Chapter 14
Hiro was in a state of panic. He knew something had been wrong with his sister, but he had no clue. So when he saw his younger sister lying on the floor in her lab unconscious, his instinctively called for help.
"Tadashi! Someone help Akari! Please!"
When no one came, he decided to run down the hall to look for Tadashi. He wasn't in his lab, but he was hanging with the gang in the multi-lab room. He panted-from running up and down the halls-and made it to Tadashi and the gang.
"Hiro? What happened?" Honey Lemon asked.
"Akari… floor…help…" Hiro panted. He grabbed Tadashi's arm and pulled him down the hall to Akari's lab, where she was lying on her side, unconscious. Everyone stared at her in fear when they saw the state she was in.
Hiro approached her and touched her forehead, only to draw his hand back because it was burning. Tadashi hopped up and got Baymax from his lab, and told him to scan Akari.
"Akari has fainted from a high fever of 103.6, which is a normal temperature for one to lose consciousness or have hallucinations. I recommend placing Akari in a cold area, or placing ice on her forehead. I would also recommend calling a professional, for a high fever can be hazardous to one's health," Baymax stated.
"And what does the temperature have to be to take Akari to the hospital?" Tadashi asked fearfully, the answer drawing a blank in his mind when he needed it.
"105 degrees," Baymax stated.
"I-I'll go get ice for Akari," Hiro announced and left the room.
"Aren't you going to call your mom Gogo?" Honey Lemon asked.
"Why?" Gogo asked.
"Are you serious? Your mom needs to know about this!" Honey Lemon exclaimed. Gogo looked toward Tadashi, who was giving her the 'We'll tell them later' face. She nodded and walked out of the room.
Hiro came running into the room with several bags of ice in his hands, dropping them on the floor when he stopped in front of Akari. He helped Tadashi place the bags around Akari's head, hopefully stopping Akari's high fever from rising.
"We'll check her temperature again in a few minutes," Tadashi stated, and he took Honey Lemon, Wasabi, and Fred outside the lab while Hiro stayed inside with his younger sister.
Hiro knew what Tadashi was going to tell them all, because he hadn't already done it, and now something needed to be said. They were planning on telling the rest of the gang, but they expect to tell them with something like this going on.
"Tadashi, what's going on?" Honey Lemon asked.
"There's something Gogo and I have to tell you. We've been keeping it a secret for about a month now, because we didn't know how to tell you such shocking news. Even I'm still not completely recovered from the event, but now we need to tell you," Tadashi explained.
"What is it?" Fred asked.
"Hiro and Akari aren't really Gogo's brother and sister," Tadashi said simply. Everyone gasped, "They're mine," everyone gasped again.
"Yep," Gogo said as she walked down the hall.
"What…? How…? When…?" Honey Lemon tried to ask.
"We'll explain later. What's the most important is Akari getting well. I'm going to call Aunt Cass," Tadashi said and pulled out his phone, walking down the hall to his lab.
A groan was heard inside Akari's closed lab. Fred opened the door to see that Akari was regaining consciousness. They all entered, but Wasabi stayed back, in fear of getting sick.
"Akari, are you alright?" Hiro asked, Akari opened her eyes and saw Hiro looking above her. She felt weak and tired, not to mention hot and cold at the same time.
"Nii-chan? My head hurts," she complained quietly.
"Baymax, check her temperature," Hiro commanded.
"Akari has a temperature of 101.4. I still recommend Akari goes home, and a professional is called," Baymax stated.
"That's a big marshmallow," Akari observed.
"I am not a marshmallow. I am a robot," Baymax stated.
"It talks?" Akari asked in wonder.
"She's delusional," Hiro stated. Tadashi came back into the room a minute or so later.
"Aunt Cass is on her way," Tadashi said.
"Can the talking marshmallow come with me?" Akari asked, looking up at Tadashi. Tadashi looked towards Hiro.
"She's delusional," he repeated. Tadashi nodded in understanding.
"Sure Akari, 'the talking marshmallow' can come with you," Tadashi said.
"Who is the talking marshmallow you speak of?" Baymax asked.
"It's you," Akari pointed.
"I am not a marshmallow. I am Baymax, your personal healthcare companion," Baymax stated.
"Baymax, I'm satisfied with my care," Tadashi said. Everyone looked at him, "What? That could've gone on forever. And it would've killed his battery."
No one said anything in response. In fact, it was awkwardly silent until Aunt Cass showed up to take Akari home.
"Hey guys! How's Akari doing?" she asked.
"She's better, but she's a bit delusional," Tadashi stated.
"I am not!" Akari protested, and looked around the room, "Where's the talking marshmallow at?"
"Talking marshmallow?' Aunt Cass asked.
"She thinks Baymax is a marshmallow," Hiro said simply, "And he's going with her. He's just deactivated."
Aunt Cass nodded in understanding, and helped Akari and Baymax's case to the truck, and they drove back to the café, leaving everyone else.
"So are you going to tell us the full story now?" Honey Lemon asked.
"Yeah, sure. Come on," Tadashi said, and they all walked down the hall to Tadashi's lab. They all walked in-Hiro included-and closed the door behind them.
"Alright," Tadashi began, "So it all started 14 years ago. My mom had Hiro and Akari, and I was standing outside the nursery, watching them through the window. I remember this man, he asked which of the babies were mine. Being 4 years old, I pointed towards Hiro and Akari, and then my dad called me down the hall and we left.
Aunt Cass called my dad while we were in the cafeteria, and we came up, Hiro and Akari were gone. They showed us the tapes, but the man's face hadn't been seen by a camera. We never saw them again," Tadashi finished sadly.
"Oh my gosh! Tadashi I'm so sorry that happened to you!" Honey Lemon cried in sympathy.
"Yeah, it was awful," Tadashi said.
"What happened next?" Fred asked.
"Well," Gogo began, "I was 6 years old, walking through the park with my parents, and I found Hiro and Akari crying in a bush. My parents thought that Hiro and Akari were abandoned there, because they hadn't even been a day old, and they were just lying there in the bush. The blankets they were curled up in had their names on them, so we kept them, took them home, and we kept the whole thing a secret from them."
Gogo turned to Hiro, "Hiro, I'm so sorry we hid that from you for so long."
"I understand why you did though," Hiro said, "You were just trying to save us the pain of not actually having our real family. It literally could've been anyone in the world, but I'm grateful you guys took us home instead of leaving us there."
The two of them hugged, and signaled for Tadashi to continue the story.
"So, after 14 years, it was still hard for me to get over losing my brother and sister so easily. On Akari's first day here, you basically witnessed that. She followed me into my lab, and she told me she knew what emotional pain is like, because saw it in me. At first, we thought that their names were coincidences, but 2 months later, that changed.
When Gogo went to get Hiro from his bot fight, I asked Akari to be test subject for Baymax. I discovered she has a high pain tolerance, so I let her try it on me instead. Baymax scanned us, and at the end of our treatment, he diagnosed us as siblings because we had many biological similarities.
We had a genetic test done, and 3 weeks later, the day before the showcase, the results came back positive, and Akari and Hiro really were my brother and sister. We waited until after the showcase to tell Gogo's parents and Aunt Cass, and that's what happened," Tadashi finished.
"Wow…" Honey Lemon breathed. Wasabi and Fred both nodded in agreement.
"Yeah…" Tadashi trailed off.
As soon as Aunt Cass and Akari got back to the café, Akari was put in her bed in hers, Hiro's, and Tadashi's shared bedroom. Aunt Cass walked down the stairs and activated Baymax. She sat on the couch and read a book after telling Baymax to alert her if something happened to Akari.
Akari slept for a couple of hours, and when she woke up, she felt energized and not sick.
"Hey…how'd I get here?" she asked herself, and Baymax came into view.
"Hello Akari. How do you feel?" Baymax asked.
"Fine. Why?" she asked.
"Your Aunt brought you home 3 hours ago from school due to a high fever," he paused and scanned her, "Which seemed to have broken."
"Ok then. Well, what do you want to do?" Akari asked.
"I do not know what you mean," Baymax stated.
"Do you want to do anything to pass the time? Like read…" Akari trailed off, due to another vision. These visions annoyed her, but the one she saw was confusing. It was Hiro's jacket, underneath their bed. The pocket was wiggling, and there was something inside of it.
Akari snapped out of her vision and looked underneath her bed, and sure enough there was Hiro's jacket with something wiggling in the pocket. She grabbed it out from under the bed, and reached into the pocket, revealing a microbot.
"Hiro's microbot?" she asked and put it in a petri dish, "How is it moving? The transmitter was destroyed."
"Perhaps seeing where your tiny robot wants to go may answer your question," Baymax stated.
"Good idea! C'mon Baymax!" Akari said enthusiastically. She grabbed her jacket, and easily snuck past her sleeping Aunt, following the microbot into the heart of San Fransokyo.
She was honestly surprised to end up at the same warehouse she had seen in one of her visions, but that didn't stop her from going inside. She had to climb on top of Baymax and sneak in the window, but she was cautious of her surroundings.
She reached the center of the warehouse, where she saw a machine making hundreds of Hiro's microbots a minute.
"Hiro's microbots!" she looked ahead of her to see hundreds of barrels filled with microbots, "Someone's making more."
She tried to get a closer look, but she was scared the daylights out of by Baymax. The eerie silence was creeping her out, but having a robot call her name right behind her in his monotone voice was the second scariest thing she'd ever heard that day.
"Akari," he called.
"Ah! Baymax! You gave me a heart attack!" Akari screamed.
"My hands are equipped with defibrillators…clear," he said and rubbed his hands together, emitting a fluorescent blue glow.
"Stop, stop, stop! It's just an expression!" Akari screamed, and Baymax stopped advancing on her.
A clinking sound was heard from behind Akari. She turned around to see that her brother's microbots were rising from the barrels they had been lying in. Akari ran in fear towards the door, but turned around when she saw Baymax was far behind.
"Oh, come on!" she shouted and ran back towards him.
"I am not fast," Baymax stated.
"Yeah no kidding!" Akari shouted as she ran up the stairs to the window she came in. The microbots were gaining on her and Baymax, so she pushed Baymax to the window, only for him to get stuck. She turned to see a very irritated man in a kabuki mask advancing towards her and Baymax. She started pushing Baymax as hard as she could, only to be thrown out the window, grasping to Baymax's vinyl leg.
"Baymax!" Akari screamed fearfully. She gripped his leg as tight as she could, holding on for dear life. The next thing she knew, she was flying away from the wall and screaming at the top of her lungs. She felt Baymax wrap his squishy arms around her, and she calmed down a little bit. She landed on the ground with Baymax next to her, and she turned around to face the warehouse ad saw the man in the kabuki man staring at her.
She quickly stood up and pulled Baymax along her, "Come on! Let's get out of here!"
She debated about going to the police station, but she decided against it because while she was telling her story to herself, she figured the police man wouldn't believe her story, because she barely believed it herself.
She knew that the visions had something to do with the warehouse she had gone to, and she thought about it the entire way home, but had no luck.
When she got back to the café, she snuck in the back door, and quietly walked up the stairs, just in case her Aunt was awake, but she was still asleep. She had only been out for 2 hours. The clock had just turned 5:00 when she made it to her room.
Her brothers wouldn't be home for at least another hour, so she thought about what to do. She pulled the microbot from her pocket, and stared at it intently, as if she were interrogating it. That's when another vision hit her…
"This doesn't make any sense," Hiro said quietly, looking at the microbot in his hand.
"Tadashi," Baymax said, looking at Tadashi's side of the room.
"What?" the twins asked at the same time.
"Tadashi," Baymax repeated.
"Tadashi's gone," Akari choked.
"When will he return?" Baymax asked.
"He's dead Baymax," Akari said, pulling the paper room divider so it covered his corner.
"Tadashi was in excellent health. With a proper diet and exercise, he should have lived a long life," Baymax stated, and Akari had tears in her eyes, threatening to fall, and they fell anyway.
Hiro saw that Akari was too sad to say anything to Baymax about Tadashi, so he did it for her. "He should have. But there was a fire and…" Hiro couldn't finish so he sighed sadly. "Now… he's gone," Akari finished for him, stammering.
"Tadashi is here," Baymax said.
No. People keep saying he's not really gone as long as we remember him," Hiro informed him.
"It still hurts," Akari said and walked over to Hiro for a hug.
"I see no sign of physical injury," Baymax tilted his head.
"It's a different kind of hurt," Hiro told him.
Baymax walked off of the charging station and toward Hiro and Akari. "You are my patients, I would like to help," he said.
"You can't fix this one buddy," Hiro answered and fell back on the bed next to Akari. They both heard a whirring sound, and turned to face Baymax, who was receiving information from a computer just by placing his hand on the top. The screen flashed different colors and so did Baymax's stomach.
"What are you doing Baymax?" Akari asked.
"I am downloading a database on personal loss. Database downloaded," Baymax stated. "Treatments include: contact with friends and loved ones," he said holding his finger up.
"I am contacting your friends now," Baymax told them.
Akari jumped up and tried to get him not to contact their friends, "No! No! No! d-don't do that," she stammered.
"You're friends have been contacted," Baymax stated.
Hiro stood up, next to Akari, "Unbelievable," they both said.
Baymax wrapped himself around them. "What are you doing now?" Akari asked.
"Other treatments include: compassion and physical reassurance. You will be alright. There, there," Baymax said and patted the tops of their heads.
Akari giggled, "Thank you, Baymax," she said. Baymax released them from the hug.
"I am sorry about the fire," Baymax apologized.
"Don't apologize Baymax. It wasn't you're fault. It was an accident," Akari said softly.
Hiro looked at the microbot inside the petri dish, "Unless…unless it wasn't," he muttered.
"Hiro? What are you talking about?" Akari asked, worriedly.
"The s-showcase. That guy in the mask stole our microbots," he told Akari, "then he set the fire to cover his tracks." Hiro stammered.
Akari gasped. His explanation made sense. Their microbots weren't fire-proof. "He's responsible for Tadashi," Akari said angrily, "we have to catch that guy Hiro."
"You're right," Hiro said and looked at Baymax, "I've got an idea."
"What is it?" Akari asked.
"Let's go to the garage and I'll explain," Hiro answered, and Akari nodded.
They began to walk out the door, when Hiro turned around and said, "We need Baymax for this."
Akari's eyes widened. The fire hadn't been an accident? Someone purposely set a fire to kill Callaghan?
She was having so much trouble deciding which one of her lives was reality. Was it the one in her visions? Or the one she was living now? Akari pushed it from her mind and decided to go with the idea she'd gotten after she saw the vision.
She quietly pushed Baymax down the stairs, his charger in one of her arms, and headed for the garage.
The plan... Building Baymax's armor, if you didn't already figure that out. The next chapter is when things really start happening...
I might be really nice and post it today, but I have to get at least 2 reviews to do that!Follow and Review! See you in the next chapter!
~Krypie
