Chapter 42, everybody! In which Obake debates on if he's being punished or not.

Oh my goodness yes was a line by the Riddler in the Gotham Girls graphic novel and honestly I like that line. Fred, meanwhile, has committed to the Blues Brother routine. XD

Also Obake has canonically successfully disguised himself and infiltrated someplace so yeah he knows what he's doing in that regard. And since there's no Big Hero Six, Mole goes down a different track for his museum. Fred does turn into an actual kaiju in the original Big Hero 6 comic, but since the Disney version is wildly different from that version Obake is pretty dead-set against that.

The King Solomon route is the famous story of King Solomon ordering a disputed baby be cut in half—pretty fast way to tell the actual mother. Also, not sure if I've mentioned this but drowning sushi in soy sauce is a big insult to the chef, hence why Momakase was so peeved.

Big Hero 6 © 2014 Disney

Obake deeply regretted many things, if he were to be brutally honest. Blowing himself up at SFIT? Totally. Trying to destroy the city? Yes he had grown to regret that, especially with this insanity that he was pretty sure was his punishment.

Letting Fredrick Fredrickson the Fourth learn of his existence and get chummy with him? Oh my goodness yes.

"Fred, I'm not doing this."

"What are you talking about? It'll be awesome!"

"Fred, this is obvious."

"My dude embrace the disguise."

You know what? He had, Obake had several times before, in sneaking in a graphene blade to Momakase and tricking Honey Lemon out of Shimamoto's journal. Obake was no stranger to disguises.

But usually, they weren't as painfully obvious as Fred's Blues Brothers routine, made especially worse because his plan was to sneak into Richardson's comic book shop this way.

"Fred, refresh my memory," Obake said, jaw hurting from trying to keep a snarl down. "Mole is a nerd, same as you, correct?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Then he won't recognize the getup because?"

"The idea is we're being extra sneaky so he doesn't notice," Fred said, grabbing the door handle.

"The bell will be a dead giveaway, Fred."

"So we open really slowly," Fred countered, easing the door open—

Said door fell apart in his hands.

"Or do that," Fred said, staring as the bell fell. "Dude, what—"

"IT'S GONE!" Richardson Mole wailed, running out of the back room. "It's gone it's—FRED."

"Told you," Obake said drily.

"Dude the door was not my fault," Fred started.

"The door forget the door!" Richardson yelled. "The first piece to my supervillain museum is GONE!"

"I…what?"

"I bought High Voltage's energy orb—it was going to be the start to my supervillain museum and someone stole it!" Richardson railed.

"A supervillain museum? Dude, no wonder that happened, inviting bad karma like that! It should have been a superhero museum—"

"NO ONE CARES, FRED!"

"If all this is going to be is idiotic yelling, then I have other things to do," Obake said, toeing a piece of the door as he turned to walk out. Sharp clean cuts, like they had been made with—

Graphene.

Pause, tuning out the rantings of nerds as he tried to recall—no, no, he didn't think Momakase had targeted this place, had never had any reason to target it…yes he had briefly considered inducting High Voltage into his little club but had decided against it because having one annoying song-and-dance routine was enough…ah right currently that quota hadn't been filled.

"Fred," he called, reaching out—had to go back in the store and bodily drag him out. "Fred, leave it, we have the ripple effect to discuss."

"All those beautiful comics—destroyed," Fred sniffed—wiped at his eyes. "Sorry dude, you were saying."

"So while I was busy tuning you two out I started thinking about that ripple effect and it occurred to me that the villain going along with the original plan would have two minions he didn't pick up—that means he'd have to replace them, correct?"

"The logic does follow," Fred agreed, looking pensive. "Ooh! Are we basing them off of High Voltage? Because that'd be cool and keep the theme of basing everything off real life—keeps us nice and grounded so people can't accuse us of being too fantastic."

"Which is the continuing reason against turning you into an actual kaiju," Obake pointed out, begging for strength and wondering if this was his punishment. It felt like a punishment.

"Which I'll grant you. So…hold on, notes," he said, digging his phone out. "So originally it was glob-villain based on one of our superpowers and evil robot mascot, both of which got axed because no superhero team, plus samurai-girl. So yeah a villainous duo would be necessary, keep the cosmic balance and all that."

So this was not actually making him feel better. "Okay so we do that—I guess now we get the fun part of figuring out how this affects everything."

"Hopefully this doesn't cause too much of a rewrite," Fred mused.

So robbing some comic book store wasn't that much of a challenge, even if it did hide a secret bunker.

Personally, she thought he had gotten the better end of the bargain, freeing those two and letting them loose on the city. It had been fun, following the news and seeing them fight over Krei's newest battery—easy to guess why, considering she had the source in a secure carrier and was only handling it with insulated gloves. Eventually, those two would go after their bigger battery—which was when he arranged this meeting.

Now here she was, cleaning her swords and considering her options. Hopefully this would go off like he predicted—thus far she hadn't been given any reason to believe it'd go afoul, he was a scarily good planner.

She wondered how this little mother-daughter spat factored into those plans.

"Oi, girls—girls," she yelled finally—whistled to get their attention. "You know I could go the King Solomon route and cut it in half."

"NO!" both members of High Voltage barked.

"Then do me a favor and keep the arguing to a minimum," she said. "I'd ask what started it, but I honestly don't care."

"It's not my fault Mama's slowing me down!" Juniper huffed, arms crossed.

"Excuse me? You wouldn't be half the woman you are today if it wasn't for me!" Barb snapped.

"And if you both don't shut up I'M going to make you both half the women you once were," Momakase barked, standing and readying her swords. Come on, don't leave her with this mess—

"Which, unfortunately, is not the sort of mess we're looking to make."

Finally—glance back to see him up in the scaffolding, the one half of his face glowing (one of these days, she'd have to figure out how to ask about that) as he glared down at them. Look back at High Voltage, was not surprised to see Juniper half-hiding behind Barb, or Barb working to push Juniper further behind her in a defensive position. Nothing put a spat on hold like an agreed-upon common enemy.

"Cute," he noised, taking a chain down, letting it lower him gently to the ground instead of taking the perfectly serviceable stairs. "But also unnecessary."

"Who are you?" Barb demanded.

"I'm the one who orchestrated your freedom," he said, striding over to stand next to Momakase. "More important to you: I'm the one who has what you want most."

"The energy orb?" Juniper asked.

"Juney, let me handle this," Barb hissed.

"I can negotiate my own deals, Mama!"

"And if you insist on wasting our time arguing, you can deal with losing the energy orb," he said flatly, a muscle in his temple twitching in irritation—probably with that weird skull-pattern flashing too, if High Voltage's reaction was anything to go by.

"How do we know you even have it?" Barb demanded, rallying. Ah right, this would be when she had to provide the proof. Kick the case open, pluck the ball up, turn it for them to see—

Tighten her grip when she saw them start for it. "Ah-ah-ah—you two have to do a little something for us first."

"Like what?" Barb demanded.

"Like breaking and entering," he said. "You're good at that, I understand."

Momakase couldn't help but sneak him a glare at that—excuse me? These two?

Shimamoto's house on SFAI grounds," he continued. "There's a hidden compartment somewhere in the house containing a very important book. Bring it to me, and you get your energy orb. Fail me…well, there are other, worse fates you should probably consider."

Barb looked calculating, like she expected there to be a catch. Juniper, on the other hand, jumped on this eagerly. "I won't let you down! Sorry, Mama, but that energy orb is mine."

"What!?" Barb barked. "You get back here young lady I MADE you—"

Momakase waited until they were both gone before looking at him. "Really?" she demanded flatly.

"They weren't my first choice," he sighed, rubbing his forehead. "But if they get captured again, it's no loss."

"Uh-huh. And the reason you didn't ask the renowned thief standing next to you is because?"

"This job requires a bit more finesse and a lot less slicing everything to bits."

"If you're talking about Krei's office, he deserved it for drowning my sushi in soy sauce."

"The scoundrel," he said drily, causing her to huff and look away—decided to focus on the energy orb instead.

"I'll be honest," Momakase told him, tossing the ball from one hand to the other. "I thought this would be more impressive—or at least more substantial."

He considered her, the ball—

Took it with his bare hands and turned it over.

"That's because it's a fake," he observed.

"Seriously?" she demanded.

"I'm sure you could slice it in half and it'd be nothing more than a rubber ball painted with luminescent paint—the fool you stole it from was either lying or was had."

She tested it, threw it away when it ended up being exactly what he said. "So what do we do about them? Neither one of them is going to be very happy when they discover we bribed them with a fake."

"We pass them on to the one that started the mess," he told her smoothly. "And in the meantime, we see if we can't track down the real thing."

"Excellent," she said, twirling her knife before sheathing it. "Call me when you need another secret base diced."

"Of course."