Chapter 10, everybody! In which the boys capture a certain professor….

The digest them comment comes from a Tumblr post I saw once on Pinterest, although in that case the guy was telling his friend to man up and talk to a girl he liked. Also Baymax does get a lie detector mode, but that's not until season two in canon. And this makes the second time Callaghan has been punched in one of my stories oops.

So honestly with Callaghan getting addressed the way he did I was left wondering what happened to Abigail and…Tadashi stepped in and this chapter happened, including the oblique reference to the manga version of the movie and the earlier draft it was based on. Enjoy.

Also Hiro is referencing the game Oxenfree—I hear it's getting a sequel; never played the first but good for them. And in the event of my death, my parents know not to bargain for my body. And more references to the fic that inspired this one, Ctrl-Z, plus a reference to the 2003 movie SWAT.

James the apple, thanks for the review! Finally! 1) not long, 2) probably, 3) yes, 4) most likely, 5) it's a good plan on paper, I have to agree, 6) mwahaha.

Big Hero 6 © 2014 Disney

Rigging the game involved finding an abandoned warehouse and setting it up for a sting operation, basically. Several days later, and they were ready.

"Nervous?" Obake asked, tapping a few keys on his laptop.

"Well yeah," Hiro said, taking a few deep breaths before pulling the neurotransmitter on. "Aren't you?"

"Not particularly. This is a thing that needs doing, we're the ones with all the advantages—"

He had had all the advantages before and it hadn't helped in the end—

"And we have the means to record his confession once we catch him," he continued, wrenching himself back to the present…past…dangit stop thinking fourth-dimensionally this wasn't helping.

Hiro took a few more deep breaths to calm himself down. "I mean yeah I get it—no reason to be nervous, just…jitters, I guess. You know, butterflies in your stomach?"

"Digest them," Obake ordered. "Now." Hit a button. "Your neurotransmitter is now live—bring that thief in."

"Right," Hiro said, closing his eyes.

Obake waited a few minutes. "Well?"

"The order's sent, I'm just trying to center myself."

"So long as it doesn't interfere with the original order."

"Hey, who made these things? I am totally capable of multitasking—"

And jumping and screaming like a little girl when the warehouse door slammed open—which fair, Obake jumped too.

Especially when it was not the erstwhile professor being hauled in on a sea of microbots storming in.

"Seriously?" Hiro demanded as Tadashi marched straight for them—gestured at him as he looked at Obake. "I told you he has me microchipped!"

"Microchipped Hiro," Tadashi said flatly. "What is this?"

"This is a perfectly good plan, don't come in here ruining it now," Obake told him sternly.

"Plan what plan and WHY do you have my healthcare robot?"

"I will be recording: confessions, and verifying their veracity," Baymax announced.

"What? HIRO."

"Don't blame me blame him," Hiro said quickly, pointing at Obake.

Obake huffed at him. Honestly using Baymax had been Hiro's idea—Obake was still leery of the robot, despite there being no good reason to be. It was just a reminder of what had gone wrong before, nothing more.

Tadashi, however, had shifted attention. "And what did you do what is this even."

"We're getting a confession before dumping this fool on the police," Obake said evenly. "And by using the robot to ensure that he's telling the truth, we can counter any attempts he might use to lie his way out of jail time later."

"And this couldn't be explained earlier because?"

"Because you'd flip a lid like you're doing now?" Hiro asked. "Besides, it's not like we want to do this at the house don't be stupid."

"Me stupid HIRO you two are proposing bringing a guy who has tried to kill us to an undisclosed location for the purpose of grilling him without telling anyone."

"And your point?" Obake asked.

"My point is when you two don't show up for dinner we won't know where to start looking and won't be able to find you until fifty years from now when they fish your bodies out of the bay."

Obake tried to smother the sharp chill that sent up his spine—that was way too close for comfort.

"Well if you weren't so lame about everything we would have filled you in," Hiro countered. "Like right now—right now you're being totally lame we've got this—"

Leaped into Tadashi's arms with a shriek, Tadashi grabbing him and backing up several feet as he swung Hiro behind him, as the warehouse doors banged open thanks to the microbots hammering against it, flooding the room and bringing an angrily raging microbot thief along with them.

"Language," Obake sang mockingly.

"Oh wow so that's a ton of money into the swear jar," Hiro observed.

"Yeah," Tadashi said, plopping Hiro down. "Stay here, keep a hold on him."

"Right—wait where are you going?"

"We can use the microbots to take the mask off, don't be an idiot," Obake chided Tadashi.

"Yeah, but microbots can't punch somebody and I'm motivated," Tadashi said, marching up to Mister Kabuki Mask.

"Oh wow this doesn't usually happen," Hiro observed, angling around Obake to better watch what was happening. Tadashi ripped the mask off—

This, of course, wasn't a surprise to Obake, he had seen the news clips and knew that this was, in fact, Professor Callaghan, who had faked his death to steal the microbots and exact his revenge on Alister Krei.

The Hamadas, of course, did not know this before this very moment, had to pay the swear jar when they got back to the house. Extra points to the robot, who blinked and responded with his usual modulated "Oh no."

Tadashi, meanwhile, had dropped the mask and stepped back in shock, microbots falling because Hiro's brain had apparently been shocked into blankness. "P-Professor Callaghan?"

Said professor apparently felt like he had a chance, dove for the mask again—

Hah, no. See, at least one genius in this room was operating without the whole overwhelming shock factor, had enough sense to rig the room so he could at least have some control over the microbots—not the same level of finesse as with the neurotransmitter, but enough to zip the mask away and trip the professor up, startling Hiro into grabbing him with the microbots again.

"So sorry, but you're not getting out of this that easily," Obake said, accepting the mask from the microbots. "Now, how about we move on to you explaining yourself?"

Callaghan stared at him, dumbfounded—ah yes, he would actually recognize him, which implied that he already existed in this dimension or timeline we are not thinking about that now FOCUS.

"Yeah," Tadashi said flatly, hands balled into fists. "I would love to hear this explained."

Obake listened somewhat as Callaghan spun his tale of woe—he already knew the details, was more interested in watching the brothers' reactions. Tadashi looked carved out of stone.

Hiro looked horrified.

"Tadashi almost ran into that building after you!" he blurted after Callaghan explained the theft of the microbots.

Callaghan looked at Tadashi. "That was stupid."

"It was to save you!"

"That would have still been stupid even if I was trapped in there."

"Yeah, you're right," Tadashi agreed. "Not as stupid as stealing Hiro's microbots, but up there."

Everyone stared at him. "Excuse me?"

"You're not excused. Because the fact of the matter is, you did this to people—there's a lot of people who were heartbroken over thinking you were dead. Speaking of, seeing as how you're no longer my professor."

And with that, Tadashi punched Callaghan's lights out.

"Uh, wow," Hiro noised, watching Tadashi shake his hand. "You okay?"

"No," he muttered. "Thought that'd make me feel better."

"Violence: is not the answer," Baymax offered.

"No, it's the question," Obake said, cutting the robot a look. "And the answer is yes."

"No being a bad influence on my robot," Tadashi said, coming over to them. "Now what? We can't—"

"Oh yes we can. We edit ourselves out of the confession, and then we ship him off to the police. Unless we're condoning thievery and attempted murder at this time?"

Tadashi looked sour at that, but didn't have a comeback for it. Good.

So that was this hiccup solved, at least.

A few weeks after Callaghan's arrest told him he had spoken too soon.

"I need to talk to you guys."

"Must you?" Obake asked, sitting crosslegged on the floor and wanting a distraction from the card game Hiro was trying to teach him.

"Yeah, I'm beating Obake and enjoying it," Hiro said, making a face at Obake—probably what he had said originally no doubt stop thinking about that—

Tadashi sat down next to them. "I went and talked to Callaghan."

That got them both looking at him. "What? Why?" Hiro asked.

"Because I needed a reason."

"Reason Tadashi he went off the deep end you don't need a reason."

"And I spent the last few weeks telling myself that," Tadashi said. "But let's say that for my sanity's sake I did."

"So you went to listen to the ramblings of a madman—well done," Obake said.

Tadashi gave a sort of sideways nod, acknowledging this, watched them play a round before continuing.

"Callaghan's daughter—you remember him mentioning her?—was sucked into some sort of portal that Krei made."

"That…I guess that explains why he and Krei acted the way they did," Hiro mused.

Tadashi nodded. "His grandiose plan was to reassemble the portal she was sucked into and use it against Krei."

"So his plan was cartoon villainy," Obake observed.

"I didn't say it was a good plan."

"So why—" Hiro cut off. "My microbots. I said they could take a job that required ten people and make it so one person could do it…he probably saw them and put the whole plan together then."

"No wonder it seems half-baked, if that was all the thought that went into it," Obake said. Blinked at Hiro's moody expression. "You do know this wasn't your fault, correct?"

"We don't know that," Hiro countered.

"You're right, we don't—so we won't be beating ourselves up over what-ifs." One was enough, Obake really didn't need to see what he looked like when he was doing that. "Now if we're quite done with this autopsy of Callaghan's motives—"

"Actually I have a proposal," Tadashi said. "Anyone interested in a field trip?"

The field trip was to Akuma Island.

"Explain to me again what we're doing," Obake groused as the microbots carried their makeshift raft over the bay, unable to resist looking over the edge and past the nervously-rippling microbots to the dark water beneath. Somewhere down there was his base, or possibly the remains of it, or maybe even not at all—had to take a deep breath and remind himself that we weren't having the whole nervous breakdown today.

"We're sneaking out after dark and going to some abandoned island in the middle of the night who are you and what have you done with Tadashi?" Hiro asked, voice cracking in excitement. Currently he was sitting in the front of the slab of steel functioning as the 'raft,' borne across by the microbots and carting them along with it. Of course Hiro would think this a fine adventure.

"Okay once we get there we're going to have to be very careful," Tadashi reminded them. "The place has been abandoned for years we don't know what kind of shape it's in."

"Okay yeah that sounds like you," Hiro said as the microbots set them down on the loading docks for the old Krei Tech building. "What is this place?"

"Someplace that Krei wanted people to forget, I'm hazarding," Obake said, looking at the multitude of quarantine signs everywhere.

"Uh…there isn't a chance we're going to be like, exposed to radiation, is there? Because while I wouldn't say no to superpowers—"

"That's why we brought Baymax," Tadashi said, patting the healthcare robot. "Well bud?"

"Scanning," Baymax announced. "I detect no environmental hazards."

"Good. Flashlight mode?"

Baymax held up a hand, palm illuminating.

"Nerd," Hiro said.

"No, nerd is glowstick mode—no wait, Baymax no," Tadashi said, waving to stop the now-solidly-glowing robot. "That has to wait until we're inside, okay?"

"Can't have our illicit activities being illuminated for the world to see, now can we?" Obake asked drily.

"Hurr hurr. Come on, there's probably a door or something."

"Right," Hiro said, bouncing after him and pulling out a little radio.

"What's the radio for?" Obake had to ask.

"Just in case the island turns out to be populated with time-looping ghosts—I want a heads-up."

To be technical, there was at least one time-looping ghost on the island currently, but Obake didn't really see a need to share this information. "This still seems out of character for you," he opted to say to Tadashi instead. "Sneaking out to some abandoned lab, continuing what the villainous professor started…what's the purpose of this?"

"Someone has to help," Tadashi said, tugging on a handle before tapping a hand against the door. "What Callaghan did was reprehensible…but I don't like the idea of his daughter being stuck somewhere. I want to see if we can't get her out." Look at him. "I don't suppose you can do your trick with the lock again, can you?"

Hiro waved them off, cracked his knuckles. "I got this."

Actually the microbots got it, knocking the door off its hinges and against the far wall.

"You do realize you're probably going through all this trouble for a corpse," Obake pointed out as they filed in, following the now-glowing Baymax through the corridors.

Tadashi nodded. "Let's say it's for closure's sake."

Obake made a dismissive noise at that—everyone said that. It wasn't like having the body changed anything, the person was still dead—it always made him wonder, when people cut deals with murderers for the singular purpose of having an inert chunk of carbon.

Although…originally, Abigail Callaghan had been still alive when Big Hero Six pulled her from the portal.

Except there was no way for Tadashi to know this—likely, Tadashi was doing this from some misguided need to be helpful. Oi.

"Woah."

Obake had to take a moment as well when they entered the room—during the downtime while they had waited for the microbots to become fully infected, Callaghan had evidently done most of the heavy lifting when it came to reassembling the portal. When finished, it would activate, sucking in anything and everything nearby…as the twisted remains of the room attested to, looming up in sinister fashion against Baymax's gentle glow.

"So, boy geniuses," Tadashi said, standing between him and Hiro and looking the whole setup over with his hands on his hips. "How are we going to do this?"

Well if he was going to ask his opinion on this idiocy….

"Remotely," Obake said, having an all-too-clear mental image of this going horribly wrong and sucking them in. Or maybe he'd be lucky and it'd be just Tadashi. "We have the microbots, we can boost their range and do it from elsewhere. Get something else to go in and retrieve her, preferably something that could also cart her to the hospital." Glance at Baymax—this original model that had been lost in such a portal. "Preferably not something we care to lose."

"It needs to be something that can scan for her though," Tadashi said, eyeing Baymax thoughtfully. "Maybe something with Baymax's tech."

"We can make a drone Baymax," Hiro suggested. "Something self-propelling, just in case there's no air in there."

That would probably work. "And we need a means to cut the power and stop the portal once we're done," Obake continued. "Ostensibly in case of emergencies."

"We probably have the bare-bones of that somewhere in here," Tadashi said, looking the crumbling room over. Looked back at them. "Anything else?"

"We'll probably think of it while we're working," Hiro said, glancing around—he was grinning when he looked back at them. "Let's get started."

Most nights that following week were spent getting everything set up, identifying what needed to be done on-site before addressing that and doing the necessary repair work, cannibalizing the remains of the lab for parts. Obake insisted on gloves, which Baymax agreed with—Baymax's logic was probably reducing the chance of injury, but Obake's thought was leaving fingerprints everywhere; they were, as he pointed out, messing about with an abandoned military project. Once Abigail Callaghan showed up, there would be a lot of nosing around in this area by government officials angry that someone had done their job better. And banking on the portal sucking in all the evidence was a thin hope if that was all you were relying on, he added.

Days that week were spent catching up on sleep and designing the Dronemaxes (Hiro kept trying to get Buzzmax to stick for the name), boosting the range of the microbots so they could start assembly the next week, transporting them over under the cover of darkness at Obake's insistence. He wasn't sure if some other iteration of himself was in a bunker under the bay, but in the interest of not borrowing trouble, he thought it best to act as such until he was sure—no need to have two Obakes interested in the same thing.

"Again I stress the need of doing this covertly," was the actual answer he gave when asked. "We don't need anyone recalling something odd they saw and tracing it back to us."

At least the Hamada brothers trusted him on the sneaking-about business—Tadashi kept teasing him about having done this before, legitimately having no idea how right he was. But this was interesting—he had been wanting the one Hamada brother, yes, he had potential and that was evident whenever he used his brain for something other than video games. Two, on the other hand…well Tadashi still had that annoying goody-goody streak, but in instances such as this, when he was convinced that doing the right thing didn't necessarily involve doing the right thing…he had to admire the single-mindedness that he was pursuing this topic with. Pity convincing him to reassemble Shimamoto's star machine was probably out of the question.

Cass, of course, had questions.

"You guys are spending all day and night out here—what are you even doing?" she asked one day when she brought lunch to them.

"We had an idea for like, drone-Baymaxes," Tadashi offered.

"Buzzmax," Hiro insisted.

"And we figured they'd be good to use in like natural-disaster situations where a person might need help but can't be gotten to right away."

"Also we're figuring out improvements for my microbots—just because they all went blooey doesn't mean I can't try again, right?"

"I'm the assistant," Obake said when she looked at him.

"I mean he could be the Igor but he's putting no effort into it," Tadashi snarked, grinning at him.

"By that logic you are Doctor Frankenstein and the robot is your monster."

"True…I wonder what that makes Hiro."

"Smarter than both of you," Hiro insisted.

Cass seemed to accept that though, left them to it—Baymax blinked at them once she was gone.

"Why are we not informing: Aunt Cass?" he asked.

"Because then she'd start stress-eating and we really want to avoid that, bud," Tadashi said, reaching for a plate. "Okay we're officially on lunch break, let us know when we've reached minimum optimum time off."

"I will set a timer."

"Dis-a-pointing," Obake chimed after their moment of silence, tugging his lunch over so he could nibble while working.

"Hey not everyone works like you do," Tadashi countered. "There's studies that say taking breaks helps with productivity Baymax tell him."

Baymax did so, droning on about various studies and mostly succeeding in making Hiro conk out on the couch. Obake vaguely paid attention, he personally had pulled longer hours when he was on a tear, he knew his own limits, as annoying as they were.

Water gushing in as his base crumbled—

Jerked, realized he had dozed off as well—looked to see Tadashi had grabbed a cushion off the couch and was sleeping under one of the desks as well—

Flinched away when he realized Baymax was peering at him.

"You are distressed," Baymax observed.

"It's nothing, shoo," Obake ordered, waving him off.

"Your body language suggests that this is: untruthful."

"And that is my business. Shoo—"

"I will scan you now."

"No you will not stop that—"

"Scan complete." Blink. "You have suffered severe physical, mental, and emotional trauma. You are in need of care."

"No I am not, go away."

"I cannot deactivate unless you say that you are satisfied with your care."

Throat squeezed shut at that statement—no—no he couldn't say that—

Left alone to his blue screen of death, lair collapsing around him—

Jumped up and kicked Tadashi in the side, startling the older brother awake.

"Break time's over," he snapped. "Back to work."

It was maybe a week after that incident that they declared the rescue mission ready.

"Okay—once more, over the checklist," Obake ordered, looking over the setup in the warehouse they had used to apprehend Callaghan. Currently, it was overhauled to address their current mission, which was hopefully the last time they did anything even remotely resembling superheroic activity.

"Boy someone is antsy about this," Hiro teased.

Obake gave him a look that hopefully translated as so done. "We will have exactly one shot at this. One. After that, chances are high that everything, portal included, will be sucked into some limbo, never to be seen again. We are going over the checklist again."

Hiro made a face at that, like this hadn't occurred to him—looked at Tadashi, who was already checking everything over again. "I guess that's why he hasn't been joining me in teasing you for being a worrywart about this."

"Look, it took me like a hundred times to get Baymax working properly," Tadashi pointed out. "And we don't have the luxury of a test run with this, he's right about that."

"Oh really?" Obake noised. "Can I get a recording of that? or perhaps get it in writing?"

"Don't push your luck." Check their notes. "Portal?"

"Assembled," Obake said, looking at one of the screens showing the drone's view. They had five or so total, all of them equipped with scan jammers so they could deposit their prize without evidence left behind.

"Microbots?"

"In position," Hiro said, taking off the neurotransmitter before putting it back on.

"Baymax-drones?"

"Buzzmaxes."

"The drones are ready," Obake said flatly, reflecting he was going to have to get a different expression besides so done soon before his face froze that way.

"I don't know, Buzzmax is starting to grow on me," Tadashi said, smirking at him—sobered up quickly. "Okay then. I guess we're ready."

"You guess?"

"We're as close as we're ever going to get," Tadashi reasoned. "I can't think of anything else to check, you can't, Hiro can't, Baymax can't…anything we do at this point is going to be dithering."

Obake sighed, having to acquiesce this point. He knew this feeling, had it before when the star machine was ready and he could finally put his plan into motion—he had dithered then, too.

And look where that got him—

Shiver, shake that off—look at them. "I suppose there's nothing for it then—let's get started."

Hiro took a deep breath, eyes closed—opened them, exchanged nods with Tadashi before looking at Obake.

And so, doing his best to ignore the last time he had set something this potentially damaging into motion, Obake activated the portal.

They were in agreement, once this was over they had to hide the evidence, the portal had done some damage and sucked in a good chunk of the remainder of the room, leaving it on a tad longer as the drones (Obake was not calling them Buzzmaxes) tugged the pod containing Abigail Callaghan over to the docks, clinging on as the microbots hauled it the rest of the way to San Fransokyo General Hospital, using the scan jammers to keep them from being documented. Obake sat with Hiro, outlining the route he needed to take to avoid the most eyes while Tadashi kept an eye on the portal, eventually shutting it down before it could start sucking in their safety net.

Once that was done, Tadashi used the second neurotransmitter and the collection of microbots still waiting in the wings to destroy the rest of the evidence.

By then, the pod was deposited in front of the hospital, microbots and drones fleeing as people started running out—they would find an alive Abigail Callaghan in hypersleep within, to the brothers' surprise.

It was when the microbots and drones were back in the warehouse with them (Akuma Island was discarded for obvious reasons and Obake had shot down leaving the microbots at the bottom of the bay for his own reasons) that they all let out a collective breath.

"So…we did it," Hiro said, taking the neurotransmitter off once Obake locked the microbots in position—currently they were thinly layered over the warehouse walls, holding the deactivated drones in place and avoiding a casual examination.

"We did it," Obake confirmed, trying to squash the excited thrill in his stomach. Something clever achieved with the boy he had picked out as a protégé, the sort of thing he had been wanting before—

Before it all ended—before he had let it end—

Was shaken out of those dour thoughts by Tadashi hugging them both.

"We did it!" he cheered. "Granted we can't ever tell anyone—"

"And why not?" Hiro demanded.

"I repeat the part about being thrown into some government prison and never being heard from again," Obake said.

Hiro looked like he wanted to argue…finally relented. "Okay, fair, but only because we watched The Rock."

"The important thing is, we know we did the right thing and can sleep at night," Tadashi said, ruffling their hair.

"Oh stop you're going to make me sick," Obake groused.

"Search your heart, you know it to be true."

"Your brother is annoying," Obake decided to inform Hiro.

"Well yeah," Hiro agreed, hugging them both. "But you love us anyway."

Hff—no he did not, Obake had never bothered wasting that emotion on people.

But saying that…he wasn't really sure what this foreign feeling in his chest was, as he followed the brothers out, vaguely listening to the two cheering as Baymax waddled behind them all. Say he bought into the emotional tomfoolery for a minute—he didn't really think he had gotten that emotionally invested in the set, nor did he think it was a good idea. The one had been his undoing, after all—

How—how had he done it how had he outsmarted him just HOW—

And the other was just annoying on principle. But he couldn't deny that this had gone well….

"Despite your success, you are still in emotional turmoil," Baymax offered from behind him, startling him.

Obake scowled back at the robot, picked up his pace to come even with the brothers. "Tadashi Hamada, your robot keeps scanning me stop it."

"What, is Baymax picking on you?" Tadashi asked, ruffling his hair before giving him one of those one-armed side-hugs—great, Tadashi was one of those touchy-feely types. "What do you guys think? Movie or arcade? I'm thinking we need a proper cover story in case Aunt Cass asks."

"Arcade," Hiro said immediately. "We are totally going to the arcade we deserve it after this."

"Agreed. Come on, before Baymax gets you," Tadashi teased, tugging Obake along. "Come on, Baymax, maybe cut back on picking on Obake."

"I am not 'picking,'" Baymax announced.

Obake huffed, still not entirely sure what to do with this feeling in his chest. Success, maybe that was what it was—success, they had done what they set out to do.

Now if only he could shake the feeling that something bad was about to happen, that he had missed something and this wasn't over….

Shake his head finally. That was just…something lingering from whatever his former life had been. It didn't affect him right now—

Former life, he realized he was calling it now.

Glance at the brothers, still reveling in their accomplishment. It had been…what, two, three months now? He could afford to start thinking of that time as past now. There was no going back and changing it—he was here, he was alive…and really, he had what he wanted. Potential glory thanks to reassembling the star machine could wait—he was intrigued by what this life had to offer, and he was willing to go along with it.

This is my second chance, he reminded himself. Whatever this is…it's a new chance at life, a better one, perhaps, and I'm going to take it.

I won't throw away another one.