Chapter 1: How It Started

Sirens blared, pedestrian screamed. Police cars were scattered all across the street, and police choppers peppered the night sky. Tadashi could see his friends being taken away by police officers, but all eyes were on him. Tadashi wished he was blended in the shadow like them, but the darkness of the night could not snuff out all of the beaming lights that were now all on him.

His mask concealed his identity, but not for long. Soon the detective that had been tracking… no, hunting him down for weeks had Tadashi on his knees in the middle of the street, gun at point blank to his skull.

This is how it would end.

He would either make a foolish attempt to escape and have a bullet pierce his head, or he would take what was coming to him, be arrested or put on death row, and all of his work would be for nothing. All his friends would be arrested for helping him, and it would all be his fault. And Hiro… Tadashi didn't want to think of what would become of Hiro because he couldn't get the job done. But how would Hiro react? Tadashi wouldn't know what to do if Hiro found out what he had been doing for him.

Would he be proud? Or would he be enraged by Tadashi's criminal activities? How did things get so bad? How did they get to the point where Tadashi had to lower himself to the level of a hardened criminal? He had a hard time remembering, but he had a general idea of how it happened. All at once, the events of how this all started came flooding into his memory.

Ironically, it all started at the polices station.


The San Fransokyo police station. This was a familiar sight for Tadashi Hamada. Not because he was arrested of course. It was because Hiro had made quite a… reputation for himself.

Every time Hiro was arrested for illegal bot-fighting, he always made Tadashi his one phone call. Tadashi didn't blame him for not wanting to call Aunt Cass. If she found out Hiro was bot-fighting, much less getting arrested, she probably would ground him until he was forty. Maybe forty two for good measure.

Tadashi walked through the glass doors of the police station. He was greeted by a man sitting behind a desk. He had the name Gerson plastered on his name tag.

"Sergeant Gerson," Tadashi greeted as he approached the desk. "I assume you know what i'm here for."

"He's in the back Tadashi," Sergeant Gerson said plainly without looking at Tadashi. His eyes were glued to his computer screen. He must've been playing solitaire again. The life of a police officer was a fascinating one. Gerson got up from his seat behind the desk and led Tadashi through a door on the left side of the lobby. Tadashi knew where to go. He wouldn't need the Sergeant with him if he could unlock prison cells

The door led to a long hallway that was meant for offices. Beyond that was a holding area for minor offence criminals. Hiro being one of them.

The fourteen year old was sitting on a bench in a cell with two other guys. One was skinny and covered in tattoos, and the other was very large, and looked like he could be a bouncer at an important club.

Hiro was looking at the ground, but his head shot up when he heard Tadashi enter the room.

Gerson walked over to the cell door and was searching through his key ring for the one that unlocked it. When he found the right one, and unlocked the door, Hiro ran like hell out of it and over to Tadashi. Hiro looked happy, but Tadashi wasn't so amused.

"Really Hiro?" Tadashi said, giving Hiro his most fearsome of glares. "What did I tell you?"

"I think it was somewhere along the lines of 'i'm coming to get you'," Hiro said, not making Tadashi any happier.

"You know what I mean."

"But I wasn't even betting."

"Right," Sergeant Gerson spoke up. Then I guess this was just walkin' around money." Gerson pulled out a plastic bag which contained somewhere around two hundred dollars. "This is the third time this has happened Tadashi. The next time we find him even near a bot fight, we're calling your Aunt. No exceptions."

"Trust me," Tadashi said, still glaring at Hiro, "it won't happen again."

"Uh huh. That's what you said the first two times we caught him."

"Hey man," the skinny prisoner in the cell said to Gerson, "can I have my money back?" He must've been the one Hiro was bot-fighting.

"Let me put it this way," Gerson said to the man, "the SFPD just got two hundred more dollars in funding." The prisoner just sighed and rested his head on his hands. "Tadashi I think you know you're way out of here by now."

With that, Tadashi walked with Hiro out of the police department and onto his moped.

"You heard what he said," Tadashi said as he was putting his helmet on. "You get caught one more time Aunt Cass is gonna kick your ass."

"So what you're saying is to not get caught-"

"Hiro take this seriously! Why do you even go out doing that stupid shit?"

"Because i'm really good at it!" Hiro argued. "You saw the money. I could make a living out of it."

"A living? Hiro, it's illegal! You wanna live a life of crime?"

"They have national tournaments."

"Yet you decide the best way to practice is by fighting druggies and crime lords."

"I've gotten really good."

"Really good at getting arrested."

"Look, can we just head home?"

"Fine. But we're not done talking about this." Tadashi started up his moped and the two rode down the street toward the Lucky Cat Café.

Aunt Cass was a bit suspicious as to why they were home late.

"Why are you guys home so late?" She asked when Tadashi and Hiro walked through the café. She was cleaning the tables. "It's almost nine o'clock."

"Well," Tadashi started, trying to come up with a convincing lie, "I was… working on my project at school late." That wasn't entirely a lie. When Hiro had called him from the police station, Tadashi was at SFIT working on his robotics project. As for Hiro, he never really had anywhere to be, making it hard to explain where he was. It's Tadashi to the rescue again. "And Hiro… was with me."

"He was?"

"I was?"

"He was," Tadashi said. "He's just as good with robotics as I am, so I had him help me." Tadashi was impressed with his lie.

"That's great!" Cass exclaimed. "My two boys working together."

"Yep," Hiro said, going along with the lie. "And we've worked so hard that we need a good night's rest." He began shoving Tadashi up the stairs.

"Oh, well, goodnight."

"Night Aunt Cass," the boys both said as they walked up the stairs and into their bedroom. Tadashi didn't like to lie to his aunt, but he also didn't want Hiro to get in trouble. No matter how much he deserved it.

When the two reached their room, Hiro closed the door. "Why did you tell her that?!" HIro silently yelled."

"Oh so you wanted me to tell her that you were hanging out with criminals?" Tadashi teased.

"Well now she thinks that I like hanging out at SFIT."

"What's wrong with that?"

"Soon she's gonna think I want to go there, then i'm gonna be going to a school listening to lectures about stuff I already know about."

"One: that probably won't happen. Two: if it does happen, then I hope you learned your lesson."

"I really hate you right now."

"Eh, you'll get over it. Besides, if you do end up going to SFIT, it could be a good opportunity for you."

"Riiiiight, right. You've said that before. I just can't see myself going. I mean the best it could do is recommend me for robotics jobs. I can get those on my own."

"I bet that there are professors there that could teach you things you didn't even know about."

"Doubtful." This Tadashi agreed with. The professors at SFIT were incredibly intelligent. But Hiro was unbelievably intelligent. That's how he graduated high school at He never understood how it is Hiro knew so much, but he definitely knew more than any institute could teach him.

Tadashi walked over to the computer in the corner of the room. He needed to work on a paper for school. Robotics wasn't all hands on projects unfortunately. If it wasn't for Hiro's little mishap, Tadashi would've been halfway through writing it. Now he was going to be up all night.

"You know Hiro, you tend to cause way too much trouble than you need to," Tadashi said, typing away at the computer. There was no response. "Oh the silent treatment, you're really mature."
Once again no response. Then there was a thump.

"Hiro?" Tadashi turned in his chair to find his brother on the floor. Tadashi immediately was at his brother's side. He was still breathing, but he looked to be in pain. His hands were on the left side of his chest. "Hiro!" Tadashi yelled. He didn't know what to do. "Aunt Cass! Call an ambulance!"

Cass came through the upstairs door to find Hiro laying on the ground with Tadashi at his side.

"Oh my god!" she yelled. "What happened?!"

"I don't know! He just fell over! Call an ambulance!" Cass didn't hesitate. She sprinted down the steps to get the phone.

"It's gonna be okay Hiro," Tadashi said, trying to sooth his brother.

"Tadashi," Hiro said breathing heavily, "my… my chest-"

"Don't talk, just… breath."

When the paramedics came into the room, one of them picked up Hiro and brought him down stairs to be put onto a gurney.

"I'm coming with him," Tadashi said to the paramedics as they were loading Hiro into the ambulance.

"That's fine," one of the men said. "Just don't get in the way." Tadashi climbed into the ambulance with the paramedics.

"I'm coming too," Aunt Cass said as she ran out of the café.

"I'm sorry mam, we only have room for one person. We need room to work," one of the paramedics told her.

"Don't worry, i'll look after him," Tadashi said reassuringly.

Cass hesitated before replying. "Okay," she said quietly, tears running down her face.

The paramedics slammed the back doors shut and the tires screeched against the pavement as the ambulance sped down the road. The paramedics were examining Hiro and were using all types of medical terms that Tadashi didn't understand. What he did understand was that they were talking about Hiro's heart.

His heart? Tadashi thought to himself. What's wrong with his heart?

Tadashi sat helplessly as his brother was in pain. He couldn't do anything but watch him suffer.

All he could do was hope for the best. Hope that his brother would be okay.


That's how it all started. That event caused all of this. That led Tadashi down a path that he never saw himself going down.

But what happened to Hiro was just the beginning of that path.


(A/N) There you have it. The first chapter. The first two or three might be a bit slow, but bare with me. It gets much more exciting. I want to clarify two things. One: Callaghan isn't a professor in this story. No, I gave him an even more important role in this story. You'll have to read to find out what it is. Two: Krei Tech doesn't exist. Krei exists, but not as a tech mogul. He's also very crucial to this story, and you'll also have to read to find out what it is. That's DadreamDepartment out of your hair! )