hi guys! i'm sorry it's been so long since we posted but here is the next chapter. it's a little short but hope you enjoy! also, since i am working on other projects, tadashinfj will be taking over most of the story from here on out so kudos to her!

please read and review!

—HIRO—

I slam the door behind me and slide down it to sit on the floor, breathing hard. I don't like to admit it, but I'm not a huge fan of spiders in general, and especially not huge, robotic, laser-shooting ones.

"Hiro!" Honey stands up, moving gingerly to favor her wounds. "What happened?"

"Got attacked at SFIT," I gasp. "Professor Granville...lasers...robotic spiders..."

The rest of the team exchange looks that plainly say Hiro's gone crazy. I attempt a glare, mostly failing due to the fact that I'm still gasping for air.

"This is what happens when you don't listen to me," GoGo tells me. "You either get attacked by robotic laser spiders or you start hallucinating robotic laser spiders."

"I am not hallucinating," I growl.

GoGo looks skeptical, but she doesn't push it.

"Are you okay, Hiro?" Honey asks worriedly.

"I'm fine," I say automatically, deciding not to mention my singed hair or the scorch mark on my sleeve. Technically, those aren't injuries, but I don't want anyone to worry. "We should probably be more worried about whether we should add Professor Granville to our list of enemies."

"I think she just wanted to protect the school, Hiro," Honey says gently. "She might not even have known it was you."

"She's not stupid." I pull off my helmet, letting more fresh air into my lungs. "She sees me almost every day. I don't think a tinted visor is enough to disguise me to her."

"I think you're overreacting," Wasabi says bluntly. "Granville's a nice enough lady. She gets kinda scary, but she doesn't seem all that interested in world domination."

I run a hand through my windblown, tangled mess of hair. "I'm telling you guys, she's trouble."

"Leave it alone, Hiro." Wasabi pours a glass of iced water and hands it to me. "If anything else happens, we'll deal with that when we come to it."

I take a sip. "Anyway, I got Baymax's tracker."

That raises everyone's spirits a bit, and it occurs to me that it's a lot quieter in here than it normally is. "Hey-where's Fred?"

"Napping," Honey replies. "He's trying to store up enough sleep to be able to stay awake for years without getting tired."

"Right," I mumble. "Because that's possible."

Wasabi shrugs. "You know Fred. He does the impossible all the time."

My fingers brush something in my pocket—the tracker. I pull it out and power on the miniature tablet.

GoGo casts a glance at it. "What's that?"

"Tracker for Baymax," I answer. "Should help when we go to rescue him."

The screen of the tracker shows Baymax's location as the police station, which we had already guessed, but it'll make the actual mission much more efficient. I get up and walk around the base, watching the map spiral around Baymax's symbol.

"We can get there tonight," I say, checking the time—almost 8 a.m. Getting the tracker didn't take as long as I thought.

"Tonight's too soon," Honey says. "The police will still be on their guard, and Hiro, I know you don't want to wait, but..."

"No." Distractedly, I rub off a scratch on my visor. "We're going tonight. At least I am."

"It's not safe," Wasabi argues."

"I'm with Hiro." GoGo is already halfway through putting on her armor. "We should go as soon as we can."

"You guys could get hurt," Wasabi tells her. "Or worse."

"They're not going to kill us."

"I wasn't talking about getting killed," he says nervously. "I was talking about getting arrested."

GoGo grabs his shirt, yanking him toward her. "Are you on my side or not?"

Wasabi glances between his girlfriend and Honey. "Maybe we should go tonight?"

"Good choice," GoGo says, releasing him.

Honey sighs. "Guys, I think it's a bad idea—"

"And Hiro thinks our thermodynamics professor is evil." GoGo shrugs. "Do you believe him?"

"Well-"

"If we get caught tonight, you can say 'I told you so,'" she says fiercely. "Until then, I'm always right."

"She's always right," Wasabi squeaks.

GoGo stands up to disappear into her room. "I'm going to take a nap. Wake me up when it's time to break into a high-security government facility."

She shuts the door, and the rest of us are left awkwardly standing around in the entryway. Naturally, Fred chooses now to return to the waking world.

"Hey, guys!" He yawns. "What'd I miss?"

Wasabi fills him in, and, Fred being Fred, he wants to come. He goes on for a few minutes about how this is just like when Captain Fancy rescued some sidekick or another from prison by performing incredible acrobatics over projected lasers strong enough to cut off a man's hand—

"I don't think there will be many lasers," I tell Fred. "And if there are acrobatics, I think GoGo is gonna be the one doing them."

"Aw man," he says dejectedly. "I wanted to practice my backflip."

"We can do that later." I remove the rest of my armor, piece by piece. "You should probably get back to your nap. It's going to be a busy night."

I leave my thrusters off as GoGo and I leap from roof to roof. They're tricky jumps, but I can manage it without the extra boost. Fred is taking the lower route, hopefully able to draw off the authorities if we're seen. The police are likely to chase after the more accessible target.

I feel selfish making Fred be the distraction, but in my defense, he volunteered, and it was GoGo's idea to have a distraction in the first place. In fact, our resident fire-breathing lizard seems thrilled at the idea of police shooting at him while GoGo and I pry open windows and smuggle a ten-foot-tall, armored robot out of a prison. It does help that he would be super jumping and breathing fire.

I can't lie—I'd feel better if Meg was here. But she's been sleeping off her injuries from the crash all day, and she was pretty banged up. Besides, I've been trying to get her to take a rest since we came back to Basemax. If she's doing it voluntarily, I'm not about to stop her.

"That one," GoGo says under her breath, pointing toward the police station's familiar outline. "That tracker say the same?"

I pull out the tablet and set it to find location, then type in the code for Baymax's chip. Sure enough, Baymax's symbol is smack in the middle of the building across from us.

"Confirmed," I whisper. "Let's go."

We land on the roof and follow Baymax's location until we're standing directly above where he's being kept. I stare resentfully at the very thick ceiling, wishing we had thought this through a little better.

"Step back," GoGo warns me. I back off and let her do her thing—spinning her disks until they cut through the stucco.

GoGo lands on the floor with a soft thud. My landing is more like a clang—the room is made almost entirely of metal. Baymax sits in a corner, the left side of his armor riddled with bullet holes but otherwise intact.

"Baymax!" I rush toward him and open his access port, checking that both chips are still there. "Baymax, wake up!"

Baymax's eyes blink open. "Hello, Hiro."

"Come on, Baymax, we gotta go!"

I get behind Baymax and lock my gloves and knee pads into his magnetic ports. "Thrust!"

"Hold up." GoGo holds up her hand, and her disks zoom back into place. "We can't just blast out of here. We'll be seen."

Knowing she has a point, I drop back to the floor. "Then what should we do?"

"Comm Fred," she says. "Tell him to draw off the cops. I'll try to make a bigger hole."

I press the button on the side of my helmet that puts me through to Fred. "Fred! Come in!"

"Roger that, Hiro!" Fred's voice comes through.

I pause. "Usually you say roger after I tell you what to do."

"Oh. Sorry."

"Get to the point," GoGo hisses at me.

"Fred, we need a distraction," I tell him. "Can you draw off the police until we get Baymax out?"

"Absolutely!" A whooshing noise comes from the other end of the line. "Can I say roger now!"

I roll my eyes. "Sure."

"Yes!"

I hear something like a small explosion as Fred silences the comm, yelling about roger.

I climb onto Baymax's back and hold out my hand to GoGo as she finishes carving the larger hole. She climbs up without taking it.

GoGo presses her comm button. "Fred, are we clear?"

"Clear!" Fred yells. "Well—you guys are clear—I'm kind of trapped in a circle of policemen with guns—well, there's also women, so police-folk—but I am o-kay!"

"We'll pick you up on the way out," I say. "Baymax, thrust!"

Baymax's thrusters power up and we blast through the hole in the roof. I glance down at the street as we soar into the sky, and sure enough, a group of officers surround a familiar blue figure, guns aimed at Fred.

"Hold on!" I yell, steering Baymax toward the circle. "Baymax, grab Fred!"

Baymax reaches out and seizes Fred's suit as we draw close to the ground and picks him up, knocking over several officers as he does, and we fly away.

—MEGAN—

Hiro's helmet clatters to the floor as he stumbles through the doorway, and I relax a little. He's safe. But I'm still mad at him for not inviting me to come.

"How're you feeling, Meg?" Hiro asks as he strips off his gauntlets.

I cross my arms. "I would be better if you hadn't run off to break your robot out of prison without me."

"Meg, you have a sprained ankle—"

"And you have two pulled muscles and stitches in your leg! You're one to talk!"

Hiro rubs the back of his neck. "Fine. I'm sorry."

I huff and flop back onto the bed I've been confined to since we got to Basemax. I won't say it, but my ankle still really hurts. It might be a good thing I didn't go to get Baymax with the others.

Hiro sits down on the bed next to me. "Meg, I'm sorry. Really. I just...I just didn't want you to get hurt."

"It's okay." Fred calls for a team meeting, and Hiro stands up, offering me his hand. "I'd probably do the same thing."

I take Hiro's hand and feel my face grow warm at his touch. Unaccustomed to the gesture, I pull my hand back and almost fall over. Hiro's cheeks flame, and he avoids eye contact with me as we head into the meeting room.

"Everybody here?" Fred calls with unnecessary volume. "First things first, welcome back Baymax, congratulations everyone, etc..."

"Get to the point," GoGo growls at him.

Fred's face falls at her hostile tone, and he scoots a few inches further away from her. "So...there's a possibility one of the officers might have seen my real face."

GoGo's eyes turn to stone. "What."

Fred offers a nervous smile.

GoGo sits back in her chair. "Well. I'm going to kill you."

"Please don't do that," Fred says.

"Baymax?" GoGo turns to look at the robot. "Do you have a scalpel?"

Fred yelps and ducks under the table.

"Baymax?"

GoGo's voice is unsteady, and if GoGo is scared, it can't be good. I slowly turn to see Baymax's eyes glowing red.

Baymax raises his fist and starts to power up the rocket thrusters. Hiro and I swear in unison as the fist shoots between us and crashes into the wall.

The fist zooms back toward Baymax, and he aims it at me. The rocket releases.

I scream as a force slams into me from the side, knocking me to the ground. The rocket fist crashes once more into the wall, and I look up to see that the thing pinning me to the floor is Hiro. His body shields mine, nearly on top of me as a result of the tackle.

Fred lets out a yell as Baymax slams him into the wall, and GoGo rushes over to help him. Hiro pulls me to my feet and sprints toward Baymax.

Honey sees what Hiro is doing and waves her arms, getting Baymax's attention. "Baymax! Over here!"

Baymax blasts a rocket fist at her, and she throws a chem-ball at the ground, the pink substance forming a bubble around her. The fist shatters her protection, but the bubble deflects it enough that she isn't hit.

Hiro leaps onto Baymax's back, barely hanging on without his magnets. Honey throws another pair of chem-balls into the air, and Wasabi slices them both open with his plasma blade, creating a purple fog that momentarily obscures Baymax's vision.

I run toward Hiro, but my ankle collapses, and I let out a cry of pain as I tumble to the floor. I look back to see my brace lying a few feet away.

Baymax aims his rocket fist at me. I struggle to get up, but my ankle won't support my weight.

Hiro scrambles onto Baymax's shoulders and reaches over to his access port. Baymax's fist stills and turns away from me, instead seizing Hiro's hand. His fingers close.

I hear a cracking sound and Hiro screams in pain as Baymax crushes his hand. Honey throws another chem-ball at Baymax, but instead of releasing Hiro, his fist tightens and Hiro lets out another cry of agony. I snatch up my brace and rapidly strap it back onto my ankle as Baymax throws Hiro to the ground.

"Hiro!" I drop to my knees next to him. "Are you okay?"

He pushes himself halfway up, grimacing. I see the tears in his eyes before he turns away to hide them.

"I'm okay," he says through gritted teeth. "I'm—" His eyes widen. "Meg, look out!"

He grabs my arm with his good hand and pulls me against him. I gasp as Baymax's rocket fist grazes my arm.

GoGo's disk slams into Baymax's access port as the fist locks back into place. Baymax freezes, and she snatches the foreign chip from his port. The red glow in his eyes disappears.

Baymax blinks, his eyes moving from GoGo to Honey to Hiro, lying on the ground clutching his broken hand to his chest. Hiro's eyes are squeezed shut, and a single tear escapes. Baymax walks over to Hiro and gently pulls him to his feet.

"My healthcare protocol has been violated," he says. "I apologize for the distress I have caused. I will scan you now."

His gaze runs up and down Hiro, and a small beep issues from Baymax as the scan finishes. "You have sustained three fractures in your left hand. These have affected your fourth and fifth metacarpals as well as your fourth phalange. A brace or cast is recommended."

"Hiro, look at this." GoGo shows him the chip that was in Baymax's port.

Hiro takes the chip: dark purple, emblazoned with an unfamiliar symbol. His eyes narrow as he takes it in.

After a moment, he breathes one word.

"Obake."