Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Chapter 5:

Past:

December 7th

"One of these days, you are going to get yourself killed!"

"You know what they say: live fast, die young!"

"Nobody says that!"

Miguel cried out as two bot fighters appeared at the end of the alley, and he jerked to the side, grabbing Hiro by the arm and yanking him around the corner of the building.

"You know, when you called, saying you needed my help, I didn't think you meant this! I thought you meant with an invention or a shift at the café! Running from bot fighters was not what I had in mind!" Miguel shouted as he shoved Hiro into the dirty, cramped-but thankfully hidden- space beside a dumpster. The but fighters bolted past their hiding spot, none the wiser.

"They'll figure it out soon enough. They may not be geniuses, but they're not stupid either," Hiro told him before beginning to climb a ladder that would lead to the roof of the four story tall building. "We can hide out on the roof and come back down once they've given up."

Miguel's already elevated heartrate sped up as he stared at the ladder that seemed to stretch miles and miles above their heads, a memory of falling, of the ground coming closer and closer and closer, flashing in his mind.

He wrung his hands, nervously. "Um, Hiro, I-I don't know about that."

"It's either this, or take our chances with the bot fighters," Hiro pointed out, not even looking back as he continued to climb the rungs of the ladder on his way to the roof.

Miguel glanced to his right and saw a skinny but still rather intimidating bot fighter talking with another one of his buddies at the end of the alley. The fighter hadn't noticed them yet, but it was only a matter of time.

Come on, Miguel, he thought to himself. Nothing to be scared of. No Ernesto to throw you off the roof this time or a dead line (a literal dead line, I guess) with the sun minutes from rising. Nothing to be afraid of.

With that thought, Miguel inhaled, deeply, and began to climb.

They reached the top of the roof, and Miguel swallowed, resisting the urge to look down.

Of course, he looked down.

The grimy streets were so far below him, it almost looked like they were another world, and the lights of the Land of the Dead-

Miguel shook his head. No, this wasn't the Land of the Dead. This was San Fransokyo. Ernesto wasn't here; Hector wasn't fading away before his eyes; his skin wasn't vanishing, replaced by the nauseating, petrifying sight of spotless bones. He was safe. He was safe. He was safe.

"Miguel, I… I am really sorry I got you into this, but you have to admit it was really fun, right? Miguel?"

Miguel didn't hear Hiro. The boy's voice was drowned out by the pounding of his heart in his ears, overpowered by his breaths that seemed too loud and too fast but any attempt to control it only seemed to make it worse. He felt like he was shaking and frozen at the same time, boiling yet freezing, exhausted yet vibrating with energy. He didn't even notice that he was flexing his fingers and cracking his knuckles or digging his nails into the palms of his hands, as though he was subconsciously reassuring himself that there was skin over those bones.

"Miguel? Miguel!"

A hand touched his shoulder, and Miguel reeled back. Ernesto… Ernesto was back! He was going to throw him off the roof. He didn't want to die; he didn't want to die; he had to live, had to say he was sorry, had to get back to his family, had to make sure Hector was remember. He had to live. He wanted to live.

Miguel was so desperate to get away from the phantom of Ernesto that he didn't notice he was back pedaling too far, didn't notice the edge of the roof getting closer and closer to his feet.

"Miguel!"

Two hands grabbed his just as Miguel felt the all too familiar feeling of falling as his stomach dropped, his balance teetering dangerously, and the hands gripping just wrist yanked him back. Solid ground returned to his feet, and the sensation of falling disappeared.

Miguel, the fear and panic numbing his limbs, fell to the ground. He closed his eyes, not wanting to see the pristine white of his bones or the cruel, remorseless face of Ernesto or the shudders racking Hector's body, orange light pulsing through the aged and cracking bones of a man he had only met that night but considered him a friend… family.

Miguel could feel a presence beside him, but he didn't open his eyes. If Ernesto killed him, he didn't want to see it happen.

"Miguel? Miguel, look at me."

That wasn't Ernesto, but Miguel still couldn't muster the courage to open his eyes.

Something was rested in his hands, something smooth and flexible, flimsy but durable, a cool metal surface.

"Miguel, tell me what it feels like, okay?"

Miguel took a deep breath, not sure why this person wanted him to do this, but if it made the mind altering panic go away, he would do it.

"Um… smooth? Almost flimsy but… not?" Miguel felt disconnected from his brain; he couldn't think straight, and he wracked his brain for a way to describe the object he held in his hands. He was crawling his way back to himself, whether he realized it or not.

"Metal. Cold. A little worn, like it's been used a lot. But it still feels pretty tough. It.. Megabot?"

Miguel opened his eyes, and the Land of the Dead was gone, replaced by San Fransokyo. And it was not the cruel, skeletal face of Ernesto staring down at him, but the concerned expression of Hiro Hamada, the fourteen year old genius sitting beside him, not quite touching but still close enough to be comforting.

"Hiro?" Miguel murmured, disorientation overwhelming him. Thrust into the past and yanked back to the present was jarring, to say the least.

Hiro nodded. "Are you… okay?"

(Hiro felt stupid for asking the question. Of course Miguel wasn't okay!)

Miguel nodded. "Yeah, I think so. I-I…" Miguel felt like he owed Hiro an explanation, but he wasn't sure how to describe the panic or the memory, and her certainly didn't know how to explain what happened to him on Day of the Dead.

Hiro seemed to sense this. "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."

Miguel let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. "Thanks," he said.

Silence descended over them like a heavy cloud.

"Can we just… stay up here for a while? I don't think I'm ready to go down yet," Miguel stated.

The two friends were seated, side by side, in the center of the vacant roof. Miguel didn't think he was ready to face the sight of the sheer drop quite yet.

Hiro nodded. "Sure. We can go down whenever you're ready."

The two of them sat there in silence for a long time, but the silence was not uncomfortable. Just the opposite. They sat there, neither speaking or moving, but simply being together, Miguel unconsciously drawing strength from the presence of his best friend.

After an hour and a half had passed, Miguel was ready to climb down.

Present:

Hamada Residence- Garage

For the next three days, Hiro Hamada found himself running on caffeine, adrenaline, desperation, and gummy bears.

This was not the first time Hiro had found himself in this situation- his high school science fair project, which ended in the near creation of a fatal black hole, was a great example- but it was by far the hardest and the best days of his life.

The first day was dedicated to creating the gear.

"The neurotransmitter must be in his mask."

Hiro spent all of ten minutes figuring out the components of the gear and matching them to the person, basing each suit off of the wearer's area of expertise.

GoGo's was probably the easiest to make, aside from his own. The suit was comprised of a flexible but strong chest piece and leggings that would enable GoGo to move freely but still had a thin cover over them to protect her. The disks attached to her hands (for throwing) and feet (for quick movement, almost like a cross between roller skating and ice skating); the hardest part of her suit was working out the balance when factoring in weight distribution and the highest and lowest velocity, not to mention the different types of ground the disks would have to be able to work on.

"We get the mask, he can't control the microbots."

Wasabi's wasn't necessarily hard, but it required great caution. The suit itself took half an hour tops, but the plasma blades were incredibly dangerous to both Hiro and Wasabi. Hiro built them at a snail's pace to avoid losing any fingers, and then, he had to take extra precautions on the parts of the suit that would cover Wasabi's hands and arms to avoid the plasma weapons harming their wielder in any way.

"Without the microbots, he's just a regular guy."

Honey Lemon's was perhaps the most complex. Figuring out a way to store multiple chemicals without causing a bad chemical reaction was not easy to do. He eventually decided on the purse because… well, because it was Honey Lemon. He crafted small compartments that housed the 'Chem-balls', as he called them, (while making sure to keep certain chemicals separate, lest he risk unpleasant consequences) before entering a system through a series of wires and codes that would allow Honey Lemon to type a combination into the periodic table on the front of the purse and receive that particular Chem-ball(s).

"The mask needs to be our target, which sounds easy, but the hard partner going to be getting close enough to get it."

Fred's was undoubtedly the hardest to make. There were dozens of wires running through the suit, and having it breathe fire in a way that was controllable and would not harm Fred inside of the suit was not exactly a walk in the park. Hiro also had to make the suit waterproof because something told him if those words got wet… it would not be good.

"We need to train learn how to use our gear to our advantage with the primary goal being to get the mask."

Tadashi's wasn't difficult, but it required heavy amounts of precision. Hiro decided to go with invisibility for his older brother. Tadashi was quiet and stealthy, he knew, and invisibility had always been a power his brother had wanted, so Hiro decided to make his wish come true.

"Everybody got it? Good. Let's get started."

(And he also knew invisibility would increase Tadashi's chances of escape if things went south, but he wouldn't tell his brother that. Tadashi would never agree with the slightest chance of Hiro getting captured or hurt, but Hiro wanted Tadashi's 'power' to be something that could protect him. Invisibility could mean escape, and escape meant safety).

Hiro made Tadashi's suit fireproof and as impenetrable as he could manage. He had already lost one brother; he would not lose another.

After some brief consideration, Hiro added these traits to each of the suits. Soon enough, all of the suits were fireproof and resembled armor more than suits for extra protection.

He had already lost one friend; he would not lose anymore.

Baymax's suit was pretty cool, if he did say so himself. It was a lot of different pieces but all of them were simple to make and design. This suit was much more flexible than the previous one to avoid the clunky nature of the 'carbon fiber underpants,' as GoGo had dubbed them. This one also had an awesome weapon that Hiro called the rocket fist, not to mention the ability to fly. He also upgraded Baymax's scanner after discovering that Baymax had scanned the masked man during the car chase and had his information in his database.

Hiro called Baymax's suit his best invention ever.

His own suit wasn't much compared to the others, but he liked it. The helmet could bring up a ton of information, much like Tony Stark's suit in the Iron Man movies, and it also linked to his friend's suits so they could be tracked if one ever got hurt or went missing or anything else. He also had magnets built into the kneecaps and palms of his suit. His suit also went hand it hand with Baymax's (actually, that was his brother's idea).

"Okay, but if we're gonna do this, you need someone with you at all times."

"What? Tadashi-"

"No buts. You stick with one of us or the plan is off."

"But all of you guys will mother me. I might as well not go at all if I'll have a body guard with me at all times."

*sigh* "Fine. What about Baymax? He'll protect you when you need it, but he won't 'mother' you, as you put it."

"Hmm… Deal!"

Anyway, although he would never admit it to Tadashi, he actually liked the idea of sticking with Baymax. The robot was quickly growing on him, he discovered.

The two days after that were all about training, discovering the best way to retrieve the mask from the masked man. If the man was controlling the microbots, the neurotransmitter was likely in his mask, so if they got the mask, they severed the link between the microbots and the man, and it was game over.

Which brings us to…

"Okay, Baymax, show them the fist," Hiro was saying on the fifth day of training, placing his own fist out to indicate the action.

Baymax copied the moment, looking strangely confused for a robot, before he opened his fist, wiggled his finger, and pulled his fist back in upward arch.

"Ba-la-la-la," he said.

Hiro heard Tadashi snicker in the background, and he sighed, not able to contain a laugh of his own.

"No, the other thing," he told the robot.

"Oh," Baymax states, monotonously, before placing his fist out once again.

For a moment, nothing happened, but then, the fist of the armor suddenly detached, and it hurtled towards the wall, colliding with the beige colored bricks of the wall surrounding the garden, causing a spider web of cracks to spread out from the initial impact. The fist did a flip in midair and soared back over to reconnect with Baymax's armor.

Hiro looked at the destroyed wall, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly.

"Uh, sorry about the wall, Fred," he offered, but Fred cut off his apology with an excited borderline squeal.

"The wall? Who cares about the wall? Baymax has a rocket fist!" he exclaimed.

Hiro smiled, glad Fred wasn't mad about him demolishing the wall, and he went on to say, "Oh, and there's one more thing!"

Hiro climbed onto a bench behind Baymax before locking his feet into the foot holds, the magnets in the kneecaps of his suit connecting to other magnets built into the back of Baymax's suit. He grabbed Baymax's shoulders and held on tight.

"Wings!" he announced, and the wings jutted out from the back of Baymax's suit. "Thrusters!"

The thrusters roared to life in the bottoms of Baymax's feet, and the two of them rose off of the ground, Hiro smirking slightly as he watched the faces of his friends and brother morph from impressed to amazed to downright awestruck as they took off.

Unfortunately, Hiro hadn't really practiced the steering yet, and before he knew it, Baymax had fallen flat, skidded a few feet, and was flying one way before jerking into the opposite direction. The two of them rushed mere inches over his friends as they ducked to avoid being hit by the flying robot, and then, they were out of the garden and gliding away from the Fredrickson property, Hiro screaming in both terror and excitement all the way.

"Be back before dark!" he heard Tadashi call after him, and that made yet another laugh bubble out of his throat.

The feeling of flying was unlike anything else Hiro had ever experienced. The weightlessness in his stomach, as if he was falling, and while falling may be terrifying, realizing that you are not going to fall makes the fear transform into excitement. He could feel the vibrations from Baymax's thrusters, and the wind seeped through the openings in his helmet, engulfing his face in a coldness and ruffling his hair. That only increased the euphoria, and Hiro didn't stop laughing for a solid five minutes as Baymax and him soared high above the streets of San Fransokyo.

And for a moment, he was truly happy. Up here, no tragedy, no sadness, no grief, no guilt… None of that could touch him. Up here, he was free.

However, that did nor make steering any easier.

"Up, up, up, up!" Hiro screeched, and he jerked upwards, Baymax clumsily following the desperate command/plead. They barely missed the top of a semi truck.

Baymax landed on the bridge, standing on the edge and overlooking the bay.

Hiro laughed for what must have been the hundredth time in as many seconds. "I think that's enough flying for today, don't you think?" he asked Baymax, breathing heavily as his heart pounded in his chest.

"My scan indicates that your neurotransmitter levels are rising, steadily."

Hiro recoiled a little at the sound of that. He may be a genius, hut his area of expertise was robotics, not medical biology and what not.

"Which means what?" Hiro inquired, nervously.

If Baymax wasn't a robot, Hiro would have said he sounded happy.

"The treatment is working," Baymax answered, and Hiro's stomach dropped as he realized Baymax was beginning to tip, the heavy armor-clad robot slowly leaning until he fell off the bridge. Hiro and his robot companion were suddenly hurtling towards the water, Hiro screaming all the way.

At the last possible second, Baymax's thrusters kicked back on, and the two of them straightened out, flying above the water, the wind from Baymax's thrusters creating a picturesque spray of water around them.

Hiro cautiously opened one eye after realizing that they were, in fact, not dead, and upon seeing the view, a smile found its way onto his face.

If he thought the awkward, clumsy flying had been exhilarating, this smooth flying over the bay was one hundred percent awesome. They soared past buildings and over the water, and even did a few tricks once Hiro got the hang of steering.

The sun was beginning to set when the two of them settled on the big objects hovering over the bay that transformed wind into energy for the city (AN: that's what I thought they did, anyway), Hiro still breathing a little heavily from the excitement with Baymax sitting beside him, experiencing a comfortable silence as they watched the sun sink lower and lower in the sky, painting it cotton candy pink and burning the clouds into the color of orange dream.

"Wow, that was… amazing," Hiro said, smile on his face and light in his eyes. "I… Thank you, Baymax."

Hiro didn't really know what he was thanking Baymax for, and he was sure Baymax didn't know either, but he was positive that even the robot could hear the thousands of meanings and emotions packed into those three words. He was thanking Baymax for so much more than the flying experience. He was thanking him… well, he was thanking the health care companion for everything, and even Hiro himself couldn't name all of the different things everything was formed by.

"Would you like me to deactivate now?"

Hiro jumped at the sudden question, baffled by Baymax's innocent, automated inquiry. "What? Why?"

"The treatment is working," Baymax answered, as if that made total sense, which, I suppose, to the robot, it did. Baymax was a machine; he didn't understand friendship or compassion or loyalty or the way humans rely on people or things they care about. Baymax didn't understand that, at least not yet. He didn't understand that he was more than a machine, more than a robotic nurse, to Hiro. Baymax was his friend, and Hiro really needed one of those right now. He couldn't imagine deactivating Baymax, especially now; it would be like losing another friend.

"No," Hiro snapped, sounding harsher than he meant to as he stood, a little awkwardly as he avoided putting weight on his dead leg. "We still have to catch that guy. Could you scan for him?"

Baymax blinked before his eyes dilated s he did as Hiro asked, a small whirring noise sounding from him as he moved his head back and forth, scanning the entire city with his upgraded scanner.

"I have located the: Masked Man. He is there, at a location known as Akuma Island," Baymax informed him, pointing to the aforementioned island in the distance.

Hiro nodded, the euphoria of flying being rapidly replaced by seriousness as the gravity of the situation crashed over him. "Let's go catch this guy."

"Um, guys, should we really be going to a quarantine zone?" Wasabi questioned, clinging to Baymax's armored leg as they touched down on Akuma Island.

Baymax and Hiro had picked up the others after they had located the masked man, which led to a transportation problem. Baymax could lift a thousand pounds, so he could carry all of them, but Baymax only had two hands. They eventually decided that Wasabi and Fred would hold onto opposite legs while Honey Lemon and GoGo were held in Baymax's arms, and Tadashi and Hiro held onto Baymax's shoulders.

(You do not want to know how long it took them to come up with and execute this arrangement.)

Everyone ignored the paranoid clean-freak as they disembarked, Honey Lemon and GoGo hopping down from Baymax's arms effortlessly with Fred letting go of Baymax's leg and clumsily clambering to the ground (falling on his butt in the process). Wasabi very carefully slid down Baymax's leg to the ground, cautiously climbing over Baymax's thrusters, as if he expected them to activate any minute. Tadashi hopped down from Baymax's back, and he picked Hiro up, setting him on the ground, much to Hiro's chagrin.

"Really, Tadashi?" Hiro sputtered in embarrassment. "I could've gotten down myself."

"Hiro, no offense, but with that leg, you can barely get out of your bed, much less off the back of a robot. We don't know what we're facing in there, so you better save your strength," Tadashi told him.

"Just because I have a dead leg doesn't mean I'm helpless!"

"I know that, Hiro, but-"

"Guys! This sign has a fricking skull on it!" Wasabi hissed, pointing to a yellow quarantine sign with a dark red skull on it.

Everyone turned to Wasabi, raising eyebrows at the paranoid man.

"What? Am I the only one concerned that we could be walking into an environment infected with some kind of deadly virus or radiation or who knows what else?" Wasabi whisper-shouted.

"Woman up, you big baby!" GoGo ordered, punching Wasabi 'lightly' on the should before the seven of them headed for the building.

"Guys! Guys!" Wasabi called before he sighed. "Oh, who am I kidding? They're not listening. Maybe this was a bad idea," Wasabi muttered to himself. "Maybe I should just go home, organize my sock drawer, and drink a nice cup of coff- dang it, Baymax is my ride! Guys, wait up!"

"So how are going to get in?" Fred asked as he jiggled the doorknob, which was-no surprise- locked. "Oh, I know? Wasabi, use your laser hands!"

"Plasma blade, Fred! Plasma blade!"

"I've got this," Hiro said, examining the lock. "Tadashi, give me your credit card."

"Really, you're going to drain my bank account now?"

"Tadashi!"

Tadashi handed his little brother his credit card, and Hiro inserted the card between the door and the door frame before sliding it downward. He heard a click, and he smiled triumphantly as he pulled the door open and handed Tadashi his credit card.

"Hiro," Tadashi began, a little skeptically and more than a little confused. "Where did you learn to-"

"Let's go," Hiro interrupted, ducking through the newly opened door, shortly followed by Baymax.

"Hiro!" Tadashi hissed, but Hiro ignore him. Tadashi turned to his friends for back up, but they all just shrugged and followed the raven haired genius deeper into the building.

Tadashi sighed, running his hand down in his face in exasperation. He mumbled, "Unbelievable," before following his friends and brother into the mysterious building.

"Fred and his angels on an adventure on Akuma Island to defeat Yokai-"

"Fred… I will laser hand you in the face!"

"I thought you said it was a plasma blade."

"Fred-"

"Guys!" Hiro cut off the argument. "Focus! Baymax, have you got anything?"

A soft whirring sounded as Baymax scanned the building.

"This structure is interfering with my sensors," Baymax informed them, matter-of-factly.

"Oh, great! The robot's broken," Wasabi stated, sarcastically.

"Wait, guys, I hear something," Tadashi hissed, and the others immediately quieted, allowing the sound of clinking and whirring to become distinguishable in the now dead silence of the building.

"Through here," GoGo murmured, so lowly that the others wouldn't have been able to hear her if no one even dared to breathe. The girl twisted the doorknob of the closest door as quietly as possible before pushing it open, allowing the group to sneak in under the shadows of the poorly lit room with GoGo in front and Honey Lemon bring up the rear.

The first thing they saw was the device. It was a metal ring that towered over them, an identical (although not completed yet) one beside it. It sat in the center of the room with several spare parts surrounding it, and the group had stepped through the doorway and onto a platform that overlooked the construction sight.

The device was hard to miss, but the second thing they noticed was that the noises that had drawn them to the room had silenced. There wasn't any sign of movement in the room. No sparks, no microbots, no Yokai.

"Well, I guess this was a bust. Maybe we should head-"

Wasabi was abruptly cut off the clicking of microbots, like hundreds of spiders scuttling across the floor, and the group barely had enough time to turn around and see a huge slab of rock heading straight for them, whistling through the air. Five feet away. Three feet away. One foot away.

Zero feet away.

The group braced themselves for impact (a few with more dignity than others. Wasabi and Fred screamed like little girls, and Hiro is pretty sure he heard Tadashi squeal as well. Normally, he would tease him for that, but as they were about to die, he couldn't blame his brother or even Fred and Wasabi for shrieking high enough to make the birds fly away), and they all closed their eyes, not wanting to see their approaching doom…

But it never reached them.

Instead, Baymax lifted his armor-clad arms to the sky and allowed the rock to fall onto his hands. The robot slouched a little under the weight but managed to keep the chunk of debris aloft and even toss it away from them.

That was when Yokai appeared.

Yokai rose above them, a masked figure riding a wave of darkness, a villain straight out of a comic book. Empty, soulless eyes stared out of the painted mask, two vacant pits set into the face of a demon.

Don't think like that, Hiro, the fourteen year old chided himself. Without the microbots, he's just a regular guy. Focus on getting the mask, and then, he will be just like you and the others.

Surprisingly enough, Wasabi was the first to react, and it wasn't with a scream. His eyes displayed fear, but his body moved with an adrenalized instinct, his plasma blades bursting from his arm guards and slashing at the column of microbots that had been barreling towards them.

The plasma blades cut straight through the microbots, destroying some and separating the rest from their counterparts, splitting the column in half and causing the redirected microbots to pound into the wall instead of the heroes they had been aiming for.

Just like that, the fight was on.

A lot of things happened at once, and to an outsider, it looked like utter chaos, but that was what the seven of them were counting on.

GoGo and Honey Lemon were the First Wave. Honey Lemon pummeled Yokai and the microbots with chemballs while GoGo skated around the villain, no more than a yellow blur, landing disk after disk on him, barely waiting for the thrown weapon to return to her hand before launching yet another attack.

Fred and Wasabi were the Second Wave. The microbots were, unfortunately, fire proof, but if there was enough force behind the fire, it could be used to separate them, shrinking the effectiveness of a microbots attack. A ripple was easier to take out than a tsunami, basically. Fred would blast the microbots with enough force to divide a wave into more manageable tendrils, which Wasabi would focus on destroying.

The four of them kept Yokai busy, and Baymax and Hiro went in for the kill…

Not literally.

"Let's do this, Baymax," Hiro whispered to the robot before the duo were off, spiraling towards Yokai in the center of his sea of microbots, the thrusters at full power.

Baymax reached out his fist and was prepared to snatch the mask from Yokai when…

Yokai caught them, raising his fist, and the microbots obeyed his commands, wrapping around Hiro and Baymax, crushing them until Hiro is sure he heard his spine pop under the pressure. Hiro groaned in pain as his lungs were squeezed, making it hard to breathe with the microbots restricting hid airflow.

"Oh, no," Baymax said, which pretty much summed it up.

Except for one thing Yokai didn't factor into the equation.

The mask was yanked off of Yokai's face without an ounce of gentleness, and Yokai, his face still shrouded by his cloak whirled around, only to receive a foot to the chest, sending him sprawling.

The microbots dropped to the floor, Hiro and Baymax falling with them.

Drinking in great breaths of oxygen, Hiro smiled in relief at the mask that seemed to be hovering in midair in the spot where Yokai had been.

"Hello, Tadashi," Baymax said, always a man (well, robot) of few words, and the cloaking technology disappeared, rippling as it was deactivated, to reveal Hiro's older brother standing there, the mask held triumphantly in his hand.

"That was AWESOME!" Wasabi cheered.

"Yeah. I was all like- bam, bam!- and you were all like- whoosh, whoosh!" Fred agreed, mimicking blasts of fire and blade movements respectfully.

"Yeah, it was-"

"Guys?" GoGo interrupted, and any adrenaline-fueled excitement immediately wore off as the seven of them turned to the unmasked figure still lying on the floor, slowly climbing to all fours.

Hiro walked towards him. He was so focused on Yokai, on discovering the identity of the man who set the fire that killed his best friend, that the pain in his leg went unnoticed as he approached the murderer.

"Let's see who you really are," Hiro said, voice frighteningly emotionless, eyes almost as empty as the ones that had stared out of the mask only minutes ago.

The man made it to his feet, and without further hesitation, Yokai spun around to face them, anger burning in familiar eyes and a scowl fixed on an even more familiar face.

Tadashi's jaw dropped, and Hiro's pretty sure GoGo, who is known for her indifferent attitude, gasped. Honey Lemon actually took a step back in shock, and Fred looked like someone had just slapped him across the face. Wasabi's eyebrows shot up into his hairline.

As for Hiro? He just stood there, staring at a man he had admired (admittedly not as much as his brother or his friends, but had still admired), staring at the man who had been the inspiration for so many of Hiro's inventions, including Megabot and the microbots. No emotion passed over his face. He was too shocked to even express his own astonishment in that moment. The only outward sign of his confusion and horror and betrayal was a signal word, spoken with both no emotion and too many emotions to name:

"Callaghan?"