Chapter 29, everybody! In which we end up firmly in an unexpected side plot…no seriously these next several chapters kinda hit out of nowhere when I was writing them but what the hey, they're fun.

I'll be honest, I'm not a fan of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, but we did get Officer Carl voiced by Mr. T in that, whom I did enjoy (I end up quoting the shenaniganizer line a lot). Obake is quoting the Green Goblin from the first Sam Raimi Spider-Man movie, which I am a fan of. And as of the 2010 census there was eight million people in the bay area—I looked that up for another fic and it's stuck with me since.

Moving on…Remoraid is a Pokémon, remora is the little sucker fish that stick to sharks and other large aquatic life. Shark fin soup is a real soup and the reason those sharks get de-finned and thrown back into the water (an unnecessary and cruel waste, shark steaks exist), and from what I've read shark fins are like a more toxic corn chip for their lack of nutritional value and abundance of mercury (it's basically cartilage wrapped in sandpaper). So yes, those guys who cut off shark fins are jerks.

In other news, Hiro gets himself a fancy watch like Obake's and references Spy Kids 2; meantime Aunt Cass quotes Jaws. Also speaking of aquatic corn chips, presenting the mola mola, AKA ocean sunfish, which Alomomola is based off of. Oarfish are like sea serpents with cool hair and have to be one of my favorite fish, but we don't see them often due to the fact that they live deep underwater. And yes jellyfish are eaten by sea turtles and since they'll often confuse plastic bags for their preferred food it is bags and not straws that are actually the biggest threat to them as far as trash is concerned. Saying that, don't litter.

That American Pickers episode I mentioned last chapter? Fred showed it to Tadashi. I saw the arapaima in the pictures when I was looking up this aquarium and recognized the fish from Amazon Trail, meantime there really is a fish species named Oscar and the boys are quoting Finding Nemo. Pacus, like pompanos, look very much like piranha. The moray eel comment comes from a Tumblr post observing the same thing. Yes, Bruce (the prop shark from Jaws) would have sunk like a stone if put in the water and left there. Also hey, season 2 stuff!

In other news we're getting a sequel to The Meg later this year and I'm not sure how to take that. Like yeah the book series it's based on has sequels but I wasn't expecting them to squeeze another sequel out of the Transporter punches out giant Jaws. Also I know that the Transporter has a name (Jason Statham), but every time I see him on the TV my first comment is "Oh the Transporter is in this!" and I'm a little concerned that everybody knows immediately who I mean. I've seen the special that Tadashi has, and the knowledge that ocean water dissolves bones is both weird and interesting.

And in doing these chapters I looked up San Francisco's Aquarium of the Bay and was telling my Mom about it—she wanted to go and see the tunnels that the boys went into.

Me: "But it's San Francisco."

Mom: "So we'll just pretend it's the one Baymax lives in."

Me: "San Fransokyo?"

Mom: "Yeah."

So if things ever chill out in real San Fran we'll probably be going.

Big Hero 6 © 2014 Disney

Hiro looked over from the screen they had been monitoring as Obake brought the barracuda drone up. "So there's definitely an underwater bot-fighting league."

"There is now," Obake said, leaning over the edge of the pier to grab the scavenger robot and put it on the tarp. "But to be fair, it was getting quiet around here."

"Eh," Hiro noised, shrugging as Obake sent the drone back down. "I mean I could use some more quiet, to be fair."

"Oh come now, you can't tell me the tedium of everyday life is that appealing."

Hiro considered Obake, not for the first time wondering just what went on in that head of his. Yeah Tadashi thought he was a shenaniganizer (and yes he'd say it in the Mr. T voice) and Aunt Cass thought he was some kid that needed a ton of food and a bed, and most days Hiro was fine with thinking that Obake was someone on his level, a smart kid frustrated at the fact that the rest of the world ran so slowly in comparison.

And then sometimes he'd do or say something that made Hiro almost certain that it was something else entirely sitting next to him, that Obake was his namesake and that this appearance was just a sham.

"You went awful quiet," Obake said, reaching down to scoop up the next dead drone the fish had retrieved.

"Well let's see," Hiro said. "Aunt Cass got kinda-kidnapped the other day, before that we ran into a bear in the woods, around that time Fred's party got attacked by a supervillain…not to mention the SFIT fire and that whole thing with Callaghan. I wouldn't mind a bit less excitement when we take all that into account."

Obake made a sort of tch noise at that, sent the drone back down. "What do you want, Hiro, to be plain and ordinary like that girl this morning? People like you and me—we're exceptional. Look behind us at the city—eight million people in the bay area, and those people exist to lift the few gifted upon their shoulders. You don't want to be just another face in the crowd."

No he didn't, but Obake's comments didn't come without concerns. "Sounds lonely though."

Obake sighed. "The thing about being intelligent is it's also a very lonely existence. Most people won't be able to keep up with you, and most people won't want to try. They'll want you to lower yourself to their level, impose limits. We…you deserve better."

Okay that last comment was definitely cause for concern. "Hey, are you okay?" Hiro asked.

"I'm fine," Obake said, rubbing his face. "I just thought that coming out here to test the fish drone would have come without the introspection."

"Sorry," Hiro said, drumming his fingers on the pier. "Um…I get it though, I do—it's why I hated grade school so much. But at least SFIT is, you know, challenging for once. Maybe that's why I like it," he mused, watching the screen as Obake sent the drone for the next scrap drone. "So this is actually really cool, by the way. Hey, what's the range on these? Because like coral reefs and stuff, this'd be a great way to get footage without endangering people or scaring the fish."

Obake made a pensive noise. "The only problem with that is the chance that you'd get footage of a shark's digestive system."

"That'd suck," Hiro agreed. "Hey maybe we do a shark instead—no wait that'd scare the fish. Maybe one of those suckerfish that stick to sharks? What are they called, Remoraid?"

"Remora," Obake corrected.

"Remora. And then—oh hey wait that'd actually be a really good way to keep track of like, sharks and whales and stuff, because they don't think twice about those guys sticking to them, and then people could track them better and like…they could zap someone if they try to catch the shark and cut off their fins, there's jerks out there that do that and then throw the shark back in the water alive."

"You'd have to figure out how to engineer those suction cups."

"Pretty sure I could figure it out—we can brainstorm while we're working on Fred's squid." Watch the screen some more. "I just really like the idea of looking around down there without actually going in the water."

"I can certainly understand never wanting to go into the bay again."

Hiro blinked, looked at Obake. "What do you mean, again?"

Obake didn't answer, fished out the last drone before pulling his barracuda back out.

"Doesn't seem any worse for wear," he observed, turning it over and ignoring Hiro's question. "We'll examine it further when we get back, but I'd call this a successful test."

Hiro huffed, turned his attention to the drone tying up the tarp of flexible display cloth before hefting it up, both disappearing within seconds. "Moving on I have issues with you reappropriating my invisibility cloak."

"Oh that one's mine," Obake said, putting the laptop away and handing the bag to Hiro. "Did you really think I was going to pass on tech like that?"

Hiro stuck his tongue out at Obake. "Thief."

"Seeing as how Krei did indeed not pay me, we're counting that as part of the payment for services rendered," Obake said, leading the way back to the city. "We can look at the drones later, see if there's anything worth salvaging."

"We can't take it home with us?"

"Do you want to explain to Tadashi what we've been up to?"

"Ick no," Hiro said, shivering.

"Then we'll address it later," Obake said, glancing back like he thought they were being followed. "After, perhaps, we take some precautions."

Hiro wondered at that, got an explanation the next morning when Obake handed him a watch.

"Okay," Hiro noised.

"It's a scan jammer," Obake explained, showing one already on his wrist. "Just in case certain extracurricular activities get too heated."

"Okay," Hiro repeated. Didn't seem like the sort of thing to pull an all-nighter on, which Obake had apparently done. "Does it at least tell time?"

"It does a lot of things that I will not be explaining to you within earshot of your family, for reasons I'm sure you're aware of."

Potentially-illegal stuff, he meant. "I just want you to know this is the weirdest friendship bracelet I've ever gotten," Hiro said, tugging it on and snickering at Obake's expression.

"Oh man what caused that face?" Tadashi asked, sitting down with them.

Obake sobered quickly during Tadashi's moment of silence. "Say, weren't you telling us about that toy Fred got?"

It was the right thing to deflect to, considering Tadashi was still excitedly talking about it—Hiro was going to have to thank Fred for saving their bacon.

"Okay," Aunt Cass said, sitting down and having a moment of silence before continuing. "So what do you boys want to do today?"

"The aquarium," Hiro said quickly.

"Oh wow that was fast."

"Is this for Fred's squid?" Tadashi asked.

"And some project ideas I want to work on, maybe pitch one to Professor Granville," Hiro said. "We were talking about it yesterday—me and Obake—and I said that if we could make like, a remora to stick on a shark and keep track of it that way it wouldn't bother the shark as much plus we'd get to see some cool ocean stuff—"

"And zapping fishermen that cut off shark fins," Obake muttered into his coffee.

"Yeah that too because that sucks. Plus like if the shark gets distressed or something it could send a signal so people could find it and help."

It was enough of a pitch that Tadashi and Aunt Cass were both excited to go, and even Obake seemed moderately interested in this, getting a notepad alongside Hiro's sketchpad so they could brainstorm ideas.

"I was thinking of others we could do last night, and it occurred to me that jellyfish and mola mola would work too," Obake told Hiro quietly, keeping an eye on Aunt Cass and Tadashi in the front seat.

"What is that last one?" Hiro asked, face scrunching up in confusion.

"Another term for it is ocean sunfish—here," he said, putting his notepad on Baymax's charger between them and flipping it open. "It looks something like this—most animals won't bother with it because it's basically designed to be uninteresting to predators, with no nutritional value."

"So like corn chips."

"Somewhat. Jellyfish are eaten by sea turtles, but the adult mola mola functionally has no natural predators and is in and of itself nonthreatening—most ocean life wouldn't give it a second glance, achieving your goal of observation without disturbing the environment."

"So for the record I'm really liking these ideas," Tadashi said, turning around in his seat and hooking his elbow on the back. "Hey we should make an oarfish too—we'd have to figure out how to work around the issue of underwater pressure though."

"What is this we you speak of?"

"Oh come on you can't drop a cool idea like this and expect me to sit it out. I'm definitely getting in on Fred's squid we've already got a movie planned around it. That reminds me, I need to make a little boat."

"Not a bigger boat?" Aunt Cass joked.

"It depends on the squid size," Tadashi said, addressing her. "Fred showed me a video about these prop guys describing their job and basically you need a one-fourth scale model so you can use G.I. Joes instead of Lego guys."

Obake rolled his eyes at this, went back to his sketches. Hiro tipped his head at the drawing as Obake started outlining the mechanical points. "Oh hey wait I know this—Alomomola, right?"

"What?"

"It's a Pokémon," Hiro explained, tugging out his phone and looking it up. "It's—Tadashi, how do you spell it?" Found it when Tadashi obliged him. "See? It's from Gen V, I kind of figured it was like, the evolved form of Luvdisc—hold on I know how to spell that one—see? Kinda bummed when I found out they weren't related."

"I see the resemblance," Obake said, going back to his drawing.

"See? Super obvious." Hiro stuffed his phone back into his pocket. "So what's the jellyfish idea look like?"

Going over the designs got them to the aquarium—Aunt Cass had to hold him to keep him from grabbing Obake and darting ahead while Tadashi got Baymax out.

"Why are we bringing the robot?" Obake demanded.

"I figure this'll be an interesting field test, plus it expands Baymax's database. Right bud?" Tadashi asked Baymax.

"I have formed a new database on: aquatic life, and have downloaded information from the Aquarium of the Bay's website," Baymax reported.

"See? He's excited, let him enjoy the fish too."

"I am a robot—I cannot eat."

"No, bud, we're looking at the fish. For fun and learning, that sort of stuff."

Baymax blinked at this. "I will link this database to my database on: mental health, as learning can help stimulate the mind and improve cognitive functions."

"And now I get to tie this trip to my project-testing hours," Tadashi said happily.

Hiro's plan to make a beeline to wherever the remoras were—or even his plan to take notes and make sketches—immediately went out the window upon seeing the massive tanks with the fish swimming around and oh wow this was cool!

Tadashi was in the same boat, both of them darting back and forth and pointing out the different fish, Tadashi insistent on finding Nemo and Dory, as the others followed at a more sedate pace. Obake seemed torn on trying to keep up with them and staying with Aunt Cass, ended up halfway between them and constantly shooting glances at Baymax whenever he made comments.

"Oh look at this these guys are awesome," Tadashi said, staring at several fish that were as long as he was tall. "I remember these guys from Amazon Trail what are they called? Arapaima," he read off of the placard. "Oh hey they've got electric eels too."

"I wonder if they have piranhas," Hiro said, scanning the tank.

"Of course not—if they did they wouldn't have any other fish."

"They have sharks—ha! Right there, that's a piranha."

"Sorry little bro, this says it's something called a pacu," Tadashi said, still reading. "Oh hey! There's a fish in there called Oscar!"

"Like that's the name of the fish itself, or…."

"Apparently there's a whole species named Oscar," Tadashi snorted. "Hey I wonder if they're grouchy."

"Probably, because people keep asking them."

They did eventually find clownfish and blue tangs, which counted as finding Nemo and Dory, and Hiro found a few different fish to sketch while Tadashi endlessly quoted the movie—at least until they also found Gill and watched him for a bit, wondering at his latest escape attempt before acknowledging that he wouldn't stage it until no one was looking. The moray eel was also worth noting, mostly because Tadashi pointing out that it looked like it had just told a joke and was waiting for a response made it so Hiro couldn't exactly un-see that.

The whole experience was incredible though, Hiro suddenly feeling small and overwhelmed in the face of so many designs done by a much more experienced Creator. But like Baymax was observing, watching the fish swim around had a calming effect—it was a glimpse into a whole ecosystem that was always going to be foreign to them on some level, strange little creatures flitting and flying through water like it was nothing, only occasionally paying heed to the strange dry-land creatures that came to peer at them.

"Remind me why I gave up on being a marine biologist," Hiro asked Tadashi.

"We watched Ika Yaju," Tadashi told him. "I'm surprised you agreed to make the squid for Fred, you had nightmares about that movie for years."

"Learning that it was a foam prop that attacked a toy boat helped."

"Like how the prop shark from Jaws would have sunk like a rock if it wasn't worked with?"

"Yeah, like that," Hiro said, glancing back at the tanks. Occasionally he'd see the ghost of people's reflections on the glass, and that made him start a bit before he started mentally editing them out.

But occasionally he'd catch a glimpse of Obake's reflection too, and that'd always give him pause, the way Obake was watching him when he thought no one was looking. He couldn't exactly translate everything about the expression, but something about it seemed overwhelmingly sad, like he was trying to commit this to memory. It was the sort of thing that made him think twice about Tadashi's suggestion of Obake's origins, that yes he was definitely missing something vital in his life and they were going to try to be that something.

Hiro shook that off, insisted they go to the tunnels next—he hadn't forgotten the reason he had insisted on here today, and the tunnels had sharks, sharks had remoras, and he still wanted a look at a real one.

There were two underwater tunnels at the aquarium—the Near Shore Tunnel and the Sharks of Alcatraz Tunnel, that went into deeper waters. Obviously, they went with the second one first, Baymax pausing at the entrance to assure a younger kid that the tunnel was structurally sound, there was nothing to fear, there would be no tunnel collapse and the sharks didn't have the jaw strength to bite through.

"Ten to one that kid watched The Meg," Tadashi said to Hiro.

"The Transporter beat it, so we're fine," Hiro said, staring at the water over his head before spotting what he wanted. "Aha."

Most of the sharks swimming around had at least one remora sticking to them, placards along the tunnel explaining that the little hangers-on sucked parasites off the sharks, which not only kept them streamlined but also healthy. Baymax recorded several at Hiro's insistence, including one remora that happened to be swimming by on its own in search of a ride.

"I wish I could touch one, find out what the sucker feels like," Hiro said to Obake. "I feel like that'd help with the construction."

Obake made a vague noise, still staring intently into the bay like he had been ever since they went into the tunnel—like he was looking for something deeper in the water that wasn't there.

"Pretty sure we can't see Alcatraz from here," Hiro said to him. "Or wait, I wonder if we could see like, the dead bodies of guys who tried to escape before."

"Ew, Hiro," Aunt Cass said.

"Don't worry, Aunt Cass, there's nothing to see," Tadashi said. "I saw a special on the Titanic a while back, basically once the crabs eat everything the saltwater dissolves the bones."

"Ew, Tadashi."

Obake had been hugging himself tightly, still staring out at the water—started at the conversation, looking spooked.

"Are you okay?" Hiro asked him.

"I have to get out of here," Obake breathed—tried to dart back the way they had come, ran smack into Baymax, who diagnosed him with a panic attack—"MOVE!"

"Obake—Obake," Aunt Cass said, catching him. "It's okay—breathe."

Obake didn't seem inclined to do so, had his arms wrapped around his head like he could block everything out that way, Baymax suggesting that he be removed from the source of stress—

"Right," Aunt Cass said, leading him back out the tunnel. "We'll be out here, guys, find us when you're done."

Hiro felt pretty done right now—looked at Tadashi, baffled, before getting ready to follow.

Tadashi stopped him. "Maybe give them a few minutes."

"But," Hiro protested, trying to figure out just what went sideways. "We were doing fine! What happened?"

"Hiro it's called a panic attack, they don't schedule an appearance," Tadashi said; looked down, picked up Obake's notebook. "Maybe he watched a scary underwater movie too."

Maybe. Look out at the water again, trying to see past the sharks and other fish to whatever it was Obake had been searching for out there. Yes, he had one of those traumatic moments after the SFIT fire, but that had been understandable, they all had. Obake, for the most part, seemed singularly unflappable.

So what, exactly, had he seen that spooked him so bad?