Chapter 19, everybody, and Happy Good Friday! Now how is Cass doing with her tourney….

So the ice cream for breakfast is referencing a Foxtrot cartoon with Obake quoting a comedian we're not allowed to talk about anymore. Also yes, weirdly, for being the supervillain of the group Obake actually…does not have a criminal record because of how far off the grid he worked.

Moving on…of course Fred would think that his dad is Stan Lee. XD Also I don't know what it is between England and France but I'm pretty sure Poland never got involved so yeah. And from personal experience don't wait until 2AM the day of yes you start seeing things. And yeah I said this on Tumblr before but Obake strikes me as the kind of guy who counts being in the same room as hanging out. From experience chatting about a story will occasionally make the story go and is something I enjoy doing to spite whoever it was that wrote Bird by Bird oh gosh that author was dour and I resent having to read it for my Creative Writing degree.

I was playing through Treasure Hunter Simulator when writing this chapter which is why it gets a mention—definitely a pretty game. Also if you lived through the nineties there was definitely a divide between computer and console games but that's gone away now that the processing power of both has taken a massive upswing. Also watched the first Sonic the Hedgehog movie with Mom yesterday which features the Trans-American building (hence Fred's mention) and every time I tell her that Sonic can run up buildings in the games so I don't know why they had to sneak in. In other news…of course Obake would be needling and petty what do you take him for. And is an egg roll a sandwich?

Also I'm pretty sure I saw something that has cantilevers as a thing but since I am not an architect we will not be quoting me on this. The shaving of the eyebrows comes from Surviving Jack—really wish it had gotten a second season, or at least a DVD release. Momakase's channeling Eda from Owl House there, by the way, while the retire undefeated line comes from Snoopy in the Peanuts comic strip. In other news, today I learned that there is a restaurant called Sushi Yama and while I am aware that yama means mountain learning this while reviewing this chapter just makes me laugh because of the context of the episode. XD

James the apple, usually I'd put 'thanks for the review' but at this point I'm going to have to ask you to dial back the attitude, since every single review you've posted on here has been passive-aggressive at best. Also, no, someone has to be the adult and end these arguments because I've got better things to do than argue with strangers on the internet.

Big Hero 6 © 2014 Disney

Hiro had problems the next morning, all of them related to Obake having an ice cream sundae for breakfast.

"How did you get that? Why did you get that? Why didn't I get one what did I miss I need answers," Hiro demanded.

"That is not part of a balanced breakfast," Baymax observed.

In response, Obake started pointing out the different parts. "Cherry and pineapple—fruit. Ice cream—milk. Nuts—fiber. 'That's nutrition!'" he quipped, remembering the old routine that one comedian had done.

"AUNT CASS!" Hiro wailed.

"Uhhh—busy!" Cass said quickly, hustling to a different part of the kitchen. "Sort it out amongst yourselves!"

"That is roughly: five-hundred times the recommended daily amount of sugar," Baymax persisted. And yes, fair, he was going to pay for this later, was probably going to be dizzy and sick and vibrating so hard he phased out of existence (or maybe back to his proper timeline, that was a possibility), but it was so worth it to see the Hamada brothers squirm.

"Something happened," Tadashi decided. "Something happened and Aunt Cass had to buy your silence—what happened?"

"Maybe she likes me better," Obake teased.

"No she doesn't," Hiro insisted. "I'm the cute one and Tadashi's the golden boy."

"I'm sorry, I'm what?" Tadashi demanded—Hiro pointed at Obake by way of explanation. "Excuse me for knowing how to behave."

"Well of the three of us, I am the only one who hasn't been arrested," Obake countered—which was true. For this timeline, dimension, whatever this was. No need to complicate things by thinking fourth-dimensionally. Besides, Tadashi's sour expression was worth it.

"Okay you know what for that you have to share," Tadashi said, snatching a spoon up and stabbing the sundae.

"Excuse you get your own." Cut a glare at Hiro when he stabbed at the sundae as well. "Seriously?"

"You're going to share with me because you're going to need help against Tadashi later," Hiro pointed out.

You know what, fair. "Fine. You get to have some."

"And both of you are in trouble later," Tadashi promised, glaring. Joy.

That day was spent with more scouring of the city, him trying to find someplace that worked better for a base while having to concede that High Voltage was probably in the wind. Great.

But in the meantime—scope out SFAI, pick out Lenore Shimamoto's house, consider how he was going to do this. As a former SFIT student SFAI was considered their mortal enemies, so there certainly wasn't anything stopping him from destroying the place so long as he ensured that it didn't trace back to him.

Because somewhere under that house was Shimamoto's journal, which had allowed him to construct her star machine alongside the blueprints behind City Rises.

The journal, the painting, the energy amplifier—it all rendered down to those three things, so long as he got those out of the running he was aces. The painting had yet to turn up, but without the journal getting those blueprints to something working would take too long to be feasible, and without the amplifier the star couldn't be created because there would be no way to generate enough power. Yes he had stolen the dynamo, but the amplifier had been what did it. His own had been destroyed, so that just left getting Krei's out of the running—he was pretty sure he wouldn't risk trying to make another one on his own—

"Hey my dude!"

Oh please tell him he had managed a startled yelp instead of an undignified scream—spun around to see a grinning Fred flop down into the other seat. "Fred, what are you doing here?" Besides being killed, that was going to be in his future.

"Okay good news, I have resources," Fred announced, showing him a stack of comics. "After much fielding I've got some that are basically like the tentpoles of time-travel stories—also you've seen Back to the Future, right?"

"I read The Time Machine." If he recalled correctly, sometime a while back when he was actually this age…oh right the 'story' he was writing. "It could be an alternate universe, I haven't decided yet."

"Oh okay dude that is an entirely different ball of wax," Fred said, sorting through his stack. "But I did grab a few that relate to like, alternate timelines which are kind of like alternate universes—pretty sure Marvel has the better multiverse comics, for the record. What are you looking at anyway?" he asked, looking at the screen. "No wait dude is that SFAI? It is I recognize the statue!"

Obake scowled as he shut the window. "Fred, how would you recognize that campus?"

"I helped with the getting of the statue last year," Fred said, leaning on his comics to gesture a little. "It's a thing we do, being mortal enemies with SFAI—like Romeo and Juliet, only a lot less dying tragically and stuff."

Oh good grief. "Fred, you go to SFU—you do not have a stake in this rivalry. You're like Poland in relation to England and France."

"I do not understand that, but it feels deep," Fred said. "Anyway, is now a bad time? I gotta tell you my dude you can't just wait around for the muse ladies to show up and start singing you gotta actually be working they like showing up when that happens. Otherwise it's a lot of scrambling at like 2 AM the day before and trust me, that is not fun you start seeing stuff."

"You sound like you speak from personal experience."

"As it turns out, I don't vibe with late-night hauls," Fred said. "Anyway, if it's a bad time we can just, I don't know, you do whatever while I talk about cool stuff and you pretend to listen and we count it as hanging out? I promise I won't peek at the screens."

On the one hand, he sincerely doubted this. On the other. "No reporting back to Tadashi?"

"My dude that is not our relationship," Fred said. "It's against the beta bro code. Besides, chatting about stuff helps the creative process—like, a couple of my classmates just lock themselves in their rooms or a closet and try to work that way and some of them can do that but a lot of us it's like—we're chatting and you can tell when it hits them and they're all of a sudden scrambling for writing material."

"So what you're saying is that some students at SFU are still in the closet."

"Oh trust me we've totally cracked that joke at them before. Don't worry about paying attention or contributing to the conversation, by the way, just enjoy the hanging out vibes—I mean let's be fair you feel like the kind of dude that counts sitting in the same room as hanging out."

Okay you know what that was a fair assessment—proceed to ignore Fred as he rambled about whatever, scanning the city and dismissing various locations. Too far, too populated, he had used that before and therefore it was on his radar…no sign of High Voltage, and he was sure that anyone at SFAI who bothered to look up were probably getting suspicious of a drone hanging around.

"So anyway, that's why I'm no longer allowed at the yacht club," Fred finished. "So what are you doing on the computer anyway? Is it some new game or something? Old game? I mean I'm currently working through Treasure Hunter Simulator which has a lot of nice calming vibes but I wouldn't mind looking into another game."

"Hnh?"

"Oh right—that was actually a directed at you question. Want me to repeat it?"

"What was the question?"

"Is this a video game you're playing? I mean technically it's on the computer but we've long ago done away with the distinction between video games and computer games."

"I feel like you're still talking nonsense."

"Which is totally fair," Fred said, nodding. "I mean, sometimes one of the others start talking deep science stuff and once it gets past my understanding my brain kinda goes fzzt and I gotta switch to I don't understand anything but I feel you mode."

Obake was fairly certain Fred lived in that mode. "Still the drones, Fred."

"Am I allowed to look?" Fred asked, glancing at the screen—took a double-take. "Dude, that shot is awesome! Is this like for photography club or something? How high is that?"

"Somewhere near the top of the Trans-American building," he said, checking the routes of the other drones before ordering them back to the warehouse, adding the stipulation that they lose any tails. Not that he thought anything would happen this early, but.

"Dude that's awesome can you check real quick to see if Sonic the Hedgehog is up there?"

"Isn't that one of those video games Hiro plays?"

"Technically yes but there's also movies. Oh wait my dude what's the range on this? Can we check out Akuma Island?"

Ah me. "That's restricted airspace, Fred—and besides, anything of interest was confiscated long ago."

"Yeah I know, but that'd still be cool. Ooh wait what about Krei Tech? Think he'd have anti-drone stuff?"

"Doubtful," he said, cruising the drone around—much later than he thought, huh.

That was cemented when Cass came in with a couple of plates. "Hey dinner's going to be a little early tonight okay?"

"Ooh thanks Aunt C!" Fred exclaimed, taking one of the plates. Obake, meanwhile, had noted what she said—smirked when he took his.

"Now, what are the house rules again?" he asked, doing his best to keep his tone from being mocking and not entirely succeeding. "Something about letting someone know when you leave?"

She grimaced at having that thrown back at her. "Ah…right. I'm going out."

"There was something about a time estimate as well."

Okay that look was entertaining, even if she did have the power to go two feet over and throw the garage breaker. "I understand leading by example is a thing," he added, enjoying the extra dig.

"Ugh teenagers," she groaned. "A few hours."

"Have fun, don't stay out too late," he said, knowing he looked like the cat that ate the canary but not really caring.

Fred, meanwhile, was looking between them and apparently heavily confused. "Uh, dudes, what?"

"House rules, it's a thing."

"Ah. Wait where are you going?" Fred asked her. "I thought you stayed open later on Tuesdays because of poetry night."

Cass stalled. "Uhhh…."

Oh good night did no one in this house know how to tell a basic lie? "Shopping," he supplied.

"Right!" she said brightly, grabbing onto that excuse with way too much enthusiasm—so that answered that question. "I am totally going shopping and I should leave now bye don't wait up."

Fred watched her leave, took a slow take over to where the truck was still parked, looked over at Obake. "That was totally sus, you know that right?"

"I'm aware, but we have to be supportive, she's new at this," Obake said, having a moment of silence before biting into an egg roll—noticed Fred's expression. "She's fine, Fred, and this falls under the umbrella of that bro code thing you mentioned."

Fred considered this, nodded. "Okay, but this still feels questionable."

"Subject change time, Fred."

Fred must have heard Obake's tone and translated accurately, because he quickly shifted to the question of if an egg roll was a sandwich, since he considered a burrito a sandwich and an egg roll was kind of like a burrito—still seemed like he was thinking on Cass's utter transparency she really needed some coaching in how to be conniving.

"Okay fine," Obake said, sensing Fred needed an actual distraction. "I'll see how close I can get to Akuma Island."

"Dude, seriously?" Fred asked, looking over so fast he nearly fell out of the chair. "Excellent—I wonder if they have like, a drone-zapper dude if they zap your drone I promise to pay to replace it."

Sure, whatever. "Just keep in mind there's probably nothing left to see," he said, cruising over the bay to the island. Lots of forest, the docks, a lot of trampled area where machines and the like were parked during the investigation, and a run-down skeleton was really all that was left. Well thank you, Fred, this cemented the realization that this would not make a good hideout. Darn the luck.

"Okay so…hover there, maybe," Fred said, pointing at several squares. "That looks like something sat there for a while, right?"

It did. "Probably whatever they were loading everything into. There's really nothing left when you look at it."

"I mean yeah but we can speculate," Fred said. "Oh hey check it we're not the only ones being nosy."

Obake looked where Fred was pointing—

Had an ice-soaked moment when he recognized that particular drone.

No wait why—had he bothered with looking at it before? Well yes but there was something there before…there was no Big Hero Six to distract him this time around. Of course.

Okay. The logical thing would be to ignore the other drone. No need to be panicky or petty. Right.

Fred watched the smoking, sparking drone spin down towards earth, looked at Obake. "Dude, there's not like, some drone-fighting club, is there?"

"You've seen too much," Obake said, cruising the drone away.

"So there is a drone-fighting club. Is there like an entrance fee or can anyone get in on it?"

"Can I buy your silence with a little bit of spying on Krei?"

"I'll accept it." Munch on an egg roll as Obake circled wide around the campus. "I always wonder about buildings like that—like yeah there's engineering stuff that lets it stick out like that but like how does it survive an earthquake?"

"Well architects know a bit more about math and physics than you do."

"True…I'll ask tomorrow at breakfast Hiro's doing this assignment about designing a building that would stand a big earthquake so everyone's got that on the brain—dude!"

Obake saw it too—a lithe figure leaping away from the main building, where Krei's office would be, landing lightly on the wall and running away.

"Dude!" Fred squawked, bouncing up and down. "Dude Krei just got robbed! Again! Who was that can you like—clean up the image or something?"

Or something—cruise after her, high and hopefully out of her range of notice, zoom in—

"Momakase," he said.

"Who?" Fred asked. "Oh wait is she like some sort of supervillain? Oh man what did Krei make that she wanted? My dude this could be bad."

Theoretically, yes, Big Hero Six had stopped her before, but if he recalled she had sold the anti-gravity device to Yama and Yama was about a waste of space. Yes Yama might turn around and sell it to him, but it shouldn't be too hard to snitch it out from under him…if she sold it to Yama.

"Dude you look like you got a mondo headache," Fred observed.

"Just thinking about the ripple effect," Obake groaned, rubbing his face.

"Told you this was good for the writing process."

He was busy reviewing other data as he sent a drone over to check out Akuma Island—things had quieted down, he could see if there was anything left worth scouting out. Hmm, would have to put hack Krei Tech on the to-do list—not that Krei probably had anything worth stealing, but—

Blink when he glanced over to see the drone's feed cut out.

Go over, rewind the feed, wondering if there was something left over to keep nosy drones from going over...he thought he had hardened it enough...

Narrow his eyes when, after cleaning up the catawampus portion before total drone death, he saw a second drone in the immediate area.

A very familiar drone at that.

Sip at a cup of coffee as he pondered this—all his drones were accounted for, except this current dead one which was probably sinking to the bottom of the bay. Although….

Pull up the video from the night Yama failed him, compare and contrast…yes the two drones were very similar. And again, familiar. Except no one should even have seen his designs, let alone be making them with the intent to sabotage him. Who was this?

Huff, get to work machining up some more drones. Well, by all means, arouse his ire, whoever you were. It wasn't like they were going to last much longer.

Now it was only the question of what would get them first: his own machinations, or his eventual magnum opus.

So Obake was home, which was surprising—as was Fred being there although Fred excused himself saying he needed to get home.

"Since when did you and Fred become such good friends?" Tadashi asked him, kind of surprised—Obake had given him the impression that he found Fred annoying at best.

"I don't want to talk about it," Obake said flatly.

Okay so he was expecting that. What he was not expecting, however, was Aunt Cass being gone. Again.

"She's out shopping," Obake supplied when asked.

"Yeah but usually she's open late tonight," Hiro pointed out as Tadashi searched the house. "She's been acting really weird lately."

"Yeah, she has," Tadashi said, looking at Baymax. "Can you scan for her?"

"Scanning," Baymax announced. "Aunt Cass: is not here."

"Then where," he muttered, pushing open one of the pantry doors—

Stopped, stunned, when he registered the roomful of knives.

"What—how—" Tadashi turned to face them. "Where did Aunt Cass get all these knives from?"

Hiro seemed just as baffled, Obake—

Tadashi narrowed his eyes at Obake, who noticed.

"What is my knowledge worth to you?" Obake asked, crossing his arms.

Tadashi's eyes narrowed further—

Hiro was much more supporting of 'Tadashi Torture'—which involved noogies, flipping upside down, and gravity increasing—when it was being done to someone else.

"Gyyehah fine FINE I GIVE!" Obake bellowed. "She's been winning them in an underground cooking tournament!"

That got both brothers stopped. "Say what?" Tadashi demanded.

"And she gives me grief over bot-fighting!" Hiro said—yelped in pain when Tadashi flicked him in the forehead.

"Where is she now?" Tadashi demanded.

"Will not telling you bring more pain?" Obake asked, scrubbing his head.

"Hiro get the razor."

"The razor what is the razor for?"

"Shaving your eyebrows."

"I'll show you fine!"

Okay, to be fair, she was expecting Yama to try to double-cross her. It was why she had taken the initiative and double-crossed him first.

What she was not expecting was some kitschy café owner making it to the finale of her little cooking fight. Seriously, this beat Grammercy?

Granted, this meant revenge on that particular TV host would have to wait—this woman was good. Not as good as her, and certainly not as vicious—not even willing to cheat, the poor soul.

"Sorry," she said, stepping over the other woman currently under a net to deliver her dish to the judges. "Better luck next time."

"I guess you can't win them all," she heard the other woman mutter—yup, and that was why she was the one under the net instead of the one running off with every prize in the book—

Narrowed her eyes at movement in her office—didn't think Yama would be up and running just yet. And while she didn't think he'd be smart enough to have a backup plan….

Fine she wasn't about to lose this in the next five minutes—left the stage, hustled upstairs, ignoring the twin calls of Aunt Cass! below—

Opened the door in time to see some kid with the hood on his hoodie pulled up, frozen in the act of snitching the antigravity device.

"Aw, baby's first heist," she said. Whipped out a knife. "And also your last."

Twitch—

Shoved the two parts of the device together before throwing it out the window.

Aggravated bark at that—threw a knife at him as he scurried off, missing as he dove—bigger problems, she didn't need to risk the device getting damaged—

Except leaping out the window to try to catch it told her that it had activated—could see Yama beneath, recovered enough to be pointing at a pair of kids trying to help that café owner—managed to catch the device, pulled it apart, landing on her feet—

Was caught flatfooted by the net thrown at her, sending the device rolling away—

The café owner slammed her dishes down triumphantly on the judges' table.

"Maybe you can win them all!" she said, glaring at Momakase triumphantly.

Okay, at some point she was really going to have to figure out how this had gone wrong so quickly.

Okay, at some point Obake was going to have to figure out just who the adult in this family was: Cass, the obvious pick, or Tadashi the Mother Hen.

Right now it was the latter, considering he had spent the whole time from Good Luck Alley to the café haranguing Cass about her going out and competing in an underground cooking competition, currently harping about what he had learned when they just barely ducked out of there before the cops came swarming in.

"That was an international thief she was armed with graphene blades Aunt Cass she could have sliced you to bits and you'd have never felt it WHY would you do this why am I the only sensible one in this house?"

"Well," Cass hedged, obviously debating.

"And then the fact that you've been doing this repeatedly an underground cooking competition seriously this is as bad as Hiro with the bot-fighting except I can't blame you being fourteen and stupid-smart with the emphasis on the stupid."

"Hey," Hiro protested.

"I'm right don't try me. Aunt Cass."

"What?" she asked.

"Please explain to me why we had to find out about this from a combo of me stumbling upon a ROOM FULL OF KNIVES and then having to bribe the story out of Obake."

"That was bribery?" Obake asked, eyebrows askew.

Aunt Cass made a face at Obake.

"Tadashi's price was one I couldn't ignore," he said flatly.

Hiro pointed. "The ice cream—Aunt Cass."

"I'm sorry!" she protested. "I guess I got a little carried away."

"Carried away—Aunt Cass you have a room full of KNIVES—and-and you were just playing against a lady who just robbed Alister Krei—you could have been killed!" Tadashi squawked.

"I know, I'm sorry," she said, wringing her hands. "I just…kind of got addicted to the excitement."

"Aunt Cass, please, I can't be the only sane person left in the family."

"You still have Baymax," Hiro said. "And Aunt Cass was awesome."

"I was, wasn't I?" Aunt Cass said, adjusting her hold on the bundle of graphene knives as she unlocked the café.

"So now what?" Obake asked her as they filed in.

"I retire undefeated, I think."

"Pity," Obake muttered.

"Still hung up on you being in an underground food fight," Tadashi said.

"Does this mean bot-fighting's all right?" Hiro asked.

"No," Tadashi and Aunt Cass said at the same time.

"Worth a shot," Hiro muttered to Obake.

"I would have been disappointed if you didn't take it," he told him.

"I wonder if the police recovered that anti-gravity device that woman stole," Tadashi said, once Aunt Cass was in her knife room. "That's…kind of dangerous."

"Probably," Obake said. "And remember what you said about keeping your nose out of these things."

Tadashi made a face at him, Hiro smirked at his brother having his own cautionary words thrown back at him, both of them fortunately following that advice. The last thing he needed right now was them managing to revive the aborted Big Hero Six despite his best efforts, and doing so behind his back.

He had bigger concerns at this point.

Yama demonstrated how the anti-gravity device worked, looking appropriately nervous as he did so. Good.

"So?" he asked. "What do you think?"

"Interesting," he said, tone still cold, letting him know that yes, he still had nothing but disdain for the man who lost his prototype with no explanation. He could guess what this was: send him this, hope it paid off his debt. Doubtful. "And how did you manage to come by this?"

"Ah," Yama said, fidgeting. "I…stole it from Krei—"

"Embellishing the truth does not help your case."

Yama winced. "I…had it stolen from Krei."

"By whom?"

"A thief called Momakase—she tried to double-cross me, but I was too smart for her!"

Very doubtful—pull up the pertinent information on the woman, an act that was as simple as breathing for him…ah, now this was an asset worth investing in.

"Send the device," he said finally. "And no," he added at Yama's hopeful look. "You're not out of the woods yet."

Savor that dismayed expression before ending the call, move on to the next step. His error had been in relying on dumb brute strength, he decided. If he wanted to move on in a timely manner, he needed finesse.

It would be child's play to get her out of prison.