Robert Callaghan // ʏ๏кคเ (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
pushtheboundaries) wrote2014-11-20 07:47 am
pushtheboundaries) wrote2014-11-20 07:47 am
fic; a hundred thousand little pieces p2
They find him, of course.
They find him yelling hysterically at the microbots, confused and terrified and having no idea what is going on. Robert is still in his prison uniform, of course, the bright orange a sharp contrast to the surrounding mass of grey and black. A mass that responds to his every thought, spoke or not; it undulates like he's never seen it before, as though alive, and there's the horrific thought that maybe it is maybe it's got a mind of its own but it still obeys when he throws his hands out and demands it just all stop
everything clatters to the floor as he breathes heavily, closing his eyes, trying to find some inner focus as his head continues to ache and pound.
He's on the island, again, and even as his arms fall to his side he's slowly taking it all back in. He knows he can't hide here for long, but he doesn't realize just how little time he has until there's a sharp sneeze echoing from somewhere and everything turns towards that sound. A dozen snake-heads of microbots form and loop protectively around him, shielding him from view and from attack and
is that Honey?
Professor? she asks timidly, stepping out with her hands before her, and she's in her little suit but damned if Robert can't in the slightest blame her. She's followed by Gogo, and then Fred and Wasabi and Hiro and Baymax all, all suited up because even he can't deny it; this looks bad. But he didn't mean to be here, he doesn't understand what's going on, and he can barely say anything as he takes a slow step back
in to microbots
which then slide up his leg as though to form a suit of his own.
Later, he would admit he handled this badly, even with all of the circumstances; when all is said and done, he panicked. Simply as that.
They tried to catch him, of course, but there's only so much one could do against the microbots themselves; their most useful tool was a resin from Honey, and that could only contain so many at once, and when the others responded to the surge of adrenaline and fear and his mind getting away from him as the need to get away consumed all
he lashed out, of course. Quite a bit. He doesn't even think of hurting them, but that doesn't mean he tries to avoid it, he just can't think and it seems like the microbots are almost more in control of him than anything else.
He ends up collapsing the entire base, critical structural damage, and the microbots whisk him away to 'safety' as he flees from everything that could cause him to think.
Because it's when he thinks that they react.
---
This is how it goes;
Robert will find a place to rest, manage to scrounge up some food, and they will find him. Consistently and constantly. He's worn thin by it all, by their attempts to catch him and trap him and 'help' him, but they don't understand that the best thing for him right now is to be left alone.
So he tries running further. Out of the city. And for a little while, it works, but there's only so many places you can hide a horde of microbots. Especially once his picture gets in the news; he relies on hats and sunglasses and whatever he can think of to hide his face and keep the microbots from trying to do so for him, because they've somehow learned to mimic color and have a habit of trying to shield his face in a familiar but unwelcome white-and-red manner.
He stays by the coast, mostly. The microbot mass hides in the water, while a handful are upon him at any given time, and it takes some practice but he can at least keep them apart as long as he remembers in the back of his mind to stay calm.
Calm is hard. It's all-too-easy to lose his temper and for the microbots to swarm up and around and break the disguise for him, wrecking havoc until somebody - be it the 'Big Hero Six' or someone else - tries to stop him from lashing out at whatever's provoked him this time.
He doesn't want to be stopped. Worse; he doesn't stop himself, not when he'll be walking through a city late at night and there's a scream and he winces because he wants it to shut up and the microbots start to respond-
His 'reign of terror' continues, and there's nowhere he can go to escape the inevitable.
---
It's a lie to say he doesn't try and work with this; he does. He experiments, a bit, to see what if anything dulls his connection to the microbots; by now he's realized that his headaches have something to do with it, so he tries various painkillers with varying degrees of success. It's usually only the stronger ones that have any sort of effect, and those are...difficult...to obtain. At best.
So he turns to theft.
While he doesn't go out of his way to hurt anyone, if they stand in his way, well, that's their own mistake. He deals with them swiftly and efficiently and moves on, taking what he needs and leaving behind the rest, and digs himself deeper in to a hole he still sometimes can't believe he's in in the first place.
His dreams, when not filled with machines and metal and microbots, are of Abigail. His students. Times when he was happy, not just enduring, and there's at some points times when he feels so low, so utterly disgusted with himself that he seriously considers just trying to end it.
He tries, once. The microbots stop him. He screams and rants at them as though they are sentient, because he vehemently does not want to live like this
they catch him if he tries to fall, they carry him if he tries to drown, if he tries to overdose there's a thin little chain that's damnably efficient at keeping him from actually doing it
so he resolves to endure, and try and find some sort of cure for himself while still running from everything.
---
His first night back in San Fransokyo, he comes across a familiar face.
He's taken to traveling by water, at this point; the microbots can create tight enough of a seal around him that if he breathes slowly, he can go under water for periods of time. It's oddly relaxing; likely due to the carbon dioxide he's rebreathing, but while it gets warm, it never gets truly uncomfortable. Maybe they're filtering in oxygen, maybe they're piping in fresh air, who knows. He just keeps the thoughts of being hidden and quick in mind, and avoiding anything, and it seems to work.
(By now, he's understood that no matter what happens, they're still responding to him; possibly his subconscious? It could explain how they sometimes act before he's really formed a thought. If he had the resources, he could do more search in to this, and figure out how it even happened in the first place...he can only assume it had something to do with the neurocranialtransmitter, possibly from prolonged usage, but a theory is only a theory unless you can test it.)
He comes up out of the water to find a handful of visored figures opening a shipping container, and there's a few tense moments of silence as he lands upon the dock and they stare and he stares back. And then he turns away, ignoring them, this isn't his business-
Professor!
He stills, the microbots undulating over him in unease. Already-?
No.
It's Shin, loudly yelling at this is the guy I told you about and so on and so forth and he actually seems glad to see him? Robert remains, confused, as Shin runs up to him like they're old friends and the other two just sort of linger in their own worried bafflement.
He asks how he's not really Professor anymore, huh, how everyone's calling him Yokai, and he only tilts his head at the man (how long has it been? a year? two?) as he tries to get some sort of information out of him while the others look at each other and seem to wonder whether or not they should run. Finally Shin asks for his help, says he wants to introduce him to someone and this'd be a great way to start up with it.
For the sake of having no idea what he's going to be doing here, anyway, Robert - 'Yokai', as they end up calling him, with Shin lapsing to it even after that initial hail - moves to the crates to see what they're up to.
---
Shin introduces him to Yama.
Yama, as it turns out, is the local mob boss in town; he has an eye on crime, and a weakness for botfights. And, soon enough, a healthy respect for Yokai, especially after Yokai's way of introducing himself is through Shin throwing open the doors to the meeting room, and then the microbots oozing in after him before Yokai himself makes his appearance.
(It was suggested that assisting with the theft would be enough, but after understanding whom he was meeting, Robert was seized by the urge to go all out and decided to simply run with it.)
Shin does most of the speaking, with Yokai speaking more through body language, gestures, and a few rough words if it becomes necessary. His own voice is strange to him, so ill-used is it, but it suffices and he is introduced to the others, here.
Some 'friends' of Yama - others, San Fransokyo's more visual troublemakers. Some colorful, some not. Behind the mask, Robert wonders again how his life has come to this, in this sort of company; the mask itself remains cold and angry, taking it all in as Yama picks up as though they hadn't been interrupted at all, already treating Yokai, too, as an old friend.
---
Through Yama, he has an agreement.
Yama can obtain specific equipment for him, specific things he needs; in return, Yokai takes care of some specialized business. Neither considers themselves under the hand of the other, though Yokai couldn't care much what Yama thinks; so long as the mob boss upholds his end of the bargain, so does he. He doesn't particularly like trading favors, but Yama's activity keeps the Big Hero Six off of him long enough so that he can actually do something.
He's able to start working again.
The microbots, as though waiting for permission all along, build him such wonderful things. It's like a dream all over again, and for a little while, he doesn't need any sort of chemical or crutch to find a precious little shard of happiness.
---
He ends up underwater, boring away at the rock there, and ends up with a construction that only he can enter through the aid of his microbots. Shin, occasionally, joins him; the young man, calling himself his Voice, is his direct liaison to Yama and helps him get what he needs. Some of which is raw materials; the microbots may be able to build anything he can dream of but they still need something to start with. And mixing chemicals? That he has to do himself, but when he's able to coat them all in a mixture that's able to reject most scanning technology out there, he's able to relax for the first time in what seems like ages and feel, at least partially, safe.
It's a feeling he never thought he'd feel again.
It only grows as he tests it out and goes out in 'public' with only so many microbots mimicking fabric and clothing (which generally works, so long as he doesn't get too close to anyone) and nobody stops him.
Nobody tries to catch him.
Even when he goes 'home', at the end of the day, it's the best he's felt in years.
---
Highs and lows still happen.
When he's alone, when he's on the rare middle ground, Robert can privately admit to himself that he is perhaps not all right. That the stress is getting to him, and that if things were different, he might accept referral to a therapist. His own anger scares even him; his self-loathing and self-disgust tear him apart when given free reign. He endures. Somehow.
And starts making plans.
Shin works with him to steer Yama's gaze towards Krei, and the company begins to suffer numerous faults. Yama steers him as an enforcer of sorts, and while he refuses to become a hired murderer, things do happen. There are occasional run-ins with his former students, and while he doesn't go out of his way to hurt them...
If they get in his way, they accept they may be hurt. It's as simple as that.
But no true grudge ever comes, not even when Shin contacts him and after some talk about how he's in a local racing circuit and there was this new challenger and she beat him and part of her prize involved him delivering a message to Yokai...
It's strange, but he felt obliged to do it, and it's with some bafflement that the envelope is accepted and Yokai retreats to open it
and for the first time in a while, he can't think at all.
Happy birthday, Professor Callaghan it reads, signed by all of them, a few recent pictures included as well and newspaper clippings and the microbots are still as his hand trembles and he picks the pieces off the floor and looks them over and reads it all and there are tears streaming down his face because after realizing the date it's right on time and even old and broken as he is
they haven't given up on him
and the microbots pull themselves back together as he realizes with a fluttering heart that, for their own sake, he needs to force the issue.
They find him yelling hysterically at the microbots, confused and terrified and having no idea what is going on. Robert is still in his prison uniform, of course, the bright orange a sharp contrast to the surrounding mass of grey and black. A mass that responds to his every thought, spoke or not; it undulates like he's never seen it before, as though alive, and there's the horrific thought that maybe it is maybe it's got a mind of its own but it still obeys when he throws his hands out and demands it just all stop
everything clatters to the floor as he breathes heavily, closing his eyes, trying to find some inner focus as his head continues to ache and pound.
He's on the island, again, and even as his arms fall to his side he's slowly taking it all back in. He knows he can't hide here for long, but he doesn't realize just how little time he has until there's a sharp sneeze echoing from somewhere and everything turns towards that sound. A dozen snake-heads of microbots form and loop protectively around him, shielding him from view and from attack and
is that Honey?
Professor? she asks timidly, stepping out with her hands before her, and she's in her little suit but damned if Robert can't in the slightest blame her. She's followed by Gogo, and then Fred and Wasabi and Hiro and Baymax all, all suited up because even he can't deny it; this looks bad. But he didn't mean to be here, he doesn't understand what's going on, and he can barely say anything as he takes a slow step back
in to microbots
which then slide up his leg as though to form a suit of his own.
Later, he would admit he handled this badly, even with all of the circumstances; when all is said and done, he panicked. Simply as that.
They tried to catch him, of course, but there's only so much one could do against the microbots themselves; their most useful tool was a resin from Honey, and that could only contain so many at once, and when the others responded to the surge of adrenaline and fear and his mind getting away from him as the need to get away consumed all
he lashed out, of course. Quite a bit. He doesn't even think of hurting them, but that doesn't mean he tries to avoid it, he just can't think and it seems like the microbots are almost more in control of him than anything else.
He ends up collapsing the entire base, critical structural damage, and the microbots whisk him away to 'safety' as he flees from everything that could cause him to think.
Because it's when he thinks that they react.
---
This is how it goes;
Robert will find a place to rest, manage to scrounge up some food, and they will find him. Consistently and constantly. He's worn thin by it all, by their attempts to catch him and trap him and 'help' him, but they don't understand that the best thing for him right now is to be left alone.
So he tries running further. Out of the city. And for a little while, it works, but there's only so many places you can hide a horde of microbots. Especially once his picture gets in the news; he relies on hats and sunglasses and whatever he can think of to hide his face and keep the microbots from trying to do so for him, because they've somehow learned to mimic color and have a habit of trying to shield his face in a familiar but unwelcome white-and-red manner.
He stays by the coast, mostly. The microbot mass hides in the water, while a handful are upon him at any given time, and it takes some practice but he can at least keep them apart as long as he remembers in the back of his mind to stay calm.
Calm is hard. It's all-too-easy to lose his temper and for the microbots to swarm up and around and break the disguise for him, wrecking havoc until somebody - be it the 'Big Hero Six' or someone else - tries to stop him from lashing out at whatever's provoked him this time.
He doesn't want to be stopped. Worse; he doesn't stop himself, not when he'll be walking through a city late at night and there's a scream and he winces because he wants it to shut up and the microbots start to respond-
His 'reign of terror' continues, and there's nowhere he can go to escape the inevitable.
---
It's a lie to say he doesn't try and work with this; he does. He experiments, a bit, to see what if anything dulls his connection to the microbots; by now he's realized that his headaches have something to do with it, so he tries various painkillers with varying degrees of success. It's usually only the stronger ones that have any sort of effect, and those are...difficult...to obtain. At best.
So he turns to theft.
While he doesn't go out of his way to hurt anyone, if they stand in his way, well, that's their own mistake. He deals with them swiftly and efficiently and moves on, taking what he needs and leaving behind the rest, and digs himself deeper in to a hole he still sometimes can't believe he's in in the first place.
His dreams, when not filled with machines and metal and microbots, are of Abigail. His students. Times when he was happy, not just enduring, and there's at some points times when he feels so low, so utterly disgusted with himself that he seriously considers just trying to end it.
He tries, once. The microbots stop him. He screams and rants at them as though they are sentient, because he vehemently does not want to live like this
they catch him if he tries to fall, they carry him if he tries to drown, if he tries to overdose there's a thin little chain that's damnably efficient at keeping him from actually doing it
so he resolves to endure, and try and find some sort of cure for himself while still running from everything.
---
His first night back in San Fransokyo, he comes across a familiar face.
He's taken to traveling by water, at this point; the microbots can create tight enough of a seal around him that if he breathes slowly, he can go under water for periods of time. It's oddly relaxing; likely due to the carbon dioxide he's rebreathing, but while it gets warm, it never gets truly uncomfortable. Maybe they're filtering in oxygen, maybe they're piping in fresh air, who knows. He just keeps the thoughts of being hidden and quick in mind, and avoiding anything, and it seems to work.
(By now, he's understood that no matter what happens, they're still responding to him; possibly his subconscious? It could explain how they sometimes act before he's really formed a thought. If he had the resources, he could do more search in to this, and figure out how it even happened in the first place...he can only assume it had something to do with the neurocranialtransmitter, possibly from prolonged usage, but a theory is only a theory unless you can test it.)
He comes up out of the water to find a handful of visored figures opening a shipping container, and there's a few tense moments of silence as he lands upon the dock and they stare and he stares back. And then he turns away, ignoring them, this isn't his business-
Professor!
He stills, the microbots undulating over him in unease. Already-?
No.
It's Shin, loudly yelling at this is the guy I told you about and so on and so forth and he actually seems glad to see him? Robert remains, confused, as Shin runs up to him like they're old friends and the other two just sort of linger in their own worried bafflement.
He asks how he's not really Professor anymore, huh, how everyone's calling him Yokai, and he only tilts his head at the man (how long has it been? a year? two?) as he tries to get some sort of information out of him while the others look at each other and seem to wonder whether or not they should run. Finally Shin asks for his help, says he wants to introduce him to someone and this'd be a great way to start up with it.
For the sake of having no idea what he's going to be doing here, anyway, Robert - 'Yokai', as they end up calling him, with Shin lapsing to it even after that initial hail - moves to the crates to see what they're up to.
---
Shin introduces him to Yama.
Yama, as it turns out, is the local mob boss in town; he has an eye on crime, and a weakness for botfights. And, soon enough, a healthy respect for Yokai, especially after Yokai's way of introducing himself is through Shin throwing open the doors to the meeting room, and then the microbots oozing in after him before Yokai himself makes his appearance.
(It was suggested that assisting with the theft would be enough, but after understanding whom he was meeting, Robert was seized by the urge to go all out and decided to simply run with it.)
Shin does most of the speaking, with Yokai speaking more through body language, gestures, and a few rough words if it becomes necessary. His own voice is strange to him, so ill-used is it, but it suffices and he is introduced to the others, here.
Some 'friends' of Yama - others, San Fransokyo's more visual troublemakers. Some colorful, some not. Behind the mask, Robert wonders again how his life has come to this, in this sort of company; the mask itself remains cold and angry, taking it all in as Yama picks up as though they hadn't been interrupted at all, already treating Yokai, too, as an old friend.
---
Through Yama, he has an agreement.
Yama can obtain specific equipment for him, specific things he needs; in return, Yokai takes care of some specialized business. Neither considers themselves under the hand of the other, though Yokai couldn't care much what Yama thinks; so long as the mob boss upholds his end of the bargain, so does he. He doesn't particularly like trading favors, but Yama's activity keeps the Big Hero Six off of him long enough so that he can actually do something.
He's able to start working again.
The microbots, as though waiting for permission all along, build him such wonderful things. It's like a dream all over again, and for a little while, he doesn't need any sort of chemical or crutch to find a precious little shard of happiness.
---
He ends up underwater, boring away at the rock there, and ends up with a construction that only he can enter through the aid of his microbots. Shin, occasionally, joins him; the young man, calling himself his Voice, is his direct liaison to Yama and helps him get what he needs. Some of which is raw materials; the microbots may be able to build anything he can dream of but they still need something to start with. And mixing chemicals? That he has to do himself, but when he's able to coat them all in a mixture that's able to reject most scanning technology out there, he's able to relax for the first time in what seems like ages and feel, at least partially, safe.
It's a feeling he never thought he'd feel again.
It only grows as he tests it out and goes out in 'public' with only so many microbots mimicking fabric and clothing (which generally works, so long as he doesn't get too close to anyone) and nobody stops him.
Nobody tries to catch him.
Even when he goes 'home', at the end of the day, it's the best he's felt in years.
---
Highs and lows still happen.
When he's alone, when he's on the rare middle ground, Robert can privately admit to himself that he is perhaps not all right. That the stress is getting to him, and that if things were different, he might accept referral to a therapist. His own anger scares even him; his self-loathing and self-disgust tear him apart when given free reign. He endures. Somehow.
And starts making plans.
Shin works with him to steer Yama's gaze towards Krei, and the company begins to suffer numerous faults. Yama steers him as an enforcer of sorts, and while he refuses to become a hired murderer, things do happen. There are occasional run-ins with his former students, and while he doesn't go out of his way to hurt them...
If they get in his way, they accept they may be hurt. It's as simple as that.
But no true grudge ever comes, not even when Shin contacts him and after some talk about how he's in a local racing circuit and there was this new challenger and she beat him and part of her prize involved him delivering a message to Yokai...
It's strange, but he felt obliged to do it, and it's with some bafflement that the envelope is accepted and Yokai retreats to open it
and for the first time in a while, he can't think at all.
Happy birthday, Professor Callaghan it reads, signed by all of them, a few recent pictures included as well and newspaper clippings and the microbots are still as his hand trembles and he picks the pieces off the floor and looks them over and reads it all and there are tears streaming down his face because after realizing the date it's right on time and even old and broken as he is
they haven't given up on him
and the microbots pull themselves back together as he realizes with a fluttering heart that, for their own sake, he needs to force the issue.