Chapter 39, everybody! Time to deal with the monster! :O

In other news, Tadashi is picking principles over profits, which is not necessarily a bad thing. And according to the wiki, Orso Knox's first name means "bear," so Tadashi's quote is actually accurate here. X'D Also Jurassic Park and Homeward Bound references those have got to be some of my favorite movies (the Jurassic World series…not so much). And Fred throws in a reference to Phineas and Ferb as well.

Juxshoa, thanks for the review! Oh no! Definitely time for a Big Hero thing. XD

Big Hero 6 © 2014 Disney

So with the exception of the weirdness of Fred's monster, Tadashi had thought the week was going well. Hiro was still working hard on his project despite thinking he was a washed-up hack (he wasn't, but there was no talking to some people) and Baymax possibly had funding so he could go from being just a student's project to being something that helped a lot of people.

There was just one niggling little thing that kept it from being a good week, and no, it wasn't the monster. So when he came face-to-face with Dr. Amara again at the gala, he asked if he could have a word with her.

"What's up?" she asked. "Have my legal guys not contacted your legal guys yet?"

Tadashi actually didn't have legal guys, but that wasn't the point. "Ah…right. So, Dr. Amara, while I'm thrilled to death that you've given me this opportunity—"

"Don't tell me, let me guess, that Krei guy made you a better offer."

What was with adults with the interrupting? "Ah, no. See, my question, thing, whatever…." Hook his thumb over his shoulder, in the general direction of Hiro. "My little brother, Hiro? He was really wanting to present his project to you, and I think he was hoping to get more than three words out before you moved on to the next guy."

"I'll be honest, I was on a bit of a time crunch," she said. "And looking at a work-in-progress doesn't interest me much." Patted him on the arm when his eyebrows knotted. "Look, it's cute you think I want the set, and I'm sure his project is lovely—it's just not what I'm looking for right now."

"Protecting sharks is good PR," he pointed out. "And you can't possibly say no to every work-in-progress—all he wanted was five minutes."

"Tadashi. Honey," she said, patting him again. "It's sweet that you want to promote your baby brother, but if you keep this up, you can kiss that sponsorship goodbye."

Something about her honeyed personality had sharpened and soured then, which made Tadashi's next decision fairly easy. "I'm sorry you feel that way." Step back a little. "Thanks for your consideration, but I'm going to have to pass on your sponsorship."

She blinked at that statement, obviously thrown. "For not seeing your brother's invention?"

"For not giving him five minutes," Tadashi said. "If you can't spare five minutes of your time for someone who thought so highly of you, who wanted to see you, then there's no guarantee you'd spare those five minutes for when someone needed to see you. Sorry, but I'm not convinced we're the right match."

And with that, he turned on his heel and walked off, leaving her gobsmacked behind him.

Any emotions he might have had about that—relief, regret, whatever—was quickly replaced by irritation at Hiro and Obake evidently doing something (he was definitely going to have to shake them down later for potentially-lifted tech), any further questions about the spy watches cut off by his phone alert—

And then by the monster itself crashing the party, landing hard enough on the stage to crush it before lunging for the buffet.

"Move!" Tadashi barked, grabbing Hiro and hauling him bodily off as they ran. "Baymax!"

"I am not fast," Baymax announced, waddling after them—got flattened by the monster. "Hello."

"BAYMAX!" both brothers exclaimed—Hiro yelled when the monster bit down on Baymax's head and shoulders, puncturing his vinyl and shaking him vigorously before flinging him away, snarling as it focused on the next thing.

Tadashi and Hiro had the displeasure of being the next thing.

"Hiro, run," Tadashi said, shoving him away—Wasabi grabbed him and tucked him under an arm as he ran, Hiro screaming for him—

Tadashi, meanwhile, was nervously backing up as the monster stood, snarling at him. "Uh-uh-uh," he noised, trying to think of something helpful. "I'm really sorry, but honestly the only Shakespeare coming to mind is the exit pursued by a bear line."

The monster roared at him—

Tadashi grabbed a chair and swung it around, breaking it against the monster's face as he completed the turn and took off, hearing it throw tables in its pursuit, hot breath gusting against his back—

Could almost feel the teeth coming before someone tackled him in a blindside, knocking him out of the monster's trajectory. Went sprawling, rolled—

Saw who it was as Hiro's quote-unquote 'invisibility cloak' slipped off. "Obake!?"

"This is the second time I've saved your useless life," Obake snarled, something weird going on with the one side of his face. "Do you have no self-preservation whatsoever!?"

Tadashi was cut off from answering or even commenting by the monster's bellow—looked to see that it had cornered Dr. Amara, looked like it was getting ready to rip into her—

Screamed as electricity danced across it—spun, wires pinging along, to face—

Oh no.

Hiro.

Hiro, who had evidently slipped Wasabi and run back, who had used the little taser in his project to try to stop the monster, who was wide-eyed as he realized that the taser hadn't been nearly enough—

Who was now running with the monster in hot pursuit.

"Hiro!" Tadashi and Obake exclaimed—Obake dove for Tadashi's phone, hitting a button—

Wires whipped out as the first of the Buzzmaxes descended on the monster, Obake grabbing the invisibility cloak and running for Hiro as Tadashi grabbed the phone, pocketing it before grabbing another chair, figuring something was better than nothing despite it not really working the first time—

The monster torqued, ripping a Buzzmax down to biting range—crunched down on it like it was a potato chip, freed up an arm to bash the next one, crushed the last one as Obake reached Hiro, flinging the invisibility cloak over both of them. Please work, please work—

It wasn't working, the monster was advancing on them, sniffing hard—snort blew the invisibility cloak off them, revealing Hiro and Obake cowering on the ground, the latter doing his best to try to push Hiro behind himself like he'd slow that monster down—

The monster spun around roaring when the chair collided with its back.

Tadashi, meanwhile, had ripped the phone out, was doing his best to summon the rest of the Buzzmaxes as the monster pursued him—dodge through the ruined tent again—

"NOW!"

A serving tray struck the monster in the face like a frisbee as the tent lost all tension and fell on it, Tadashi barely making it back out from under the fabric as the Buzzmaxes descended on the flailing shape under the fabric, wrapping it up again even as its head ripped through the fabric, mouth open in a roar—

Honey Lemon was suddenly right there, Karmi with her as they slapped a bunch of the nano-receptors against it, more when it kept struggling—

Finally wavered and collapsed, tethered Buzzmaxes having to adjust to being yanked down.

Tadashi's breathing wasn't wanting to work right, staring as Honey Lemon and Karmi backed up cautiously, the former starting to cheer—started when Wasabi helped haul him up, asking him if he was all right and sounding like he was coming from the other end of a tunnel—

Tadashi broke free, running for where he had seen Hiro and Obake last, leaving a litany of curses in his wake—spotted them, skidded down to them—

"Are you okay?" he demanded, gripping their shoulders. "Are you hurt!?"

Hiro's response was to hug him tightly, shaking badly—hugged them both, holler for Baymax—

"I am in need of repair," Baymax announced as he waddled for them, torn vinyl hanging limply from his metal body—note to self, speed Baymax up when he was doing those repairs it was taking everything he had to not haul them bodily over to him—"Scanning…error. I am unable to scan: Hiro, or Obake."

What no was his scanner damaged during that—hold it….

Pull away enough to tug their watches off despite their protests, tell Baymax to try again, ignoring Obake biting out that he didn't want that robot scanning him—

"Scan complete," Baymax announced. "None of you have suffered injuries from the: monster attack."

"Tadashi—Tadashi—can't breathe," Obake wheezed, batting at his back at the crushing hug he had them both in, Hiro hugging back just as hard—apparently had enough breath to complain about the others descending on them and hugging tight as well, relief making Tadashi dizzy—

"My dudes, I think we did really well for our first monster," Fred announced.

"Excuse me?" Wasabi asked. "What do you mean, first? Nuh-uh, we're not doing this again."

"So, um," Karmi hedged, wringing her hands as she peered around from behind Baymax. "Everyone's okay?"

"Y-yeah," Tadashi wheezed, finally letting go (Obake mimed falling down dead from suffocation). "We're good. Whose idea was the monster trap?"

"Kinda a joint effort," Honey Lemon offered. "I remembered Karmi saying that the nano-receptors could act as a sedative, so while Fred and Wasabi were undoing the tent Karmi and I got the nano-receptors ready while Gogo got the trays. The idea was she'd hit it and lure it in, and then…well, all that happened."

"At least the tasers work," Tadashi said, ruffling Hiro's hair.

"No they don't," Hiro protested. "They didn't even slow the thing down!"

"Hiro, you were calculating for a non-lethal zapping of a guy that would weigh maybe a third of that thing. The tasers work."

"I mean they did stop the monster from eating Dr. Amara," Gogo observed as she hauled Obake upright.

Hiro perked up at that. "Think she'd be willing to listen to my presentation now?"

Ah. Had to smother the wince as he recalled how that conversation before the monster attack went—started at Karmi going "Dr. Amara, Professor Granville!"

"Is everyone all right?" Professor Granville demanded, running over to them. "Is anyone hurt?"

"No one has suffered any severe injuries from the: monster attack," Baymax announced.

"Good. Now what were you children THINKING you could have been KILLED!"

"So this is weird hearing this from someone besides Tadashi," Hiro offered.

"So this is how it feels," Tadashi mused.

"At least it's down now," Dr. Amara observed, peering at the unconscious monster. "Good work, Karmi—those are your nano-receptors, are they not?"

"I—yeah thanks but—team effort," Karmi muttered, not looking up, ponytail tugged in front and being wrung nervously.

"It's still impressive," Dr. Amara said. "But now we're left with the question of this monster."

"Professor Knox: has suffered no permanent injury from the altercation," Baymax offered.

That caused dead silence from everyone present, all of them staring at Baymax. "Uh, you want to run that one by us again, bud?" Tadashi asked.

"During my scan of the: monster, I found that the eyes matched the scans of: Professor Orso Knox." Blink. "I have no medical explanation for his current condition."

Continued dead silence.

"The monster was a person?" Hiro asked finally.

"Oh—ohh no I'm dead," Wasabi said, brushing himself off. "I'm dead, I'm so dead that thing spit on me—"

"There is no indication that Professor Knox's condition is contagious," Baymax told him. "It is unlikely that you will suffer similar effects."

"Unlikely, he says."

"We'll take him to Sycorax," Dr. Amara offered. "We have the best bio-engineering labs in the world—if anyone can help him get back to normal, we can."

"That's good of you, Dr. Amara, thank you," Professor Granville said. Looked at the rest of them. "As for you…don't go anywhere, I want to discuss this with you."

Oh boy.

What followed was a lot of flashing lights from both ambulances and police cruisers (Tadashi was tempted to wave at Chief Cruz, thought better of it), the monster being loaded up into a van with the Sycorax logo on it as the rest of them milled around, Tadashi keeping an arm around Hiro and Obake and ignoring the latter's protesting. Hiro, meanwhile, was dozing against Tadashi's side, jolted awake when he poked him and stood up at Dr. Amara coming over.

"Is he going to be okay?" Honey Lemon asked.

"Eventually," Dr. Amara said. "I just wanted to come over here before I left and say thank you—all of you. Karmi, I look forward to working with you next year. Tadashi, I hope you reconsider your decision. Hiro…." Hesitate before handing him a card. "Give me a call after the holidays, I should have time to look at your project then."

"Really?" Hiro asked, wide eyed—ducked his head as he took the card. "Um, thank you. Thanks a lot."

She nodded, left as Professor Granville came up.

"Despite the general lack of self-preservation, I'm proud of you all," she told them. "You showed good teamwork out there, putting aside any potentially selfish motives in favor of ensuring the others were safe." Nod at the Buzzmaxes dispersing now that they weren't needed. "Mr. Hamada—the elder," she added at seeing Hiro look up. "I don't recall you announcing that project."

"Uh, no, that was a joint project," Tadashi said. "Me and Hiro and—" Reach back for Obake, found nothing but air—looked around for him before settling on Hiro. "I'm gonna kill him."

"No you're not," Hiro said.

"Maybe not, but I'll certainly think about it," he groused.

Professor Granville arched an eyebrow at that. "Well, I certainly look forward to meeting the third party, should you ever produce him."

"One of these days," Tadashi muttered as Professor Granville left, stuffing his free hand into his pocket in irritation. "Oh wait I still have the watches—Baymax?"

"Scanning," Baymax said, blinking as he looked around—put his hand on nothing. "Obake is: right here."

"Stupid robot," the nothing beneath Baymax's hand muttered.

"Hey, no slandering the healthcare robot," Tadashi said, grabbing a handful of invisible fabric and tugging it off of Obake.

"Dude!" Fred exclaimed. "Invisibility cloak!"

"See, that's what I called it," Hiro said.

"And spy watches—dude if we put a fedora on you will we suddenly recognize you as some sort of super-spy?"

"I've had enough for one day that I don't need dealing with Fred on top of it," Obake sighed.

"One: be nicer to Fred," Tadashi said, bundling up the invisibility cloak. "Two…okay fair that's a mood. Come on."

"Um," Hiro noised, glancing at Karmi. "I uh…I guess I owe you a thank-you for, you know, helping to save my life."

Hiro seemed terribly uncomfortable with this declaration, as did Karmi; the latter twisted her ponytail a bit before finally saying "W-well…it's hard showing you up when you're dead so…don't read into it."

Tadashi watched alongside Hiro as she headed to the dorms, finally leaned over. "So where are you two getting registered?"

"TADASHI!" Hiro barked, spinning away. "EW! NO!"

"Look at it this way," Honey Lemon offered. "You two realized things about each other, and now maybe you can both move on to a better understanding and relationship."

"Ew, Honey Lemon."

"Platonic relationship," she clarified.

"No," Obake said. "Don't fall for this do you have any idea how hard it is to find a decent nemesis?"

"Yeah, no," Gogo said, patting his shoulder. "Better luck next time."

"I try to be a good influence on him, and then Tadashi goes and does this—"

"Hey," Tadashi barked.