#coldfeetwarmflames

With a shake of his head, Tadashi locked the scooter and helmets in a tight spot, just hoping his ‘Only Love’ as Hiro called it, would be alright. “Let's not dilly dally, you got a bot fight to win right? Hurry up already.” He encouraged, putting a smile on his face. Beaming brightly Hiro began moving, quickly leading Tadashi to the back entrance of the building. It was louder back here and as soon as they entered they knew they were in the right place. He grabbed Tadashi’s arm and pulled him along, weaving his way with practiced ease through the crowds. Eventually he stopped and gave the hand sign for Tadashi to stand back. Tadashi complied and crossed his arms in amusement as Hiro winked and straightened his posture.

Now for the play.

It didn't take long at all for Hiro to remove the cocky, confident expression from his face and instead Hiro looked around with wide, shy eyes and he pulled Megabot up to his chest, holding onto his robot like a small child would to their favorite toy. He moved to make himself look as small and as innocent as possible. “Is it too late to join the competition . . .?” He tried to call out, getting chuckles from the hard core fighters surrounding them. Anna ignored those laughing and smiled brightly, holding the plate out, the hand not holding the collections plate going to her hip, cocking it out and almost going into a strut position. “If you got the money, you can join.”

Hiro pulled crumpled up money from his hoodie and put it on the plate before Anna gestured him to get into position. “You're first then, last in always is.” She instructed. He took his seat, watching as the ginger haired girl with low pigtails and pink overalls stood in the center of the crudely painted circle for the bot fight.

“Round oneee! New comer . . . uh . . .” She  paused, nose scrunched up and trying to remember if she had even gotten the kids name, remembering she hadn’t. “Hiro. Hiro Hamada.”

“Thanks.” She stood tall and began to address the crowd again. “Hiro Hamada against our bubbly princess Punzie!”

A girl the height of Hiro moved onto the other cushion, smoothing out the pink pleats of her dress and her dark tights before smiling. She set her lizard styled robot before her, taking her controller and flicking activation switch in the center.

“Ready to lose?” She questioned, grinning, brown with blonde streaked hair falling into green eyes. Hiro couldn't help but flicker a grin on his lips that almost showed how confident he was.

“Not a chance.”

-

The first three matches were easy, beyond so to the point that Hiro wondered if he had accidentally wondered into a beginners bot fighting ring, which made him feel guilty as he won without even having to do much work or show the real side of his robot. The first girl was understanding and shrugged, laughing it off and commenting how she didn't usually win with her robot, she was still learning how to build 'Pascal' up into something great. The second was a redhead named Ariel who had what looked like a seashell and seastar in her hair, pushing it back from one side and over the other shoulder. She was easy to beat and she pouted with thick lips after at the fact of losing but didn't whine as expected.

Now Tiana, she was a bit of a challenge, but not for the reason that would be expected. He had gotten distracted for a moment, giving her the edge when she had commented how she only played and fought with her bot when she and her husband weren't working at her restaurant 'Tiana’s Place' and in a flash, Hiro remembered that this was the woman his aunt went up against every year for the annual award for ‘Best Café’. Oh, he just had to win, for the honor and dignity of his aunt.

And with pride he did.

When it came to his fourth opponent who had won all her other matches, brutally destroying a lot of the other bots. Hiro had witnessed a few of her wins from the corner of his eye, including a guy named Eugene 'Flynn Rider. With that Hiro decided he was ready to make things interesting and finally clicked and expanded his control panel causing the face of his robot to switch from smiley-yellow to angry-red, Megabots true fighting side. Now he was showing just a fraction of what it could do. The battled felt longer then it was, ending when Hiros bot ripped the arms off the bear styled robot of Meridas and the girl tossed her controller down, swinging her fists in a moment of huffy rage before calming, pushing wild hair back and giving him a gruffy 'congratulations' in her thick accent.

Finally, it all came down to the leader of the ring. Hiro leaned back, his hand holding him up and he gave a confident look, finally showing just how little he was trying the entire time. He watched the 'queen' step up and take a seat, Anna giving her a big thumbs up and a grin, showing obvious favoritism but that was fine because Hiro had Tadashi who, more than once, had been caught blurting out 'Get them Hiro! Come on bro!' before realizing what a loser dork dweeb he was for it and covering his mouth in embarrassment.

Elsa tilted her head, giving a huff as she looked over the one who had made it this far. A child? Really? Ugh, what was bot fighting coming to? She looked to the money put in and the bets added from everyone. That was a good-looking pile of cash. Every person who had lost previously that night had to add their money to the winners stash and bets were added on top of that, so now it was one large, almost insane stack of both messily and professionally rolled wads.

“If you really think you got a chance of winning, I highly suggest you let it go, kid.”

“Not a chance.”

Blue eyes narrowed slightly and Elsa controlled her bot with skill and ease, moving it into the ring, the jewel in the center shimmered brightly, the arms flexing and moving into a combat pose. She had been observing his last match against Merida and she had a basic idea of what she was up against. She didn't know what kind of weakness his bot would have, but she hoped that the fact hers had a high tech cooling system that kept her robot at new frigid temps would go in her favor as most robots worked off heat and when they got to cold, would lock up. All she had to do was keep the match going long enough so Hiros bot would lock or glitch.

Honestly it had been foolish, she thought in hindsight, to believe that she would have the upper hand because of that reason alone. She barely lasted longer than Merida had and she, along with most of the crowd gave the newcomer a stunned look as he collected his winnings From Anna. Finally, Elsa stood as Hiro started shoving his handfuls of cash into a backpack he had brought.

“Exactly who ARE you?” She demanded in a sneer, ignoring the small tug of her sister Anna to her elbow to not try and start any fights. “I mean, how DARE you come here and hustle my ring, I am the top of the LINE and yet you-”

“I didn’t hustle you.” Hiro said in a 'as a matter of fact' tone as he zipped up his bag and tossed it over his shoulder, gripping the bag by one strap. “I mean, I came to hustle you, but you were all… just… Really bad.”

There were gasps and whispers throughout the crowd and Elsa took a few angry stomping steps forward with grit teeth, about to lecture this little insinuate brat in order to protect her pride and honor only to be cut off before she could even begin.

Flynn stepped in, holding his hands up in surrender signaling the woman to calm her jets and not to work her braid into knots. He carefully took Hiro by the shoulders, leading him to where Tadashi was already standing, the rest of the warehouse starting to clear out already. No one wanted to risk cops coming and getting them now that the fun was over.

“Hey Hiro! So I was watching you out there and you have some real skill kid! But listen, if you wanted a challenge this really wasn’t the most ideal place to come,” Flynn ignored Hiros sarcastic ‘no kidding’ along with Elsa growling at him in annoyance and pushed on “Tell me, have you heard of a place called the Dragon Den? It’s just out of town.”

Hiro’s dead silence was enough to tell Flynn that,  He had not heard of the Dragon den, so he continued.  “I mean, Elsa is good, there is no denying that and Punzie has been bot fighting here since forever, but this other place . . . I've been there a few times, and it's on a whole other level.”

“This was supposed to be the top place in San Fransokyo and you’re telling me there is somewhere better?” Hiro challenged and crossed his arms with a snort.

“It’s in an area specifically built for botfighting. And if you can take out Elsa in a matter of minutes, then maybe.. Just maybe you can stand a chance against the fighters there.” Hiro opened his mouth to make some cocky remark about how he could probably beat them in his sleep and it’s probably not worth the effort when Tadashi steps in.

“They have a guy called the Dragon Master. He sounds like he might even be better than you knucklehead. Well, that’s what Flynn and his wife have been telling me.”

“Not possible.” Hiro snapped back, his hard look softened though when remembering this was his older brother who was just teasing him and he elbowed Tadashi, giving a grin. “But let's go.”

Merida looked to Anna and Elsa before chiming in, having been listening to the conversation, not caring how obvious they had been to eavesdropping. “Hold on, we're coming with you.” Merida was joined by Anna who jumped up and down excitedly, chirping in with an offer to make them more willing to let them join in.

“We'll even  pay for gas and snacks for the drive for taking us with.”

“Besides, I want to see this kid get his butt whooped something fierce.” Elsa commented, crossing her arms.

Hiro and Tadashi shared a look before looking at Flynn who shrugged and started to do a quick headcount. They could take his car and make a road trip of this. Plus free tank of gas and snacks? There’s no way to say no to that.