Chapter 28, everybody! In which Obake annoys…himself. Kinda. Also buckle up nerds, this movie-nerd is about to gab about the process.

Cruz's shenanigan-detector keeps getting set off by Obake, which leads me into the kinda have to fix canon bit with Cruz because oi he was done dirty there were so many clever things they could have done instead of the tired old police hate supers thing, especially with the police getting along well with the team in season one.

In other news…secret drone-fighting league that Obake is technically soloing, also the return/premiere of the crab-bot. XD Ryoshi, according to WordHippo, is Japanese for fisherman—hence, Ryoshi Wharf is the famous Fisherman's Wharf. And the start of a sidequest that I was not even remotely anticipating but what the heck.

Going back to WordHippo and hoping they're accurate, Ika is squid and yaju is monster, so Ika Yaju is squid beast/squid monster and very much based off the movie The Beast, based on a book written by the same dude who did Jaws and featuring an animatronic squid that showed up on American Pickers around the time I was working on this, which reminded me that this stinking movie gave me nightmares for years. Red does indeed not show well underwater due to the fact that it's the first waves to be absorbed by the water—there are many reddish aquatic creatures down in the deeps, and at least one, the dragonfish, hunts with red light because it can see red light while its prey cannot. Also get used to random marine life facts, you're going to be seeing a lot of them in the coming chapters.

Back to that American Pickers episode, they also covered how they did mini-scale replicas of sets and then filmed those in a way that you couldn't tell, showed some of the comparisons and you legit cannot tell. So the next time they blow something up or some other incredible stunt in a movie or show you're watching, there's a very likely chance that it was a small replica that was done instead—it's gotten to the point that Mom and I, when watching TV, start questioning whether or not the thing was real or Lego-sized. The term 'bigatures' actually refers to the set pieces for the Lord of the Rings trilogy, where the environments they made (such as the white city) were so big that they couldn't conceivably be referred to as miniatures. Stop-motion is very labor-intensive, mostly because edits are a pain and everything does indeed have to be finalized in the storyboard stage so the story and camera direction has to be nailed down solidly before filming, otherwise the set guys start plotting murder. If you don't believe me, find the behind-the-scenes book for Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, which if I recall correctly was the first full-length stop-motion film (before it was mostly either supplementing live-action or released as short films because of how labor-intensive it is). Which will also be something we go into deeper later….Also since Kentucky Kaiju seems based on Godzilla films the first movie reference is in reference to those early kaiju films, although I understand in those Godzilla was played by a guy in a suit.

And all of this nerding is by a movie buff who went to school to learn how to do all this, and yes how-to videos work just as well. Basically what you need is passion and pointers. And yes Obake's trying to future-proof against things screwing up. Also I'm reasonably sure Fred is a Creative Writing major at SFU in canon but if he isn't he certainly is here. And channeling Chicken Joe from Surf's Up.

Big Hero 6 © 2014 Disney

Tadashi, personally, was having a good time with the Cruzes, apologized for how Obake and Hiro were, kids these days, right?

The elder Cruz's expression made him worry a little though, so when Megan went to freshen up, he was bracing for some sort of commentary or quizzing.

He got it.

"So," Cruz said. "What can you tell me about that kid Obake?"

Tadashi considered this, gave the abridged version of the story that painted Obake in a fairly benign light, had the feeling Cruz didn't quite buy into that.

"Well I get that sort of situation doesn't really lend itself to pleasant personalities," Cruz said finally. "Saying that…he does remind me of some of the people I've arrested bot-fighting."

Considering that was Tadashi's suspicion on how Obake and Hiro met…."For the record, I haven't personally seen him bot fight for cash."

Cruz shrugged. "You just keep an eye on him, okay? He gives me the feeling that he's up to no good."

"Oh come on," Tadashi teased. "I'm sure that Obake seems like he's an onery misbehaving kid, but deep down…okay yes he's onery and misbehaves but I'm pretty sure he's not secretly a supervillain."

"I didn't say that."

Funny, you'd think he'd crack a smile at that. "Well I'm telling you. He doesn't even have his own secret base or any superhero nemeses. So, definitely not a villain."

Not that Tadashi doubted that he would be given the chance, but there wasn't any reason to let him know that. Had to keep his family safe, after all. But if it turned out that he called it, he was so giving Obake a noogie for it.

That was his prerogative as eldest brother, after all.

One of the benefits of having an underwater base was that it was nice and secure with a very low chance of discovery.

But part of being the smartest person on the west coast was acknowledging that there was always going to be a possibility, hence all his work in double-checking and covering his bases. Sometimes they were false alarms, but one could never be too careful.

So when a proximity alarm started sounding near where several pipes went above water and joined up with city piping, he activated the cameras to check. Hmm, nothing to see there…better check the infrared.

Doing so revealed a frustratingly familiar drone.

Scowl at this—who was this person, how did they keep imitating his drones, and what were they doing nosing around here?

Okay no think be rational, use the reasoning that Occam would prefer—they didn't know he was down here, rather they were nosing around important city pipeworks for purposes of sabotage. Right. But seeing as how they were annoyingly close….

At this point he expected the second drone to swoop in and shoot down his own once he destroyed the first one, had a second one ready and prepped to shoot down the other drone—blinked in surprise when that resulted in an almost-shriek from the second drone that killed his drone. Well, an electronic death knell that sabotaged other devices—that was worth looking into.

In the meantime…this would be a good time to test his underwater scavenging robot.

Smile as he activated the crab-like machine, feeling his face flare as he did so. He'd get to the bottom of this aggravating little miscreant soon enough, and when he did….

Well, then it would be the question of whether or not this would be a partner in crime or a nemesis to be terminated. He'd find out when it came to that, he was sure.

"Okay, so I have many questions."

"Secret drone-fighting league," Obake said, glad that Fred had given him that out. "You've seen too much."

"What do you mean there's a drone-fighting league is this like the bot-fighting? No wait it's better than the bot-fighting because there's flying involved I need a drone," Hiro said, looking around the garage.

"Ah-ah-ah—you're supposed to be the golden-boy in training, remember?"

"Since when?"

"Since Tadashi succeeded in converting you to the nerd school."

"Lame," Hiro protested. "Oh hey wait I only promised I wouldn't do any more bot-fighting—drone-fighting is entirely different."

"Oh goody, loopholes—there's hope for you yet," Obake said, smiling. Now for the little issue of there not being a drone-fighting league…well it'd be something for him to cook up on an off day, he supposed.

In the meantime…okay he had included the miniature EMP burst in the drone as a failsafe and had sent a self-destruct order that had hopefully gone through, because the alternative was him getting it and reverse-engineering it. Would have to figure out a way to retrieve it before he did. Hmm….

Hiro had carted over an armful of materials and was busy sketching when he noticed the design Obake was working on. "A robotic fish? Why?"

"To aggravate people on Ryoshi Wharf," Obake explained. "Also, so we have a head start on moving on to an underwater bot-fighting league when Tadashi inevitably discovers the drone-fighting one."

"Okay not saying that that's not cool and we should totally start one, but what makes you so sure Tadashi will learn about the drone-fighting?"

"Just accounting for the weak link."

Hiro squinted at him. "You'd better not be talking about me."

"I am talking about you," Obake said. "You're a terrible liar and you have no chill."

"I do too!"

"You panic under pressure."

"I do not!"

"You do too," he said. "You might knuckle down and do the thing you need to do eventually, but you have to start learning how to power through that panic so you don't waste precious time." So sayeth the man who had a blue screen of death upon his defeat don't think about it—

Huff, ignoring Hiro doing the same—maybe he did need to think about it, acknowledge the fact that he'd rather be crushed and drowned than go on living with his failure, his only redeeming act in the end being sending Baymax to save Hiro. If he had been able to power through those crushing feelings, didn't waste that time…then what?

He already knew what, had told Fred—if he had survived that instead of…whatever this was supposed to be…he'd just go right back to his previous actions, probably with added anger at being bested. He would have come back sharper and more vindictive, angry at having what he viewed as rightfully his yanked away yet again…something like he was going through now was honestly probably one of the only ways he would have ever afforded his actions the retrospective they needed, the only way he'd look at them and acknowledge their faults.

Unfortunately those thoughts ran back to their end course—that in order for these people to survive, he wouldn't be able to.

"Hey, are you okay?" Hiro asked, startling him out of his thoughts. "You've been scowling at nothing for like five minutes."

Shiver, dismiss the dour thoughts plaguing him. "I'm fine—just having some debates on design."

Hiro squinted like he didn't quite buy that, but smiled a moment later. "Okay then, how about you help me with my drone and I help with yours?" Look at the fish design, based off a barracuda. "It needs spikes."

"The idea is to reduce drag—why does it need spikes?"

"Because then it'd be awesome."

Huff, smirking. "We need a better reason than that."

"Yo my dudes!"

"Fred tell him that awesomeness is a perfectly valid reason for doing a thing," Hiro said as Fred ambled in.

"Awesomeness is a perfectly valid reason for doing a thing," Fred said, looking everything over. "Wait, what are we doing?"

"About keeping a secret," Obake said to Hiro.

"OOOH wait is this the drone-fighting club? Seriously my dudes are you sure I can't get in I can totally be discreet you know I can—"

"How come Fred knows about this club and I don't?" Hiro asked.

"Fred happened to be here during one of the rounds," Obake said. "And I reiterate the need for confidentiality on this topic."

"My dudes I promise I will zip the lip what's with the fish?" Fred asked.

"There's also an underwater bot-fighting league," Hiro supplied. "Hey wait lionfish have a ton of spikes so yes spikes on a fish work and are awesome besides."

"Then you make a fish and we'll see whose design works best," Obake countered.

"Oooh dude underwater league sounds awesome too," Fred said, bouncing up and down before grabbing a chair. "Hey can you make me like a squid-one? I know it'll work because they made one for Ika Yaju so I know that we can do like, an articulated squid-monster."

"We don't know that there's an underwater league just yet," Obake pointed out.

"We could make one," Hiro suggested. "No telling Tadashi though he'd be lame about it."

"I mean to be fair you did get into a lot of trouble bot-fighting with the arrests and the dudes wanting you dead," Fred said. "So like, there's reasons to get upset about that sort of thing. Plus didn't Granville tell you not to do it anymore?"

"One, bot-fighting in and of itself is not illegal—betting on bot-fighting is," Hiro said. "Two…yeah, but this is drone-fighting so there's a difference. Plus since no one has done the underwater drone-fighting then technically it's not illegal, because no one said we couldn't do it."

"So…basically nobody saying no counts as a yes."

"Basically."

"Oh Hiro I'm so proud," Obake said, hands clasped together.

"Oh you just wait until I make my fish we'll see who's proud then."

"And my squid!" Fred said. "We'll call it The Fredilus and put like, flame decals on it."

"I don't know, flames underwater are kind of conspicuous."

"Actually red doesn't show well underwater, so anything on that end of the spectrum would be perfect camouflage," Obake pointed out. Hmm, maybe he shouldn't make it green then.

"Seriously? You'd think blue would work better."

"So the Cruzes left, thanks for being rude and leaving me alone with them that was awkward," Tadashi said, coming into the garage. "What's going on in here?"

"We're making the squid beast from Ika Yaju!" Fred cheered, pumping his fists. "Oh my dudes as it turns out we don't have to make them like, life-sized, we can make it like—so they're called 'bigatures' if we make 'em bigger than person-sized but mostly they're like miniatures filmed in a way to make them look big. Found that out when I ordered the original Kentucky Kaiju by the way Tadashi I ordered the original Kentucky Kaiju they used in the original movie my dude you have to come over sometime and enjoy the vibe."

So the good news was, Tadashi was totally derailed. Now if only it didn't come at the cost of Obake being derailed as well. "Wait, you got the original Kentucky Kaiju?" Tadashi asked.

"Yeah-yeah-yeah—so like the original-original they did it with stop-motion which is super labor-intensive but I toyed around with it and was able to do like a short clip check it," Fred said, pulling out his phone. "Also savor this this took me like two weeks to do and it's not even thirty seconds I have such new respect for the dudes that do this sort of thing."

"That's still cool," Tadashi said, taking the phone. "How'd you do the effects?"

"There's like a computer program for that, had to ask around at SFU to find someone who'd go over the basics with me," Fred said. "They also said if I wanted to learn more to check out how-to videos online because that's what they usually do so that's cool."

"So's having the original Kentucky Kaiju."

"Yeah—makes it so much easier to do pose references now but like, I'm also kind of scared to fool around with it too much—ooh while we're doing the squid beast maybe we can do like, an articulated Kentucky Kaiju too so I can play with it guilt-free I'd totally pay you guys for it."

This reminded him. "Why don't we just build a life-sized Kentucky Kaiju and skip straight to your end-goal dream?" Obake asked.

"Oh dude that would be so awesome don't tempt me."

"Have the controls be behind the eyes, have it breathe fire—"

"Dude shut up and take my money already."

"Fred, not to burst your bubble because yes that'd be awesome, but what would you do with a life-sized kaiju?" Tadashi asked.

"I don't know, man," Fred admitted. "Defend the city against other kaiju, give people rides…come on, it'd be cool."

And a little safety net, just in case, considering the kaiju being discussed had helped to destroy the star he had created a lifetime ago. "It'd be for the same reason we're making a fully articulated squid machine," Obake said. "Fred, tell him."

"Because awesomeness," Fred said. "Ooh wait we could film our own monster movie! We're gonna be covering script writing but like—if I could bring in a test film that'd be next-level awesome Tadashi my dude we gotta get in on this."

"I won't deny awesomeness and I agree on the little guys, but I still question the life-sized Kentucky Kaiju," Tadashi said.

"Okay that's it you come over and bask in the little one's vibes and then we can discuss big kaiju vibes," Fred said, heading out—stuck his head back in. "Come on."

"Are you two coming?" Tadashi asked Hiro and Obake.

"We're making a squid, remember?" Hiro asked. "And some background fish."

"So this isn't what I expected you guys to get into, but I'll take practical effects over bot-fighting," Tadashi said, heading after Fred. "Fred hold on we'll take my scooter let me tell Aunt Cass—"

"So that went better than I thought," Hiro said to Obake.

"Fred surprised me too," Obake admitted, taking the fish head out of the 3D printer and attaching the jaw. Test the articulation a little…look at Hiro. "So. Ready to get up to something fishy?"

Hiro wrinkled his nose. "Okay that's a terrible pun, but yes."

"Excellent—let's get started."

Most of the first drone had been salvaged, and he was busy picking it apart as his scavenger drone went to retrieve the second. Well, this was interesting…coated with a fabric that seemed to have circuitry inside, a few other nifty tricks…pity a combination of water damage and that death knell fried most of it.

But the majority of it, from the bare bones to the casing, was his design, right down to the least little wire.

Scowl—this wasn't possible. This wasn't possible in the least there was no way someone could have copied his designs—

And yet someone, somehow, had done so.

Frown at the nearest screen, showing the scavenger drone's progress across the bay floor—how? He hadn't really started work on these until after he had secured a base, had been careful about his designs before—this version, that this scrap aped so closely? That hadn't been finalized until after he had cut himself off from the world.

That drone nosing around the wiring where he was tapping into the city's power grid—someone knew. Someone had hacked him. Someone. Had. Hacked. Him.

Growl under his breath, feeling his face flare painfully at the intense hate and panic—no. No, don't be some panicked nudnik for two seconds. Think—how could they have gotten down here and accessed his network? He was going to have to go through everything, it would be too much of a loss to get rid of this base—

Something that had been floating in the water near the second downed drone, that he had figured was a fish, suddenly flashed forward at the screen—

Lost connection to the scavenger drone.

Blink, stunned moment giving way to sheer fury—rewind the tapes, freeze frame—

A mechanical fish, loitering around with but one purpose.

Narrow his eyes, face flaring solidly now. So. Whoever this was not only knew of his existence, but was predicting his moves as well. And knew his designs—who was this person?

Well, he was certainly going to find out. It might require putting his other plans on hold, but a viable threat took priority.

He was not losing to some random fool—not when he was this close.