Chapter 9, everybody! Say, remember the microbots?...

Pretty sure Hiro does know what a trellis is, since there's been plenty of instances of using them to get out of a house in movies, he just didn't know the word for them. Also if the Hamada house doesn't have a swear jar I'd be surprised—yeah I know Disney but still. Hey is for horses is something my parents say. As for Hiro's vocabulary, it's expanding a bit after being exposed to Obake for a while.

Also if you've read my fic Obake Itoko you know this isn't the first time Obake's used a knife to open a door. Or use viruses to solve his problems. The hope he's on the track team line comes from the Ultimate Spider-Man comic book series, by the way, while Hiro's quoting Hotel Transylvania there at the end.

James the apple, thanks for the review! 1) yes, the boys needed a breather, Obake especially; 2) very interesting….

KeeperOfTheBigHeroQuintessence, thanks for the review! Thank you, glad you like it! Yes it is. :D

Big Hero 6 © 2014 Disney

Now, to be fair, one of the unfortunate downsides of living a much calmer life with no overhanging threat of Big Hero Six was that it was incomprehensibly dull. Yes, there was a charm to it, but there were also reasons why he felt that a more unorthodox lifestyle was preferable.

Hence why he was trying to sell Hiro on this while Tadashi was busy working on Baymax in the garage.

"You're kidding me, right?" Hiro asked, arms crossed as he sat on his bed. "Tadashi and Aunt Cass are right downstairs, in the two exits—they'd totally catch us."

"Not if we play smarter," Obake countered, tugging the drone and controller out from under Hiro's bed—flip Hiro's hoodie off of the former before using the controller to buzz it up near the ceiling. "Use the drone to get the bot out of the house, we have nothing on us when we leave, I'm sure you can come up with some inane excuse for us to get out."

"Why do I have to come up with the inane excuse?"

"Because I came up with the brilliant plan," Obake countered, grabbing a tote bag and stuffing Megabot and its controller inside. Rig up the drone to pick up the bag, open the nearby window, send it buzzing out. "Now, any excuses you want to share?"

Hiro made several irritated pensive noises. "We can't say arcade because then that might end with Tadashi going with us. Same for the movies or library. Or anywhere else…I mean we could maybe lie and say we're shopping for his birthday but that feels kind of thin."

"It does," Obake agreed. Lean out the window, considering. "Of course you wouldn't have a conveniently-placed trellis."

"What's a trellis?" Hiro asked blankly.

"It's something of a lattice that's used to grow vines on."

"Okay…next question is what's a lattice?"

"I'm going to guess home improvement is not among your skill sets."

"Well how do you know those words, wise-guy?"

"I read—I recommend forming the habit."

"Hey."

"Hey is for horses," Obake countered, snatching up Hiro's jacket and throwing it at him. "Now come on—seeing as how I have to do all the heavy lifting. Again."

Their attempt at escape died in the water, mostly because Aunt Cass stopped them for lunch. Hiro said sure, nudged Obake and told him to go along with it—at the very least, it would give him time to come up with a good excuse.

That ended when Tadashi came in and sat down, waited until after his own moment of silence and Aunt Cass retreating to the kitchen to check the sweet buns and get the next round of potstickers going before commenting.

"So," he said. "Just saw this real suspicious drone in the neighborhood, had some real sus stuff in the tote bag it was carrying. Looked like somebody was going out bot-fighting."

"The neighborhood is really going downhill," Hiro offered, which got a positive look from Obake—he translated it as see? You're learning.

"My thought exactly," Tadashi agreed. "Which is why I rigged up a little something to shoot said drone down. By the way, cannibalized it and the controller for parts." At their expressions: "So I guess the only question is, whose boneheaded idea was it?"

Hiro grumbled for a minute before reasoning they were caught anyway. "It was a really good idea, you're just totally lame."

"I'm not lame, you're lame for even trying such a stupid scheme."

"We are not Obake tell him."

Obake did not, Obake was staring at his lunch in stony silence.

"Yes, you are lame," Tadashi insisted, dipping a potsticker in some sauce. "Matter of fact, you're so lame that I repurposed the drone into an anti-sneaking-out drone, which means no more flying bots out you are supposed to be better than that."

"Since when?"

"Since you got accepted into SFIT."

"Oh yeah right, the college with the fire that YOU nearly ran into."

"Nearly is the operative word."

"Only because we stopped you."

"And as repayment I get to stop you."

"That's not how it works."

"Okay so I've got the sweet buns and some Spring rolls anyone want any more dumplings while I'm up?" Aunt Cass asked, coming back over.

Obake held up a hand, went to the swear jar, pulled out a five and stuffed it in before heading into the pantry and shutting the door behind him.

Tadashi blinked, looked at Aunt Cass. "He knows that's not soundproof, right—"

Everyone flinched at the sudden high-volume vitriol coming out of the pantry, including some words Hiro had never heard before—if the venom Obake was spewing was real, it would have rendered the whole pantry inedible.

As it was, Obake exited it to total silence, sat back down at his seat without another word, and went back to eating.

Aunt Cass finally stopped him about a minute in.

"Maybe you should put another five in that jar," she told him.

He considered her for a moment, nodded. "Fair enough."

Tadashi tried to get them to work in the garage after lunch, which was met with much grumbling.

"So I can look at the desiccated remains of my controller? No thanks," Hiro groused.

"Okay first question is where did you learn that word from," Tadashi said—Hiro pointed at Obake. "So that answers that question, but it bears asking where you learned it from."

"I read," Obake said flatly. "And that's not how you use that word."

"That doesn't feel like a full answer, but okay," Tadashi said, going back to checking on the healthcare bot's coding. "So do you have plans to do anything productive, or are you going to sulk?"

The answer was sulk—at least, that was what Obake planned on doing. Hiro seemed sold on it as well, stuffing his hands in his pockets—

"GYEH!" he yelped, yanking them back out. "What the—"

Tadashi was immediately over doing the concerned older brother routine. "What? What happened? Are you okay?"

"There's something in my jacket!" Hiro yelped—scrambled out of the offending article as fast as he could, flung it down and stomped on the pockets.

Something was still moving in them.

"I see you got one of the more industrious cockroaches," Obake said drily.

"EW," Hiro noised, scrubbing his hands on his shirt. "Gross gross gross—"

"We've told you about cleaning your third of the room," Tadashi said, scrambling for something to put the thing in. Something dark scurried out of the pocket—

Obake stomped on it, pinning it in place. Pointed it out to Tadashi when Tadashi came over with a petri dish.

"Okay," Tadashi said, kneeling next to his foot. "Three, two, one—"

Tadashi slammed the petri dish down when Obake moved his foot, scooted a piece of paper under it—

Blinked in surprise when he lifted it up for them to see.

"My microbot?" Hiro asked, thrown. "But—wait I thought they all were destroyed in the fire."

"Obviously not," Obake said as Tadashi stood.

"No," Tadashi said. "This one…right this is the one Krei tried to pocket, remember?"

"You said something and he handed it back, yeah—kinda forgot about it after…well everything else," Hiro said, watching as Tadashi flipped it to put the lid on. "Why is it moving? The neurotransmitter went up in smoke too."

Because somewhere out there the neurotransmitter was still working fine with the rest of the microbots—Callaghan and his grand scheme to destroy Krei. Right. That would probably happen now that Big Hero Six was out of the picture. Oops.

"It could be malfunctioning," Obake offered. "You were fairly close to the fire—the heat might have fried its circuits."

"Maybe," Hiro noised, debating. "But by itself…it's weird, I thought it only worked with the neurotransmitter."

"Well we can find out," Tadashi said, putting the petri dish in the scanner. "At least it's a better pursuit than going off bot-fighting."

"That reminds me I'm mad at you—come on, Obake."

"Gladly," Obake huffed—followed Hiro when he retreated to the living room, sat on the couch debating as Hiro played video games and tried to explain Kingdom Hearts while Obake tried to pretend to listen. Let's see, saving Tadashi had gotten rid of Big Hero Six and left Callaghan a wide-open path to wiping Krei off the face of the earth. Currently, he was trying to figure out if that was a good thing or a bad thing, leaning towards good thing—Krei was an annoying waste of space, in his experience.

And then Tadashi came in and leaned on the back of the couch.

"Your microbot isn't broken," he announced.

"Uhh?" Hiro noised—looked at him. "No wait no we're still mad at you. We're still mad at him, right?" he asked Obake.

"I say yes," Obake said.

"Har har. Look," Tadashi ordered, batting him in the shoulder before tilting the petri dish. "Watch this."

Obake leaned over to look as well, watched as the microbot continued to go in the same direction no matter how much Tadashi turned it.

"It sounds crazy, but I think it's trying to go somewhere," Tadashi said.

"Yeah, but where?" Hiro asked. "SFIT is in the other direction."

"Not a clue," Tadashi admitted. "But it might be worth finding out."

"Hold it," Obake said. "You want to go out and find this? Nothing about this is sending up red flags?"

"Look, if my microbots are off doing something weird, then I kinda have to go fix it," Hiro insisted. "But first we have to figure out if there's really a thing or if, like…maybe Krei made a mock-up of my neurotransmitter and he's testing it."

Okay, Obake would scoff at that if it weren't for the fact that that was part of what led to Globby being a thing. "And if it isn't? Say it's something untoward."

"Then we run screaming."

Obake huffed, looked at Tadashi as Hiro pulled his shoes on. "And what about you? YOU'RE supposed to be the sensible one."

"Glad you agree," Tadashi said. "But I think you can also agree that this is kinda wonky. Gimme a minute to tell Aunt Cass we're going out."

Oi, oi and then some. Glare at Hiro when he stood.

"I predict that this will go badly," he announced. "And when it does, don't go crying to me."

"Like you aren't going to come with," Hiro shot back.

"I most certainly will not."

Dangit.

"I cannot be the only one questioning this," Obake griped as he followed the brothers through a series of alleys into the warehouse district. Hmm, few blocks over was one of his hidden entrances into his lair, he wondered if it was even there. "There are smarter ways to do this—like sending a drone to the location."

"And how would that work?" Hiro asked, glancing back.

"Let's see, it starts with someone not dismantling it," he sniped at Tadashi's back. "Then it's a matter of having two cameras—one to monitor the microbot and the other to see where the drone is heading. Or a magnetic sensor so it follows the direction the microbot is wanting to go."

"Oh hush you need to exercise more," Tadashi said, looking up at the end of the alley. "I think it's trying to go over there."

They all stared at the warehouse across the way, a painfully open stretch of concrete overgrown with weeds making for no cover.

"It's not too late to let us go bot-fighting," Obake told him. "Lesser chance of painful death that way."

"We don't know that that's what's waiting for us," Tadashi countered.

"Then you go first."

Tadashi hesitated. "Well—"

"No wonder you ran into a burning building with common sense like that."

"Hey—Hiro!" Tadashi yelped, grabbing for and narrowly missing Hiro dashing off to the other warehouse. Ran after him, Obake following and grumbling about idiot Hamada brats as he did so.

"Oh wow look at that we didn't die," Hiro observed once they were by the door.

"Good, because I'm going to kill you," Tadashi told him, grabbing a handful of hoodie and shaking him lightly. Hiro brushed it off, focused on the door.

Specifically, the lock on the door. "Well that's out," he said, looking the whole of it over. "Are we sure this is the right place?"

Tadashi checked the petri dish again, paced one way, then the other, the length of the front of the warehouse—came back to them. "Yeah, this is the place."

"Okay, so…aha, there's a window," Hiro said, pointing. "Come on, boost me up."

"Seriously?" Obake asked.

"Yeah agreed because my next comment is then what," Tadashi told Hiro.

"All we really need to do is peek in and see what's going on, right?" Hiro countered. "And there's no way we're lifting you—"

"I'm not sticking you up there for you to get your head bit off—"

"You don't know that."

"Oh for crying out loud," Obake groused—fished in his pockets, flipped a knife out, twisted it in the padlock before throwing the lock away. "There, problem solved." And with the side bonus of both Hamada brothers struck dumb, apparently.

Tadashi recovered first. "Why do you have a knife?"

"For when the situation calls for it. We were being nosy, as I recall."

"Right," Hiro said, pushing the door open.

"Uh-huh fine sure but when this is over you and me are having words," Tadashi told Obake.

"I can't wait," Obake said drily, closing the knife and putting it away.

"Uh, guys?" Hiro noised. "You…might want to take a look at this…."

Hiro's tone was enough to get them both looking—Obake could hazard a guess, but he hadn't actually seen the microbot setup before. Wasn't seeing it now, either, the distance was too great.

"So that looks like a murder scene," Hiro observed. "Uhhh I vote Tadashi checks it out."

"You suck," Tadashi told him. "I need you to know this."

"Are we sure the microbot is pointing in here?" Obake asked, still doing his best to knock them off this point.

Tadashi checked the petri dish, muttered something under his breath, minced forward.

"That sounds like you're going to have to pay the swear jar," Hiro observed, glancing all over the place before darting over to him. Obake debated…finally decided that he was committed anyway, might as well. Linger a few steps behind as Tadashi gingerly reached for the tarp—

Noted his startled twitch when he pulled it back. "What the—"

"Those are my microbots!" Hiro blurted.

"Uh, no," Tadashi noised, looking around like he expected something bad to happen in the next five minutes. "We did not make that many, Hiro."

"We didn't?"

"We didn't," Obake said, watching Hiro stick a hand in one of the barrels to let a handful spill out; shifted his attention to one of the nearby machines, still trundling out little microbot copies. "Someone's making more. A lot more," he added, indicating the barrels.

"But who? How? Why?" Hiro asked, looking the setup over. "No one else knows how we did the microbots! I know we didn't do this—Tadashi this isn't something one of your friends did, is it?"

"Not hardly," Tadashi said, rubbing the back of his neck like that would dislodge the creepy-crawly feeling making those hairs stand on end. Look up—

Suck in a panicked breath, making Obake look too—oh.

So on the one hand, he had known this was coming, shouldn't be too flatfooted at the sight of a man dressed in black and wearing a kabuki mask glaring down at them. On the other….

On the other a wave of microbots looming up with the intent to destroy them was not something he wanted to stick around for.

Tadashi already had Hiro tucked under his arm, grabbed Obake and took off faster than he could get his feet under him—took everything he had to stay upright, let alone keep up with this guy boy he hoped he was on the track team—leaving behind a trail of invectives as they fled.

It took several blocks before Tadashi ran out of breath—which was several blocks after Obake had.

"D—d'you—think—we lost him?" Tadashi wheezed.

Obake didn't care if Mr. Kabuki-Mask found them or not—at this point he was collapsed on the ground and nothing short of a 9.8 was going to dislodge him.

Hiro had other foci. "You know you gotta put like, thirty bucks in the swear jar, right?"

"Seriously?" Tadashi demanded. "T-there was a dude that just tried to KILL US with your microbots and THAT'S what you focus on?"

"This is how I cope okay!?"

"Right," Tadashi said, dumping Hiro on the nearby bench to pace. "We gotta—we have to go to the cops—that guy stole your microbots—"

"Wait—" Obake gasped—oogh, everything hurt—managed to scramble upright, get in front of Tadashi, waving his hands. "Where do you think you're going?"

"Were you not listening that thief tried to KILL US."

"Really? I hadn't noticed," Obake said with all the biting sarcasm he could muster. "I'd like you to think—use those brains I know you have—" Hiro snorted at Tadashi getting one of his phrases thrown back at him. "How much better do you think the police will do versus the people who actually made those things?"

Tadashi looked like he wanted to argue the point, but could also see the logic and hated it. Regular police—even SWAT—couldn't know how to counter the microbots and wouldn't know what to do; they'd be destroyed without ever having a target to aim at.

"Okay fine," Tadashi spat finally—grabbed Hiro when he tried to bolt. "But we are not going up against that guy by ourselves."

You know what sitting down was really attractive right now—just—kinda flop down and lean against a light pole for a minute.

"I am not, have not, nor never will be that stupid," Obake assured him, focusing on regaining his breath.

"Great," Hiro said, flopping an arm. "We still have to get my microbots back and throw that guy in jail."

Yes, they did. "Those run on remote control, right?"

Hiro's grin was slow, sneaky, and growing, and fortunately told him that the boy was firmly on the same page. Tadashi looked at them both, concern mounting—

"What are you two planning?" he demanded.

Obake was happy to fill him in once they were back in the garage.

"The microbots run on remote control, yes," he said, pulling up the schematics and indicating them. "But they also communicate with each other to more effectively take their desired shapes—sort of an intranet, if you will."

"One that answers to the neurotransmitter," Hiro said, nodding. "Which Mister Kabuki Mask is probably wearing behind that mask."

"Yes, but we can't get anywhere near said guy without dying," Tadashi pointed out, leaning on the back of Hiro's chair.

"No, we can't," Obake agreed. "What we can do is introduce a virus that invades that intranet and calibrates the microbots to a neurotransmitter of our making, returning control of the microbots to us."

"And to do that…we make some infected microbots," Hiro said, realization dawning.

"But how do we get them mixed in with his?" Tadashi asked.

"You still have the one microbot, correct?" Obake asked Hiro.

"Yeah hold on—here," Hiro said, tugging the petri dish out of his pocket.

"Good. Now, the microbot on its own is too small and simple to reprogram, but when we introduce it to the infected microbots we can allow it to return to its previous destination and accept orders until we say otherwise."

"Thus introducing the virus to the microbots without endangering us," Tadashi said.

"Precisely."

"I like it—let's do it."

Fortunately, the job only needed a handful of microbots—an hour, maybe two, and they had the polluted microbots in the petri dish. Watched as they all milled about before the infected ones started imitating the first one and trying to take off.

They allowed them to.

"So that's done," Tadashi said, watching the little microbots roll off. "How long do you think this will take?"

"A day, maybe two," Obake assured him. "When that happens we can override the microbots and deliver him straight to the police."

"Good," Tadashi said, nodding.

Obake waited until Tadashi left to round on Hiro.

"We're not delivering this guy to the police."

Hiro blinked at him. "But…the opposite, you said."

He rolled his eyes. "Have I taught you nothing? Say we do fling this fellow into a police station? What accusations exist that will keep him there? As far as the police will be concerned, this will be some random person beset upon by outside forces, and that will be how he pitches himself to the police."

Hiro was scowling now, obviously debating. "So how do we make sure that doesn't happen?"

Ah, good boy—try to keep his smile from becoming too broad. "By rigging the game, of course."