Wow, over 100 views in one week! Thanks! Here's where things deviate a bit from the original story and we go into some familiar territory with Hiro...

Nearly ten years had passed since Cass had woken up to find her nephew on her doorstep, but Montgomery Avenue had hardly changed at all. The sun rose on the same city block and lit the cat statue above the café door; it crept into the apartment, which was almost exactly the same as it had been the night Cass had seen that fateful news report. Only the photographs on the walls showed how much time had passed. Ten years ago, there was no shortage of pictures of an infant wearing a variety of colorful animal-themed onesies – but Hiro Hamada was no longer a baby, and now the photos showed a skinny black-haired boy chasing seagulls at the beach, on a carousel at the boardwalk, beating his aunt in another one of their intense video game sessions, earning his first martial arts belt, attending a sci-fi convention, building his first robot, winning ribbon after ribbon in a multitude of science fairs, and hugging a chubby bobtail kitten.

Hiro himself was currently fast asleep in his bed. He didn't stir when the first rays of sunlight crossed into his room, neither did the large cat snoozing at the foot of his bed. Cass, on the other hand, was already awake.

"Hiro, get up! You don't want to sleep in today, mister!"

Hiro jolted from his slumber, accidentally startling the cat. It jumped up with a cry and bolted from the room. "Sorry, Mochi!" Hiro yelled after it, stifling a yawn. He had been having a pretty awesome dream. He was flying…

"Get a move on, Hiro! The showcase only comes once a year!"

That was enough to fully wake up Hiro.

After months of waiting, the San Fransokyo Institute of Technology Student Showcase was finally here. SFIT's best and brightest students, as well as important tech companies worldwide, gathered in one place to demonstrate astounding breakthroughs in robotics, computers, and engineering. To Hiro, it was like his birthday, Christmas, and con season all wrapped up in one day.

Hiro was a remarkably intelligent boy for his age, to the point where he was moved up several grades. This left him with very few friends and a large number of students and bullies pressing him to do their work for them. Regardless, Hiro excelled in his studies; science, however, was his special interest. Unlike the rest of his class, he understood that it was more than dissecting frogs and memorizing what mitochondria were for; it was understanding how the world around them worked, even the things they took for granted like cars and gravity and the very air they breathed. What's more, he knew that you could take those facts and, under the right circumstances, use them to build and discover something new.

When Hiro learned there were leaps in technology that were bringing robots similar to the fictional ones he grew up with into real life, he was hooked. The idea of building his own bots and controlling them for all sorts of things enthralled him. His shelves were full of miniature models and books about them. He always kept up to date on the latest news in gadgetry and engineering. And growing up in a technology-forward city like San Fransokyo, well, he was never in dire want of information or tools. He even tried his hand at designing and creating a few prototypes on his own. Though he did most of the physical work in the garage, he liked to call his room, where he planned his ideas, his "attic lab"; it used to be the attic until Hiro came to live with Aunt Cass.

"I'll be down in a minute!" Hiro yelled, throwing himself out of bed. He grabbed the shirt lying closest to him, almost tripped over some discarded underwear as he tugged on his cargo pants, and jammed on his socks and sneakers. He barely stopped to wrap himself in his favorite hoodie and check himself in the mirror; grinning back at him was a small, thin ten year-old Japanese boy with excitable brown eyes and uncontrollable black hair.

Hiro never gave much thought to his appearance. The one thing he thought was interesting about him, however, were his scars. The angry red lines ran up his right arm like thorny vines, stemming from a deep black birthmark at the base of his wrist. No matter how warm the weather or the number of layers he covered it in, that one mark was always cold to the touch.

He had these scars for as long as he could remember, and one of the first questions he could remember asking Aunt Cass was how he had gotten them.

"In the car crash that killed your parents," she said. "Now let's not talk about this anymore."

Let's not talk about this anymore – that was as common a phrase heard in Cass' home as "Hello" or "I love you" or "Pass the chips".

Hiro raced down the stairs and sat at the kitchen table. Cass had already cooked up a sumptuous breakfast of pancakes, bacon and eggs. She had even added a bowl full of gummy bears – his favorite candy – to sprinkle on top.

"Did you comb your hair?" she asked over her shoulder. Hiro must have done more to style his hair than every boy band in the world put together, but it made no difference. His hair simply fell that way – all over the place.

He shrugged and helped himself to his aunt's cooking. Cass was a phenomenal chef, and owned the café downstairs. She was supposed to be catering some wedding on the other side of town today, but was leaving it in the hands of her staff so she could accompany him to the showcase.

Less than a half-hour later, Hiro could hardly stay still in the passenger seat of Aunt Cass' car. His bag was packed with essentials and a few tricks he hoped to show anyone who would listen, and they were finally on their way. But before they left, Aunt Cass took Hiro aside.

"Hiro, I know you're excited about the showcase," she began, "but if anything happens…well, don't rush into it or encourage anything. And try to stay by me, okay?"

"Nothing's gonna happen," said Hiro, "Honest…"

But Hiro knew it was a piecrust promise: easily made, easily broken, even by accident. The problem was strange things, things that even all the scientific research in the world couldn't explain, often happened around Hiro without him even trying.

Once, Aunt Cass, tired of her nephew returning from the hairdresser's looking like he hadn't even gone there, took a pair of kitchen scissors and a bowl and went to town on his hair. The results proved that she was far more suited for cooking than hairstyling. Hiro went to bed dreading having to face his classmates the following day. Next morning, however, he woke up to find his hair exactly as it had been before Aunt Cass sheared it off. He tried to explain that he couldn't explain how it had grown back so quickly, but Aunt Cass seemed eager not to discuss it.

Another time, Aunt Cass attempted to force him into a hideous old sweater her elderly godmother "Aunt" Sarah gave him for the family Christmas photo. The harder she tried to pull it over his head, the smaller it became, until it could have fit a sock puppet – or a cat. And that was the first and last time Aunt Cass tried to dress up Mochi.

While Hiro wasn't blamed for that incident (Cass assumed the sweater shrunk in the wash), there was that time he nearly got into trouble for going on the school roof. Once again the same pack of bullies were chasing him around the yard, eager for his blood, homework and lunch money, when, much to Hiro's surprise as well as everyone else's, he was suddenly teetering on the edge of the chimney (a friendly chimney sweep who happened to be working up there that day saved him from falling in). The principal called Cass in to rant at her about how Hiro was climbing school buildings. She in turn raged back that Hiro was lucky to be alive, how the principal did nothing to curb the school's bullying problem, and that she wouldn't sell so much as a crumb at the next bake sale unless something was done about it. Meanwhile Hiro kept saying that he really meant to jump behind the dumpsters outside the kitchen door and the wind must have somehow caught him in mid-leap, but his voice was drowned out.

Nothing would go wrong today, however. Hiro was going to the coolest place in the world, where there'd be people who shared his enthusiasm about the future of technology. Plus, none of the kids in his class were into robotics like he was, so there was no chance of any bullies showing up to spoil it.

While she drove, Cass alternately sang off-key with the radio or complained – no, not complained, "vented", she called it, though Hiro didn't see much of a difference. There were plenty of things Cass liked to vent about: traffic, customers, late deliveries, the government, her thighs, and bad movie remakes were just a few of her favorite topics. This morning, a low-flying plane that swooped over them on the highway joined the list.

"Geez, where'd that maniac go to flight school?" she ranted. "Doesn't he know he could crash winging it like that?"

"I dreamed I was flying last night," Hiro suddenly remembered.

"Oh…like in a plane?" Cass asked, trying to sound nonchalant. Hiro knew that worried tone, and now wished he hadn't said anything.

In his dream, a massive pair of arms held him up, though he couldn't see to whom they belonged to, and together they flew through a starry sky over cities and oceans. But he couldn't say that. If there was one thing that upset Cass more than questions about his parents, it was mentioning anything magical or out of the ordinary, unless it was something he explicitly saw in a comic, movie, or on TV. Was it too late to backtrack?

"Uh…yeah. In a plane."

Cass sighed. "Oh. That's nice. First class?" she joked.

Hiro didn't respond.

It was a bright, clear Saturday. Sunlight glinted off the enormous Exposition Hall standing proudly in the middle of the campus. Hiro and Cass were overwhelmed by how many people had already filled the venue. From where he stood, Hiro could see some amazing tech on display on the show floor. He walked on ahead, mouth gaping in awe, unaware of his aunt saying they should pick up a map and heading to the information desk.

Hiro wandered up and down countless carpeted aisles, drinking in the sights as a hundred conversations washed over him:

"This protocol droid is fluent in over thirty languages…"

"If something can't be done with X-S, then it shouldn't be done at all…"

"No need to worry about the turkey this year, not with an oven that will do anything your father tells it to do…"

"I rarely use it myself, sir, it promotes rust…"

"Can a hamster fly a plane? Let's find out…"

"I don't know where to start! What do you think, Aunt Cass? Aunt Cass?"

Hiro looked around. Aunt Cass was nowhere to be found.

"Oh great, everyone's lost but me," he groaned.

He knew he should either stay in one place or ask someone for help finding his aunt, but he had barely covered a fifth of the hall. There was still so much more to see, and he wasn't tethered to anyone. Besides, he could always reach out to Cass on his phone to let her know where he was.

In a short amount of time, Hiro got to see an underwater exercise bike, a shrink-ray demonstration, a memory-finding machine, and a banana sharpener (Hiro didn't see the point in that one, but the presentation was entertaining). He was waiting in line to watch X-S Tech's teleporter demo when he heard some men yelling nearby –

"Hey, where'd it go?! If this is another scam, Stan, you're leaving this place in pieces!"

A small white and orange spherical robot bowled its way through the crowd. Its domed head veered precariously from side to side as it zigzagged away from the shouting match. Hiro leaned over the queue rope for a better look. The robot looked similar to one of the droids he'd seen on display.

The droid stopped and turned around – a group of large, angry men were pushing their way through the crowds towards him. Their leader was an overweight man in a tacky purple and yellow tracksuit. His lips curled in a furious sneer as his beady eyes scanned the floor for his quarry. He reminded Hiro a lot of one of the school gang leaders that frequently tormented him.

"Pssst!" Hiro beckoned to the droid. "This way!" He ducked out of the line and hid behind a wide column. The little droid rolled after him. Once they were out of sight, Hiro knelt down to the droid's level.

"You okay, little guy?"

The droid burbled and whistled.

"Good, I thought for a second you –"

Hiro paused. It was as if the droid's mechanical noises went through a translator in his head.

"Wait, I understood that! How did I understand that? Say something again, anything!"

The droid beeped several times.

"This is incredible! Do you have a universal translator among your components? Maybe it's a side effect from one of the devices on show or the hall has some sort of –"

The droid buzzed impatiently.

"Sorry," said Hiro. "I kinda get carried away like that sometimes. But what happened with those guys? Why are they chasing you?"

The droid went off on a series of worried squeaks, whistles and beeps. Hiro listened intently.

"You were stolen from your owner and brought here…sold to the big guy to compete in bot fighting…and if you don't fight, he'll take you apart?!"

The droid trembled and whimpered. Hiro laid a comforting hand on its rotund body.

"It's okay, I'm not gonna let anything happen to you. Do you have a name, little guy?"

The droid warbled again.

"BB-8, huh? I'm Hiro, nice to meet you."

"Gotcha!"

The man in the purple suit snatched up BB-8. The droid whirred and whistled; its head spun in a panic and tools popped out of hatches all over its round body, poking and prodding his assailant. One of the other tough guys grabbed BB-8's head and ripped it off. In the struggle to reattach himself, BB-8 pulled back his gear and tried to magnetically force his head out of his hands in an invisible game of tug of war.

"Leave him alone!" Hiro shouted. He raced towards BB-8 but a muscular dark-skinned man blocked him.

"Beat it, kid, this bot's mine!" growled the man in purple as he grappled with the droid.

"His name's BB-8," Hiro shot back, "and you stole him! He doesn't belong to you!"

The ruckus was beginning to draw an audience, something that didn't go unnoticed by the gang. The man in purple surveyed the scene, then put on an innocent face.

"I paid for this bot fair and square. Stan, show him the bill of sale. Right pocket."

Stan, the man standing between them, backed up and plucked a piece of paper from the suit pocket. He shook it open, revealing two roughly scribbled signatures.

"As legit as I am, Yama," Stan smirked.

This seemed to appease the crowd, and they dispersed.

"This bot'll make me a fortune in the fighting ring," Yama continued. "And if he doesn't…well, I'm always in need of a few spare parts."

He, Stan and the gang sniggered knowingly. Hiro, turning red, reached into his backpack.

"Yeah, well, I've got a bot of my own who could take on yours on any day! Meet Megabot!"

He held out a small bot that looked more like a floppy rag doll than something you'd fight with. It was made up of black balls and rounded triangular points resembling arms, legs and ears, and had a yellow smiling face drawn on it. It dangled limply in Hiro's hand.

Yama took one look at it and burst out laughing. The rest of his goons followed suit.

"I'm not wasting my time on a toy! Let's go."

He and his cronies began to walk away.

But Hiro wasn't about to give up so easily.

"Why?" he asked. "What have you got to lose? You're scared you'll be beaten by a kid? You don't want to look like a chump in front of your guys, is that it?"

Yama stopped mid-step. He glared at Hiro, death burning in his eyes. The boy kept talking as Yama shoved BB-8's body into Stan's arms.

"I knew you bot fighters were all talk. You make a big deal about being the baddest, but when a kid offers you a challenge your first instinct is…to…"

As Yama finally approached him, Hiro realized just how huge the man was. And now that those deadly little eyes were boring right through him, his sudden burst of bravado dried up all at once. Yama leaned down until the tip of his nose was inches away from Hiro's face.

"You really think you got what it takes, kid?" he said in a deadly whisper. "Tonight, Good Luck Alley, 8 PM. No cops. All or nothing for that."

He jerked his head towards BB-8.

"No one makes Yama look like a chicken in front of his men, especially not little snot weasels like you."

Without another word, Yama rejoined his crew. BB-8 continued to struggle as they carried him out of sight.

The full gravity of what Hiro had just done struck him like a cannonball to the head. He had just challenged a bot fighter eight times his size to a rumble with no way of getting out from under Cass' watchful eye. The thought of leaving BB-8 to his fate sickened him, but the more he stood there and thought about it, the more inevitable it felt.

"There you are, Hiro!"

A frantic Aunt Cass dashed up to Hiro and began checking him for any signs of harm.

"Thank goodness you're all right! Don't ever run off like that again, young man, do you have any idea how worried I was? Oh and there's someone I want you to meet!"

Cass dragged him to a tall blonde man waiting nearby. He was dressed in a sharp suit and had an equally sharp pointed nose. Hiro instantly recognized him from countless tech news reports and apps he had downloaded.

"You're…you're –"

"Alistair Krei, CEO of Krei Tech. Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Hiro."

Krei gave him a firm handshake and a gleaming smile.

"I was just telling your charming aunt I recently joined SFIT's Board of Advisors. I'm glad my contributions to this school have finally left a mark, especially after helping them rebuild from that fire a couple years back. Cass here tells me you're quite the accomplished little inventor yourself. Is that one of your robots?"

Hiro was eager to show off Megabot, but something about the way he leered at his aunt when he talked about her made him feel gross. Cass, for whatever reason, giggled and blushed.

"Yes, you'll have to come by the café and check out all his hard work –"

Cass' gushing was mercifully interrupted by Krei's phone ringing. He impatiently picked it up.

"Yes, what is it…oookaaaay…keep the room locked down for now. I'll call security…and a cleanup crew…"

He turned back to Hiro and Cass with an ever-so-slightly forced grin.

"Slight malfunction at the X-S teleporter demo. Everything's fine. Apparently the attempt to beam up Chairman Clench went a little haywire and they brought back…well, it's nothing to worry about!"

Judging by the faint sounds of screaming from the other end of the phone, Hiro doubted that.

Hiro tried to enjoy the rest of the showcase, but his heart wasn't fully into it. He kept thinking of poor BB-8. By the time they were on their way home, he could only gaze at Megabot in silence. Not even Cass' cheerful nattering could get through to him.

"Wouldn't it be great to go to school here, Hiro? Maybe if we talk with Alistair we could work something out…"

Cass glanced at her nephew, and was almost taken aback by his despondency.

"Aw, why the long face? Wait, don't tell me – you're feeling down because it's over, right? I know it too well; you get so built up with anticipation over this special day and you have such a great time that it's depressing when it ends. I used to feel that way after every con I ever went to. But that means you get to find something new to look forward to after. Hey, there's a Mecha Vs. Kaiju movie marathon on Channel 8 tonight. That sounds like fun."

On any other night, it would be. But real fighting robots trumped filmed ones at the moment. Hiro tried to smile as his mind continued to race around in circles.

At home, Cass happily prattled on about having a good night in while preparing some extra-spicy chicken wings, stopping only to answer the phone. Hiro slumped over in his chair, trying and failing to formulate a way to get out to the rumble.

He could say he had homework to do – except that he already made an effort to get every bit of work done before today so he'd be free to enjoy the showcase, and Cass knew it. If he suddenly remembered he missed something, she might get suspicious.

He could say he was sick – no, Cass would dote on him so hard that he'd never have a chance to sneak away.

He could wait until she fell asleep to break out, but it might be too late by then.

Hiro was so lost in his thoughts that he hardly heard Cass at first.

"…gray stuff…all right, all right, I'll be there in fifteen minutes." She hung up the phone.

"Bad news, Hiro. There was a big scuffle at the wedding and most of the food went flying. I need to get down there fast to try to salvage it. Oh, I hope Mrs. Effgee won't be too upset at me calling her last-minute…"

Anytime Cass had to work late all day at the café or do some catering, Mrs. Effgee would babysit Hiro. She was a sweet, plump old woman who would let him stay up late if he was good, and liked to tell him unusual stories, most of them about mice for some reason. She also fixed up his and Cass' clothes in exchange for sweets from the café – well, more like Cass piled them on her in gratitude over Mrs. Effgee's modest protests. Hiro liked Mrs. Effgee, but there was no way he'd make it to the fight if she were watching him. There was only one solution for it – and it was the most difficult one of all.

"Aunt Cass, do you think…I could stay by myself tonight?"

The phone dropped from Cass' hand.

"Hiro, you've never been home alone before," she said, "at least not with me not immediately downstairs."

"I know, but I'm getting older and…well...you trust me to run my own lab in the garage. Why don't you trust me with looking after myself?"

"It's not that I don't trust you, it's just that…you're still young, Hiro. Anything could happen. I could come back and find the house blown up –"

"I won't blow up the house, I promise! I won't do anything in the lab at all; I'll just sit on the couch, play video games, and eat chicken wings like a good growing boy should."

Cass pinched the bridge of her nose and shut her eyes. Hiro was on the brink of mentioning that all this waiting was stealing time away from where she needed to be, but that might give him away. After a moment or two of deep thought, Cass faced him.

"Keep your phone with you. Leave the lights on until I get back. Don't use the pressure cooker or put anything metal in the microwave. And make sure you feed Mochi before midnight."

Hiro dared to not change his expression. He reassured her fifty more times all while his heart leaped with excitement. The moment he heard Cass' car fade away down the block, he stuffed Megabot into his bag along with some snacks and crept down the fire escape. He quickly searched bot fighting rings on his phone and found the one Yama said to meet him at. If he played his cards right, he'd be home before his aunt suspected a thing.

It was already dark by the time Hiro reached his destination. If he wasn't mistaken (and he really hoped he wasn't) the fight was down a dim, dingy alley in the shadier part of San Fransokyo. He knew he was at the right place when he heard the sounds of clashing metal and excited cheers.

A woman's voice called out:

"The winner, by total annihilation – Yama!"

And there Yama stood among a throng of rowdy onlookers, laughing triumphantly with a wad of cash in his fist. Hiro squeezed Megabot tightly. He was going to enjoy taking this guy down.

"Who's next?" Yama bellowed. "Who has the guts to step into the ring with Little Yama?"

He proudly held up his bot, a hulking gray and black mass of metal and blades modeled after a samurai. The crowd fell silent. Some of the other fighters backed away. One even yanked the head off his own bot to save time.

"Hey, Yama!"

The crowd parted to make way for Hiro. The boy stepped forward with as much confidence as he could muster.

"We had a deal. I'm here to fight for BB-8. Where is he?"

BB-8's head slid out from behind Yama's leg. An ungainly cylinder was attached to the side. The little droid whistled and screeched, struggling to roll towards him.

"Restraining bolt," Yama sneered. "He's not going anywhere unless I say so."

The spectators began passing bills amongst themselves as the two fighters placed their bots in the ring and sat opposite each other.

Yama cracked his neck intimidatingly. Hiro tilted his head and made what he hoped was a convincing cricking noise.

The ringleader, a slender woman with an eyepatch, lowered an open red parasol between the two bots.

"Two bots enter, one bot leaves…now, FIGHT!"

Little Yama pounced the instant she lifted the parasol. It snatched Megabot and sliced it neatly in three with a buzzsaw. Yama howled with laughter over his assured victory, as did the onlookers.

Then Megabot pulled itself back together and struck a fighting stance. The happy yellow face flipped over, revealing a red one with an angry smile. Hiro made a similar grin.

"My turn."

Megabot whizzed and cartwheeled around Little Yama, avoiding the thrusts of its saw and claws with ease. Beads of sweat trickled down Yama's face as he strived to catch up. Hiro, for his part, was already having fun.

Megabot split itself in three; each part crawled up Little Yama like an insect and fastened around the arm bearing three knife-sharp blades. It popped off with a twist. Now armed with a new appendage, Megabot hacked off Little Yama's sawblade. The spectators ooooohed and yelled for more.

With Little Yama now completely defenseless, Megabot kicked and punched its head, then coiled around it and squeezed tightly until it popped off. Sparks fizzled from Little Yama's neck hole before it collapsed in a lifeless heap. Megabot returned to its usual happy smile, made a little bow, and fell inert once more.

The crowd went wild. Yama sat there completely flabbergasted. In all his years as an underground bot fighter, no one had dared to best him before. "But…how…this is not possible!" he shrieked as he held Little Yama's remains.

"What can I say, beginner's luck," Hiro shrugged. He was beginning to enjoy the attention he was receiving from the onlookers. Some congratulated him; a few even gave him a share of their winnings. Unfortunately, that blinded him to BB-8's pleas to go and Yama's temper.

"All right, kid, you win," Yama said. "You can have your toy…IF…"

Yama plunked BB-8 into the ring.

"…You beat it."

The crowd roared sadistically. Hiro mentally kicked himself for thinking Yama would be a graceful loser. BB-8 looked frantically at Yama, then Hiro, then Yama again. He screeched and whistled, begging the boy for help.

"Don't worry, BB-8. I have a plan," Hiro whispered.

He didn't. He just hoped what he had in mind would work.

Hiro put on a cocky attitude. "Won't it be a little one-sided with that restraining bolt on? These good people are here for a fight, not to watch a ball get deflated."

The spectators laughed and cheered in agreement. Yama begrudgingly leaned over and removed the bolt with a flick of his wrist. Hiro subtly winked at BB-8.

The ringleader repeated the signal to fight. Once she raised her parasol, Megabot flipped into the air, soared over BB-8 in a graceful arc…and landed right on top of Yama's head.

The bot jammed its arms into Yama's eyes, flipped over and tweaked his nose. Yama yowled in shock.

"NOW!" Hiro screamed.

A small welding torch popped out of one of BB-8's hatches and he jabbed it Yama's massive stomach. The burned bot fighter toppled backward, crying out in pain.

BB-8 made a sound like a battle cry, and all at once, the fighting bots that hadn't been destroyed yet sprung to life and turned on their masters. In the chaos of revved engines, flailing limbs and confused screams, Hiro scooped up Megabot and fled down the alley with BB-8 in tow.

"Woah, you are one sadistic little guy," Hiro said to the droid with a note of admiration.

BB-8 burbled modestly.

"You're right, I'd wail on my master the first chance I'd get if I was forced to fight for my life every day."

"There he is! Don't let him get away!" Yama's shout echoed after them.

A glimpse behind reassured Hiro that Yama was well behind them, but two of his cronies stepped in front of them, blocking the only way out. Hiro and BB-8 quickly found themselves surrounded.

Yama grabbed Hiro by his shirt and thrust him against a wall.

"No one hustles Yama!" he roared in Hiro's face.

Yama swiped Megabot from the boy's hands.

"Teach him a lesson," he snarled.

Yama's goons closed in, cracking their knuckles and chuckling ominously.

BB-8 whirred in terror. Hiro held up his hands.

"H-hey guys, let's talk about this –"

Wailing sirens filled the air. The alley lit up in red and blue. Yama and his squad froze.

That split-second distraction was all Hiro needed to whip out his controller and pummel Yama in the face with Megabot. The enormous man thrashed about, knocking his accomplices senseless. Hiro stopped to swipe some cash from one of their pockets before bolting to the street once again.

"Ha! Bot fighting – so illegal, but so lucrative," he laughed to himself. "And there's no stopping us!"

A police car screeched to a halt right in front of Hiro.

The next thing he knew, he was being led away in handcuffs along with a hoard of bruised and bloodied bot fighters; some of them still whimpering over being attacked by their own creations.

Hiro glanced over his shoulder. BB-8 rolled out from behind some trash cans – he was safe. Hiro gave him a smile and a thumbs-up. The little droid stuck out its welding torch again; its blue flame pointed up in an equal gesture. He drew it back and rolled down the alley out of sight.

In hindsight, Hiro considered himself lucky that he got a cell in the police station all to himself. If he had been thrown in with Yama and the rest of the rounded-up fighters, he probably wouldn't have made it home in one piece. Still, the sight of them all glowering at him from across the way wasn't a comforting one.

The only thing that made him feel worse was his phone call to Aunt Cass. Hearing her go from full-blown panic on learning he was in trouble to dead silent when he told her why made his blood run cold. He didn't know whether or not to be glad that she came to pick him up instead of leaving him there overnight.

Thankfully, due to Hiro's age and this being his first offense, the police let him off with a strong warning. They also made plans to visit his school with a new crime-deterring program that was in the early stages of development, R.R.A.N.T.: Robot Rumbles Are Not Tubular ("The title's a work in progress," the desk sergeant shrugged embarrassedly).

In stark contrast to their earlier ride, Cass didn't utter a word the entire way home. She fixed her eyes on the road ahead. As much as he wanted to break the heavy silence, Hiro couldn't find it in him to speak up.

It wasn't until they crossed the kitchen threshold that Cass rounded on him.

"How could you do something so reckless, Hiro?! And after I trusted you to stay home by yourself! Do you have any idea how humiliating it is to abandon a client in the middle of a job so you can pick up your nephew from jail?"

"I had to, Aunt Cass! There was this droid I found at the showcase, he was in trouble –"

"The police would have handled it."

"They stole him and were going to strip him for parts if he didn't fight. He told me himself."

"You shouldn't have listened to those thugs, you know better than to talk to strangers."

"No, it wasn't Yama who said it, it was the droid!"

"Robots don't talk, Hiro!"

"I know, but I understood him! It was like he was speaking in my head –"

"This is ridiculous, of all the excuses to come up with to completely undermine my trust –"

"I'm telling you the truth, Aunt Cass! BB-8 said –"

"I've had enough of this. Hiro, you're grounded!"

"…But…but Aunt Cass…"

"Go to your room now. And if I hear one peep out of you the rest of the night…just, just go."

Hiro lay on his bed in the dark, staring up at the ceiling. Mochi's purrs did nothing to calm him. He was sure Aunt Cass would forgive him eventually, but her refusal to listen to him about BB-8 on top of being screwed out of ever being left home alone again cut deep.

He'd lived with Aunt Cass for as long as he could remember, ever since his parents had died in that car crash. He couldn't remember being in the car when his parents were killed. Sometimes, when he strained his memory long enough on nights like this when he couldn't sleep, he came up with a strange vision: a blinding flash of green light and a burning pain on his arm. He supposed this was the crash, though he had no idea where all that green light came from.

Hiro never shared this with Aunt Cass. She didn't seem to hate his parents, but when he was younger he couldn't understand why she didn't like talking about them. When he asked Mrs. Effgee about this, she told him it was probably because it hurt Cass to remember them. "Everyone has their own ways of dealing with grief, Hiro," she said. "I once heard someone say, "What is grief if not love persevering?" She loved your mother and father, and she'll open up about them when she is ready." So Hiro didn't press Cass for more information, and he certainly didn't say anything about his vision. He knew that sharing the slim memory he had of the night they died would only make her feel worse.

Hiro wished he had a real memory of his parents. The only reason he even knew what they looked like was due to the single photograph Aunt Cass had of them, which hung near the steps leading up to his room. They, along with Aunt Cass, were standing in the park dressed in traditional Japanese kimonos and smiling at the camera; according to her, this was their wedding day. He wondered if they would be happy knowing their son was a tech genius – and a criminal – at age ten. He also wondered if they would have understood more about the unusual things that sprung up around him, or if they'd not notice or seem to willfully ignore them like Aunt Cass often did.

One night when he was six, a small one-eyed monster emerged from his closet – but instead of scaring him or eating him, it proceeded to tell Hiro a string of bad jokes. Frustrated with Hiro's lack of reaction, the monster ate his microphone and let out a magnified belch. This had the young boy in stitches and woke up Aunt Cass, but she insisted Hiro had only dreamed what had happened.

A few years later, Hiro had the sneaking suspicion that something was going on with his toys; they never seemed to be in the same place that he left them. To test his theory, he left his laptop camera recording in his room the next time he left the apartment. When he returned hours later and checked the footage, he couldn't believe his eyes – once he was gone, the toys got up and walked and talked as if they were alive! He brought Aunt Cass up to show her his discovery…only to find the video had somehow been deleted. Once again Cass said he was imagining things, though the idea of toys coming to life sounded like a great idea for a movie, if he could get his camera working. Coincidentally, it was around this time Hiro stopped playing with toys and turned more towards science.

Cass seemed pretty selective about what was and wasn't aligned with her idea of reality. She denied those previously mentioned instances passionately, and asserted those accidents at school weren't Hiro's doing at all; that he was a healthy, normal boy and nothing strange was going on – but she also treated the talking animals or unusual people that visited the café as no big deal. Still, if it wasn't an issue, then how come he attended one of the few schools in the state that was humans-only? Also, any time something came on the news that was related to magic or royalty (or both, as was often the case), she loudly stated that how glad she was that nothing ever happened here. Maybe that was why she encouraged his scientific studies so much; it was grounded in facts and made sense in a world that rarely seemed to.

Or maybe she knew something she didn't want him to know. Maybe she was worried that if she told him the truth, Hiro wouldn't love her anymore. There were other people, strangers, whom he sometimes ran into that seemed to be in on those out-of-the-ordinary occurrences – specifically, they appeared to know who he was.

While serving some tea in the café to an elderly woman in a purple maid's uniform, her young son saw his scar and pointed and shouted, "Mama, Mama, look! It's him!" "Now Chip," she scolded, "it's very rude to stare." But as she was leaving, she clasped Hiro's hand, looked at him tenderly, and whispered "Bless you, child," as if she were thanking him for saving her life. Mrs. Corry, who ran a bakery Cass stumbled across while shopping for gingerbread house ingredients, took one look at Hiro and gave him an entire jar full of gingerbread stars, free of charge. A girl wearing devil horns waved to him while stepping through a portal she conjured. A dreadlocked pirate with a wobbly gait tipped his hat to him in the street.

From time to time, Hiro thought about what it would be like to follow these people wherever they went off to, to see if strange things happened to them too, learn how they did what they did, and if there was someplace special hidden just beyond his sight that would give him all the answers he craved.

But that was nonsense. Cass was the only family he'd ever known. He didn't want to leave her. And there was nothing she could do that would ever make him hate her.

Hiro turned over in his bed. He wondered if anyone at school would be talking about the showcase or the rumble after. The last thing he needed was the entire student population learning he went to jail – or maybe it would give his reputation a boost; people were drawn to bad boys, after all. And spending an hour in jail must certainly count for something.

Care to count all the Disney references?

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Next Chapter: The Letters From Nowhere