Chapter 63, everybody! It's gonna hit the fan, prepare yourselves. :O

So technically the whole thing with Trina was the episode "The Bot-Fighter," and between that one and the season finale "Countdown to Catastrophe" is the episode "Obake Yashiki" and when I read the summary over I went…I've covered all this stuff already. So…handwave is no Big Hero 6 means OG!Obake finishes up sooner.

Moving on…Hiro had a good guess at what happens in canon and the irony of Tadashi's statement. XD Also I think we've all been there before—we want to be mad for a while and can't rightly bring ourselves to let go of it. Also callback to Chapter 37 and referencing the Book of Proverbs from the Bible, so good things. :)

In other news, Season 3 reference—we deserved Austinbul, friends. With the added bonus of references to real-life events and I know y'all don't want to hear it, but if you want good clean energy that can feasibly power a large infrastructure you want nuclear—wind and solar has too much of an impact on the environment and is too dependent upon the weather to work, and this is before you factor in the strip-mining China does to get the materials for the solar panels (we don't mine for the materials because we actually have EPA laws) or the fact that these things actually fry passing birds.

Saying all that…I did up a concept for a hypothetical BH6 Season 4 and in doing so learned that yes, there's been a lot of migrating from California's Silicon Valley to Texas, so Braggtech is honestly very feasible and dangit Disney why do you ruin everything you touch.

Juxshoa, thanks for the review! Oh no! And…well….

Big Hero 6 © 2014 Disney

Tadashi Hamada had problems, and the two teens in the house were basically all of them.

Hiro, understandably, was not taking his girlfriend being evil well. That he lashed out so badly at Obake, who he had been harboring festering feelings about for a while, didn't help. Meantime Obake went from depressed and not eating to something that made that look like he was perfectly well-adjusted. Tadashi sicced Baymax on him, told him not to leave Obake alone for anything.

Tadashi, meanwhile, was trying to get Hiro out of his funk, with questionable results.

"Come on, Hiro—you have to have this stuff together for your presentation," Tadashi told him. "It'll be like when you showed the microbots—people could actually be interested in this stuff and want to buy it from you and then it helps the sharks like you want."

"Or the expo could burn down again and this time you die because someone had to go and be a jerk," Hiro spat.

Oi vey. "Hiro you can't be mad at Obake forever."

"Watch me."

"Okay, you know what? You, sit, face me," Tadashi said, spinning the swivel chair around before tugging another one over and sitting in front of him. "Real talk now: what is bothering you? Be honest, leave nothing out, I'm already aware of the big brother annoying you move on to the next thing."

Hiro scrunched up on himself, not looking at Tadashi—Tadashi moved the chair a little so Hiro couldn't avoid seeing him, made a pointed face at him…got a sigh finally.

"Trina…she felt like how Obake used to feel," Hiro muttered finally. "Back when he was fun and not a total jerk."

Immediate thought was to point out the bot-fighting, decided that now wasn't the time for that. "And?"

"And she had a point—Obake is totally ungrateful we've done like, everything for him he's got a house and people who care about him and food and he's just—a total flaky grouch!"

Probably important to also not mention that Trina's opinions were kind of soured by the whole evil robot takeover thing. "Did Aunt Cass ever tell you about Obake's family?"

"He doesn't have one, remember? Don't think he wants one either," Hiro grumbled.

Yeah that was a no. "His dad showed up at the café one day—Aunt Cass thinks he probably ran away from the guy, that maybe he's like…so foul that anything was an improvement."

Hiro looked confused at that—could easily see when he stubbornly grabbed back onto his anger. "And he couldn't have told us any of this why?"

"Maybe he told someone before and they just shuttled him back to the guy? I don't know ask him," Tadashi said, shoving on his chair a little. "I know neither one of you are adults but can you just pretend for like, five minutes? Because adults solve their problems by talking them out."

"No they don't," Hiro countered.

"Well some adults do," Tadashi said, standing. "Be the bigger person, have fun with the needling that brings."

"Throw hot coals at him."

"Metaphorically."

Hiro huffed, slouched in his chair again. "No," he said finally, not looking at him. "No. Not yet. I'm not ready. Let me be mad for a while."

Oi vey…well, at least it was kinda progress. "You get five minutes," Tadashi said, grabbing one of his notebooks and heading out. "I mean it, Hiro, get out of the funk, you can't invent when you're in the funk!" Scrub at his face and beg skywards for help once he was out of the room.

Please, please, please let these two get over this soon.

Oh good grief Tadashi one did not just simply get over having everything get totally crushed in a trash compactor overnight and trying to rush it was not. Conductive. Scowl as he realized where he got all that from—

Yeah main problem with trying to work when he was mad was that Tadashi was right nothing was coming to him, his brain just kept running around in that ugly circle of he's a manipulative jerk he used you he has no one you're friends he used you—and then there was also Trina, running in the same circle but with the added bonus of so there's actually a robot uprising on the table and also she might have actually been a robot and that's weird. Who made a robot that could pass for human anyway? How?

Huff, check his school e-mail—blink when he saw a new one with the subject line of New optional project. Check the e-mail address…well it came from inside the school…click the e-mail, saw it was CC'ed to several students, himself included.

To whom it may interest:

Braggtech has recently contacted SFIT requesting assistance on managing their energy intake. As the Texas infrastructure has recently shown itself to be unable to handle both extreme temperature flux and the transition to wind and solar, on top of the environmental concerns of such energy sources, Braggtech requests that we at SFIT instead look into an energy source that can produce a high output with minimum size and intake. They have sent blueprints for an energy amplifying device they themselves have been working on but hit a wall with.

As with the NASA project, SFIT sees this as an opportunity to expand our students' horizons and challenge them. As such, Robotics majors will have the opportunity to machine up a project to fit Braggtech's needs. This optional project will take the place of your lowest grade.

Braggtech's blueprints are attached. This is a time-sensitive manner and will require a functioning prototype before the Fall Expo at the end of this week. The winning design will earn a scholarship for the next semester and an internship with Braggtech in the upcoming year.

Please respond to this e-mail to confirm your participation in this project. We look forward to your designs.

With regards,

B.A. Herman

Assistant Director of SFIT Company Interactions

Hiro read this, reread this, looked the e-mail up and down…certainly looked legit, and he didn't really know enough about the administrators of the school to say anything…and Braggtech—he had heard of the company operating out of Austinbul, capitalizing on the growing technological interest there and the migration from California's silicon valley to Texas. And if he wowed at this—an internship with the company? That'd be just the thing to rub into Karmi's face! Not to mention the next semester of his time at SFIT paid for—that would make a major difference in their budget that they desperately needed.

All this ran through his head in the time it took to click on the attachment and skim over the design. Hmm, kind of resembled that paperweight Professor Granville had at the beginning of the semester…maybe it had been a proof of concept they sent when they started negotiating with SFIT.

And maybe this was what he needed to get out of his funk.

Drag a notebook over as he sent the design to the printer, sharpen several pencils, jot off a quick response confirming his participation before retrieving the design from the printer.

Time to go to work.

He looked over at the computer when it dinged, checked the notification.

"Ah good, he took the bait," he mused, looking over the boy's confirmation—despite a more tangled security than he remembered, hacking into SFIT and rigging up an e-mail to trick the boy had been rather easy. Hopefully the time pressure was enough to keep him from asking around and realizing the e-mail had been for him and him alone.

As for the rest of it….

Go around his lair, ticking off everything as he went. With the exception of a few bits of finalizing, all he really needed was that energy amplifier to make everything run.

Debate as he returned back to his screens. On the one hand, if the boy failed he would hopefully take that brat out of the equation (winced a little as he recalled his own painful failure with that design). On the other…if he succeeded, would that make him one of the worthy? That would then require wrangling him and in retrospect it was a marked pity that Trina had been unable to bring him around. Or perhaps the boy was already poisoned fruit—if he was hanging around that brat, despite the obvious rift, then he would already be discouraged from such endeavors.

Well, we'll see, he decided. If he becomes an asset, then so be it. If not…well, that won't be a problem for much longer.

Okay this project was being a PAIN and Hiro absolutely refused to ask for help for this because if he asked Tadashi or one of his friends then he'd get the lecture and he'd rather take a wrench to the eye than ask Obake yes he was still being ragingly petty hush.

But every single simulation he ran ended up with the thing blowing up either from regular use or from something as simple as being sneezed on if he was supposed to get a scholarship and internship from this it at least had to be stable enough to not be held together with just duct tape and positive thinking. Groan, thump his head on the desk—groan again when that action made his pen roll off and under it. Grumble as he crawled down to get it—at least Obake had finally vacated the garage, although that might have been from Tadashi siccing Baymax on him. Considering how Obake apparently felt about Baymax, this seemed a suitable starting punishment—hiss when he bumped his head on the underside of the desk—

Pause and blink when he realized there was a chip with Obake's symbol taped on the underside of it.

He only hesitated for a second before ripping it free and plugging it in—Obake owed him, darnit—blinked when he started scrolling through and realized this was all the stuff he had stolen from Krei Tech—

Including Krei's designs for an energy amplifier.

Drum his fingers excitedly, pull up both designs and hold them side by side—what was it Obake had said? Krei had changed just enough of Hiro's design to avoid being sued? Well, combining the two, using the strengths of one to shore up the weaknesses of the other, should be enough of a change.

This was definitely true a few hours later when, after several dozen virtual simulations, he had a final product sitting in front of him and running like a dream.

"Aw yeah, this project is going to rock," Hiro said, grinning.

Obake had given up trying to give the robot the slip after discovering that Tadashi had added turbo-charged roller blades to Baymax's feet. As it were, he ended up working on his laptop behind some of the plants in the garden until eventually relocating into the boys' room, sitting on his pallet and regretting so many things in life, specifically his past decisions.

Changing tacks only showed that he had kept the little robot-army Trina had assembled and was using it to hunt down any attempts he made, hacking was being parried, drones were shot down—everything he tried was effectively countered because now he was on the offensive and hemming Obake in. He couldn't get any traction, he couldn't provide any counter, and he was absolutely certain he was running out of time. The doomsday clock was rapidly approaching the zero hour and nothing he was doing was working—

"Hey, are you okay?"

"Go away, Tadashi," Obake ground out, not looking up at the young man at the head of the stairs. Noted him looking at Baymax—

"Obake is: stressed," Baymax said.

"And get your stupid robot away from me."

"Uhhh yeah maybe when you don't look like someone's disemboweling you. Metaphorically," Tadashi added quickly, holding up a hand to Baymax as he walked by.

To be fair, that was a fairly accurate assessment of his current situation. "Leave me alone, Tadashi."

"No," Tadashi said, leaning around his partition. "We did that and you're doing this slow descent into madness thing so we're just gonna start bugging you into feeling better."

"That's not how it works."

"It is now. Also you and Hiro need to talk I'm sick of having to hack my way through the tension with a machete. Metaphorically," he added, looking at Baymax watching him.

"I will after the expo."

"Can't you do it before? He's been in a funk."

"After the expo," Obake insisted. "Besides, he'll be too hopped up on Halloween candy to care before then."

"Hunh?" Tadashi noised, looking confused. "What are you talking about?"

"Halloween? That holiday where you spend your time going door-to-door demanding candy from strangers?"

"Yeah, but you're not waiting that long after the expo."

Blink. "Halloween's before then."

"No, the expo is this Friday. You know, tomorrow," Tadashi said, confusion starting to give way to concern. "Hey are you okay?"

No, no he wasn't—"Where's Hiro?"

Tadashi looked like he wanted to be relieved but didn't buy it. "In the garage."

"And what is he doing for the expo?"

"The remora—why what's going on?"

"I have to check something real quick," he said, running downstairs.

"Hey what's up—" Cass asked as he blew by her—ran into the garage—

Empty.

"Are you okay?" she asked him when he doubled back and checked the café.

"Where's Hiro?" he asked her.

"He said something about running his project to SFIT so he didn't have to worry about anything in the morning—why? Are you two finally going to talk things out?"

Yes they definitely needed to talk—he needed to make sure that Hiro wasn't—couldn't—no. No it wasn't possible. Hiro wouldn't be on his radar like that.

He hoped.