Hey guys! Gosh, I'm so so sorry for not updating this in forever. I was crazy busy plus I got a bit of writer's block, and that's never a good combination haha. But yeah, my bad, and I think I've got this story back on track (i.e. I know roughly where, when and what stuff will happen, but I haven't really gotten around to writing the fine details, so don't expect too frequent updates from me :/ ) I'm so sorry once again!
But a huge thank you for those you reviewed/favourited/followed, it was you guys that really gave me the kick I needed to get working on this story again :) I've answered some things you guys brought up in the end author's note, hope you guys are okay with the way I'm planning things!
Enjoy!
["Dashi, that Baymax only has his fighting chip inside him. And he only knows one command: destroy."]
"Wait what?"
Hiro looked down shamefully, "You know the red chip Baymax with all his karate and fighting programming? The only reason he is still so kind and friendly is because his primary healthcare chip overrides most of the information. Without the healthcare chip…" The boy genius trailed off, still unable to forgive himself for what he had almost done that day on the island, not just to Callaghan but especially to his own team.
"My healthcare protocol becomes violated. I almost killed Callaghan, and hurt some of the team when Hiro threw out my primary chip to get me to attack Callaghan." Remorse was apparent even as the robot's voice remained monotonous.
"You what? Hiro!"
Probably should have mentioned it to him sometime before. "Look I'm sorry, okay? It's just that when Callaghan didn't even flinch about you running into the building to save him from the fire he had set, I-"
Tadashi sighed, not wanting to resurface those memories again. "Okay, but you said you deactivated him in the portal right?"
"Well yeah, but if they find a way to reactivate him somehow, and the only command he knows is destroy then... Oh my god what have I done Dashi? I created a monster too, I'm no better than Callagh-"
"NO." Tadashi shook his younger brother out of his panicked rant. "Hiro don't think like that. You are nothing like Callaghan, you hear me?"
"I-"
"Do you know when they're going to reopen the portal?" Go Go jumped straight to the matter at hand, knowing that dwelling too much in emotions wouldn't get them anywhere.
"I… I think their first try is in about two weeks. I don't know if they're actually going to try and use it or just see if it's working again."
The other members of the team looked at each other, trying to let the information sink in. They had only two weeks before another potential disaster?
Go Go chewed on her gum, deep in thought. "Okay best case scenario, the original Baymax is deactivated so all we need to do is take out the fighting chip. Worst case… wait he doesn't have any armour right? Then what's the big deal guys, we just need to puncture it so it can't really move."
"OOH!" Fred jumped up, waving his hand, "I totally rocked at darts as a kid. I can take evil Baymax down any day. And I don't even need my suit."
"While I would have normally punched you in the face, I have to say that today, this numbskull might have a point. It seems pretty straightforward to take down original Baymax, no matter how intent on destruction he is."
Honey nodded thoughtfully, "Yeah, I mean how much damage can an unarmoured Baymax actually do, righ-"
She was interrupted by a huge crash, as Baymax had accidentally turned around, right into Aunt Cass, sending trays scattering all over the cafe.
"Oops."
"Tadashi! Hiro! How many times must I tell you to watch that robot of yours?"
"Sorry Aunt Cass," Tadashi smiled sheepishly, trying to help her pick up the trays, only to be shooed upstairs along with his brother, friends and robot.
The gang regrouped in the brothers' bedroom, much cleaner now that Tadashi forces Hiro to clean up at least once a week. (There was also the point about how Hiro was actually using Tadashi's side of the room again as extra storage space to reduce the clutter, but they hardly brought up those memories if they could help it.) Hiro plopped on his bean bag as usual, leaning against Tadashi who was carefully watching his robot to prevent any more mishaps.
"… So we were talking about how an unarmoured Baymax couldn't do any damage?" Wasabi glanced nervously at the gang.
"Well, it's still better than blowing your face off with his rocket fist."
"Yeah, but-"
'GYAHHHHH!" Fred's scream pierced the air, and the team turned to see him hopping around frantically, trying to shake off Megabot which was gripping his leg tightly.
"You are in distress."
"No kidding Baymax. Hiro save me!"
"On a scale of one to ten-"
"He'll be fine Baymax, no need to take care of him."
"Okay, I will override my healthcare commands for Fred."
"Wow thanks guys, I feel the love... URGH GET THIS THING OFF ME!"
Hiro sighed, trying to get up from his bean bag, only to be promptly pulled back down by Wasabi. "Let him suffer," the older boy whispered uncharacteristically, "He deserves this for messing up my workstation yesterday."
"I just don't want him to destroy my best fighting bot,"
"But you don't need a fighting bot if you're not going bot fighting."
"Do you want me to set it on you instead?" Hiro glared at Tadashi's smirk before releasing Fred from the death grip of Megabot that was now innocently flopping on the floor. As he bent down to pick up his prized robot, Hiro froze. The time when Tadashi had made him "think of a new angle" to invent something for the showcase flashed through his mind.
"My microbots,"
"Sorry kiddo?"
"My microbots. Krei always wanted my microbots, what if he gets them out of the portal and…"
'I don't know little buddy, he probably might not want to play around with the stuff that almost killed him and ruined his swanky new building."
"Says the guy who keeps trying to play with Megabot after it always almost kills him," Go Go scoffed, and Fred grasped his heart in and overdramatic mock hurt, but was interrupted by Hiro's computer before he could retort.
"Information system accessed."
The team turned to face the screens as Hiro scrambled to open the newest files he had hacked from Krei Tech, and Baymax's famous phrase summed up the team's reaction perfectly.
"Oh no."
The latest file was a name list of all the personnel involved in the reopening of the portal. And there, clear as day, under the list of main engineers who have complete access to the project, was the one that the team had hoped they would never have to see again: Callaghan, Abigail.
Abigail looked down at the twin portals from her position on the command centre. They had repaired the damage to the second original portal and had built another to the same specifications. The brunette had taken advantage of her complete security access to tweak the containment field specifications so as to ensure that the portals opened to the same hyperspace as the original two had.
She had initially been reluctant to mess around with the portals again, but after seeing the way Krei and his company pushed so hard to get what they wanted, she felt herself growing more and more into her cause, Of course, objectively speaking, Krei had toned down his drive after all the events of two years ago, but Abigail herself was no longer the bright eyed, bushy tailed, eager young scientist she had been. Being arguably the single person most personally affected by Krei Tech's ruthless methods for 'scientific advancement', she wanted them to pay for their mistakes, just as she had had to.
"Back in the game, huh?" The brunette jumped as Krei spoke behind her, pulling her from her thoughts.
"Yea… yeah. Can't believe we're going to do this again."
"You sure you're okay with this? I really don't blame you if you don't feel up to this, I can arrange for you to work on one of our other projects."
"Trust me, I'm fine. Let's just hope it works properly this time, right?" She offered a sickly sweet smile at her boss, and turned to leave, rolling her eyes. It was physically exhausting and mentally draining to have to even maintain the shortest of polite conversations with anyone at Krei Tech, but the faster she got this stage over, the better.
Time to prep the next stage. A short drive in her unremarkable hatchback led her to San Fransokyo's largely abandoned warehouse district. She pulled into one of them, where she had laid out the important blueprints she had recovered from her father's study. They didn't have the ability to build their own machines and robots, what with him being in jail and all, so they decided to do what he had done the last time around.
"That kid's microbots are surprisingly good at destroying stuff, make sure you use them. And if you can get that big robot working again, it will be helpful to have on our side too."
Abigail was grateful that her father had made it a rule that students share their blueprints with him; they simply couldn't afford the time for her to figure it out by herself. She did feel the occasional pang of remorse for the city's latest superhero team- they had been through enough, she honestly felt- but she knew this wasn't about them. This was about that bastard Krei, and how he and his influential buddies were able to do anything and have a get out of jail free card, while her father was serving two consecutive life sentences (okay so maybe he deserved the first one on terrorism, but it wasn't his fault one of his students was stupid enough to run into the fire- he had made explicit care to ensure nobody else would be trapped in the blaze). Heck, the military had even covered part of the cost of rebuilding the new headquarters her father had managed to significantly damage.
Having painstakingly poured over every video and news article regarding her father's first spree on Krei, Abigail realised she would have to make certain small tweaks to the original plan. New ideas in mind, she settled in for the second to last weekend of intense engineering before it all went down.
Yup, I know it's super short, but this is still the build up to the actual story, (hopefully) the chapters will start getting longer as we move along hehe
As I said above, some quick responses to the reviews I got:
-For those of you who asked about how the original evil!Baymax was going to be used despite being deactivated in the portal for so long, well, let's just say Abigail's got some tricks up her sleeve…
-As for Tadashi's power being a force field instead of an offensive weapon (fire or something), firstly I felt a bit bad for Fred to have Tadashi get a cooler fire power and steal his thunder hahaha but more importantly, Tadashi always comes across as a protective figure to me, so it seemed only fair that he would be the one to have the best defensive tech so he can save his team if and when he needs to :)
Hope you guys understand, and please keep on reviewing, it really makes my day ^^
Much love xoxo