Chapter 25, everybody! In which Obake has his save the cat moment. Literally.

So honestly the events of "Aunt Cass Goes Out" and "Mr. Sparkles Loses his Sparkle" fold together nicely when you don't have a superhero team to solve the problem for you and is kind of necessary when you realize just what the "Mr. Sparkles" episode does for the team (i.e., prompts the creation of the Skymaxes). Also why do we learn Sparkles' first name (Frank) but not the names of any of the team? And yeah pretty sure Obake's full reaction to Sparkles was and is so glad I'm blowing this idiot up. In other news…since Big Hero Six doesn't exist, Karmi doesn't write fanfiction about them, and Hiro's protests about that don't exist either. So in that case, it's just the fact that those two don't get along. Also yeah there's nicer things to call people than putz (nice translation is basically idiot, but there's a not-nice definition as well).

Big Hero 6 © 2014 Disney

The next day saw Obake rolling several Buddy Guards off of Krei Tech property, courtesy of Judy; as he said, getting on good terms with the secretary was crucial, and Krei had bought the board story hook line and sinker. Ah, should be able to string him along for a few more days while he shored up the database and set a few traps for him.

He was on the trolley heading for SFIT when his phone rang. Well let's see, only a handful of people had his number…examine it, answer. "What, Hiro."

"It's Aunt Cass."

Oi this again. "I told you hiding the dress again would make her suspicious."

"No it's not that—did you see Mochi this morning?"

"Not that I recall—why?"

"We can't find him—Tadashi is out with Baymax scanning for him he already scanned the house and couldn't find Mochi and Aunt Cass is frantic you gotta come home and help look."

Probably Mochi was up a tree somewhere, but that statement wouldn't fly well with Hiro. Glance at the Buddy Guard boxes—

"Actually, you come to SFIT," he said. "I've got an idea."

"So," he said, plugging the Buddy Guards in so he could reprogram them. "They use item recognition to identify threats, correct? We just give them Mochi instead."

"Uhhh, frying Mochi with lasers is a bad idea," Hiro pointed out.

"We're not having them identify him as a threat, we're having them look," Obake corrected. "You have a photo we can use, right?"

Hiro did, called the others and filled them in on what they were doing as Obake sent the drones out to look.

"I'll have them start around the Lucky Cat and fan outwards," Obake said, picking at the computer. "And this way we can fold this into the consulting job."

"I'm with Tadashi on this—there's no way Krei is going to pay you," Hiro pointed out.

"Oh Hiro, there's more important things in life than money."

"I dare you to say that to Krei's face."

"That would be entertaining," Obake mused—looked at Hiro pacing, obviously worried. "The cat will be fine—he probably slipped out with a customer."

"No, Mochi doesn't do that sort of thing," Hiro protested. "I don't like it—it's weird—"

"Guys!" Fred yelped, slamming into the room with Honey Lemon hot on his heels. "Guys!"

"It's bad," Honey Lemon said.

Hiro looked stricken. "What—you didn't find—"

"Not like that bad, but up there," Fred said.

"We were going to put Mochi on some forums to see if anyone had seen him," Honey Lemon explained. "We were looking to see if anyone had reported a cat matching him and—"

Ah, right, this was why he didn't remember this particular incident—he had done a lot of mental calisthenics to block all recollections of that pink-haired idiot known as Frank Sparkles, AKA Mr. Sparkles of quote-unquote 'television entertainment.' The fact that the idiot even existed had been enough of an offense that Obake had made the concentrated effort to never think of the man beyond being glad he'd get nuked with the rest of the city.

After all, kidnapping a cat to launch it into space was the sort of petty that was just idiotic.

"Tadashi, Wasabi and Gogo are heading over there right now," Honey Lemon said, biting her lip as she looked at her phone again. "I hate this—I hate feeling like I can't do anything."

Well, that wasn't exactly true—push himself back to the computer, type out a new string of commands. "Where is this taking place?"

Fred gave the address. "Why? What are you doing—ooh drone fights!"

"Close enough," Obake said, pulling up an image of the pink-haired idiot and adding it to the drone's threat matrix. "Although can a battle against an idiot who got threatened by a cat be considered a fight?"

"He's got Mochi, I'll count it," Hiro said, obviously worried—hmm, no wait it was this incident that had him making the Skymaxes for costumes that now didn't exist, couldn't exactly say that this would go perfectly fine like the last time.

But in the meantime.

"Well Krei can't complain about the effectiveness," Obake said, watching the drones tear through the death gauntlet that the pink-haired idiot was trying to bait the others into running. Oop, there went one of the drones—at least its remains clogged up the death-trap mechanism.

"HA," Hiro barked when the pink-haired idiot went down to a bunch of bolos. "Serves him right—wait Mochi NO!"

NO being that the rocket had launched with Mochi in it.

"Oh no what do we do!?" Honey Lemon squawked.

"I—wait no I got it!" Hiro yelped, running for the other room as Obake tried to use the drones to slow the rocket down. Wasn't quite sure what Hiro was after until one of the drones picked up the rig he and Wasabi had been working on, one hand clamping on the rocket while the other one lasered the door off.

"Ha!" Hiro barked, running back in with a remote. "That's working, right?"

"Working beautifully," Obake observed, watching as it maneuvered Mochi onto the seat and buckled him in as the rocket continued on to space.

"YOOOOO YES SUCCESS!" Fred cheered, leaping up and down with a cheering Honey Lemon, grabbing Hiro in a hug once the rig had touched down next to the others.

"Hoo yeah that's how you test a machine!" Wasabi cheered, audible over the drone's microphones.

"Okay we're getting Mochi back home," Tadashi said, unbuckling him from the rig. "Good work guys."

"Good, we're in agreement," Obake said—grimaced when Honey Lemon hugged him from behind.

"Oh that was so awesome!" she cheered. "I was seriously worried something bad would happen!"

"Not with the rockin' power of awesomeness on our side!" Fred exclaimed, pumping his fists. Obake rolled his eyes at that—blinked when Hiro hugged him, cheering at how they had saved the cat.

"Oh nonsense it was your invention that saved him," he pointed out, trying to peel him off.

"Well yeah but you helped," Hiro pointed out, pointing at the trussed-up idiot being thrown into the back of a police car. "That jerk's going to jail now because of you."

"Although this does mean another show I follow is getting cancelled," Fred mused. "Which on the one hand, bogus, but on the other, catnapping is just wrong. You know, the actual act of stealing a cat—sleeping is just fine."

"And we've lost Fred," Obake said, trying to keep his expression neutral when Hiro held a fist up. Well….

Finally humored the boy, reflecting that this was indeed what he had been after. And now…well now sabotaging this was going to be a lot harder for a certain someone.

Part of him really wondered how he was going to handle that.

So the news was interesting today. Not the pink-haired idiot, not hardly, but the drones and rigs being used were interesting. Scan them, try to reverse-engineer them as he tried to figure out who could have made them. Krei Tech was a potential answer, seeing as how they were trying to push out some new design to scrape together some funds.

Another potential answer: whoever had nuked that drone over Akuma Island.

No, he hadn't forgotten about that, and coupled with how High Voltage and Steamer (daft names, all of them) had gone down, he felt justified in suspecting some sort of vigilante scurrying about and trying to be a do-gooder. Well, he had a plan for that, should push come to shove.

And so, after sending his new and improved drones off, he turned his attention to Krei Tech. The fool had just announced something called the Buddy Guard (speaking of stupid names), and the designs matched the drones perfectly.

And knowing Krei, the fool would just keep all the pertinent information on his computer for everyone to see. It would be child's play to hack.

Oi someone give Obake a reason not to send Krei into space obviously it wasn't hard to cobble a rocket together if some pink-haired idiot could do it then Obake certainly could.

Mostly because he was trying to argue for one more day on the drones while Krei was wanting to go full steam ahead on the marketing.

"I think from yesterday's rescue of Slow Clap Cat that the drones have proven themselves," Krei said, gesturing. "And you've had plenty of time to fix them up."

"Is that what you told your QA team?" Obake asked mildly. "One more day. You can wait one. More. Day."

"Don't think I won't fire you."

"Don't think that'll go over well with your date with Cass. Oh that's tonight, isn't it?"

Ah it was nice making him balk, even if it was rather petty. "Okay fine—one more day, that's all you're getting."

"I'll be sure to run all the finalizing tests on it," Obake said lightly, watching the man leave. Looked to the secretary. "Such a pity."

"I am going to miss having someone who remembers my name around," the secretary said, following Krei.

Okay then—since he only had today left, one more run-through of the database, making sure every tasty tidbit was gone and all the interesting things were copied, did do a touch more troubleshooting on the drones before moving on to hardening them from outside hacking.

He was honestly in the zone, barely noticed when Judy came in and deposited a coffee on his desk, was having a good time before the phone rang. Answer it without thinking—"Hello."

"I need professional help."

Took a beat to process this. "I won't deny it."

"Good," Hiro said flatly. "Because Karmi is evil have I told you I don't like her? I don't like her she's sabotaging my assignment YES I'm telling Obake because he'll react in the exact right amount."

"About you two being nemeses."

"Okay fine I might buy that NO Tadashi let me bellyache in peace—"

"Just saying—hey get home early, okay?" Tadashi asked, sounding like he had succeeded in stealing the phone. "Aunt Cass's date is tonight and we have to be there for emotional support."

"Yeah that can I have my phone back now so I can get emotional support?"

"You don't need emotional support you can handle this."

"NO I CAN'T."

"See you tonight," Obake said flatly, hanging the phone up. So the award for the nuttiest brother duo goes to….

Hiro and Tadashi were waiting in the café when he came back—well, Tadashi was waiting. Hiro was slumped in his chair with his forehead sitting on the table.

"I see you're taking this well," Obake observed drily.

"Oh this isn't the date," Tadashi said. "Professor Granville made him and Karmi hang out."

"The nerve of that woman, making you socialize."

"It's worse than that," Hiro moaned. "She told us to have fun—mandatory fun. She's expecting a journal next Friday what do I do?"

"In this case, embellishing the truth would be advisable."

"We're not lying to Professor Granville," Tadashi protested.

"It's not lying," Obake corrected, sitting down. "It's bending the truth, making it more flattering. Those kinds of things."

"Yeah it's lying," Tadashi said, looking unimpressed.

"Well it sounds a lot better than failing," Hiro protested. "Karmi isn't even trying she literally chased me out of her labs and then she bit my head off at lunch—she draws Shonen boys in her notebooks!"

"So?" Tadashi asked.

"AND she writes fanfiction!"

"Still waiting for the point."

"Help," Hiro said, swiveling his attention to Obake.

"Well we could blow her up," Obake suggested, considering his really only instance with Karmi, having Momakase kidnap her and park her on Akuma Island to test Hiro's mettle. "But then again, Granville might fail you for that one."

"Yeah so we're not doing that," Tadashi insisted.

Hiro's counter was interrupted by the bell ringing—the three of them looked over to see Krei stepping in.

"Ah," Krei said, spotting them. "What are you doing here?"

"We…live here," Hiro said, like he suspected Krei was dense enough to sink.

"Actually I meant him but good for you."

"Dinner and apparently a family meeting," Obake said drily. "Not sure why I'm here, though."

"You mean like in the existential sense or," Tadashi started.

"Oh wow Aunt Cass," Hiro protested, causing them to turn.

"Oh wow Aunt Cass," Tadashi repeated, more in admiration for her choice of dress. "Looking good!"

"Krei," Baymax announced. "Your heart rate is: elevated."

"Yeah whatever," Krei said, stepping forward and handing Cass a bouquet. "For you—the most expensive tulips in the world, only bloom once in twenty years."

"Oh wow they're so pretty!" Cass exclaimed. "Hiro could you put them in water for me, please?"

Hiro grumbled but took them.

"Shall we go?" Krei asked, extending an arm for her to take. Oi the smarm was so thick you could slip on it.

"So that's going to be concerning," Tadashi said as they left.

"Putz," Obake muttered.

"Not that I don't agree with you, but there's nicer things to call people."

"Make me."

Tadashi's retort was cut off by a toilet flush—Obake and Tadashi looked at each other before getting up and investigating, to find that Hiro had dumped the bouquet in the commode.

"Reason being?" Obake opted to ask.

"They're in water," Hiro explained. "We've gotta tail them."

"Not necessarily," Tadashi said. "Aunt Cass might have a perfectly nice date, we don't want to ruin that."

"Uncle Krei."

Tadashi stopped, considered this. "Okay you make a compelling argument let's go."

"Oh please," Obake said. "Absolutely none of you have any clue about spying, do you?"

"Mmm, got a point—Hiro stay here."

"What?" Hiro squawked. "Why do I have to stay behind?"

"Because you have absolutely no chill."

"I have tons of chill I have chill up to HERE."

"Yeah, not chancing it," Tadashi said, heading for the door. "I'm gonna try to tail them—if I see anything, I'll let you know."

"Well this sucks," Hiro muttered once he was gone.

"Yes," Obake agreed. "Especially when my way is easier."