Well here I am with yet ANOTHER story for yet ANOTHER series. Yeah, I know, it's looking more and more like I won't get any of my old stuff done, but really this is a good thing, after a good...what, five years? My muse and I are on speaking terms and she is giving me quite a bit to work with.

This story, obviously, is for the latest Marvel movie 'Big Hero 6' something that I was surprised by the quality of if I'm honest. It was quite a bit more...tame than the comics it drew source material from, and lacked some key iconic characters, but like several other more modern 'animated' movies it didn't restrain itself to what one would expect from say a kids cartoon. I was surprised and pleased by what I saw for the most part, with just a few small things that I felt should have been addressed but weren't.

Now, this story is going to be a little darker than a lot of my other works, but it's not going to be purely angst in nature. I'm going to be exploring the time between the ending and epilog, perhaps going further as well. I'm also going to be drawing from the original comics to fill in some gaps or add more depth to the characters themselves.

Last but not least, there is the pairing. HiroGo, yes it has an age gap, and that will both come up and play an important part in the plot as well as the overall story. How and why, you'll just have to read and see for yourself. So, I hope you enjoy this and I look forward to any reviews this might get. It might take me awhile but I will try to respond to them when I have time.

Disclaimer: I don't own Big Hero 6, it is the property of Marvel and Disney. If I did own it Sunfire and Silver Samurai would have been in it like in the comics and HiroGo would be canon already.

Note: There will be some additional information at the end of the chapter. With that out of the way, I am pleased to present Heroes Rising: Issue #1!

Tossing the last piece of her bike into the dumpster, 'GoGo' Tomago slumped into the labs lone vacant stool.

No matter what she did, nothing seemed to work. She had tried changing the design to make it more aerodynamic, but there was only so much that could be done to improve on what was already mathematically 'perfect'. The computers told her as much. There were no lighter metals or polymers that existed she could use for its frame. Tadashi showed her as much. The batteries were impossible to improve. Honey Lemon explained to her as much. The electrical systems and wiring was flawless. Wasabi had taken to copying it.

But the fact remained, it still wasn't fast enough. Not even close. Not by a mile.

In the two weeks that had passed since Professor Callaghan had been arrested and his daughter discovered alive, things had for the most part returned to normal for the students of SFIT.

Days came and went. Classes continued. Midterms loomed over the horizon.

And just like before, everyone was spiraling down into their own private worlds of isolation and solitude.

'Whoever said silence is golden should be dragged out into the street and shot,' GoGo muttered to herself mentally. It was part of the reason she loved her bikes, they were an escape. The roar of an engine, the hum of the electromagnetic stabilizers, the sounds of passing traffic, to noises of the lab, the air ringing in her ears, all of it was THERE, it filled the void of silence and nothingness that was otherwise present.

Three times she had torn down and rebuilt her maglev bike this week and some part of her was vaguely aware that it needed to be ready for demonstration in a month. She didn't care though, to her it was simply a distraction, something she, like the others all needed now more than ever.

Honey Lemon had told the group she was going to develop a more effective fire retardant to replace the fire suppression systems currently used in most buildings. It was hard to understand her when she went into full 'babble' speak, but it wasn't too difficult to pinpoint the source of her new found goal and interest. Since then she had only talked to her once, her hair noticeably shorter and her bubbly personality seemingly popped.

Wasabi had taken to organizing and cataloging the schools inventory and the labs equipment. After the fire, he still hung out with them on occasion, but it was only the call to arms and opportunity to catch the one responsible for Tadashi's death that really brought him around again. With Callaghan imprisoned he all but disappeared into the depths of the campus warehouses.

Fred, she honestly wasn't sure how he was still alive, let alone on his feet. Everywhere she looked she saw him helping with something or someone with one outreach program or another.

It was just like back then, like before, when Tadashi had just been another face, another student, another nobody, just like them. But at the same time, it was different. To say he was their leader would have been a stretch as they actually did very little together as a group. None of them shared any classes together; each had their own interests, their own hobbies and their own projects. It would have been more accurate to say Tadashi was the glue that held them all together.

Before, they had just been themselves. Loners, oddballs, freaks that didn't fit in or trouble makers just trying to keep themselves busy. It had been all that they knew and they had become used to living in their own little worlds. Now however they were cooping, just trying to get by. Even when Tadashi was around they had been alone, but at least they had been alone together.

Now, Fred was empty, Wasabi was lost, Honey Lemon was hurting and she was afraid.

Not of slipping, not of falling back into her old life for once, but afraid for another person.

Hiro

The memory of him removing Baymax's medical chip and ordering him to kill Callaghan was still fresh in her memory, whenever her mind would start to wander it seemed to crop up. Professor Callaghan, as Yokai, had been difficult fighting to say the least, dangerous and effective with using Hiro's microbots as a weapon. Baymax had been in a class of his own; a nearly unstoppable Juggernaut that had taken their combined efforts just to plug his medical chip back in. She didn't think they could have stopped him otherwise.

Even if they had to.

His size, strength, armor, and combat programming hadn't been the main reason they had so much difficulty however. What slowed them, what made them hold back was it being Baymax himself. Not only was he the last shred of Tadashi left in the world, he was the life dream of their best friend, his legacy. Tadashi, the one who had found them and brought them together, offered them his friendship and gave them the closest thing to a family some of them ever had.

But what choice did they have? Callaghan was responsible for Tadashi's death, and for that he deserved to be punished, but not like that. The thought of Baymax being...polluted, perverted, twisted in such a way made them all feel ill, she most of all.

After Hiro and Baymax left them behind, and while waiting for the private chopper Fred had called to pick them up, the topic of what they should do had degenerated into a heated argument, one that revealed several tidbits of information she hadn't been aware of before.

*Flashback*

"I'm telling you, we should go to the police and let them handle this."

"The police? Are you serious? You think we can just walk in there and tell them 'Hey we thought you should know that our dead friends fourteen year old little brother has turned a nurse bot into a killing machine and is hunting down his brothers killer, who also happens to be officially dead. In fact, you were at his funeral weren't you? Professor Callaghan? Yeah, he's actually alive, he just blew up part of the campus to fake his death and steal a kids science project for some reason'. I'm sure that will go over great."

"Well it's not like we have much of a choice! We don't even know where they went, and since none of us can fly we can't just go looking for him!" GoGo snapped back.

"Ummm...I think he probably went home to fix Baymax's scanner," Honey Lemon offered, and fidgeted slightly when everyone turned their focus on her.

"What makes you say that?"

While far from shy, especially among their little group, the sheer heat radiating from GoGo's glare was enough to make anyone nervous.

"Because it...makes sense? We don't know what kind of damage Baymax's scanner took, so Hiro would need a lot of equipment just in case it's something serious. He doesn't have a pass card to get into ours since he never enrolled, and he probably wouldn't want to break into Fred's since it would bring the police. That just leaves his aunts garage."

For a few seconds, the only sound that could be heard was the wind blowing as the others digested the surprisingly easy to follow logic Honey Lemon had laid out for them.

"Great..sooo...like, okay, we know where he probably is, what should we-uh, GoGo, what are you doing?"

Said teen had her cell phone out and was holding up her hand towards Fred.

"Wait, you're not calling the police are you?!"

Before GoGo could even answer the costumed mascot, he knocked the phone from her hand and quickly stomped on it several times.

"Fred?! What the hell!"

"Hey, look, I know we're all kind of on edge right now, but you can't just go calling the police on him like that, Hiro's our friend, we have to help...uh...GoGo?"

Fists clenched and body trembling; the young bike currier took out her gum and stuck it to the side of her helmet.

"Uh oh" was all Fred managed to get out before she tackled him to the ground and started slamming him against the hard concrete. Later, Fred would thank Hiro for the high impact padding he had lined the costume with.

"YOU IDIOT! WHY DID YOU DO THAT!?"

Wasabi moved to pull the much smaller girl off of Fred, but he stilled when she viciously kneed his suit in the family jewels.

Fred would likewise remember to thank Hiro for the extra padded cup the suit had.

Between impacts against the ground Fred managed to get out a reply.

"I hAd to DO soMethIng to StoP yOu gOGO! DoN't yoU eVEr reaD tHe comIcs?!"

His response was just far enough out there to make her pause to figure out what he was trying to say. When that failed, she went for the only other solution she had.

"Explain!"

Slammed once more against the ground, Fred groaned. The suit absorbed a lot of the impact but not all of it, and despite her small size, GoGo was close to Wasabi in terms of strength when she was pissed.

"Remember what just happened back there?" Fred asked weakly, pointing back inside the bunker. "Hiro went off like that because he felt like Professor Callaghan stabbed him and his brother in the back. I don't want him thinking we did too, that might make him go dark side. We can still save him."

While she could see a degree of reasoning to Fred's argument, it carried the same fan boy quality almost everything else he said did.

"You think this is a game?! You think this is some kind of, comic book or something!? Hiro ordered Baymax to KILL someone, not stop him, not capture him, KILL him!"

"I know that GoGo, its why we have to help him! Everything is already stacked up against him, you push him and he's going to turn full blown super villain. Yokai is bad, but if Hiro turns, it will be a billion times worse!"

"Fred-" before she could even start on her retort GoGo found herself bucked off of the mascot who took the opportunity to pin her by her wrists.

"Callaghan is using Hiro's microbots. Hiro invented those microbots, he made them, just like he made all of our suits. He's already got the brains and the background GoGo, all he needs is a reason, you give him that and I promise you he'll turn, and when he does the whole city will be in trouble."

*Gasp*

GoGo, Fred and Wasabi all turned to their fourth teammate in surprise. Unlike last time however there was no shy withdrawing of nervous fidgeting, only a look of pure horror.

"Oh my god, GoGo, Fred's right! We have to help him, we have to-"

"Whoa whoa whoa, time out, hold up, what are you two talking about?" Wasabi asked as his glance passed between Fred and Honey Lemon.

"Wasabi, please tell me you aren't taking their side?" GoGo would have face palmed were her wrists not still being restrained as it appeared the one remaining sound thinker in the group was being pulled away from her.

"Normally, no, I wouldn't, but we just got our asses kicked by a dead guy in a trench coat and Kabuki mask. At this point I'm not going to take any chances just because something doesn't seem possible."

Letting go of GoGo's wrists, Fred righted himself and offered her a hand to help her up, which she refused and got up on her own.

"Think about it from Hiro's shoes. His parents died in a house fire years ago. Then his brother died trying to save someone from a burning building. What would you do if you had that on you, then found out the guy your brother died trying to save not only survived, but staged his death just to steal your invention? His parents and his brother both died in a fire GoGo, people get hung up on stuff like that, it eats away at them and they think it's like, a curse or something," Fred explained.

The only member of the group that dared to do more than stare at the ground was GoGo, who was rubbing her right shoulder and deep in thought.

"It was a house fire?" It had been to herself, but apparently it had been loud enough that the others had heard it.

"You mean, you didn't know?" Honey Lemon asked, clearly surprised as GoGo shook her head.

"To be fair, I didn't know either," Wasabi admitted. "Tadashi never really talked that much about anything outside of his classes or how Baymax was coming along."

"That's not true, he talked about Hiro all the time," Honey Lemon defended, though she wilted under the other three's gaze. "Well...he talked about Hiro a lot whenever he talked to me," she amended."

Clearing her throat, GoGo licked her lips before asking the question now biting in the back of her thoughts.

"What exactly...happened? To his parents, I mean."

Fred and Honey Lemon had what seemed to be a silent conversation between them before he nodded and she looked away.

"I don't really know all the details, but he told me it happened eight years ago-" Fred was interrupted by Honey Lemon "It was ten years ago Fred, not eight." Fred squinted then shook his head. "Nah, it was eight years ago, because when I asked him about that huge scar on his leg he said he got it from a house fire eight years ago. We spent the whole night comparing scars."

Quirking an eyebrow Wasabi asked the obvious.

"Dude, when did this happen?"

"Remember that time Honey Lemon filled the whole Nerd Lab with that pink foam that smelled like pixie sticks?"

"That was two years ago Fred," Wasabi pointed out with a sigh, remembering that day all too well. It took him a month to get everything cleaned and organized again.

"Ohhh right, so like, I guess it was ten years ago then huh? But, yeah, he never said anything about it really, just that it was eight, err, ten years ago, and his parents died. I got the feeling it wasn't something he wanted to talk about, so I didn't bother him about it after that."

Seeing Honey Lemon's feet shifting, GoGo turned to her, and soon so did Fred and Wasabi. The chemistry nerd knew she knew more just from their gazes, and knew that she had to tell them. Swallowing, Honey Lemon took a deep breath to calm her nerves as best she could.

"It...was smoke inhalation. Their aunt and uncle were visiting and everyone was sleeping when the fire started," pausing she looked away for a moment before continuing. "Their parents and their uncle...Tadashi told me that they died saving them."

The impact from that piece of information hit the other three hard, and it was obvious that it was taking everything Honey Lemon had to keep herself together. The thought that his parents and his uncle had died saving him, his brother and aunt, only for his brother to die trying to save someone else, someone who didn't even need to be saved in the first place went a long way in explaining just where all the anger the young boy had came from.

'If it was ten years ago, Hiro would have been three, maybe four when it happened. He wouldn't remember anything, but still...then to lose his brother the same way.' Trying to push down the pang of sympathy that was welling within her stomach, GoGo turned to the remaining three members of the group, each lost in their own thoughts.

"So what do we do Fred? You're the expert on this kind of thing."

If the others were surprised by her asking Fred of all people what they should do, they kept it to themselves.

Looking up at the night sky, Fred thought for a minute before replying.

"We have to show him that he's not alone, that we're on his side and we want to help him. He's super smart, and I think deep down he's still a good guy, but he's still just a kid, and right now he's really hurting."

"Kid or no, he tried to kill someone Fred, and part of me thinks he's been planning this from the start."

"Wasabi! Hiro is our friend, he'd never-" Honey Lemon's defense as well as the argument itself was brought to a halt with a single word.

"No."

As three pairs of eyes became focused on her, GoGo's hand dropped from her shoulder.

"I don't think Hiro wanted to kill him from the start, not after all the training we did to get that mask off."

"All the training we did while he made the giant rocket fist that can punch through brick walls you mean?"

Glaring at Wasabi, GoGo continued. "He only gave Baymax the kill command when we found out Yokai was Professor Callaghan. Before that, he never tried to use lethal force. As much as it pains me to say this, I think Fred is right, at least somewhat. Tadashi died trying to save him remember? Just like how his parents died."

"And...Professor Callaghan said that, that was Tadashi's mistake," Honey Lemon added, doing her best to remain composed. Wasabi's glare (though now pointed at the ground) hardened almost to the same point as Fred's. GoGo on the other hand could almost feel her nails digging into her palms through her suits gloves as Professor Callaghan's words echoed in her mind.

The momentary silence between the four was broken by the loud whooshing of jet wash, that while surprising to three of them barely registered with Fred.

"Uh, dude, I thought you said your family had a chopper, that's not a chopper," Wasabi pointed out as the modestly sized VTOL positioned itself above the group and began its descent.

"I asked Heathcliff to give us an emergency lift; I thought he'd take the chopper, didn't think he'd use the family jet."

As the four climbed into the aircraft, Fred told Heathcliff to step on it and head for Hiro's place. GoGo was preoccupied by the remark Honey Lemon had reminded them of. Now she couldn't stop hearing what Professor Callaghan told Hiro, what had started his rampage. Even as she took her seat they continued to haunt her. Like the others, she had heard them, but in the heat of the moment she had forgotten not only who they had been addressed to, but the circumstances involved. Now that she knew more about the Hamada family history, it just made them that much worse.

"That was his mistake."

Seeing her reflection in the window, she couldn't help but hear her voice again.

"He made a mistake."

The ride from the island to Hiro's had taken barely a minute as 'step on it' from Fred apparently translated to Mach two for Heathcliff; but over the course of that brief flight the voice had continued ringing in her ears, drowning out Professor Callaghan's completely. She was GoGo Tomago, she was a fighter, a survivor, and she didn't take crap from anyone. But when they arrived and she called out to him, when Hiro turned to her, his face, his eyes, she knew them, they were exactly the same as she remembered her own had been. Pushing that voice back to the depths of her mind had taken everything she had, and for that one moment of weakness she wasn't nineteen year old GoGo Tomago. She was twelve year old Leiko Tanaka.

*Flashback ends*

Shaking herself to push away the memories of that night, GoGo arched her back and stretched out her arms with a groan. She felt...wrong, and she didn't like it. The nagging concern that gnawed away at the back of her mind, the guilt that was trying to nudge her was annoying.

'He hasn't bothered coming to class, or even registering for classes,' part of her mind reminded her, before adding 'Remember how excited he was about getting that scholarship?'

"Yeah, the same day his brother died. He was only applying here because of Tadashi," she mentally countered.

Another part of her mind decided to weigh in on the conversation at that. 'If that's true, then why did Tadashi have to trick him into coming here? If he just wanted to be with his brother, he would have applied on his own wouldn't he?'

She hadn't thought about it before, but now that she did, something did seem...off, like she was missing something.

They hadn't exactly been close friends; but she remembered Tadashi mentioning Hiro on a few occasions. She just never really paid much attention, too focused on her bike if she wasn't working on something else. What little she could recall was that Hiro was a bright kid, graduated early, and spent most of his time hustling bot fights. It was only when she saw Hiro at the lab that night she realized Tadashi could have been a bit more specific when saying his brother had graduated early.

After Hiro came up with the idea of his microbots, Tadashi had managed to talk them into giving his brother a hand, each lending their respective expertise or just acting as a sounding board for him to bounce ideas off of in Fred's case. The rules strictly forbid them from directly helping him with his entry project, but there was no rule against answering general technical questions or pointing out fundamental flaws in an idea they might overhear someone talking about. As she had pointed out, it only went against the intent of the rules, not the actual letter. Besides, it was an open secret among the students that everyone had someone help them out one way or another.

The Hamada weren't super rich, they didn't have any friends or family on the school board or who gave large contributions to the university either. Likewise they weren't related to anyone that was famous or important.

Not that Hiro actually needed much in the way of help. Wasabi ended up being the biggest contributor in helping the young genius by virtue of the fact he had both a drivers license and owned a van that could carry large quantities of material. Her bike was fast, but couldn't carry more than a second passenger at best, Tadashi had a moped and Honey Lemon used public transportation.

Still, during that week she genuinely had a good time with the others. Tadashi was more excited and animated than she had ever seen him, Honey Lemon had a hard time keeping up with Hiro and understanding his mile a second thinking, Wasabi was doing something other than organizing a work station for a change, and she had an excuse to drive full throttle.

If Hiro needed to get a specific thing that was small enough to fit in her pocket, who was she to obey the traffic laws if it meant slowing him down?

More than that, Hiro actually knew their work and fields of study, perfectly cable of carrying on a conversation with any of them even as he was working. Whereas Tadashi understood what they were saying, Hiro was able to converse with them, even offer ideas for how to improve their projects.

She sighed wistfully as she shook her head. The day Hiro won that scholarship she had been happy for him, but more than that she had been happy for herself. He was the first person to ever really show an interest in her project, as the idea of a maglev bicycle wasn't something many considered useful or even worth perusing. His own project likewise had intrigued her; the way he managed to work out the microbots electromagnetic polarity to perfectly synchronize with each individual unit and prevent them from counteracting each other was a miniaturized solution to a problem she was still stuck on with her own project.

"I was actually looking forward to him being here," she realized.

She still remembered the last time she saw him, when they dropped him off at his aunt's place, how somber everyone's mood had been from loosing Baymax, Hiro most of all. He had been quiet the entire ride there, just as the rest of them had, but he had held together pretty well, just as he had at Tadashi's funeral. Honey Lemon had been right when she called him a brave little trooper.

The image of him getting out of the car, carrying Baymax's arm with him proved to be the last straw.

"Damnit, I'm not going to get anything done if I can't stop worrying about him."

Letting her face fall onto her table she groaned. She had been fighting and weighing what she should do since they left him that day. Contrary to what Honey Lemon had said, Hiro was not their friend. He was at best an acquaintance, but she knew that he was hurting. Losing his brother had hit him hard, loosing Baymax had just put salt in the wound. They had tried to comfort him and console him after Tadashi's funeral, but he'd just locked himself away and ignored them.

For awhile they had debated among themselves if they should go and visit him or wait for him to enroll. Waiting had lead to them getting busy with their own class work, and as days turned to weeks and weeks turned to months, slowly but surely they had forgotten the young wide eyed boy that so briefly had been part of their lives. That was until the night they got 'the call' as Fred had taken to naming it.

They piled up into Wasabi's van and followed the GPS coordinates Baymax continued to feed them until they crossed paths at the docks. From there it had only been two days that their time together lasted. Spending the night and following morning making their suits, and then spending the afternoon practicing with them. From there they went to the island, found out what had really happened the night Tadashi died, and spent the rest of the night into the following day searching for Callaghan.

Part of her suspected the reason they had been so on edge that entire time was the fact none of them had gotten any sleep since the night before it had all started. Nearly seventy hours of no sleep coupled with nearly getting killed multiple times and only being able to stand on your feet thanks to several liters of energy drinks would set anyone on pins and needles.

Sighing once more she checked her cell phone and noticed the time, it was almost noon.

"Hmmm, almost time for lunch..." Glancing around and seeing that the Nerd Labs other occupants were wrapped up in their own projects, an idea started to come together before her. It was simple, extremely simple, and best of all it was perfectly plausible if she needed an excuse. Rising from her stool, she slipped on her jacket and checked to make sure her keys and wallet were still where she left them.

She felt like coffee for lunch today.

Archer's Soap Box (If anyone catches the reference you get a cookie!)

And that's the first chapter; I hope you guys liked it!

Now, I know many of you are probably confused at why the cast is not a close tight knit group of friends in this story. The reason for that comes from the movie itself. As much as Tadashi meant to everyone, I honestly don't believe they were a group of friends as much as they were all friends of Tadashi that knew each other from the Nerd Lab. This comes from a number of factors.

First, nobody knew Fred was rich. While modesty could be an easy explanation, it struck me as odd that not one of them had any clue he was loaded. If they were all close friends, at least one of them would have been by his house I would think. Second, Hiro didn't know *any* of them, didn't even know their names. This tells me that none of them had ever been to the Lucky Cat Cafe before and Tadashi didn't talk about them to Hiro, or if he did it wasn't often. Third, the only one in the group that knew Hiro by name was Honey Lemon, so we can infer that Tadashi didn't talk about his brother with them either.

I'm not saying they weren't friends or close, I'm just building on them being friends in a sense of classmates that work together and get along well.

Another important point I'm sure many of you noticed was the addition of Hiro and Tadashi having an uncle that died along with their parents. This was done in an effort to make sense of how their aunt Cass (who is obviously not Asian) has the same last name they do, Hamada. In this story she is their aunt by marriage.

If you have any questions, comments or concerns, please feel free to PM me or mention them in a review. Until then, I'll see you guys and gals next issue!