Hiro to the Rescue! (3 page)

T
hat night, Baymax and Hiro returned to the old warehouse. It was empty.

Hiro looked at the microbot he'd brought with him. It began rattling so hard in its dish that the lid flew off. The microbot was free! It zipped through the air and disappeared in the fog over the ocean.

Moments later, a large swarm of microbots emerged from the fog. They carried a huge metal piece of some unknown machine—and the masked man! Hiro was scared.
What is this guy up to?

The man rode on top of the swarm of microbots. The power and size of the microbots all working together was frightening.

Hiro and Baymax hid behind a large metal shipping container. The bright glow of headlights surprised Hiro. Then the light went out. Go Go, Honey, Wasabi, and Fred jumped out of a car! They had followed Hiro to the warehouse after Baymax had contacted them.

“No!” Hiro hissed. He waved at them to go away. He didn't want the masked man to see them. “Get out of here! Go!”

But it was too late. The man turned and saw the group. He quickly made the microbots throw a giant shipping container at the friends!

Baymax moved in front of the box and stopped it from falling on the group. He saved them!

Go Go shoved Hiro into the car with Wasabi, Fred, and Honey. A group of microbots slammed into Baymax! They flung him through the air and he landed hard on the car's roof.

“Hiro. Explanation. Now,” Go Go ordered as Wasabi drove as fast as he could.

Hiro told them about the man in the mask. “He stole my microbots. He started the fire!”

Suddenly, Wasabi braked.

“Why did we stop?” Go Go yelled.

Wasabi pointed at the traffic signal and started to explain, “The light's red!”

“There are no red lights in a car chase!” Go Go screamed.

Go Go pushed Wasabi out of the way and started driving. The car zipped along the streets at top speed.

The masked man had the microbots make a ramp in front of the car. Go Go raced to the top—and their car ran off the real road and into the ocean.

The man with the mask watched the car sink. Then he left, riding on a wave of microbots.

The car was now completely underwater. The friends tried to get out.

Baymax quickly took off his armor and grabbed all five of them. He filled with air and floated everyone to the surface. Baymax had saved them again! As they got back on land, no one spoke about what would have happened if the robot hadn't been there.

Hiro looked around, still feeling a little scared. “We should get out of here.”

“I know a place!” Fred said.

The cold, wet group walked through the streets. Fred said his house was close by. But it wasn't a house, it was a
mansion
!

“Welcome to
mi casa
!” Fred shouted. “That's French for ‘front door'!” He grinned.

The door opened and a butler greeted Fred and his friends with a small bow. “Welcome home, Master Frederick!”

Fred led his surprised friends through the big home to his bedroom. It was filled with posters from comic books and life-sized superhero suits.

Baymax gave everyone medical attention. They talked about what had happened.

“Does this symbol mean anything to you guys?” Hiro held up a picture he had drawn. It looked like a bird. Hiro had seen it on the big piece of machinery the microbots were carrying. No one knew what it was.

“Apprehending the man in the mask will improve Hiro's emotional state,” Baymax said.

Fred agreed. He also decided that the villain needed a name, so he called him Yokai, the Japanese word for “bad guy.” Then he sat down at his computer. “I have a theory,” he said. He pulled up the image of...Alistair Krei!

“Think about it,” Fred explained. “Krei wanted your microbots, and you said no. Rules don't apply to a man like Krei. If he doesn't get what he wants, he just takes it.”

Hiro didn't believe Krei was the thief. But he didn't have any idea how to find out who was.

Just then, Baymax started listing Yokai's stats: “His blood type is AB negative. Cholesterol levels elevated. Blood pressure one thirty—”

“Baymax, you scanned him?” Hiro asked. “I can use the data from your scan to find him!”

“This is a job for the police. We're nerds!” Wasabi protested.

Hiro shook his head. “I tried the police,” he said. “Trust me, I'm on my own.”

“No, you're not. We're with you!” Go Go said. If Yokai was responsible for Tadashi's death, then Hiro's friends wanted to find him, too, and bring him to justice.

“Tadashi was my brother,” Hiro said. “This is my fight.”

But his friends insisted.

“Those who suffer a loss require the support of friends and loved ones,” Baymax told Hiro. “Perhaps they would benefit from some upgrades.”

Baymax pointed at a poster of comic-book heroes on Fred's wall. They could be like the heroes in the poster. They could all fight Yokai together.

“Can you feel it?” Fred asked. “Our origin story begins!”

They were a team now.

T
he six friends got to work. Hiro worked with all of their tech to make new super suits for everyone. When they were finished, they took the gear out into Fred's garden to practice.

Honey got a colorful purse with an amazing built-in chemistry kit. It was cute—and dangerous. “I love it! I love it!” she shouted.

Hiro pointed to Fred's butler, Heathcliff. Heathcliff pulled a Kabuki mask over his face. Honey threw chem-balls at him. The chem-balls covered Heathcliff in goo.

Go Go was upgraded with discs that were like wheels for her hands and feet. “Whoa!” she shouted. She moved her arms and legs to keep her balance. Then she took off. She grabbed a hose and skated circles around Heathcliff. The hose wrapped around him, holding him in place.

Hiro presented Fred with a suit that looked like a Japanese monster known as a Kaiju. “Super-jump!” Fred shouted. The elastic suit bounced him high into the air. “And I breathe fire!” He jumped even higher, and a circle of grass surrounding Heathcliff caught on fire.

Wasabi got laser gloves. “Whoa!” he said. He practiced cutting the mansion's decorative pillars, which then fell harmlessly to the ground.

Baymax got new armor, powerful rocket fists, wings, and thrusters for his feet!

Hiro made a suit for himself, too. His armor had powerful magnets in the hands and knees so he could hang on to Baymax when they flew.

“Show 'em what you got, buddy,” Hiro said to Baymax.

Baymax's rocket fist launched from his arm and punched through a wall, then immediately returned to its original position.

Everyone was impressed. “Rocket fist make Freddie so happy!” Fred said.

“Baymax, wings!” Hiro shouted.

Wings extended from Baymax's back. Hiro climbed onto the robot. The first time they tried to take off, they fell to the ground. Baymax really needed to practice flying. “Let's just take this slow,” Hiro said as they rose into the air. But Baymax flew super fast—faster than Hiro had ever gone in his life.

“Up, up, up! Thrust!” Hiro screamed as they soared through the air. They were still unsteady, but Hiro loved it.

Baymax scanned Hiro when they stopped. “Your dopamine levels are rising.”

“Which means what?” Hiro asked.

“Your treatment is working,” Baymax replied. Hiro
was
feeling better. He was feeling great!

They flew back into the air. This time, they went faster and higher.

At the end of the day, the team was ready.

Hiro had also given Baymax a more powerful sensor. Baymax scanned the city and found Yokai. The masked man was just off the coast of San Fransokyo. Baymax flew the friends to Akuma Island. It was dark and creepy.

“The patient is somewhere in that structure,” Baymax said. He pointed at a steel door to the biggest building on the island.

Wasabi cut through the door with his laser gloves.

The team sneaked inside. “With little to no chance of survival, they enter the belly of the beast,” Fred whispered dramatically. He was living his comic-book dream.

They found a control room with a bank of video screens on one wall. Hiro saw the familiar bird image on a monitor. It was just like the one he had seen on the metal piece the microbots had been carrying.
We must be close!
Hiro thought.

Hiro touched a computer key and a video turned on. It showed Krei making a presentation.

“I present Project Silent Sparrow,” Krei announced. “Teleportation: the transport of matter instantaneously through space. Not science fiction anymore. Science fact!”

Krei turned to a girl sitting in the pilot's seat of a small pod. “Ready to go for a ride, Abigail?”

She gave him a thumbs-up.

Krei smiled. The technicians began their work. A large, circular portal filled with swirling energy opened. Then a technician pointed to a computer monitor. Krei stopped smiling. He seemed to be thinking that something wasn't quite right. Evidently, he decided to take the chance anyway.

The pod launched into the portal.
KA-BOOM!
The portal mechanism broke apart, but not before the pod had disappeared inside it!

“The pilot is gone!” one of the technicians shouted.

The group of friends watched in horror. Then the video ended.

“He's stealing his machine back!” Hiro said. He realized that the microbots gave Yokai the power to find and move the heavy metal parts that made up the portal. “And he's using my microbots to do it. Fred, you were right. It's Krei.”

“Oh, no,” Baymax said, turning his head.

Yokai was standing right behind them with a group of microbots!