Landing in Big Hero 6

While recovering after his first fight with Homelander, he had come across a request! He could tell at a glance which world it was from, and the reward was rather interesting.

[Bounty: Could you save my life, or take good care of my little brother? (Tadashi Hamada!!!) Reward: Complete manufacturing algorithms for the medical robot Baymax.]

Lu Wen landed amid broken glass and metal parts. The fierce flames scorched his clothes until they began to smell burnt.

Heat blasted him in the face, and thick smoke laden with an acrid, burnt smell flooded his nose. He instinctively held his breath and squinted, quickly surveying his surroundings.

"This really is quite an emergency."

After a quip about where he had landed, Lu Wen grabbed the hem of his jacket with one hand, spread it open, and spun hard on the spot.

The explosive strength granted by Compound V whipped up a fierce gust around him. Using his jacket as a fan, he blew away the surrounding flames.

With the flames out of the way, he could see his surroundings clearly, including the young man pinned beneath a collapsed display stand ahead to his left.

He was also the client for this job: Tadashi Hamada, the older brother of Hiro Hamada, the protagonist of the animated film Big Hero 6!

Without giving it much thought, he lowered his body and charged over.

Tadashi was in bad shape. Several holes had burned through his clothes, his face was covered in ash and blood, and he was clearly slipping out of consciousness.

A large section of the collapsed display stand lay across his back, and a metal frame pinned one of his legs. A piece of equipment beside him was still smoking. It looked as though its explosion had left him in this state.

"Cough, cough-"

Tadashi gave two extremely weak coughs, his voice hoarse, as though he had inhaled too much smoke.

There was no time for further examination. Lu Wen bent down, flung aside the metal frame pinning his leg and the debris on his back, then grabbed his collar from behind and hauled him off the ground.

The moment he touched him, he distinctly felt how hot his body was! He seemed almost cooked.

"Hold on tight."

He slung Tadashi over his shoulder and looked up to survey their surroundings.

The load-bearing columns overhead were already blackened by fire, cracks spread from the walls to the ceiling, and entire sheets of plaster were falling from the wall ahead to his left. He knew this place would not hold much longer.

Lowering his center of gravity, Lu Wen drove through his legs and launched himself forward.

Boom!

Like a rampaging rhinoceros, Lu Wen kicked huge holes through the walls in his way, rapidly escaping the building as it collapsed in the raging fire.

When he smashed through the last glass curtain wall and burst out of the inferno, shattered glass exploded behind him like hail. Flames and searing heat followed close behind, gushing from the broken window.

He adjusted his posture in midair, bending his knees slightly to absorb the landing, then slid another few meters before finally clearing the blast radius.

Behind him, a deep crash rang out from the entire building as some part of its structure finally collapsed. Flames spewed from windows higher up, and shards of glass and burning debris rained down, scattering across half the street.

Lu Wen shifted Tadashi from his shoulder into his arms. After carrying him a safe distance away, he laid him flat on the grass beside a tree and crouched to examine him.

The burns covered a sizable area, extending from his right arm across the right side of his body, with blisters already forming in several places. His face was cut, and his breathing was shallow and rapid, but it had not stopped. He was still breathing.

"You're pretty tough." Lu Wen reached out to check his carotid pulse. It was beating-weakly, but still beating.

Sirens approached from the distance. Fire engines and ambulances arrived almost simultaneously. Firefighters pulled out hoses and rushed toward the still-burning building, while medical personnel ran toward the injured with stretchers.

Lu Wen went over to fetch some medical personnel and watched them lift Tadashi onto a stretcher, administer initial first aid, fit him with an oxygen mask, and wheel him into an ambulance. The whole process took less than five minutes.

Before closing the door, a nurse turned and called to him, "Are you family?"

Lu Wen stepped forward. "No, I just helped get him medical attention. All I know is that his name is Tadashi Hamada. His family might be nearby."

The nurse glanced at him without asking anything else. After closing the doors and sending the ambulance off, she ran toward the police cars.

Hopefully the American police here can find his family quickly. With this huge crowd, where am I supposed to find Tadashi's little brother, Hiro? Better wait for them to do it.

He glanced in the direction the ambulance had gone, waited a little while, then went to hail a taxi.

"The nearest hospital, please."

The driver glanced at him in the rearview mirror, apparently guessing something from the ash and smoke stains on his clothes. Without wasting words, he stepped on the gas.

The streets of San Fransokyo sped past the windows. Neon signs and holographic advertisements flashed overhead in turn, and flying cars roared past along elevated tracks... Leaning against the window, Lu Wen took the opportunity to admire this fantastical world of technology.

At the same time, he went over what had just happened.

Tadashi must have been trapped in the fire when he posted the request. His plea for help at the very last second had brought Lu Wen there just before the final explosion.

But he had come across this request several days ago in the world of The Boys!

It seemed the system itself had preset this "just in time" difference in timing. That gave him plenty of time to prepare without making the situation of the mission itself any less urgent.

After roughly five minutes, the car stopped in front of a white building.

A sign at the entrance read San Fransokyo General Hospital. A red light shone over the emergency entrance, and two television broadcast vans were already parked outside. A reporter was speaking into a camera, saying things like "fire at the technology expo."

Lu Wen paid, got out, and walked into the hospital lobby.

There was no need to wonder whether his money would work. In American-style productions like this, no matter what era the setting was in, the US dollars they used were always the same!

It was just... pretty amazing~

The smell of disinfectant hit him as he entered. Lu Wen asked a busy nurse for directions and soon found the emergency room where Tadashi was being treated.

"They're pretty efficient! They found his family already."

An Asian boy in a hoodie sat on a bench outside the emergency room.

He looked fourteen or fifteen. A cap rested on his knees, and his head was lowered, his fingers clenched around its brim until they turned white.

A woman stood beside him, her dark brown hair loosely clipped behind her head. She wore a checked apron. She must have rushed over from somewhere without even having time to take it off.

She was holding the boy's arm and speaking softly, her tone gentle, as though comforting him or trying to keep his emotions steady.

Lu Wen walked over and stopped in front of the boy.

"Hiro Hamada?"

Hiro looked up.

His face still had a little baby fat. His eyes and the tip of his nose were red. He had clearly been crying.

He looked at Lu Wen for two seconds, wariness and confusion in his eyes.

"Who are you? How do you know my name?"

"Your brother told me," Lu Wen said evenly. "He sent a message from inside the fire, asking me to look after you."

Hiro froze, opening his mouth and closing it again, as though processing what those words meant.

Aunt Cass froze as well. Her gaze quickly swept over Lu Wen, noting the smoke stains on his clothes and a patch of holes burned into his cuff by sparks.

A strange thought entered her mind.

"Then, my brother... is he..." Hiro's voice trembled slightly.

"He was still alive when I brought him out, but he was badly hurt." Lu Wen pointed at the emergency room doors behind him. "Until the doctors come out, it's hard to say how things stand."

Hiro lowered his head, his fingers whitening around the brim of his cap again. Aunt Cass gently patted his shoulder, then looked up at Lu Wen.

"Thank you."

Her voice was a little hoarse, but fairly steady. "I'm Cass, Tadashi and Hiro's aunt. And you are...?"

"Someone who takes emergency jobs. A kind of hired help, you could say."

"Someone offers payment, and I do the job! This time, I received Tadashi's plea for help, so I showed up and brought him out. He also asked me to help look after his little brother."

Cass looked at him for a few seconds without pressing further.

She reached up to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear, then gestured to the nearby bench. "Thank you for your efforts. Please, sit down and rest a while."

Lu Wen did not refuse. He sat down on the bench opposite them.