Notes: Yes, here it is, after months of waiting:
Chapter 4
Wasabi yelped as he pitched headfirst into the burning kitchen, although Baymax thankfully grabbed him before he could tumble too far.
"Oh no," the robot intoned. Wasabi scrambled to his feet even as he clung to Baymax's deflated form.
"Move it! I don't want to be stuck in here!" Gogo shouted.
"There's a fire out here!" Wasabi stated, panicked.
"Yeah? And this'll turn into an oven if we stay here!" Gogo shot back.
"Leaving the burning building would be ideal. Staying here would be detrimental to your health," Baymax agreed even as he shuffled out of the freezer. Fred burst out right after, yelling, "Tadashi! Hiro? Ms. C? Mochi! Answer me!"
Then a chem ball came flying out and a fire retardant foam smothered some of the flames.
"Front door!" Honey Lemon ordered as she threw more balls to clear a path. "Go! Now!"
"But... but... the others!" Fred protested even as Gogo grabbed him and dragged him out of the kitchen, followed closely by Wasabi pulling a still-deflated and swaying Baymax. Honey Lemon held the rear, throwing more of the fire retardant foam-filled balls as she went.
"We won't do any good if we get ourselves killed!" Gogo snapped at him before pausing. The fire must have spread into the stairwell because that side of the café was on fire as well, blocking the door.
"We're trapped!" Wasabi declared, voice hitting a high note. Gogo threw a disk and shattered the closest window.
"That works. Whoa!"
The flames by the stairs had leapt higher with the extra oxygen and were spreading even more rapidly. Only Honey Lemon throwing several of her flame retardant balls at once gave them enough time to get out the window.
"Is everyone alright?" Honey Lemon asked once they were out of the building and practically in the street.
"We're fine."
"Fine."
"Please wait while I inflate."
"But where's the little dude and Tadashi and Mochi and Aunt C?" Fred asked, sounding more than a little worried.
"Baymax, can you scan while you're inflating?" Honey Lemon asked.
"Yes. Scanning now. They are located somewhere behind the building. Hiro, Tadashi, and Aunt Cass are with the masked man. There are also twenty people in the surrounding buildings and the fire is spreading."
"Not cool," Fred said before straightening. "We need to help."
"I don't like leaving them with Callaghan," Gogo stated, "but he's not likely to kill them, not with the way he's kept Tadashi all this time. We help here first, them next. Honey Lemon, try and slow the spread of the fire. Everyone else, evacuate as many people as possible. If Callaghan hangs around, feel free to try and take him out, but innocent people to safety first, okay? Go!"
They scattered just before a police car and the first fire truck pulled up to the Lucky Cat.
Despite Gogo's words, she headed in the direction the Hamadas were supposedly in first. She was the fastest and if she could free them... She caught a glimpse of the microbots disappearing over a rooftop and since there weren't any bodies, it meant Callaghan had her friends and their aunt. She moved to follow when a scream caught her attention.
The house next to the Lucky Cat was on fire now and that's where the scream had come from. Gogo glanced at where she'd seen the microbots disappear before turning away and toward the screams. Tadashi would never forgive her if she let someone die in order to rescue him, the self-sacrificing jerk.
She managed to break a second story window with a disk and get out two frightened kids with only a little difficulty before she turned to the next building. No one was going to mourn after this fire, not if she had anything to say about it.
Officer Rosa Mendez wasn't quite sure what to make of the situation. Right now, it was most obviously the fire department's job. The fire chief was even now calling in more units because they hadn't actually come expecting a fire of this size, if at all. The police were the ones that had been called.
This guy had phoned in to emergency services saying he'd been assaulted by a ghost outside the Lucky Cat Café even as the restaurant had been 'taken over by a cloud of darkness'. Then the ghost had supposedly disappeared inside. She'd been sent out, even if only to escort the obviously deranged individual to a mental health facility, and they'd sent a fire truck along with just in case the 'cloud of darkness' was smoke.
There was a fire, all right, a big one, and several individuals in weird gear were evacuating the locals while a girl who was dressed like the others threw balls of some sort of flame-resistant foam that her purse was making. And then there was the large robot Rosa had nearly attacked because it had startled her. Only the fact that it was holding a cat had stopped her.
"I have found Mochi," it proudly proclaimed before handing the cat to a crying girl, who even now hugged the fat furball tight. Then the robot had gone and started helping the EMTs that had just arrived with triage.
"Officer? Officer, can I talk to you?" a man asked, coming up to Mendez.
"Yes," she quickly agreed, pulling out her notebook and a pen.
"Thank you! I'm the one that called the police. I... I need to tell you what I saw so he won't haunt me."
"Uh... huh," Mendez said, her polite expression freezing. Great, it was the guy she was probably going to have to escort to the mental health services.
"I go to this café. Not all the time, but enough to recognize the family who owns and runs it on sight and to send a condolence card when the older boy died in that fire at the college a few weeks back. Anyway, I was walking by when the older boy - the one that's dead - burst out, grabbed me, and demanded I call the police before running back inside and disappearing. Then I saw this dark wave through the windows as it carried a demon into the kitchen! And it wasn't smoke, either! The darkness moved like it was living thing!"
Officer Mendez felt her eyebrows rise at this story. But then the individual in the blue kaiju suit, who'd stopped to drop off some people with the robot and had apparently stayed to listen to the end of the story, spoke up.
"Dude, that is a totally awesome description! That is totes what happened!"
"Wait, what?" Mendez asked, incredulous.
"See, the lizard man agrees with me! I'm not crazy!" the witness exclaimed.
"So there's actually a ghost, a demon, and a wave of darkness involved in this mess?!" Mendez demanded even as the yellow-suited woman zoomed up to drop off a kid clutching a small dog. She apparently heard Mendez, because she quickly explained, "The black wave is micro-technology, the demon is the masked man who started the fire, and the ghost is probably the kidnapping victim whose death was faked."
Then the woman zoomed back off, her lizard-suited companion following with an impressive bound.
"What? Wait! Come back here and explain all of that!"
"I'd love to explain."
Mendez turned to see the guy in the green suit come up, helping an inappropriately-dressed elderly lady holding a cane. Dang, he was fine. Yellow suddenly showed back up.
"Wasabi, I need your blades. There's a beam blocking a family."
"After everyone's safe," the man, Wasabi apparently, amended.
"Yeah, right. Of course," Mendez agreed. She could wait if it meant a chat with the hunk. She watched him run after Yellow.
"What a nice young man," the old lady stated before adding slyly, "And that outfit of his really hugs his butt, doesn't it?"
Mendez flushed even as she tore her gaze away from said piece of anatomy, only to see the caller/witness giving her a knowing look while the eighty-year-old lady beamed at her.
"Uh... what were your names again?" Mendez asked, trying to go for professional again.
"Ken Tate."
"Hanako Matsuda and you shouldn't be shy, honey. You're young enough you should be grabbing a handful while you can. It's how I got my husband, rest his soul."
"You're husband's dead?" Ken Tate asked the old lady.
"Oh, yes. For some time now. I miss him, of course. Especially the sex," Mrs. Matsuda replied.
Mendez resolutely ignored that while she continued to take their statements. Once she'd gotten them, she got another headache.
"Garret Bryant, Ferret News! Can you give us a statement, Officer? We've heard rumors that this was arson!"
"Where'd you hear that?" Rosa Mendez wondered out loud. She really should've called for back-up, but this had looked like it was the firefighters' business. Now she had people dressed up like superheroes and rumors of arson and, with her luck, kidnapping going around. Then she shook her head and stated, "No comment," before moving to radio in about the current mess.
"Well, the fire department, the police, and the media are here. Now what?" Wasabi asked once the team could take a breather. The firefighters had the frighteningly large blaze under control now and all the civilians in the area were being evacuated to safer locations.
"We tell them the truth," Honey Lemon insisted.
"The whole truth? Part of the truth? Some of the truth? And are we telling the same amount of truth to every person and group?" Fred inquired.
After a paused, Gogo declared, "The whole truth, but only to the police. Some of what we know is obviously considered classified by the government. Let the cops decided what should be said and not. In the meantime, if anyone else asks, be truthful but not detailed."
"Got it," Wasabi confirmed while the others nodded.
"Fred, try and corral Baymax if he's done helping the EMTs. As for the rest of us, come on. Let's go talk to that cop that got here first. She seems to know the most right now."
While Fred both literally and figuratively bounced off, Gogo shoved Wasabi in front as she and Honey Lemon hung back a bit. Wasabi sighed and girded his loins before heading for the police officer who seemed to be trying to make sense of the whole mess. She looked pathetically grateful when she saw him approaching.
"The, uh, fire's pretty well contained now, so I have a moment if you have questions," he managed, internally wincing because of course she had questions, likely ranging from 'why are you dressed that way?' to 'so where you you when the fire started?'
"Oh, I have questions alright," the officer confirmed. Wasabi nervously noticed her obviously looking over his supersuit.
"Like if you're single and what's your number!" Mrs. Matsuda suddenly called over with a leer as she was escorted away.
Wasabi flushed. He'd eaten at the Lucky Cat enough to be aware of Mrs. Matsuda's incorrigible nature but he hadn't thought she'd say something like that in front of a police officer. A blushing police officer who was giving the old lady a look that practically screamed 'Shut up!' Huh. He suddenly got the impression he'd been shoved into front to talk to the officer for reasons beyond his stickler-for-the-rules attitude. Wait. Did that mean she'd just been checking him out? By the time his thought process had reached that point, the officer was turning back with an apologetic smile.
"Name?"
"Wasabi," he automatically replied before wincing and adding, "I, uh... that is-"
"Secret identity? Don't worry, I get it."
"You do?" Wasabi asked even as he got a reminder the rest of the team was listening in the form of Gogo's elbow to his back. "That's, uh, great! And you are?"
"Rosa Mendez. Officer Mendez, that is."
"Gogo," Gogo introduced herself bluntly.
"I'm Honey Lemon, and those are Baymax and, um, Fredzilla," Honey Lemon added with a gesture at where Fred and Baymax were approaching.
"And I am Moore. Captain Moore."
The team blinked and Mendez straightened up as a stern-looking older man in a police officer's uniform strode up to them.
"Mind starting at the beginning and telling me what's going on?" Captain Moore politely insisted.
"Well, it started when our friend, Tadashi Hamada, died in the SFIT fire a few weeks back and we decided to keep an eye on his little brother, Hiro..." Fred began. He was actually a really good storyteller so, aside from the occasional interjection from the team, he was the one to do the actual explaining. At least until a certain point.
"Wait," Moore interrupted, "You found and rescued a kidnapping victim and didn't bring him straight to us?"
"We were planning on it," Wasabi quickly defended before Gogo added, "We thought stopping a distraught teenager from going after the one responsible on his own took priority."
Moore frowned but nodded.
"I'll accept that, but you still should've called us en-route."
Wasabi flinched and Honey Lemon winced while Gogo inclined her head in acknowledgment of the critique. Fred just quickly wrapped up his story. Captain Moore then turned to Officer Mendez and asked, "Do you have any evidence to corroborate this?"
"I've got at least one eyewitness who claims to have both seen and briefly interacted with Tadashi Hamada earlier tonight. Said witness also saw a person in a mask controlling a 'wave of darkness'," Mendez confirmed. "There might be more. I was going to head over to where they were moving the evacuees and ask around next."
"Good, now-" Captain Moore stated only to be interrupted by a man with a cameraman following him.
"Garret Bryant, Ferret News! Is the rumor true that these so-called 'superheroes' set the fire so they could rescue people from it?"
"What?" Gogo asked flatly.
"But we would never-!" Honey Lemon began even as Fred practically howled, "No, we didn't!"
"Enough!" Moore barked before turning to Officer Mendez and commanding, "Get them out of here!"
"The public has the right to know!" Bryant shot out.
"It has the right to know the truth, not whatever lies you're pandering."
"Lies?! They're the ones claiming a dead college student was kidnapped by his equally deceased professor! Have you no shame, claiming ill of the dead?" Bryant insinuated, aiming the last bit at the team.
"I assure you, sir, that Tadashi Hamada is alive," Baymax calmly insisted, holding up one finger.
"Yeah? Prove it," the reporter demanded. Baymax blinked.
"Get him out of here!" Moore repeated. Mendez started to escort Bryant away when the sound of Baymax's chest armor hitting the ground caught everyone's attention. Even as everyone turned to look at the robot, the screen on Baymax's chest lit up with a video.
"This is Tadashi Hamada and it's been two weeks since I was kidnapped by Robert Callaghan. I'm putting this video with the information on Silent Sparrow in hopes that someone comes looking for it. I'm not entirely certain what he has planned for me but, just in case, tell my family I love them.
"If you don't already know, then Callaghan plans on using the Silent Sparrow project to destroy Krei Tech's newest building-"
Krei spat out his after-dinner coffee and then stared wide-eyed at the live news feed before scrambling for his phone.
"Get me the General's number," he barked at his assistant, "Now!"
"-If it hasn't happened yet, I pray you find a way to stop him. If it has, then I... I'm so sorry."
The speech stopped then but the video played a little longer, showing Tadashi freezing at a sudden noise before quickly ending the video feed. Captain Moore quickly wanted to know, "What on earth is Silent Sparrow?"
"Wait, how'd you get that?" Wasabi asked a beat later.
"I took the liberty of downloading it from the computer. Everyone seemed to think it was important," Baymax calmly explained. "With the garage now destroyed, surely this is a good thing?"
"Well, yeah," Wasabi agreed only to wince again because Baymax had started playing the Silent Sparrow footage.
"My God," the captain stated as they watched the new video.
"Are you getting this?" Bryant hissed at his cameraman.
"I'm getting it. Wow."
That seemed to remind Captain Moore that the reporter was still there.
"Mendez! Get them out of here! You lot, the... superheroes. You're coming with me. Move it, people!"
Callaghan had gone to that particular box store simply because it had food, clothing, toiletries and a rather shoddy security system. Well, shoddy to someone with a lifetime of studying robotics behind him. It was while he was heading away from the health and beauty section that he passed a bank of TVs whose programing had been preempted by the local news. Said news made him pause and then stop entirely, face darkening. Then he lashed out at the closest screen, cracking it.
Callaghan only stopped long enough after that to shake out his hand and grab a small, portable TV before stalking off. He would have to grab what he still needed fast and then head back. Someone had been very, very naughty.
Notes: This chapter's given me fits for awhile. I have several different versions involving the police officers before finally stumbling across one that made me happy. The rest of it is, surprisingly, much easier for me to get into the mind-frame of. Between that and the fact the chapters want to be shorter for this story, I'm going to try and meet a goal of updating around once a week, barring any trouble or real life getting in the way.