Mary Steele and Toby Townly arrived at the Lucky Cat Café with Mrs. Minerva Matsuda to play bridge with Cass on the 15th of August. They had left the burial last month to attend business at Mike's Diner and were absent at the wake. Following this tragic sequence of events, Mary and Toby took the MV Oceana to Honolulu for a week of some much needed R&R as well as a change of scenery. Mrs. Matsuda was one of their oldest friends. At eighty years of age, she had been a nude model in her youth and was not afraid to wear a two-piece swimsuit at the pier or at home where she felt the most comfortable, writing local novels that would have earned her a Nobel Prize, but did not meet the standards.

The first thing Aunt Cass had done the day after Tadashi's funeral was hire more staff members for the café, telling them that she was willing to pay the workers at a two dollar increase of the federal minimum wage as long as they did the job commendably. The youthful aspects of the employed baristas reminded her of Tadashi a little too much, one might say and the luxury of a full staff was all she needed until she was able to work again and treat her employees like a true boss.

When the three ladies approached Cass, who was sitting behind the counter, she gave each of them a tight hug with no words for comfort other than a "Hello, how are you?" Mary's dark hair looked stunning in an apple green dress of long sleeves and white gloves for contrast, Toby wore a dark brown dress embroidered with cat's eyes, short flounced sleeves and a crooked yellow bow scarf on both sides in a perpetual stretch of balance and Mrs. Matsuda was wearing a faded pale pink polyester dress with a light purple wool jacket. Her swimsuit was hidden underneath the dress, serving her very well as an outlandish alternative to undergarments.

The four women sat down at a square table with four seats in a little corner of the kitchen, ready to deal the cards. This table was often used by Cass for her own private company, for times when she was alone stress eating by herself and even when she had guests to deal with in secrecy so that Hiro and Tadashi would not meddle in her affairs.

"How's Hiro holding up?" Toby was the first to ask.

"Just fine, but I'm sure he's getting there," Cass responded. "I feel like the whole thing with Tadashi dying and all has made him bed-ridden."

"Same with my husband," Mary confessed. "I was in mourning for a week."

"When my boyfriend Mark got killed by that Bookie Joe, I vowed revenge," Toby said, remembering three years ago when a bookie named Joe held her for ransom. "But since the fire was most likely some type of accident, I don't see Hiro going through what I went through."

"You should talk," Mrs. Matsuda scoffed in haughtiness. "I have been without my husband for four years, and he's the only guy I'm outliving so far."

"You mean the ones closest to you?" Cass asked.

Mrs. Matsuda's Asian eyes went wide with absurdity.

"Of course I do," she said simply.

Cass looked over at the white tray of four strawberries, a blueberry muffin and a banana sitting on the other side of the kitchen. She had been saving it for Hiro, who was in great need of being saved from malnutrition. With a sigh, she went over to the deserted meal.

"Would you mind if you dealt the cards without me? I'll see if Hiro wants to join."

"Suit yourself," said Mary in understanding.

Taking the dish with both hands, she made her way past the unnoticeable patrons and walked carefully up the stairs. You wouldn't have known that a lonely genius crying for his older brother was looking down upon you as you passed the house.

Why won't you come home?

Thirty days had gone by since Hiro won the acceptance award into the San Fransokyo Institute of Technology. Four weeks had passed since his brother and teacher suffered an unneeded death from a fire caused by an electrical spark. A whole month had vanished since Tadashi was buried in the Sunset View Cemetery. An entire lifetime of sobs, tears, rage, nightmares, self-blaming and an all-time high shut down of activity was all he could do.

Hiro looked down from the square bay windows and watched the time of Earth moving about him, while he remained shut in the past of his bedroom. A living time capsule without the important ingredient that was Tadashi. As much as he wanted to drown his sorrow in liquor, like a touch of Jack Daniels, a swig of George Dickel and a cupful of Benjamin Prichard's, the law was the law and underage drinking was the least of his problems. All he could ever think about was Tadashi. He did not think about Professor Callaghan, whose fate had been shared with his brother's. He didn't think about his microbots, whom were also believed to have to have been burnt to a crisp in the conflagration, despite the fact that he intended them to be fire-retardant.

Just another failed invention, sighed Hiro as he slumped in his red beanie. His eyes darted to the yellow smiley face of Megabot, hoping that it would transform into Tadashi's face, just to make him feel better after another hallucination. But the phantasms had stopped once he had gotten home after the fateful luncheon at Mike's Diner. All he could see of Tadashi now were photographs, sitting there in the beanie to let his memory be erased and reach the ultimate conclusion that he never had a brother, and that his life had reached its level of perfection.

His train of thought was derailed by Aunt Cass' sympathetic voice.

"Hey, Hiro. You know, Mrs. Steele, Ms. Townley and Mrs. Matsuda are in the café and we're gonna play bridge in the kitchen. Wanna join us? You know that always cheers you up."

Hiro's reply was dead of emotion.

"If Tadashi was here, it would be a party."

Cass tried to remain cheerful as she put the plate down next to a turquoise colored dish of rice, chard and a New York steak. It had gotten cold since last night, and Hiro's anorexia had not given him the impetus of touching at least one sample of the dish. He looked over at the serving with disgust.

"Tadashi is dead and you expect me to eat?" Hiro felt like he did not deserve any of his aunt's meals.

Cass' voice grew desperate. "If you stop eating, you'll make yourself sick."

"If I get hungry, I can take care of myself," Hiro said like a grown man on the verge of independency.

"I understand," Cass replied in a low voice.

As she went over to the window blinders on the other side of the room, she stopped with one last detail that, hopefully, would get Hiro to move on with his life.

"Oh, the university called again. It's been two weeks since classes started, but they said it's not too late to register."

Her right hand straightening the acceptance letter on the desk table only made Hiro feel sour with remorse. A part of him had died with Tadashi at the very school he had gone to and worked there until he made the biggest mistake of his life by going straight into a burning building unprepared. Prior to his death, Hiro had often wished that his brother wasn't so selfless sometimes, leading to a clash of personalities that made him wonder why he cared so much about the lives of others.

"If I hadn't stopped him, Tadashi and I would be going to the university together."

Cass frowned.

"I miss him too, Hiro. But punishing yourself will get you nowhere."

The volume of Hiro's voice was raised as if he had been insulted.

"How can you say that?! You're just trying to make me feel better, aren't you?"

"You're not the only one to suffer a loss, Hiro. I lost my brother too."

Hiro heard the same last five words from Detective Tracy. Instead of connecting the subject with the other, he asked.

"You mean Dad?"

"Yes…and a sister too. People are dying all around you, Hiro. Tess lost her father to those criminals, Mrs. Steele lost her husband to a crook, Toby's boyfriend got killed by a bookie and even Mr. Matsuda lived to have a full life."

"Tadashi should have had a full life," Hiro replied in a sotto voice.

"I know," Cass said understandingly. "But Tadashi is with Tomeo and your mom. When you're dead for ten years, you're dead for ten years and Tadashi fell into the jaws of death about a month ago, and no one, not even you, could have saved him. But, as you said before: Tadashi's not really gone...as long as we remember him."

Hiro's guilt increased and Cass, feeling as though she said the wrong words, disappeared down the stairs.

When she was gone, Hiro shut the blinders on the window that Cass had been to, pulling down the rope with his right hand. It seemed to him that his only light in the world was Tadashi, above all other forms of light in the universe (like the sun for instance). He walked over to his computer, turned the monitor on and saw the bot fighting website.

How long have I left that on? Hiro wondered in confusion.

Although he didn't seem like the type of person who took great care of his computer, he had not touched it since the night of his final bot fight…the night where he was introduced to his new friends and Sora. He found a yellow message screen that drew his attention. Clicking it with the mouse by moving the arrow down to the middle of the message screen, he found a Skype message of Tadashi's research team. Fred on the right, Go Go on the center right, Wasabi on the center left and Honey Lemon on the left end of the screen. Behind the quartet were the grounds of San Fransokyo Tech, which made Hiro want to burn the entire school beyond sight of memory along with the expo hall that took Tadashi away from him.

"Hey, Hiro," they said, waving their hands in unison.

"We just wanted to check in and see how you were," Honey explained.

"Wish you were here buddy," Wasabi added.

"We know how you feel," sympathized Go Go. "Tadashi was like a brother to us all. But he's not really gone as long as we remember him right?"

The following comment made by Fred was the most heartwarming thing he ever said, but Hiro did not want to hear.

"Hiro, if I could have only one superpower right now, it would be the ability to crawl through this camera and give you a big hug."

The boy silenced the four clowns back into the darkness where they belonged.

They don't really care how I feel. Hiro thought to himself.

It was pretty obvious to him that he had known Tadashi a lot longer than Aunt Cass or any of his friends and he couldn't imagine his life without him. But tragedy aside, poor little Hiro was not set for a life of depression, anxiety and emptiness, and pretty soon his whole mind was on the verge of lapsing into insanity (Aunt Cass' double appointments with a therapist didn't help him either). But needless to say, his aunt was respectfully kind to her nephew like never before. She even offered Hiro to sleep with her, but he absolutely refused.

The most positive outcome of Tadashi's death was that the Lucky Cat Café had a quick flourish in business before things went back to normal. Once the neighbors from Cass' side of the Haight heard about what had happened, she thought back to Alistair Krei's $100 million offer that Hiro turned down just so that she could buy a larger café. Hiro couldn't care one bit about the customers who spoke about Tadashi's death as if it were some sort of formal event, though at the same time he felt very sensitive about anything relating to the word "fire". In fact, because of how Tadashi died, Hiro developed a severe case of arsonphobia, which was the fear of fire. It was definitely the most negative outcome of his older brother's death.

His eyes darted to Megabot and the acceptance letter on the table. To Hiro, these two objects served as the yin and yang of his life.

What can I choose? His inner voice spoke to him.

Hiro, believing that he lacked a "shoulder angel" or a "shoulder devil", saw that the letter and Megabot were his only good and bad sides. He picked up the letter with both hands, he wanted to tear it up, but even as his fingers began to curl into a strong grip on the white envelope, he could not find the strength nor the heart to rip the letter into a hundred pieces. So he let the letter slip from his hands…and landed in the waste bin. He looked at Megabot picked him up, and he started to contemplate the thoughts of suicide in his head.

If I go back to bot-fighting, those guys are likely to kill me for good. Anything's better than nerd school, but still…

He looked over past the screen where Tadashi's memories lay preserved in his side of the room. Since Tadashi did not leave a will, Aunt Cass and Hiro already inherited everything, Hiro was certain that he was able to fit into Tadashi's clothes when he was old enough to grow into them. The Vespa was still parked outside the garage where Tadashi had left it and his lab at the university had been cleared up after his death. Only Go Go had noticed that several documents were missing from the drawers, but took them as being misplaced before Tadashi had been killed. As of now, Aunt Cass had been considering as to whether or not sell Tadashi's belongings to a storage facility and all Hiro could do was refuse, not willing to sell Tadashi's baseball cap for $5.00 even if he wished it the most.

Why did you always worry about other people?

Hiro came within contact of Tadashi's bed that he had slept in simultaneously with his own bed. Once a night he slept in his own bed, then Tadashi's bed the next night, and now he wanted to sleep in it even more. The scent, atmosphere, the whole claustrophobic area was all that remained of his role model, his inventions, his books, his notes, documents of his inventions…and Baymax.

Where were you when I needed you?

Hiro felt all the rage boiling as he looked at the puffy, white robot within his luggage, having been dormant since he and Aunt Cass brought him home from the showcase. Baymax was supposed to be a healthcare robot, and was meant to, in Tadashi's words: "help a lot of people."

This infuriated Hiro even more, and without further hesitation over asking as to why Baymax was not there to support him through Tadashi's death, lifted his left foot backwards, asserted every last bit of strength and brought it all home as his big toe collided with the windshield of Baymax's luggage, nearly causing an internal hemorrhage as Hiro shouted "OW!" in a serious, deadly pain. He dropped his upper body down on Tadashi's bed, clutching his left big toe with both hands, trying to heal the pain. Unlike the pain he suffered of losing Tadashi and his parents, this was a different sort of pain.

At that very minute, a quick "beep, beep, beep," was heard from the circular light of the luggage, and out from the object came Baymax, his innocent black eyes greeting Hiro with a friendly wave of his right hand, as he had done before.

"Hello, I am Baymax. Your personal healthcare companion."

Hiro didn't know what to say.

"Hey, Baymax," he replied casually. "I didn't know you were still active."

"I heard a sound of distress," the puffy robot tilted his head four degrees to the right as he asked. "What seems to be the trouble?"

"Oh, I just stubbed my toe, but I'm fine."

Baymax's pain threshold chart appeared on his chest.

"From one to ten, how much does your heart hurt?"

Hiro did not know how to deal with Tadashi's last work, especially since this was only the second time they met and he had completely forgotten the right words to activate and deactivating the robot. So he replied, "A zero?"

He got off the bed, gesturing Baymax to back away, "I'm okay, you can shrink now."

"Does it hurt when I touch it?"

Baymax aimed his right index finger at Hiro's front toe, almost against the boy's personal boundary as he protested.

"No touchy!"

"I will begin treatment now."

He gripped his hands around Hiro's left foot, beginning to initiate a healing process.

"I told you! I'm fine! I don't need treatment!"

Hiro flapped his arms madly about like a wild bird of prey, struggling to liberate himself from Baymax's grip. As he succeeded in tugging himself free, the gravitational weight of his upper body carried him down to the bed on his spine.

Baymax's black eyes peered down upon Hiro as he said, "You have fallen."

"You think?" Hiro replied as if were the most obvious thing in the world.

Before Hiro knew it, Baymax's arms closed in around his abdomen and he was carrying him bridal style from the back of his entire body with his legs crisscrossed over the hands. Hiro felt as if he had been in this position before (when he was a baby, no doubt), remembering the consolidations of Tadashi cradling his tiny body back and forth as did his mother, yet his memories of her were no longer tangible.

"It is alright to cry," the snowy robot consoled him. "Crying is a natural response to pain."

But with every word Baymax solaced him with, Hiro was drawing further and further into himself without being reminded of Tadashi and anything negative that had happened in his fourteen years of life. So he straightened his legs and helped himself safely down from the magnanimous robot with his left foot being the last to leave as he protested, "I'm not crying!"

"I will scan you now for further injuries."

Hiro directed his left index finger at Baymax in a don't-you-dare-do-it sort of way.

"Don't scan me."

But it was too late, Baymax nodded his head by ten millimeters and a "beep" sound was heard from where his cerebrum would be located.

"Scan complete."

"Unbelievable."

Hiro uncurled the rest of his fingers and made a slight heave of his breath with dissatisfaction, realizing that the word "unbelievable" was something he had only heard Tadashi say.

Great now I am starting to sound just like my brother.

Baymax's neurological scan was an entire breakdown of the most unusual symptoms he could find. Hiro's respiratory system, heartbeat and oxygen levels were the same, with some different amounts of symptoms and hormones detected from every corner of his brain.

On the left side of his readout, just below "diagnosis" there was a list of symptoms. After "no physical injury", the status read "GPR54 detected." GPR54, also known as the "Kisspeptin receptor", mitigated endocrine functions during puberty. Its activation causes the release of gonadotropin hormones. In short, it was the mechanism that "turned on" the gonads and basically readied the body for sexual procreation. All of the aches, pains and weird feelings that occur during puberty were a result of the body adjusting to changes in the gonadal system. The Kisspeptin receptor usually became active around age eleven year old girls and twelve year old boys. Hiro, being fourteen, suggested that he was a bit of a late-bloomer in regards to his physical development, but this was not especially uncommon among children who are intellectually precocious. No one really knew why this was; it was all just a common correlational finding.

Underneath it read "High levels of GnRH". GnRH was short for gonadotropin-releasing hormone. A peptide hormone that regulated the release of additional hormones in the anterior pituitary gland within the hypothalamus. These hormones were released in pulses or waves and it was often different between boys and girls. In girls, the pulses tend to occur at a varied rate throughout the menstrual cycle, with big surges occurring just prior to ovulation. In boys, meanwhile, GnRH was secreted in pulses at a more constant frequency. Detection of high levels of GnRH in Hiro indicated that a pulse of the hormone was occurring and his gonads were in a state of spermatogenesis.

Underneath it read "Increased Pituitary Activity." Again, the pituitary gland was the main generator for these hormones. Electrical activity generating in the pituitary caused the release of various hormones. The pituitary was involved in all manner of state and trait-based functioning. In this case, the heightened activity was most likely connected to the pulse of GnRH.

Under the previous name read "High Testosterone." An androgen steroid hormone secreted in the testicles of males and the ovaries of females. Higher levels of testosterone during physical development aided in the tissue growth of secondary sexual characteristics, as well as augmenting muscle and bone mass, and the growth of body hair. Secretion of testosterone from the adrenal glands is also associated with stress, helping to ready muscles tension and blood flow in so-called "fight-or-flight" situations. Heightened testosterone in Hiro meant that his body was going through the process of puberty; that his body was at an accelerated process of physical development like a "growth spurt".

The following underneath it read "Vocal Fluctuation," which was pretty straightforward. During puberty, the larynx grew and expanded at a fast pace, altering the pitch and vibration of vocal folds. Similar to GnRH, the hormones that aid in the growth of the larynx also occur in surges or pulses and this was why adolescent voices sometimes seem to 'crack' or suddenly fluctuate.

Finally, the bottom symptom read "emotional instability." This was a complex, but significant portion of Hiro's emotional issues, relating to his period of mourning over his brother's death. Nevertheless, emotional instability is highly common during the process of puberty, a byproduct of hormonal fluctuations as well as differential activity in the brain. Up in the screen, on the right side readout, were two side-views of Hiro's brain. The first was a baseline image, the picture Baymax had taken when he first met Hiro. The second was the current image. Both of which were imitations of what full side-view brain scans looked like in scans of functional magnetic resonance imaging.

Hiro's baseline showed relatively normative brain activity, with electrical activity occurring in a broad, spectral fashion. In the second image, however, the electrical activity was more focal, concentrating in the lower mid-brain region. This was where the hypothalamus is, and the concentrated activity indicated that the pituitary is in the process of triggering the release of all manner of hormones.

Structurally, the hypothalamus resides right next to the amygdala, part of the limbic system, and a primary component to emotion. The amygdala was believed to be the part of the brain that connects thoughts and memories to physical sensations. Put simply, it is what created emotion. Being situated so closely to the hypothalamus, an increase in limbic system activity may have been merely a byproduct of increases of growth-related hormones during adolescence. And this often contributed to greater emotional instability tied in with growth spurts.

Furthermore, the increased activity in the midbrain region often acts to reduce activity in other areas, especially the frontal lobes. The frontal lobes were the area of the brain most associated with decision-making, foresight, and judgment. Apparently, there was only so much electrical activity that could occur in the brain at any given moment. And a concentration of activity in the lower regions could actually reduce such activity in the upper regions. So, when an adolescent made a rash decision, acted out, or showed poor judgment, it was often a result of reduced activity in frontal lobes that occur as a result of heightened activity elsewhere.

Finally, the readout showed Hiro's heart rate and body temperature in the normative range.

Below the brain scans on the right-hand side of Baymax's eyesight screen were a list of abbreviations of six hormones and neurotransmitters. First was GnRH at seventy one percent. Next was LH at eighty one percent, which stood for luteinizing hormone. For girls, luteinizing hormones supported the ovarian theca cells in later stages of the menstrual cycle. In boys, luteinizing hormones helped to activate the leydig cells in the testis, assisting in the production of testosterone.

After that was a figure for FSH at fifty eight percent. FSH stood for follicle-stimulating hormone. FSH is a specific type of luteinizing hormone that activates pubertal maturation. In girls, FSH is crucial to determining which egg is selected in ovulation. FSH seemed to be able to determine which egg follicle was the strongest and most ready for ovulation of growing into a healthy baby. In boys, FSH induced sertoli cells to secrete androgen-binding proteins, helping to activate cells associated with male sexual development.

Next was the letter T at one hundred and seventy percent, also known as T3 or Triiodothyronine. This is a thyroid hormone that plays a significant role in multiple areas of bodily functioning, including metabolism, body temperature, and heart rate. Elevated levels of T3 was a critical component to adolescent development. It helped navigate metabolism so to give growing regions the extra energy needed for cellular generation (or tissue growth). For his size and weight, Hiro's T3 level of one hundred and seventy definitely suggested he was going through a growth spurt.

Next was E2 at twenty two percent, which stood for estradiol. Estradiol was both a steroid as well as a sex hormone. In fact, the primary sex hormone in girls, helping to activate genes whose expression allows further development of the vagina as well as breast growth. In boys, estradiol acted to help keep nascent sperm cells from dying off prematurely. Significant heightened E2 levels in boys was a primary indicator of the genetic condition known as Klinefelters syndrome (also known as intersex or XYY syndrome). At twenty two, Hiro's E2 level is a touch high, but well within the normative range for a boy his age.

And finally, there was the letter F at seven percent, standing for Cortisol. A steroid hormone produced by the zona fasciculata of the adrenal cortex in response to stress and low blood glucose.

"You have sustained no injuries," Baymax summarized in his accurate calculations. "However, your hormone and neurotransmitter levels indicates that you are experiencing mood swings, common in adolescence. Diagnosis…"

He paused for dramatic effect and Baymax positioned his right index finger upwards. And as Hiro looked inanely into the hyperspectral cameras, the robot made his final result.

"Puberty."

"Whoa, WHAT?!"

Hiro could not believe what he had heard! He had just about enough of Baymax, thinking that robots had no compassion for humanity and treated the loss of a loved one as if it were some sort of casual fact of life with no major significance, as he and almost everybody else had seen robots as nothing more than machines lacking emotion and loyalty.

"Okay, I think it's time to shrink now," sang out Hiro and he scooted past Baymax to retrieve the luggage, pick it up and take it out to his side of the room. It would be easier for Hiro to deflate the robot in a more larger space of room given Baymax's weight as well as conducting a manual trial and error method. After setting the luggage down at the foot of his bed, Baymax continued to summarize other symptoms of puberty. A male figure appeared on his chest. It was as white as Baymax's stomach, but displayed the chin, chest, armpits and private areas in a dark circles of oxblood.

"You should expect an increase in body hair, especially on your lower face, chest, armpits and ge-"

"ARIGATO! That's enough!"

Before Baymax could say "genitals", Hiro cut him off by dragging his left hand with his right to his side of the room, knocking over three of Tadashi's science books in the process from the top of a two shelf bookcase from Baymax's rotund booty. When they reached the luggage, Hiro dragged Baymax's right hand and forced the robot's right foot into the luggage. Then, determined to push Baymax down in an extremely meaningless effort without saying the right words, Hiro climbed on top of the robot, placed his right hand, then his left on Baymax's head and pushed as if he were a GP performing a surgical delivery procedure on a pregnant woman. But Baymax carried on with his symptoms.

"You may also experience strange and powerful new urges."

"Okay," Hiro grunted with a strained tone of newfound chipperness. "Let's get you back in your luggage."

The harder he tried, the more he was overwhelmed by Baymax and his pump-up stature of helium.

"Shrink! Konchiku shou me! Shrink!"

"I can not deactivate until you say you are satisfied with your care."

How could I forget? Hiro's chest fell on Baymax's head as his hands slipped from the vinyl friction. Exhausted, he continued to push Baymax down with strong momenta as the words flooded back into his memory, refreshing it from the first time he met Baymax in Tadashi's lab.

"Fine! I am satisfied with my-!"

Before he could punctuate Baymax's deactivation with the final word, Hiro gave his right hand a durable thrust on Baymax's head, and the balance between his body and Baymax's inflated figure had miserably failed when his body slipped downwards and fell right off of Baymax while the robot wheeled away in his open luggage towards the bay view windows. The four wheels placed on the bottom of Baymax's luggage where meant to serve as a quicker way for Baymax to reach his patients with a critical condition (even though he not been able to use it as transportation even if he wanted too).

Hiro landed close to the bed on his left cheek and blew his lips at a bang hanging over his left eye in frustration. It was followed by what he thought was the jittering sound of an insect's feet scurrying away from being killed. He moved his head up and the jitters turned into squeaks. His eyes searched under the bed for the source of the sound…coming from his hoodie as a part of it shook softy back and forth.

His right hand pulled the hoodie out from under and Hiro checked all over for the vibration in his hoodie…and found it in his right pocket. Hiro's hand reached into the pocket, checking for any signs of a mouse that had moved into his jacket for shelter. His fingertips did not feel any signs of hair or fur on the body, but rather something metallic. He pulled it out…and there in the palm of his right hand was…

The microbot core.

The very same microbot that Alistair Krei had tried to sneak off with on the night of the showcase. It's joints were moving wildly and rapidly in the open air.

"My microbot?" Hiro asked as he transferred the core to his other hand. "This doesn't make any sense."

Even if the core had followed him home, he was unsure if his microbots were definitely inflammable. Baymax, having recovered from his quick trip across the room, picked himself up and walked over to Hiro with another message about the essence of puberty.

"Puberty can often be a confusing time for a young adolescent flowering into manhood."

"Baymax, this is serious! This thing is attracted to the other microbots…but they were all destroyed in fire. How is this possible?"

And to give Baymax his own message, he held the core in front of the robot's camera eyes for a closer inspection, then he found a crystal clear petri dish, put it in and covered the top to prevent the core from escaping his grasp, should he ever use it in the future to make more microbots, but he did not have any motivation to do so.

Hiro tiled his head to right, making the final word.

"It's probably gone haywire."

Defeated and willing to resume his gloomy mood, Hiro sat down on his swivel chair and took Megabot off the table, holding it in his hands like a plush animal. He looked closer into the eyes of his creation, to see his future as a professional bot fighter, rubbing elbows with the likes of other crime bosses besides Yama who treated him fairly accepted their losses with a casual, or less angry remark.

Having obtained the emotion of curiosity, Baymax peered his eyes down at the petri dish. His hyperspectral cameras could not look into the inner working of the microbot, but, being a robot himself, he could understand the programming language of any kind of robotics. His hands made contact with the dish, flipped over, and the glass with its precious load was safely cradled in the care of Baymax. He studied the microbot as it tried to leave the dish, telling him that it needed to be someplace else with its presumably deceased family. When Baymax turned his back twelve degrees to the right, the microbot went from a southeastern position to the bottom of the dish in a south direction like a compass.

Walking eight steps backwards to Hiro, Baymax informed him.

"Your tiny robot is trying to go somewhere."

Hiro couldn't care less, he kept staring at Megabot, long and hard enough for it to transform into Tadashi's face, telling him that it would be all right. All he really wanted was for Baymax to go away.

"Oh yeah? Then why don't you find out where it's trying to go?"

Batymax cocked his head quizzically.

"Would that stabilize your pubescent mood swings?"

"Un-huh, absolutely."

"Acknowledged."

It did not take more than a second for Hiro to see Baymax heading down the stairs, aided by the squeaking sounds of his feet. Completely forgetting the serious nature of his instructions, he asked the squishy android.

"Baymax, where are you going?"

"To find where your tiny robot wishes to go."

"I didn't mean it that way!" Hiro called from the landing.

And just before Baymax had made his way to the living room, Hiro retrieved his shoes from the bay windows, tied them on and picked up his jacket from the floor, his feet skidding against the carpet as he raced to the stairs. Putting his jacket on as he made his way to the café, Hiro arrived just in time to see Baymax already out the door, eyes completely concentrated on the petri dish and blocking a green Honda N-One on the crossroad as he made his way down Masonic Avenue. Hiro raced to the door, but was suddenly blocked by Aunt Cass, whose bridge group had left and she was getting back to work serving a cup of brown coffee to a blond haired woman in a light blue shirt. When Cass met Hiro, her face was bemused and amused to see him out of his room.

"Hiro?!"

The boy grounded to a stop just three feet in front of her.

"You've decided to leave your room?"

"Hey, Aunt Cass! I figured it was time! Tadashi would want this right?"

Cass smiled.

"Does this mean you are registering for school?" she asked in a motherly tone.

Hiro looked over his aunt's left shoulder, Baymax was getting farther and farther from where he could see him, about a half mile away to be exact.

"Yes! I thought about what you said and you're right, it's time to move on."

He cruised around his aunt, his right hand trying to reach for the door handle, but only touched the glass window as his aunt pulled him in to a hug.

"Oh, honey, that's so great!"

Hiro moved his eyes back, making sure that Baymax was still in sight. His aunt released herself from him and could only express her excitement with one of her favorite homemade meals since cooking school.

"I'll cook you a special dinner tonight!" Cass cried with exhilaration. "How about some Buffalo wings, you know, the hot sauce that makes your faces go…"

She held her hands up, waved them and opened her mouth with a silent scream, vaguely describing the spicy nature of the dish in pantomime.

"Okay," Hiro beamed as he tried to leave for the door. "Sounds good!"

"Great!" his aunt shouted. Then she pulled into a great big mama bear hug and whispered.

"Last hug."

Since Cass did not give her eldest nephew a proper goodbye, she had come up with this "last hug" so that in case something awful would happen to Hiro, she would always be the last to give him a proper goodbye.

She looked her nephew lovingly for a split-second and walked away from him to serve a cup of cappuccino to an impatient customer.

Hiro looked on, still smiling as his right hand grabbed the door handle, pulled it down and quickly reverted to his panicked stage as he raced out the door.

His journey had taken him on a twenty nine minute race through Buena Vista Park to Duboce Avenue, down Sanchez Street, a trolley ride on 16th Street, into the Marina on 17th, through an alleyway on Maripatosa, down Illinois, up 20th and like finding a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, Hiro, exhausted and deprived of fresh air and long needed exorcise, had unknowingly followed the path to his destiny.