glaring and pointing at Obake before directing his attention to Hiro. "But when you lose—and you will—you're mine, got that?"

Hiro tried to stutter out an answer—graduated to spluttering when Obake shrugged. Yama snorted, stomped off, hollering for the first guy to get out here and teach this brat a lesson—

"No!" Hiro protested, grabbing Obake's shoulder and spinning him around. "No, no, no! I am not doing this, you're going to get me killed!"

Obake, in response, grabbed the bag, reached in, shoved the controller at Hiro before pulling Megabot out and going to put him in the ring.

"No—stop it—you're not listening to me!" Hiro fairly shrieked, stepping forward to stop him—

"All right, fighters ready?" the woman with the eyepatch yelled.

"No!" Hiro protested—Obake stepped out of the ring, grabbed him by the shoulders—searching his face with a scowl on his own, expression intense, one eye looking for something—finally spun him and planted him firmly across from a guy with too many tattoos and piercings for it to be tasteful anymore.

"Oh please no," Hiro whimpered.

The guy smirked. "Please, you and that wimpy bot? This won't take a minute."

Through everything else—the panic, the dread, the knowledge that he shouldn't be here—that comment made his blood boil, made him glance at the man's robot, sizing it up—still leaning away from the ring, Obake holding him in place, but….

The woman in the eyepatch stepped into the ring, parasol separating the robots. "Bots ready…fight!"

She had barely stepped out of the way when the guy sent his robot surging forward, blunt arms swinging—crushing-type robot—Hiro sent Megabot skidding out of the way, avoiding the impact—sand sprayed up—

Obake's hold on him was subtly shifting from pinning him in place to gripping his shoulders in anticipation—he could sense the taller teen looking over his shoulder, watching the fight—he kept Megabot out of the reach of the other robot, still in the ring, longstanding practice telling him to wait until the man got angry or cocky or anything that would make him make a mistake—there!

Overextend—Megabot snaked in under his guard, around the robot—squeezed—

The man was staring at the half of his robot still in the ring, other half outside, both sparking as Megabot went back to the center of the ring and gave a little bow.

The blood and adrenaline started to drain from his head, and Hiro was starting to sway a little, laughing as his victory sank in—someone gripping his shoulders tight, shaking him a little; glance over his shoulder to see Obake grinning madly at him, looking a shade away from bouncing up and down like a little kid.

The woman in the eyepatch acting as ringmaster twirled her parasol idly, considering as the guy picked up his robot's remains and scuttled away.

"All right!" she barked finally. "You know the drill! Next person up! You," she said, pointing at Hiro. "Go until you're beat."

"Uh, what?" Hiro asked—this wasn't how it usually went in the alley—

And then the next robot was plunked down, and he found himself very busy.

And the next…and the next…and the next—sometime during this battery of fights he had stopped leaning back, was leaning forward, excited, engaged, controller pulled out for maximum control—his world had narrowed down to just this ring, hardly even registering Obake, still with his hands on Hiro's shoulders, the pain of the past month fading into background noise—nothing existed outside of this ring—it was just him, his robot, his opponent—

And then the next one was plopped down—

He had to take a moment, blinking at the shinier exterior, the better articulated joints—this one was high-tier…which meant its owner had won a lot of battles before. Glance up at the owner—fairly androgynous, nose piercings, lipstick, mascara, leather jacket with no sleeves, dark hair pulled back in a low short ponytail.

And currently looking at Obake, not him—which alerted him to the fact that Obake was gripping his shoulders so hard now that it was actually starting to hurt, making bones grind against each other in ways they weren't intended. Ow. Try to shrug out of his grip—

"Huh," the person said. "Using a little boy as a shield? This is low even for you."

"Hey!" Hiro barked, making them look at him. "He's not the one you have to worry about, remember?"

"Cute," they said, before looking back at Obake. "When I'm through with him, you're next."

Hiro's insides felt like icy water was sloshing around in them, and Obake's grip on him hadn't ceased at all—but he could feel the other boy shaking, knew almost without looking that it was from anger, not fear—it had occurred to him, sometime during this whole thing, that Obake had been bot-fighting before…he wondered if this person had knocked him out of the running at some point.

And it was stupid, not the least because Obake had been the one to drag him here against his will, but he suddenly felt fiercely protective of the other kid, wanted nothing more than to knock that smug smile off the other person's face—forget that he had to win to keep Yama's mitts off himself, he wanted to knock this person down, hard.

Deep breaths as the ringmaster brought the parasol down—heat and fire never did a bot-fight good. Winners kept their cool.

And it made the twitch of surprise on the other person's face very satisfying, when the parasol came up and he didn't go charging in—rolling back instead, catching the other robot flat-footed, ready to catch someone trying to surge in head-on. Snake behind—keep going when the robot spun to catch him—zig-zag around the ring, rolling, avoiding jumping up or pinning himself against the edge or anything else that would give an opening to catch him—frustrate, annoy, bait—they'd make a mistake eventually, overreach—

But no—this one was canny, clever—any openings were split-second, blink-and-you-missed it—and the longer this went on, the more he ran the risk of exposing an opening himself—he'd have to commit to one of these narrow openings, go—wait for one, wait for one, hardly daring to blink—

There!

Snake up the attacking limb, other limb already moving to intercept—tighten now!

One limb was off and Megabot was zipping away before the other limb could clamp down on him—the robot was in hot pursuit—jink, swerve, dodge—easier with one missing limb and the person frustrated now—he had gotten under their skin. Keep playing them, keep playing them—

And then Megabot was sitting on top of a broken robot, giving its owner a cheeky little bow before zipping back over to Hiro's side of the ring.

Blood was roaring in his ears again, the rush of victory competing with the cheers—people were rooting for him. People. Were. Rooting. For. Him.

That was nothing compared to the bark of savage triumph from Obake as he finally fell to what Hiro had been expecting for the past couple of fights—jumping up and down and shaking his shoulders so hard his head rattled. Hiro finally broke free, aimed a couple of play-socks at the other kid—Obake dodged, ducking his head, trying to school his expression—couldn't quite hide the big grin that had his eye squinted and his nose wrinkled.

A grin that sent a cold shiver straight up Hiro's spine.

And then he realized that Yama was standing across from him.

"Fine," Yama huffed. "You may have fought your way up the ranks, but you're not beating me again!"

"We'll see," Hiro countered, rubbing his nose, unable to keep the cheekiness off of his face or out of his voice.

This wouldn't take long.