Hey guys! This is Part Four of Ransom and the last chapter I will post until I get some reviews. Please try to give me feedback on the writing if you can, and request one shots you want to read! Enjoy!

TADASHI

On our way.

Honey's words echo in my ears. They're coming. We're getting out of here.

Callaghan hasn't asked either of us to really do anything yet, but it's only a matter of time before he will. All I can do is hope that they'll be here before Hiro makes him mad again.

Hiro's habit of angering Callaghan is slowing down his healing. His ribs are getting better, but they're a popular target for Callaghan. And Hiro makes him mad about every other day.

Hiro is huddled in the corner of the cage, clutching his chest. The sight of my little brother's tearstained face renews my vow to make Callaghan pay for this.

"They're almost here," I whisper to Hiro. "We're gonna be okay."

"Just tell me when they get here," Hiro replies through teeth gritted in pain.

I sigh and fall back against the bars. It makes me sick what Callaghan does to him. How almost every day, he drags Hiro away and takes him somewhere I can't see. Somewhere with walls between us, but somewhere I can still hear Hiro's screams. Every day. I have to get him out.

Please, Honey, get here soon.

Hiro falls asleep after an hour or so, which I'm grateful for. If he's asleep, he's not in pain. Every moment he's awake, he is. I'm surprised none of his ribs are cracked yet.

The door opens and Callaghan steps inside, locking it behind him. He replaces the mask on his face and lowers the cage.

The microbots pull us out of the cage and deposit us on the ground. Hiro is still limp, his breathing shallow. The microbots wrap around my arms, pinning them at my sides.

Callaghan walks toward Hiro and delivers a swift, sharp kick to his ribs. Hiro doesn't budge, his eyes closed so peacefully I can almost believe he's not here.

I don't want him to be here.

Callaghan kicks Hiro awake after a minute and jerks him up. Hiro gasps and fresh tears start to stream down his face. Sleeping in the same position for that long probably did no favors to his ribs, and neither did the sudden movement of standing up.

"Your friends are here," Callaghan hisses at Hiro. "You two stay quiet and don't move."

Both of us glare at him. He shoves Hiro back to the ground and sweeps out of the room.

HONEY LEMON

I'm coming, Tadashi.

I'm flying over the ocean in a barely tested super suit to rescue my fiancé and soon-to-be brother-in-law from a psychotic professor who wants to use them for murder and world domination.

The things that have happened to me since the fire.

We land somewhat gracefully outside the old KreiTech lab. Freddie dismounts from Baymax and starts his narration. "Night. Exterior. Abandoned ancient lab. The intrepid heroes gathered their courage for the formidable dangers they were about to face."

He pauses dramatically, then adds, "Bravely."

Freddie doesn't look very brave as he steps toward the door.

The doors open automatically, which I take as a bad sign immediately. But we have no other choice if we want to save Hiro and Tadashi.

I keep my chem purse ready as we walk through metal halls. This place gives Callaghan an advantage over us—he knows it and we don't. And it's huge. Hiro and Tadashi could be anywhere.

We wander through the halls for at least twenty minutes before I catch sight of a door set slightly ajar. I hold out a hand to the others, signaling them to stop, and push the door open.

A gasp escapes my lips before I remember that we're supposed to be quiet. "Tadashi!"

Tadashi and Hiro are both on the ground, their arms bound and mouths gagged by the microbots. Tadashi shakes his head desperately, motioning for us to go back.

I open my mouth to tell him I'm not just leaving him here, but before I can speak, the door behind me shuts with a loud boom. I gasp and whirl around.

Standing behind me is Robert Callaghan.

"So, heroes," he says casually. "I'm going to be nice today. You can all retreat now, or we can fight. Your choice."

GoGo glares at him. "You think we'd just run away?"

"You're supposed to be smart, Ethel." GoGo grimaces at his use of her real name. "Surely you know a lost battle when you see one."

"I don't see anything except five against one," GoGo says. "I'll be nice today too. Hand over the mask, or we take it from you. Your. Choice."

GoGo crosses her arms, her expression fierce. Wasabi watches her with admiration.

Something might be starting there.

"I'm afraid I can only offer you one thing," Callaghan says diplomatically. "I'll let you walk away unharmed if you leave now."

GoGo brandishes her disks. "And if we don't?"

"I don't want things to get ugly. But if you force me…" His gaze flicks to Hiro. "I know how far you would go to protect him. Your…little brother, of sorts."

GoGo's fists clench. "Let them go."

"I can't do that, Ethel. I need them."

"Well, we need them too. They're our friends. And you have no right to kidnap them and try to torture them into helping you take over the world for who knows what evil, twisted purpose."

Callaghan seems disarmed by GoGo's words. She really is fierce.

I use his distraction to shoot off a round of chem balls, catching Callaghan around the ankles and knocking him off his feet. Seconds later, a tendril of microbots slams me into the wall.

And the room erupts into chaos.

HIRO

I struggle madly against the microbots holding me, amazed that Callaghan has the mental capacity to hold me and Tadashi down while fighting everyone else. I mean, we all know I have a way bigger mental capacity than him, but I get distracted too easily. I couldn't balance those things.

One of GoGo's disks slices through the microbots holding me down, barely missing my face. They fall limp and I leap up, ready to jump into the fray.

Before I've taken more than two steps, a hand grabs my arm and yanks me to the side. I instinctively raise my other fist, thinking it's Callaghan, but it's not. It's Tadashi.

He drags me off to the side of the room, away from the battle raging behind us. I struggle, but he's about twice as strong as I am, and it does no good.

"What are you doing?" I hiss at him. "I can't just leave them!"

Tadashi catches my wrist in a death grip, preventing me from fighting him. His eyes blaze with a protective determination that I've never seen this concentrated.

"You're not going to fight, Hiro," he says fiercely. "I forbid it."

"I don't care!" I kick pointlessly at his legs, still fighting to get away. "I want to help!"

"You're already hurt. I don't want you to get hurt again. Or worse."

"I can take care of myself!"

He looks skeptical. I glare at him. "I'm fourteen."

"You're just a kid!"

I stop fighting and narrow my eyes at Tadashi. He sighs dramatically. "You're staying out of this, Hiro. Final."

I start to protest, but Tadashi's eyes widen and he lunges at me. The first thing I feel is anger, but it turns to panic as Tadashi's weight is dragged away. I sit up to see the microbots slithering away with Tadashi in their grasp.

"Tadashi!" I shout, scrambling up to run after him.

An iron grip closes around my upper arms, pulling me back. I turn to see Baymax standing behind me, his armored hands locked around my arms.

"What are you doing?" I half-shout at him.

"I have been instructed to keep you out of harm," he replies evenly.

"What?"

"I am supposed to protect you."

"I don't need protection!"

He looks at me blankly. "Tadashi told me to take you home."

"I don't need—I don't want—I won't leave—"

"I will take you home."

"No!"

Baymax powers up his thrusters and literally drags me, kicking and screaming, away from Tadashi.

When we get back to the café, Baymax drags me upstairs and forces me into bed. Aunt Cass isn't home—probably searching for me and Tadashi.

"I'm going back," I snap, knowing it's not Baymax's fault, but it's the only outlet for my anger I have.

"You will not return to the island."

"Why not?"

"You will get hurt."

"I'll be fine! I can use my suit."

"I have been instructed to keep you at home."

He steps out of his armor and collapses on top of me, pinning me to the bed. I let out a frustrated puff of air. "Get off me."

"I will not."

I groan.

I really am tired. I haven't slept properly in a week and a half.

Baymax starts petting my hair like I'm a cat, just like my parents used to do when I was a toddler, and before I know it, I'm dead to the world.

I wake up with stiff bandages wrapped around my rib cage and ankle, and someone has a death grip on my hand.

"Aunt Cass?" I mumble, my voice faint.

"Hiro!" she gasps. "Are you okay? Are you hurting?"

"I'm fine." I struggle to sit up, but her hands push me back down. "Where's Dashi?"

She lowers her head. "I don't know."

"You don't know?"

Aunt Cass shakes her head.

"They're not back yet?"

"No. They came back hours ago," she says quietly.

"Then where…" I trail off, afraid I know the answer.

"They had to leave him behind, Hiro. I'm sorry."

No.

I can't leave my brother there. I know what Callaghan can do. I remember how much he could hurt when he wanted to. I was lucky he didn't do worse. He didn't do worse because he needed me.

Me. Not Dashi. He could do anything to Dashi.

Callaghan will be furious that I escaped. He threatened to torture me just for calling Honey Lemon to help us get out. For actually succeeding…

I don't want to think about what he might do.

"How long since they got back?" I ask hoarsely.

"Two or three hours," she replies.

I bury my face in the pillow. Two or three hours. Two or three hours in which Tadashi could have been interrogated, tortured, or even killed. Two or three hours when everything that happened to him was my fault.

I'm going back. Tonight.

I didn't put these in my sketch, but my suit is supposed to be equipped with thrusters. I'd been working on them for a while before I was kidnapped, so they were almost done. They just needed testing.

No better time than now, I guess.

I strap the boots onto my feet, wincing as they squeeze my injured ankle. I definitely didn't plan for that when I designed them. I should add it.

I press the button on my wristband that activates the thrusters, knowing I should take it slow at first but also that I don't have time. I need to get to Tadashi. I've already contacted the others so they can meet me there, so hopefully they'll realize they can't stop me at this point and at least show up.

I streak through the garage door and pull up, trying to get as much lift as possible. I stop once I'm about thirty feet up—that way I can see everything below me but not get hurt too badly if/when I crash, because knowing me, I will.

Halfway across the city, I start to lose height, bobbing up and down. I try to keep control, but the thrusters don't seem to be responding anymore.

Then, all at once, they stop and I plummet to the ground.

I smack into a light post on my way down, which breaks my fall but is also not fun. I think I bruised my hip. And that did no favors to my ankle either.

I glare at the thrusters, wondering what I did wrong while building them. Wrong battery? Structural instability? Jammed capacitor? Resistor? It could be any number of things. I'll have to wait until I'm back at the lab to really check it out.

Still irritated, I stand up and limp back toward the café. I'm not too far away, so it shouldn't take me long to get back, fix the thrusters, and go save Tadashi.

I manage to sneak in through the garage without Aunt Cass seeing me and walk toward the long-range power source I built for the thrusters. I frown as I catch sight of the gadget, smashed to pieces.

"What the—"

The sound of the garage door closing startles me and I whirl around, certain it's Professor Callaghan, aiming to recapture me. But it's not him.

"Aunt Cass?"

She steps forward until she stands directly in front of me.

"What do you think you're doing?" she hisses.

I lower my head, feigning guilt and hoping she'll let me off easy if I make her feel bad. "I wanted to go save Tadashi."

Her face softens slightly, but she still looks angry. "You're going to hurt yourself, Hiro. How do your ribs feel now?"

I press my lips together, unwilling to tell her how much pain the fall and the hike back have put me in. I think she sees it anyway.

"Hiro," she says softly. "I can't just have you running away from me like that."

"I'm sorry, Aunt Cass," I mumble, rubbing the back of my neck. "But would you let me go if…if you could come with me?"

Aunt Cass's eyes widen. "Come with you?"

"I made you a super suit."

"A what?"

I grin at her as I pull out the black-and-copper case that contains her suit. I made hers first, figuring that if she found out, she'd be less angry if it was a gift for her.

Aunt Cass straps the suit on, testing the feel of the paper-thin blades in her hands. The graphene knives are black with copper handles and fit perfectly in her fingers. I have to admit—she looks epic.

I pull my suit back on and she powers up her thrusters, levitating a few inches off the ground. She actually controls them a lot better than I do.

Aunt Cass holds out a hand to me. "Ready?"

I've never seen her this way. She looks much younger, freer, more adventurous. I can see her as a superhero.

I take her hand and she pulls me up to her level. "Ready."

Everyone else is waiting for us when we arrive at Sparrow's Island. Most of them are bandaged, and GoGo is limping. The only one who seems unscathed is Fred, since he has a full-body lizard suit that makes him nearly invincible.

"About time," GoGo grumbles as we land. "What took you two so long?"

I jerk my head wordlessly at Aunt Cass.

"Right."

We stand in silence for a few minutes.

The doors slide open without warning and Honey shrieks in surprise.

"Welcome back, heroes."

The scene is eerily familiar. Callaghan standing in dim lighting, his face the only thing illuminated. The mocking words welcome back.

Only this time, I'm the one standing in front of him, fists clenched, teeth gritted, and Tadashi is the one bound and gagged behind him.

"Give up, Callaghan," I say, trying to sound brave. "You're outnumbered seven to one. None of us want to hurt you. Just give us the mask and let Tadashi go, and we don't have to fight."

Callaghan laughs softly. "I don't see seven to one, Hiro. I see seven to thousands."

I hear a soft hissing sound and my suspicions are confirmed.

Microbots.

GoGo hurls a disk at Callaghan's head and hits him square in the jaw, knocking him off balance for a moment. The rest of us attack the microbots.

I lunge toward Tadashi while the others fight, but when I reach the spot where he was, he's gone. I look up to see microbots dragging him away.

I chase the microbots through Callaghan's secret lab, always a few seconds too slow to catch up to Tadashi. Even when I power on the thrusters, I'm not fast enough.

I grit my teeth as I alternate between running and flying, trying to conserve the thrusters' power. I hate this stupid game Callaghan is playing with me. No, not with me. Playing me. I'm the pawn on his chessboard, and so is Tadashi. So is Aunt Cass. GoGo. Honey Lemon. Wasabi. Fred. Even Baymax, to an extent.

We're all just pieces in his game.

Finally the microbots come to a stop and I skid to a halt in the same room Callaghan interrogated me in. Tadashi is held back by the microbots, yelling into his gag and shaking his head furiously.

"Tadashi!"

The voice isn't mine. It comes from a small, slight blur of black and copper, lethal blades whirling in the air. Aunt Cass.

She touches down in front of me, facing the microbots as Callaghan strides casually toward her.

"Cass," he says cordially. "How pleasant that you could join my little game."

"This isn't a game," Aunt Cass hisses, drawing her graphene blades. "Let my nephew go. Now."

Aunt Cass has a fire in her I've never seen before. She's always been sweet and overprotective and soft. But now…she's blazing out of control.

"I can't let him go, my dear," Callaghan says, his tone light and patronizing. "I'm not here to give." His eyes flick to me. "I'm here to take."

Aunt Cass steps protectively in front of me. "You are not taking Hiro too."

"Aren't I, though?"

A tendril of microbots yanks me off my feet, pulling me away from Aunt Cass. She raises her blade threateningly, but more microbots knock the knives from her hands, restraining her.

"So, Hiro," Callaghan says to me, "Are you willing to join me now? You know I can overpower you easily. I've won every time you tried to fight. It would be so much easier to just give up."

I glare at him. "I don't give up."

He laughs softly. "Not now. But I can make you. You only know a fraction of what I can do."

Memories flood my mind, memories of being torn away from Tadashi, of pain, screaming, crying, begging someone, anyone to please just make it stop, blacking out when he choked me or the pain was too much, of what Callaghan could do. Whether he was angry or just bored. I knew the pain he could cause.

He never let Tadashi see. It scared him more that way.

Somewhere in my mind, I know Callaghan is right, but only if I let him. I won't break if I don't let him break me.

The microbots snake up around my throat, squeezing, cutting off my air. I gasp for breath, but each attempt to inhale sends a stab of pain through my ribs. My painkillers are wearing off. Hopefully I'll pass out before Callaghan notices.

"Last chance, Hiro," Callaghan says in a singsong voice.

I choke out one word. "Never."

The world fades to black.

The white light hurts my eyes. It's all I can see for a few seconds as the world slowly returns in full focus.

I'm in a hospital room. Not in a bed—a chair. Next to a bed.

Tadashi's bed.

Tadashi's eyes are closed, his breathing deep and even. An IV is attached to his wrist, leading to a bag of fluid labeled PAINKILLERS. I wonder what's wrong with him—if he needs constant painkillers, it must be pretty bad.

Aunt Cass is asleep in a chair on the other side of Tadashi's bed, her chin cupped in her hand. I wonder what time it is. The lights are all off, but there are no windows, so I have no actual indicator of day or night.

Tadashi wakes up before Aunt Cass does. His eyelids flutter and slowly open.

"Hiro?" he croaks.

"Tadashi!"

I tackle him with the best bear hug I can manage while he's confined to a bed, and he laughs as I shove him into the mattress.

I get serious again after a moment. "Are you okay?"

"Somewhat."

"What's wrong?"

"I have a flail chest," Dashi explains. "All I got out of the description was that I broke a bunch of ribs and I'm not dying."

"Oh." I've never heard of a flail chest, but it doesn't sound good. "Is it painful?"

"Not right now," he says with a hint of bitterness in his voice.

Oh.

I guessed right. Callaghan must have tortured him, tried to find out where the rest of us were. I can't think of another way he could have broken that many ribs—only the microbots would be strong enough. It is possible he took a really bad fall, but I doubt Callaghan would risk leaving his lair.

"Callaghan?" I ask softly as clarification.

He nods.

I don't know how to respond to that, so I say the only words that make sense. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah. Thanks." Tadashi traces a pattern on the sheets. "Are you okay?"

"Give me a mirror and I'll tell you."

He points toward the end of the room, where a large mirror is mounted on the wall. I get up and check my reflection.

I wince when I catch sight of myself in the mirror. A patchwork of bruises circle my throat, my cheek is scraped, and my hair looks awful. More cuts slice across my fingers and collarbone. I think I only have minor injuries, though.

"Wow," I whisper. "I look half-dead."

"I thought you were dead," Tadashi says. "He didn't let go after you fainted. You stopped breathing for a few seconds."

I tilt my head. "Why did I start again?"

"Aunt Cass knocked him out and gave you CPR. She got your heart started again after around thirty seconds."

I whistle appreciatively. "Impressive."

"I know. Who would've thought she had that in her?"

"Unexpected for sure."

It surprises me how normal the conversation seems. Aunt Cass. Superpowers. Saving each other's lives.

I hope this doesn't become a regular thing.

The end of Ransom! Review and check out my other stories!

Tadashinfj—POST ALREADY GIRL

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