64 pages.

you guys.

it's done.

my best, longest, most amazing story (so far) is done.

thanks again silvie for always reviewing, and for requesting this particular story. I'm so glad i was able to take your idea and turn it into something that i had so much fun writing! you have been such an inspiration, and the Hamada bros and i thank you :)

any new ideas are much appreciated, everyone! i would love to hear your ideas...

thanks so much! peace out

buda luda luda la

—HIRO—

My instinctive reaction is to yank the energy amplifier off its pedestal, but that of course doesn't work. My brain starts going into overdrive mode, struggling to figure out how to get us out of here and the amplifier turned off.

"What do we do?" asks Tadashi. "Can we turn it off?"

"Nope," says Wasabi, his voice shaking. "Obake's locked it onto that pedestal and messed up the power somehow. There's no way to turn it off and no way out of this room." He looks like he wants to curl into a ball and hide, but he sticks it out bravely.

"Tadashi," I say urgently. "Can you try firing electricity at it? Disrupt the current or something?"

Dashi aims a hand at the amplifier and shoots a small bolt of lightning at it. It does nothing but knock a full minute off the timer.

"Okayyyyy," Fred mumbles. "So we now have three minutes to live instead of four. Awesome."

"Baymax?" I ask, turning to the robot. "Do you think you can get it off that pedestal?"

Baymax waddles over and pulls as hard as he can on the amplifier. It detaches, but the timer beeps and goes to two minutes.

"This is not good," Baymax observes, bending down and examining the timer. "Time is rapidly running out."

I tear a hand through my hair. "Okay, guys, new plan. We have to get out of here before it blows up. Leave the timer—right now the important thing is to get everyone out safely. If we can escape, we'll take the amplifier with us and throw it into the ocean or something. Sound good?"

Everyone nods, and then we start trying to break out of the room. Tadashi attempts to break the lock on the door, but the panel appears to be electricity-resistant, because it won't respond. Fred starts blasting the walls with fire while Wasabi and GoGo try to slice through them. Tadashi gives up on the lock and starts helping carve a hole, and I attempt to disable the timer as it rapidly counts down to our doom.

One minute.

Thirty seconds.

At nineteen seconds, the wall is broken—but the hole isn't big enough. Everyone is blasting it with everything they've got, and the timer seems to be going faster and faster.

At ten seconds, Tadashi snatches up the amplifier and screams, "Everyone go! Get on Baymax!"

Baymax scoops me into his arms, and Tadashi leaps onto his back while Fred and Wasabi grab the robot's elbows, GoGo clasping her arms around Wasabi's waist. Baymax powers on and shoots out of the hole, soaring into the rainy, dark sky. As soon as we're through, Tadashi throws the amplifier as far as he can.

It hits the water and explodes.

I scream as Baymax is catapulted forward, shooting through the sky. The colossal explosion sends up a huge wave, but we're so far out it won't reach the shore, thank goodness. It won't touch San Fransokyo.

However, we are definitely going to reach the shore.

We start to lose height the closer we get to the beach, the purple light of the explosion spreading farther and farther. The rain is making Baymax slippery, and I struggle to cling to his arms.

I'm not strong enough.

As Baymax drops out of the sky, I slip from his grasp and plunge into the shallow water, spraying droplets everywhere as I skid across the submerged sand. I vaguely remember when I brought Tadashi and Honey back—but this is much worse. Something much bigger has exploded.

I come to a stop in about two inches of water, pain shooting through my whole body. I hear screams from the beach and inwardly cringe. That sounds like Tadashi—I have to go help him.

But I can't. Dark shadows are sliding across my vision, and I barely manage to drag myself out of the water and onto the wet sand before I pass out.

Pain. Darkness. Light—firelight. The deep orange glow on the destroyed walls of my parents' lab, the smoldering ash floating through the air. Calling out, hoping they'll answer, tears slipping down my rounded cheeks. Tadashi's strong arms around my waist, shielding me but also trapping me. Struggling to get up, to run, to save my parents before the flames consume them. Begging, pleading, beseeching God to not let them die.

And then—a faint, purplish glow. Knowing, somehow, that this new light is what killed them, but not knowing what it is.

Coughing. Pain in my throat and chest and head and everything else, smoke choking my small lungs. Trying to breathe, unable to take in any air. My chest constricting. Darkness creeping into the edges of my vision. Struggling to breathe, knowing it won't make any difference.

The shriek of the sirens cutting through the silence, my sobs of pain and fear and grief the only other sound.

The footsteps pounding on the ground.

The strong hands prying me out of Tadashi's grip.

The overwhelming feeling of hopelessness.

And finally, darkness.

The bright, misty light is somehow painless to my smoke-stung eyes. I don't know where I am, but I feel…peaceful. Happy. I'm still a toddler, I think, based on the heights of my parents, who stand in front of me with warm smiles on their faces.

"Kaa-san?" I whisper. "Daddy?"

Kaa-san scoops me up into a hug. "Hiro, baby…I'm so sorry. You're gonna have to do this next part without us. But you'll always have Tadashi. Let him guide you, and lift him up when he needs it."

Daddy wraps us both in his arms, creating a kind of sandwich. "Tadashi will protect you. And so will we, Hiro. We're not giving up on you. I promise we'll meet again someday."

My parents set me down, turn away, and walk into the mist. Suddenly, Tadashi stands beside me, smiling radiantly. He'll never leave me. I'm sure of it.

And I need to go back to him.

What happened? I was flying…something exploded…and I fell…

The pain is starting to materialize in my head. The flashback is dissolving, the mist dissipating into nothingness.

I close my eyes and let myself fall.

When I open my eyes, the sky is a pale, pearly gray, and light rain is falling onto my already soaked face. Everything looks clean and rain-washed, and I know in my gut that we've saved San Fransokyo. My failed invention is gone, destroyed in the water.

I tentatively raise my aching head, trying to remember where I am and why I passed out. I remember the explosion and getting thrown—I think I fell into the water. It didn't feel good. Looking around, I can see the turbulent gray sea, the sky, and the beach.

I'm slightly confused about that flashback. I don't know why I dreamed about my parents, or why my brain repeated the dream I had right after the funeral. But it was a nice dream, so I don't mind. I guess I just wanted to remind myself of everything they sacrificed for me—health and time and money and job opportunities. They gave up almost everything for their tiny, premature, helpless son. And then they died trying to make the world a better place for Tadashi and I.

Wow. I can't believe how much I've grown up. And for now, I need to take care of Tadashi—I need to find him. He's definitely passed out or something, because if he were awake, he'd be leaning over me right now, asking if I'm okay. I hope I am.

I roll onto my back and then sit up, rubbing my forehead. It hurts, but I hope it was the shock wave and not the impact that knocked me out. I don't feel nauseous or super confused, and my vision isn't that blurry. I'm a little dizzy, yes, but that doesn't mean a concussion.

Upon further inspection, my forehead has a fairly large bruise on the right side, and my eye directly underneath it is swelling up. I think I might have torn a couple stitches in my side wound, but the pain is mild and the doctors can easily sew those back together. My shoulder doesn't seem too bad, either—it only aches a little bit. Apart from that, I'm really just incredibly sore all over. It's probably not all from the crash—some is most likely from Obake trying to get me to help him and from the previous battles with killer Baymaxes and Honey-bots and stuff like that.

Several strands of kelp are tangled around my legs and torso, and I manage to untangle myself and brush at least some of the wet sand off of me before getting to my feet. I immediately regret it—my head spins, the world going blurry again for several seconds, and my lower leg twinges painfully when I put weight on it. I let out a soft hiss of pain but limp up the beach, looking for my friends.

After several minutes, I haven't seen anyone human, but I do find Baymax collapsed in a gigantic heap, beeping randomly. I climb up onto his back and press a couple buttons on his control panel to reboot him. Baymax sits up and blinks at me. "Hiro?"

"Hey, Baymax," I rasp, not realizing how hoarse my voice is until now. I clear my throat and continue. "Can you scan for everyone? I can't find them."

"I will scan you first. My scan shows that you have sustained few new injuries. The ones you do have consist of several slight contusions and a grade one strain of your gastrocnemius."

"What the flip is a gastro-what-now?"

"It is your calf muscle. The strain will take approximately three weeks to heal, but it is not a serious injury. Would you like me to scan for Tadashi now?"

"Yes yes yes do that."

Baymax's scanner revs up, and he looks around the beach. "My scan shows that Tadashi is located two hundred feet to the left of us. He appears to have deeper contusions, small epidermal abrasions, and three broken ribs, as well as a deep contusion on his ilium. However, these injuries were not sustained in the crash, but in the battle with the robots. I advise that we quickly get him medical attention."

I look around for Tadashi and spot what appears to be a mound of seaweed and sand. I limp over to it and discover that it is indeed Tadashi, still out cold. Gently, I place a hand on Dashi's shoulder and shake him slightly. "Dashi? You okay?"

His eyelids flutter and then open. "H-hiro?"

"Hey, bro. How're you feeling?"

Tadashi manages to sit up and starts untangling the kelp from around his body. "I think I'm okay—nothing worse. I probably inhaled a bunch of water, but I guess I coughed it up."

He stands shakily, testing his legs, which appear to be able to support him. "Should we go find everyone else?"

"Yeah." We turn and start to walk back down the beach, where we discover that Baymax has already collected GoGo, Wasabi, and Fred. Baymax patches everyone up, wrapping bandages around Tadashi's hip and ribs and taping an ice pack to my leg. As soon as he's done, Baymax, Tadashi, and I head to the hospital to see Honey while GoGo, Wasabi, and Fred go to tell the police that the threat to San Fransokyo has been neutralized.

When we get to the hospital, the doctors direct us to Honey's room—actually, it's my old one. I can't believe how much we've been in the hospital lately.

Tadashi immediately flings himself on top of Honey, hugging her so tightly I'm amazed she can still breathe.

"Hey, Dashi," Honey laughs. "Before you ask—everything's okay. The fracture will heal by itself, so there's nothing to worry about."

"I wasn't worried!"

"You worry about everything. And I was worried you would start stress eating everything in the café if I didn't tell you right off that I was going to be okay."

Tadashi rubs the back of his neck. "I guess I would have."

He doesn't get to say any more, because Aunt Cass suddenly bursts into the room. "Hiro! Tadashi! My babies—where have you been?!"

She pulls me and Tadashi both into a hug, nearly crushing my ribs, and then screams, "No indication of where you'd gone! None! I thought the murderer had come back and gotten you both! I know where you were now—but you can't just run off on me like that, I was so worried—why didn't you tell me?"

Her eyes are filled with tears, and I suddenly feel so bad I want to melt into the ground forever.

"I'm sorry," I mumble.

Tadashi offers a better explanation. "We went to go save everyone…and destroy the amplifier, so Obake couldn't blow up the city. I'm sorry we didn't tell you. We knew you wouldn't let us go, even if it was for the good of the whole city. And we just wanted you to be safe." He rubs the back of his neck. "So…yeah. We're sorry."

Aunt Cass pulls us into a hug again. "It's okay. All that matters is that you're safe—and so is everyone else. I knew you'd done something to Obake when all the forensics doctors started freaking out."

"What were they freaking out about?" I ask, curious.

"They said something about not being in control of their minds? I was kind of confused."

It hits me. "Oh my gosh—Obake must have controlled them with some kind of neurotransmitter technology, so they wouldn't report the dead bodies as robots! No one actually died, and if the doctors had found anything weird, they would have said something. I guess that means whatever was controlling it on the other end is dead, so…the base is gone. And so is Obake. Probably."

I really hope so…

But right now, I'm not going to worry about that. We've saved our city—again. This is what I love about being a superhero—being able to help people and keep them safe. I never thought I'd care about that, but I do.

It's amazing how life can change you.

"I think we did it, Hiro," Tadashi says, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. "We destroyed the amplifier. Everything's going to be okay. And we don't have to worry about Obake ever again."

Aunt Cass joins the group hug, and so do Honey and Baymax. I don't have anywhere else in the world I'd rather be right now—being here, with my family, is enough.

And if Obake does come back?

Let him come.

Hiro Hamada isn't going down easily.

I'm ready to take on the world.

al fine