Chapter 61, everybody! Hiro and Trina are off to shenaniganize.

This is the same sort of bafflement that was on shows like Lilo and Stitch and Kim Possible so technically it works for these guys since they were on the Disney Channel. Randall is in reference to Monsters, Inc. and I really wish I remembered the name of the guy who did have all those shifty eyes. X'D Loom is a LucasArts game (which is now technically owned by Disney) which was referenced in the first Monkey Island game, also by LucasArts. And again, all the bot names and descriptions comes from the now-defunct game Big Hero 6: Bot Fight. Thanks, Disney, real smooth (not).

Hanzai is Japanese for "malediction" or "crime"—went looking for a word similar to hex that would start with H in Japanese. Also Trina is quoting the 2003 film SWAT—that one and the Italian Job remake of the same year are one of those movies that always get us to stop when we're flipping through channels, and honestly are impressive to me from a moviemaking standpoint for how fat-free the scripts are. Also the fact that they were able to keep preteen-me's attention considering I only really had eyes for cartoons then.

Juxshoa, thanks for the review! Well….

Big Hero 6 © 2014 Disney

Getting into the tournament had been entertaining, at the very least.

"Okay, her I get," the ringmaster said, pointing at Trina. "What's your excuse?"

"I'm her coach," Hiro said.

"Latest rage, all the best bot-fighters have coaches now," Trina said.

"I mean if they've never heard of bot-fighting coaches, do we really need to be bothering with such a, um, pedantic locale?" Hiro asked her, trying to channel some of Obake's snootier energies and hoping those were all real words.

"Okay fine get in," the ringmaster said, waving them in. "It won't be my neck Yama wrings when he sees you."

"Which, fair," Hiro said, nodding as they walked towards the ring.

"Okay which of these dudes should I totally own first?" Trina asked, scanning the crowd.

"Focus please."

"Right, right—so which of these dudes look like some shifty bot-thief?"

"My money's on Randall—he's got those shifty eyes."

"Yeah," Trina said, narrowing her eyes at the bot-fighter in question.

"Hey hey don't glare at him—if you're obvious you'll spook him."

"If he runs then he's guilty," Trina countered. "And then I can tackle him to the floor and pin his arms behind his back—I saw it on TV and I've been meaning to try it."

"What if he doesn't run and just decides to shoot us?"

"Then that'll suck," Trina said. "Geesh, where'd that doom-and-gloom assessment come from?"

"Pretty sure it was Tadashi," Hiro said, shrugging—watched as one of the tourney operators started randomizing the matchups and posting it on a large screen, perked when he saw who Trina was paired off against. "Hey I've heard of that one you're up against!"

Trina looked at the roster. "Loom?"

"Yeah. Ask me about Loom."

"Why does that sound like you're quoting something."

"It makes more sense if you've played Monkey Island," Hiro admitted. "Anyway, Loom and its operator Lukas got banned from official tourneys because—get this—he programmed the robot to hack other robots."

Trina perked up at that. "Oh that sounds about right—also kinda obvious my money's still on the Randall guy."

"You just want to tackle him, don't you."

"I do—he's looking at me funny."

"Uh-huh. Also I see you went with O. Wurm as the name."

"I hate that I couldn't come up with a better one," Trina sighed. "So what's the plan for scanning these guys?"

Hiro held up his tablet. "I've rigged it to scan the code of every bot I point this at, and if anyone asks I'm busy keeping track of your robot's performance as manager."

"I'm really loving this hustle, just saying."

"I am too," Hiro said, squirming a little at the feeling in his chest. "So…if I bet on you, do you promise not to totally get crushed?"

"Sure," Trina said; waited until he had waved someone down and paid out before continuing. "I'll only get like, slightly crushed."

"Hey," Hiro protested. She laughed, shoved at his shoulder before pointing at where the bot-fighting was starting. Right. Tried to get through before Trina dragged him up a flight of stairs to where he'd have a better view.

"Okay yeah this is much better," Hiro said, scanning the two robots before sorting through their code—didn't get too far before the next round started. "Oog—I'm going to have to do up a program to scan this I didn't think this'd go so fast."

"Want me to try and drag my fight out?" Trina offered.

"No, that'd be suspicious," Hiro said, opening another window and tapping at the screen. Okay a program to scan for malicious code shouldn't be too time-intensive…."Oh wait you're up."

"Oop—wish me luck," she said—kissed him on the cheek before running down the stairs, leaving him dumbfounded for several long beats. Scrambled to scan the robots—cheered when Trina dodged Loom's attempt to reprogram O. Wurm and fried it with the laser.

"Eee did you see that!?" Trina cheered as she ran back up to him, O. Wurm in one hand and its remote in the other. "Did you see that!? One hit and POW! Lights out!"

"That was awesome!" Hiro agreed, beaming. "Okay let's see who you're up against next," he said, turning his attention back to the fights, scanning the robots as he looked at the roster. "Okay so you're up against Gem next—should be pretty straightforward, they favor hit and run tactics and mostly use the drill on their tail, but they also have a compartment in their head to launch bombs at you so be careful."

"Okay the bombs sound cool," Trina said—perked up when she came up on the roster again. "Oop gotta go."

Hiro told himself that being disappointed that she had just run off was stupid, focused instead on watching her battle—O. Wurm stayed ahead of Gem, narrowly dodging several of the hits before Trina's opponent decided to change tactics—blew up the first bomb while it was still in the air via a quick shot of the laser, dodged when Gem tried to close in, wrapped its tail around Gem's leg and yanked, blasting it at close range in the chest when it toppled.

"Oh boy that was close," Hiro wheezed when she came back up.

"I can't believe you were panicking over that," Trina huffed. "Who's my next victim?"

"Hex, its owner is Hanzai—now that one, when it catches you, overloads your bot's energy sources—"

"So don't let it catch me?"

"Pretty much," Hiro said, grinning at her. "Honestly that's what you should be focusing on, most of the guys left are pretty tough."

"Oh they might be, but they're not ready for me," Trina said, flexing. "Okay I'm up next, time to go totally own this guy."

"Do it," Hiro cheered, fist pumping—should probably be working on the program but good night he had missed even watching bot-fights—maybe—

Scowled when he realized his next thought, of maybe he could drag Obake out here and get him out of his funk. Did he really want to at this point? Trina had a point, Obake was being way ungrateful it wasn't like Hiro was making unreasonable demands on his time. Shake himself out of that funk, focus on hyping himself up when Trina came bouncing back up.

"Okay next up is Fire Eater—that one throws bombs too but it's got like a ton of blades so closing in is tricky," he told her.

"That doesn't leave me with a lot of options," Trina pointed out.

"Sure it does," Hiro said, grinning down at her. "Because see, I fought Fire Eater before with Megabot, and since we've got O. Wurm with similar tech, you can break him down and then close like that—he can't fight every piece at once, and you can close in and start squeezing at the joints—"

"Oh boy I wish you mentioned this strategy earlier," Trina said, looking over her remote. "How do we do that?"

"Okay so like—start with this button—"

"YOU."

Hiro and Trina both looked up sharply at that bark, saw Yama muscling his way through the crowd to jab a meaty finger at Hiro. "Zero. What are you doing here I had you blacklisted!"

"And that would mean something if I were actually doing the fighting," Hiro countered.

"He's my coach," Trina said, waving them off airily. "All the best bot-fighters have them now." Listened to a couple of allegations of cheating—"Yeah sure be mad because you can't pick on a little girl anymore."

"I don't care, I want you out," Yama said. "Both of you!"

"What, scared?" Trina challenged. "We're totally owning your tournament so you're kicking us out before we get to you? Lame."

"Look, leave Trina out of this," Hiro said. "I'm the one you're so scared of, so fight me."

"Oh I will," Yama ground out.

"We're talking about bot-fighting, by the way."

"Speak for yourself, I can take him," Trina said, eyeing Yama narrowly.

"So, if I win, Trina gets to stay and finish the tournament," Hiro said.

"And when I win, you are getting kicked out," Yama said. "From off the roof!"

"Boy you must get some kick outta threatening kids," Trina said. "Where do you go when you're not here, the playground?"

Yama glowered at her before shifting his attention back to Hiro. "And you use her bot."

"Done," Hiro said, holding the tablet out to Trina. "Here, make trade."

"Don't beat him so badly I can't get a rematch," Trina said.

"No promises."

"I was talking to O. Wurm. Also this reminds me, I gotta find a bookie real quick."

"Don't take so long you miss me totally schooling him," Hiro said—squeaked when Yama picked him up and plopped him down on one end of the ring. "What, in a hurry to get embarrassed again?"

Yama growled at him, sent Little Yama out to battle—

Hiro was quickly aware of two things: one, that Yama had upgraded his bot; two, that he, Hiro, wasn't as familiar with O. Wurm as he was with Megabot. Spent a nerve-wracking minute keeping O. Wurm away from Little Yama as he nailed down the controls—

Little Yama caught O. Wurm and ripped it apart.

"HA!" Yama barked. "So much for that robot, Zero!"

"Since when has that ever worked on me?" Hiro asked, smirking as he pulled the remote out to its full extension. "Hey, tell me if this sounds familiar: O. Wurm? Destroy."

The two halves of O. Wurm started wrapping around Little Yama—Yama kept trying to get the pieces off, denting his own robot in his attempts, had Little Yama attack with its saw when it flung the pieces down—

Hiro kept breaking down the robot, fingers flying across the little keyboard as he worked to keep track of all the pieces—Little Yama was left teetering as Yama tried to keep up—

Enough of the front half of O. Wurm reassembled to fire a laser at Little Yama, reassembled the rest of the way as the smoking heap that was its opponent toppled, turned to Yama and gave a little bow.

"No more Little Yama," Hiro repeated smugly, a hand out for O. Wurm to slither up. "Now, you were saying?" he asked, grinning as Trina cheered and Yama seethed.

"Well that was bogus."

"I totally won that fair and square!" Hiro agreed, arms up as they walked away from the bot-fight warehouse. "It's not my fault Yama is a sore loser!"

"Also we lost all our money," Trina added.

"THANK YOU for reminding me of that that just makes it worse." Huff, kick at a can. "Jerk."

"Yeah well, come on," Trina said, pointing out an open warehouse. "We can cut through here and see who did the hacking. My money's still on Randall but Yama's in the running now."

"Is it because Yama's a jerk?" Hiro asked her.

"It's a contributing factor."

Fair enough—duck in, look at his tablet as he followed Trina into some side offices. "Hey wait a minute where are we going?"

"We don't want to be out in the open," she countered. "What if Yama had us followed? They'll never find our remains," she said dramatically.

"Pretty sure you're exaggerating, but okay," Hiro said, sitting at a dusty table as he finished up the program and ran it. "Okay, shouldn't take too long…." Tip his head at signs that the dust had been disturbed recently. "Trina, are we the only ones here?"

"Pretty sure we are," she said. "Been using this as a shortcut for a while now, started cutting through here when I realized there was leftover scrap." Shrug. "Not stealing if no one wants it, right?"

"Mmm, maybe don't tell Tadashi that, he has opinions."

"I won't tell if you won't," she said, hand up like she was swearing scout's honor. "Hey don't worry about it, no one comes through here—we're totally fine—"

"Hiro!"

"How," Hiro groused under his breath, Trina looking sharply. "How does he keep doing this I swear he's got me microchipped—"

"Shh," she hissed, dragging him out of the chair. "Come on, this way—there's a back door we can sneak by him."

"Right," Hiro whispered, glancing over his shoulder as she tugged him along. "Maybe we go to the Lucky Cat so he looks like a dork when he comes in accusing us of doing things."

"Sounds like a plan—"

"Hiro."

Trina stopped abruptly, Hiro running into her back—the room had three exits: the one they had just come through, the door that led outside—

And the doorway across from them, where Obake was standing.

"Get away from him," Obake growled.