Experiment 166; Fury
Inspired by pieandwolvesandsuch's fic "Thrown Into the Fires", a experiment hounds Lilo about the cousins she let get away. In a fit of guilt, she chases after the lost ones, bringing the experiment, Fury, with her, and nothing else.
"Experiement 166: Evil, this one is," Jumba explained as he held the struggling experiment in his large hands. "Designed to harass closest person to it with person's most horrible mistakes and wrongdoings. Unpunished crimes, secrets, tasks that have not been done. Vorks wery well on politicians, but, it turned against me. So, I dehydrated it."
Lilo petted the experiment on the nose, narrowly escaping a bite. "Let's see. I could give her to the police department as a lie detector."
"But we already have a lie detector experiment, remember!?" Pleakly squealed, flipping through a photo album. He pulled out an oddly-taken wedding picture from his whole "engagement" ordeal. "Fibber, 032?"
"Yeah, but Gantu got him." Lilo stated.
"Poor cousin," Stitch sighed.
Nani, who had been listening from the sofa, raised her hand. "Wait! What did you say it did, Jumba?"
"Harasses person closest to it with person's most horrible mistakes, shortcomings, wrongdoings-"
"That sounds like the Furies!"
Lilo and Stitch looked at eachother, then at Nani. "The Furies?"
"I learned about them in high school," Nani explained as she hopped over the sofa. "The Furies are from Ancient Greek mythology, Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. The were born from their father's blood, and they punished unpunished criminals and mu-"
"WOAH!" Pleakly wrapped his entire arm around Nani's mouth to keep her from finishing. "Don't say the m-word in front of Lilo!"
"What m-word?" Lilo asked.
"NOTHING!" Pleakly laughed uneasily as Nani bit down on his arm. "EE! Just- ee- give the experiment a name and get it out of the- ee- house!"
Lilo smiled and turned to the newest cousin. "I'm gonna call you. Fury!"
BEEP!
"Microwave pasta done!" Jumba screamed. "Who vants spaghetti!?"
"ME!"
"Yeah, okay."
"Aka!"
Lilo was left alone with Fury. Fury stood a bit taller than her, and had a face than resembled Stitch's except for her cat-like nose. Her eyes were red and beady, and her eyes curled in upon themselves like little horns. Her mouth was twisted into an evil and judgemental smirk. A dorsal fin ran down her spine all the way to her stubby forked tail. She had two long arms with small fingers, her hands continuously rubbing eachother evilly. Her upper body was covered in fur, but the fur slowly melted into leathery scales as they reached her clawed, dinosaurish feet. Sprouting out of her back were two dragon wings, folded up against her side. She stood hunched over, like her back couldn't straighten itself; if she could stand up straight, she would be about Pleakly's size.
Fury swiveled her head around to make sure no-one was watching, then set her small eyes on our heroine. "Hello, Lilo."
Lilo jumped back for a few reasons: 1( She had no idea Fury could talk, 2( her red-eyed stare sent shivers down her spine, and 3( the way Fury had accentuated "Lilo", it sounded like she was in trouble.
"Um. yes, Fury?"
"Fury, oh how original," crooned the experiment with a cold, mocking tone. Her voice was much deeper than most of her cousins; she sounded like a older woman, not a squirrel-voiced kid like all the others. "Are you always this creative when naming my relatives?"
Lilo went to answer for herself, but Fury cut in. "No. of course not. I know you, Lilo."
Fury clopped forward, her leg movements being jerky and stiff. She inched her way towards Lilo. "I've been awake for longer than you might think, little girl, and I know what's happened to most of my, so called."
Fury flicked Lilo in the center of her chest. "Ohana."
IT HURT! Lilo clutched her breastbone in pain and yelped, "Ouch!"
Fury began to walk circles around Lilo. "You say you care about the experiments, but I can tell you really don't! If you did, you'd give more thought into where you were putting them!"
"That's not true! I love all the cousins!" Lilo tried to defend herself, but Fury wouldn't have it.
"HA!" the devil-type creature began walking closer and closer to Lilo, invading her personal space. The human stepped back to keep her idea of a safe distance between them. "Do you think that 'Richter' is happy, doing nothing but shaking cups at some little shack in the middle of the nowhere!?"
"It was all I could think of!"
"He is hardly using the extent of his emense power! Do you think 'Sparky' is happy, confined to the lighthouse to run the same electric path for all eternity?!"
"He liked the idea!"
"Just like you liked the idea of being the center of your friend's lives, but that didn't work out well, did it, Lilo?"
Lilo gulped. She had backed up so far she was up against the sofa; cornered, trapped by a demoness with fur. "You have been awake a long time."
"And I've seen the ones you've sent away," Fury growled. "I've seen my cousins packed up and shipped off because you didn't think they had a place! Do you know what they are going through?"
Lilo shuddered. She was beginning to cry; this one was relentless. "N-n- (sob) N-n-no."
Fury's fur turned an even brighter red, and veins began to pop out of her wings, the blood coursing through them with much power you could clearly see the throbbing. "I thought so. Because, you see, Lilo, unlike me, you don't think!"
Fury jumped forward and slammed Lilo onto the ground, pinning her down with her feet. "Instead of trying to find my cousins and give them a true home, not some ramble-shamble little box were they can perform one function out of their arsenal of abilities, you just let them fly of into space were they are surely suffering because of your incompetence!"
"What?" Lilo cried, not knowing what 'incompetence' meant."
Fury pushed down with her foot, making Lilo's breathing difficult. "Mist and shadow, cloud and shade, hope shall fail, all shall fade. You have sentenced my innocent brethren to a life of torture, punishment, and starvation! And do You Know Why?!"
Fury leaned in close, right down to Lilo's ear. The human girl shrunk back, but Fury grabbed her hair roughly by the root and pulled her in to listen.
She whispered, "Because they weren't good enough for You."
"LILO!"
Fury realized that she would soon be caught, so she jumped off of Lilo. The human was left to lie on the floor, the words she had just heard running through her head like electricity. She curled into a little ball and cried, the harsh monologue sinking in with every breath, with every beat of her heart. She did not even notice when a worried Jumba picked her up, kissed her on the cheek, and put her in bed to rest.
&&&
It was nighttime when Lilo finally woke up, still in her favorite red dress from this morning. She had done a lot of thinking since she was asleep, and had made one decision.
She started this, she would fix it.
And there was only one person who could help. She wrote a note and left it on Stitch's bed, so that he would know where she was when he awoke. She tiptoed past Nani's room and followed the sharp words of-
Fury. She balanced herself on one of Jumba's bedknobs and spoke to him in Turian, obviously reminding him on everything he had done wrong in the past. She was alerted to Lilo's presence as soon as she set her toe in the door.
"Lilo?" Fury jumped down from the top floor and made her way to the human she hated. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm going to rescue the cousins," Lilo curtly whispered, her fist clenched tightly. "And since if I wake up Stitch and ask him to help me, he'll wake everyone else up, you're coming with me."
Fury chuckled. "What makes you think that I would accompany you on such a pipe dream mission?"
Snap.
Fury slipped a finger under her collar and yanked it, checking for security. It stuck. "Drat."
Lilo held the other end of the leash. "Come with me, Fury. We've got hotwiring to do. Kanziziba!"
&&&
"Congradulations, Li, you've just elevated your status to theif. How does it feel?"
Lilo ignored that question and concentrated on steering. "Gantu's ship is just up ahead. I can't drive the car too close or he'll hear us, so we're on foot from now on."
"This is stupid," Fury crooned before getting yanked out of the car.
&&&
Lilo stood in the middle of the transport bubble, ready for Fury's response. "Is it the right coordinates?"
"Yes," Fury groaned. "This should take us straight to the hamster's detention cell. Now, stop talking, or we'll wake up 625."
Lilo watched the yellow cousin sleeping on a mountain of sandwiches, and thought to herself, "I've gotta think up a good name for him."
Fury joined the human in the transport bubble. "This will be interesting."
"Transport in three, two, one-"
BOOM!
Ganta fell out of bed, awakened by the sudden noise. "What the- huh- what happened?"
"Transport succesful."
Gantu looked to the teleport bubble and saw that the glass was red with heat. "Oh no."
&&&
Lilo hid behind Fury. "That's not Hamsterveil."
Fury rolled her eyes. "Really. I thought he'd just gained weight."
The monster before them was blue with bulging muscles, decked in a black- and-white striped prison uniform. He was also about 200 feet tall and lightly asleep, his huge body folded in upon itself.
Lilo leaned over to the red cousin. "What now?"
"What do you mean, what now?" Fury hissed. "I don't have any ideas!"
Lilo turned her head upwards, which made Fury ask. "What are you doing?"
"I'm looking for the air duct," Lilo stated as if it were a proven fact. "There's always an air duct for the heroes to crawl through whenever they're trapped."
"That's stupid. It will never work."
Lilo examined the cell and, just like she had hoped, saw a ventilation shaft. It was just a few inches above the prisoner's massive shoulders. "There! The air duct! We just need to crawl through there and into Hamsterviel's cell to find the cousins!"
The evil experiment sniffed and thought to herself, "Well, so there is always an air duct." She shook her head of the thought, mentally kicking herself. "And how to do expect me to do that?" she growled.
Lilo looked at her with an expression which clearly read "Uh, duh!" "Climb up the walls!"
"Need I remind you that I was designed Before Jumba harnessed the wall climbing gene? Experiments did not begin scaling vertical surfaces until 623 was made."
Lilo sighed. "Then climb up the alien guy!"
Fury gave Lilo another confused look, one that said, "Um.. No." without question. "You are kidding, correct?"
"JUST! DO IT!"
Lilo's shriek echoed endlessly throughout the cell blocks; numerous prisons woke up. The one in with the two foreigners, however, simply grunted and began breathing very loudly.
&&&
Stitch bolted upright from his sleep, some unknown force kicking him out of his slumber. "Uhn- Lilo?"
Stitch moved his paw and felt paper crunching underneath it. He picked up the paper and read:
"DeaR Stitch, Me and FuRy are gona Look For the LosT cosi(scratched out) cousins out in SPaCe. FeeD Puj, PleaSe. LiLO."
"Oh, okay," Stitch nodded. He placed the paper under his pillow and went back to sleep.
La dee dee dee da.
BING!
Stitch leaped out of bed, all four arms and antennae at the ready. "LILO!"
&&&
"You fool!" Fury snapped. "Now you've woken him up!"
"He's not awake!" Lilo whispered both quietly and forcifully, hurting her throat in the process. "Now, if you won't climb the alien guy, I will!"
"Wait, what?"
Lilo began to scuttle up the sleeping alien, climbing him as she had countless trees. She reached the air shaft without trouble, crawling inside and signalling for Fury to follow.
Fury watched in awe. "Quite impressive, little ratling."
Without hesistation, she jumped onto the alien's arm. But, right now might be a good time to point out a difference between Lilo and Fury; where Lilo has feet, Fury had sharp, pointy claws.
Which means.
The creature awoke with a start and threw Fury against the wall. The confused experiment, unable to move because of her hunched back, tried pitifully to crawl out of the way of attack, only to be smacked into the air by her assailant. She opened her wings and began to glide to the air duct, where Lilo was holding out her arms, waiting. Fury was gliding painfully slow, and was punched into the hole rather than landing.
Fury scuttled the rest of the way in before she realized that she was stepping on Lilo. The human girl was lieing on her side, cradling her right arm. "Aren't you supposed to be finding the experiments? Lieing down on the job, I see. Incompetent fool." She chuckled evilly.
Lilo forced herself into a standing posistion, still holding her arm. "My arms hurts. But I'm okay. Let's go."
&&&
Gantu was pinned in place by Containment Gum (or whatever that sticky green stuff is called), unable to stop Nani and Jumba from pointing plasma cannons at his head.
"Where's my sister?!" the native Hawaiian screamed.
"I DON'T KNOW where the little trogette is!" Gantu squealed. "I haven't seen her for days now!"
"Don't you know?" 625 asked in his terrible, nasal voice, either unaware or ignoring the fact that Stitch had him in a headlock. "She transported to Hamsterwheel's place a while ago with one of my cuzzes."
"SHE WHAT?!" Nani gasped, dropping the plasma cannon.
"Tell me, 625, are coordinates still in computer?" Jumba asked fervently.
"Uh. I dunno."
"Oh no!"
&&&
Lilo gasped in amazement! "The cousins! All of them!"
Fury corrected Lilo. "Well, all the ones Gantu captured."
Lilo gritted her teeth. "That's what I meant!"
Lilo and Fury were still in the ventilation system, but they were standing above the secluded room where Hamsterviel kept the experiments. Lilo could identify a few: Angel (part of her ear was missing, presumably from being bitten off); Fibber (his fur was ruffled in some places because of bruising); Amnesio (his eyes were covered by a heavy blinfold); and a few others Lilo recognized from when her and Stitch had found dupe (she could recall the faces, but could not remember their names. Either way, they were all badly cut or hurt some other way). Each one was tethered to the circular room by a thick energy chain, each reaching only about the length of their bodies.
Lilo quite visibly sunk, still holding her right arm. "Oh. this is terrible. Did I let all this happen?"
Fury went to state her callous response, but her throat tightened without warning. "Well-gek-gungk!"
Lilo startled. "Was that Turian?"
"No, it was me choking!" Fury complained as she pounded her voice box with her fist. "Anyway, these cousins being injured ar-ge-erk-dee-gak(hack! Cough)! What's wrong with me?"
"I'm going to wake up the cousins," Lilo told Fury. "You look out for guards."
She began to shuffle over the edge of the duct, working only with her left arm. Fury pointed this out by saying, "Um, if you used both arms, you could climb faster, -"
And she stopped. She was going to say something like "you moron" or "uh duh", but her throat seized up again and she couldn't! She was sure that if she said anything else, nothing happened, but if she even tried to use her powers (saying her usual insults), they stopped right in her chest!
Lilo nodded, "I would, but this arm hurts whenever I try to move it." Lilo didn't continue but kept sliding over the edge until she was hanging by her fingertips. Woah, wait a min- aaa!
"FURY! I'M SLIPPING! AAAAAA!" Lilo couldn't stop herself from letting go and falling 20 feet onto Thrasher's stomach.
"Lilo!" Fury jumped down from the spot and glided into Lilo's place, ignoring the waking, shreiking cousins. The human girl lifted herself with her uninjured arm, breathing deeply through her teeth.
"Li'o?" Fibber pulled at the end of his chain, craining his neck to see if it was true. "Li'o?"
"Lilo!" Experiments who remembered her name and even those who didn't cried out to her and shouted at her about how they were being mistreated and beaten and brainwashed and other unspeakable things. They only spoke in Turian, and yet Lilo could understand every word. Lilo tried to shush them before Hamsterviel woke up, but it took Fury's biting tongue to get everyone to be quiet.
"Now," Lilo calmy asked, "How do we set you loose?"
"Oo-chow! Oo-chow!" Angel whispered, pointing to a wall which housed a teeny tiny door.
"It's a key card in Hamsterviel's pocket," Nosy informed Lilo through a broken nose. "He sleeps with it at night along with his teddy bear."
"Okay, got I- (giggle) teddy bear. He he he he!"
"This is no time for giggling!" Fury pushed Lilo to the door with her head, hopping along as best she could.
As Lilo crawled away, Fibber caught Fury by one of the scales running down her spine. Angel growled as Nosy hissed, "One hair on her head gets hurt, and we're turning you in, 166. She's our one-way ticket back to paradise."
Fury passed off the comment nonchalantly. "She's already been injured, so there's no reason to go so hostile, 199. That goes for you too, 624."
Angel stopped growling, but kept her obsidian eyes entirely on Fury.
"Also, keep in mind that she might not try hard enough and send you to some raggidy little shack in Nebraska, for all you know," Fury added.
Angel hissed, "Better anywhere than here."
Fury's eyes widened. She'd never thought of it that way before. "Oh, yes. Right. Well, I'm off."
&&&
Hamsterviel's room was covered in draperies, blankets, and curtains, the walls plastered with newspaper clippings about Jumba and his experiment, not to mention a few news articles about Hamsterviel from his youth. The floor was scattered with stuffed animals and beating whips still hot from use. Hamsterviel slept atop a huge pillar in a comfortable crib, snoring loudly and talking in his sleep.
"Hamsterviel is very rich," Fury reminded herself. "Probably bribed the guards into bringing all of this stuff from home."
"And Hamsterviel's way up there," Lilo moaned. "Oh well."
She took her place on the elevator pad that would take her to the top of the pillar. Fury stepped forward. "Um. Lilo, aren't you going to ask for my help?"
"Nope." And away she went.
Hamsterviel mumbled a few things as Lilo snuck up on him. "Zzzz- My momma in the old country- zzzz- peas in a pie- zzzz- no, Ma'mant, not the frogs!"
Lilo had to hold a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing. This didn't help at all because she needed that hand to get the key card. She swallowed her laughs and carefully reached over.
She squeezed her fingers around the card.
And pulled back so quickly that it flew out of her hands!
She gasped as it fell and landed onto a stuffed tiger. Fury hopped over and picked it up, examining it; it was a simple red card with a couple of teeth in one side.
Lilo joined Fury at the key card landing sight, smiling and rubbing her arm. "Good job, Fury."
Fury felt the skin in her wings turning red. "Um, thank you?"
&&&
"You know, Fury, I noticed something," Lilo began to make small talk with the alien she had made tag along with her. She absentmindedly picked up Fury's forgotten leash; it was still attached to her collar. "Hamsterviel has done some good things, you know, back when he was little?"
"Yes," Fury payed little attention. "A newspaper had an article about him being in an 'Adopt an Asteroid' program."
"Well, when you were in the room with me and Hamsterviel, why didn't you make him upset over all the bad stuff he's done, since he's done so much compared to the good?"
Fury paused. "I'm not sure."
"Do you look at a person and see only the bad stuff?" Lilo wondered. "Or do you just ignore the good stuff?"
Fury didn't answer and unlocked an unidentified experiment. "You're 014, the sock stealer, right?"
"Eh," answered the pink-and-blue creature.
"Nice to meet you," Lilo cooed, and then continued. "Because, you know, Fury, Mom and Dad always used to tell me that there was some good and bad in everyone, and that to make friends, you had to focus on the good and not the bad. So, if you focus on the bad instead of the good-"
Fury unlocked the last experiment, a knot in her stomach and a warm feeling in her heart. "Alright, let's go."
"No, wait!" Nosy smirked. "Plasmoid and Heat wanna leave a little gift for Hamsterviel."
Lilo sensed an air of evil; she liked the idea, whatever it was. "Like what kinda gift, Nosy?"
Plasmoid and Heat swaggered out the door, followed by Nosy. "Watch us."
&&&
"Right there!"
Plasmoid sent a plasma blast into a pile of newspaper origama while Heat shot at a lace curtain. It immediately caught on fire. Lilo watched the fire burn; somewhere inside herself, an old pyromaniac had awakened and was telling her to watch and not look away.
"Alright, now we leave!" Fury grabbed Lilo around the middle and began to pull her away.
WORP! WORP! WORP!
"The fire alarm!" Nosy squealed. "Run for cover!"
"Ah-chooga moopa!" Angel squealed as she and her cousins raced to the do-
SLAM!
Hammerhead and Thrasher worked to pound the door in, but they were too weak. They collapsed in front of the door, jumping away when it began to glow with a red heat.
"We're locked in!" Lilo screamed, watching as a flaming sheep dropped down just a few feet in front of her. "We're gonna burn alive!"
"Someone do something!" Fury shouted to her cousins. Amnesio tried naively to blow out the flames with his wings, but that only fanned them and made them grow. "NO, YOU IDIOT! Where's the key card!?"
"Uh oh." Fibber motioned to the red-hot experiment door.
"Oh, wonderful," Fury groaned. Lilo and Fibber screaming brought her back to her senses. "Everyone, the glass wall! It opens whenever there's a fire! Hurry!"
They dodged in and out of burning toys and papers until they came to the glass wall, the outer space equivalent of jail bars.
But when they reached it-
"Hallo, experiments!" Hamsterviel laughed evily. Lilo gasped.
"NO!"
"Yes, little 'I-am-going-to-save-all-the-experiments-with-a-little-plan- that-will-never-work-and-now-I've-been-thrown-into-the-fires' girl!" Hamsterviel called from behind the shut door. "I was always taught to shut doors behind me, you know. Especially when there is an infestation involved!"
He laughed evily as Lilo looked on, a look of shock on her face, beads of sweat rolling down her cheeks. "No-"
"Oh, yes, little ratlings!" Hamsterviel watched while a throng of aliens passed him by. "Well, I'm off, experiments! I shall see you in- um- wherever your beliefs say you go!"
And away he bounced, leaving the helpless ones to boil in their oven. Lilo saw that the pillar Hamsterviel was sleeping on had melted and caved in on the side closest to them; it was ready to fall over.
"Fury, what do we do?" Lilo cried, her tears intermingled with the sweat.
"Yeah, what we do?" Angel sobbed. Nosy began praying to whoever he was praying to; Fury stepped in front of her "younger" cousins and unfolded her wings, shielding them from anymore fires.
"Die knowing Hamsterviel can't have us."
The words shot through Lilo's heart; her chest went cold, and her vision began to blur. Her breathe became shallow, and it felt airy and hollow against the back of her throat.
"Mommy."
Whether it was shock from hearing Fury's line, pain from her arm, or just the sweltering heat, Lilo began to faint. The last thing she saw was Fury turning to face her, her look surprised and worried. The last thing she heard was after her vision had left her; a whirring sound and a loud BANG!
&&&
"Lilo?"
The voice was far off. Distant, not familiar at all.
"Lilo?"
"Hello?" Lilo's voice called out into the void. She felt herself begin to drift upward.
"Lilo?"
"She's coming to!" More voices!
"Go get Stitch, hurry!"
"Stitch?" Lilo hollered before she had left the void. A bright light shined into her face-
&&&
Her vision cleared, and Nani's face slowly came into focus. "Lilo! Oh, Lilo, you're okay!"
"Nani?" Lilo sat up in her own bed and rubbed her eyes. She scratched her shoulder and realized it was in a sling. "What happened?"
"Jumba is better at explaining stuff like this than I am," Nani laughed. "I'm just glad you're okay!" Nani hugged Lilo tightly, earning a weird look and a sudden gasp.
"THE COUSINS! Are they okay? Are they hurt? Did Hamsterviel get away!? What wa-"
Lilo didn't get to finish because, as she was talking, Stitch lunged at her and tackled her back into bed, licking her like the dog he was disguised as. Lilo giggled and flailed about childishly, crying out Jumba's name as he stomped into the room, yelling in his loud and boisterous voice, throwing Lilo up into the air and catching her again multiple times.
"Jumba!" Lilo hugged his huge head happily(3). "Did the cousins get here okay? Is everybody alive?"
"Everyone is fine and dandy, as you say," Jumba began to explain. "One that got worst off was you."
"Me?" Lilo chittered, cocking her head.
Stitch jumped onto Jumba's back, resting at Lilo's eye level. "Dis-lo-cated shoulder, over-hea-ting, lotsa stuff."
"Me and 626 transported into Hamsterviel's cell just in time to pull all of you out of the fires!" Jumba boasted. "Older sister helped, even Gantu helped!"
"The big dummy?!" Lilo asked, happy to here that even the stupid-head was turning around.
"Said something about a paycheck," Nani added.
"But now entire 'ohana' is concious and accounted for, so we go down to see who you rescued!"
&&&
Jumba carried both Stitch and Lilo downstairs, where an entire army of experiments (and Pleakly) were waiting for her. The rescued ones, even ones she had simply found on Earth and reformatted herself, all rushed over to the child to make sure that she was alright.
This is kind of a round-about way of doing things, but let's wrap this thing up. More in depth anaylisis comes in the epilogue. Okay, anyway.:
Fury had been completely repurposed for good, learning that all people are evil; you must look past the evil to really see someone. Lilo recovered very quickly from her dislocated shoulder with Pleakly's help. The rescuees lived with Lilo until they were all healed and given their perfect place. And Lilo learned that you can't be too hard on yourself for your mistakes, because it only makes things worse.
Where were the experiments sent? That's for the next chapter.
DONE! Next up, epilogue!
Oh, just a quick note: Fury's original number was 616, then changed to 166. If you find any reference to the original number that I missed, please tell me.
Inspired by pieandwolvesandsuch's fic "Thrown Into the Fires", a experiment hounds Lilo about the cousins she let get away. In a fit of guilt, she chases after the lost ones, bringing the experiment, Fury, with her, and nothing else.
"Experiement 166: Evil, this one is," Jumba explained as he held the struggling experiment in his large hands. "Designed to harass closest person to it with person's most horrible mistakes and wrongdoings. Unpunished crimes, secrets, tasks that have not been done. Vorks wery well on politicians, but, it turned against me. So, I dehydrated it."
Lilo petted the experiment on the nose, narrowly escaping a bite. "Let's see. I could give her to the police department as a lie detector."
"But we already have a lie detector experiment, remember!?" Pleakly squealed, flipping through a photo album. He pulled out an oddly-taken wedding picture from his whole "engagement" ordeal. "Fibber, 032?"
"Yeah, but Gantu got him." Lilo stated.
"Poor cousin," Stitch sighed.
Nani, who had been listening from the sofa, raised her hand. "Wait! What did you say it did, Jumba?"
"Harasses person closest to it with person's most horrible mistakes, shortcomings, wrongdoings-"
"That sounds like the Furies!"
Lilo and Stitch looked at eachother, then at Nani. "The Furies?"
"I learned about them in high school," Nani explained as she hopped over the sofa. "The Furies are from Ancient Greek mythology, Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. The were born from their father's blood, and they punished unpunished criminals and mu-"
"WOAH!" Pleakly wrapped his entire arm around Nani's mouth to keep her from finishing. "Don't say the m-word in front of Lilo!"
"What m-word?" Lilo asked.
"NOTHING!" Pleakly laughed uneasily as Nani bit down on his arm. "EE! Just- ee- give the experiment a name and get it out of the- ee- house!"
Lilo smiled and turned to the newest cousin. "I'm gonna call you. Fury!"
BEEP!
"Microwave pasta done!" Jumba screamed. "Who vants spaghetti!?"
"ME!"
"Yeah, okay."
"Aka!"
Lilo was left alone with Fury. Fury stood a bit taller than her, and had a face than resembled Stitch's except for her cat-like nose. Her eyes were red and beady, and her eyes curled in upon themselves like little horns. Her mouth was twisted into an evil and judgemental smirk. A dorsal fin ran down her spine all the way to her stubby forked tail. She had two long arms with small fingers, her hands continuously rubbing eachother evilly. Her upper body was covered in fur, but the fur slowly melted into leathery scales as they reached her clawed, dinosaurish feet. Sprouting out of her back were two dragon wings, folded up against her side. She stood hunched over, like her back couldn't straighten itself; if she could stand up straight, she would be about Pleakly's size.
Fury swiveled her head around to make sure no-one was watching, then set her small eyes on our heroine. "Hello, Lilo."
Lilo jumped back for a few reasons: 1( She had no idea Fury could talk, 2( her red-eyed stare sent shivers down her spine, and 3( the way Fury had accentuated "Lilo", it sounded like she was in trouble.
"Um. yes, Fury?"
"Fury, oh how original," crooned the experiment with a cold, mocking tone. Her voice was much deeper than most of her cousins; she sounded like a older woman, not a squirrel-voiced kid like all the others. "Are you always this creative when naming my relatives?"
Lilo went to answer for herself, but Fury cut in. "No. of course not. I know you, Lilo."
Fury clopped forward, her leg movements being jerky and stiff. She inched her way towards Lilo. "I've been awake for longer than you might think, little girl, and I know what's happened to most of my, so called."
Fury flicked Lilo in the center of her chest. "Ohana."
IT HURT! Lilo clutched her breastbone in pain and yelped, "Ouch!"
Fury began to walk circles around Lilo. "You say you care about the experiments, but I can tell you really don't! If you did, you'd give more thought into where you were putting them!"
"That's not true! I love all the cousins!" Lilo tried to defend herself, but Fury wouldn't have it.
"HA!" the devil-type creature began walking closer and closer to Lilo, invading her personal space. The human stepped back to keep her idea of a safe distance between them. "Do you think that 'Richter' is happy, doing nothing but shaking cups at some little shack in the middle of the nowhere!?"
"It was all I could think of!"
"He is hardly using the extent of his emense power! Do you think 'Sparky' is happy, confined to the lighthouse to run the same electric path for all eternity?!"
"He liked the idea!"
"Just like you liked the idea of being the center of your friend's lives, but that didn't work out well, did it, Lilo?"
Lilo gulped. She had backed up so far she was up against the sofa; cornered, trapped by a demoness with fur. "You have been awake a long time."
"And I've seen the ones you've sent away," Fury growled. "I've seen my cousins packed up and shipped off because you didn't think they had a place! Do you know what they are going through?"
Lilo shuddered. She was beginning to cry; this one was relentless. "N-n- (sob) N-n-no."
Fury's fur turned an even brighter red, and veins began to pop out of her wings, the blood coursing through them with much power you could clearly see the throbbing. "I thought so. Because, you see, Lilo, unlike me, you don't think!"
Fury jumped forward and slammed Lilo onto the ground, pinning her down with her feet. "Instead of trying to find my cousins and give them a true home, not some ramble-shamble little box were they can perform one function out of their arsenal of abilities, you just let them fly of into space were they are surely suffering because of your incompetence!"
"What?" Lilo cried, not knowing what 'incompetence' meant."
Fury pushed down with her foot, making Lilo's breathing difficult. "Mist and shadow, cloud and shade, hope shall fail, all shall fade. You have sentenced my innocent brethren to a life of torture, punishment, and starvation! And do You Know Why?!"
Fury leaned in close, right down to Lilo's ear. The human girl shrunk back, but Fury grabbed her hair roughly by the root and pulled her in to listen.
She whispered, "Because they weren't good enough for You."
"LILO!"
Fury realized that she would soon be caught, so she jumped off of Lilo. The human was left to lie on the floor, the words she had just heard running through her head like electricity. She curled into a little ball and cried, the harsh monologue sinking in with every breath, with every beat of her heart. She did not even notice when a worried Jumba picked her up, kissed her on the cheek, and put her in bed to rest.
&&&
It was nighttime when Lilo finally woke up, still in her favorite red dress from this morning. She had done a lot of thinking since she was asleep, and had made one decision.
She started this, she would fix it.
And there was only one person who could help. She wrote a note and left it on Stitch's bed, so that he would know where she was when he awoke. She tiptoed past Nani's room and followed the sharp words of-
Fury. She balanced herself on one of Jumba's bedknobs and spoke to him in Turian, obviously reminding him on everything he had done wrong in the past. She was alerted to Lilo's presence as soon as she set her toe in the door.
"Lilo?" Fury jumped down from the top floor and made her way to the human she hated. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm going to rescue the cousins," Lilo curtly whispered, her fist clenched tightly. "And since if I wake up Stitch and ask him to help me, he'll wake everyone else up, you're coming with me."
Fury chuckled. "What makes you think that I would accompany you on such a pipe dream mission?"
Snap.
Fury slipped a finger under her collar and yanked it, checking for security. It stuck. "Drat."
Lilo held the other end of the leash. "Come with me, Fury. We've got hotwiring to do. Kanziziba!"
&&&
"Congradulations, Li, you've just elevated your status to theif. How does it feel?"
Lilo ignored that question and concentrated on steering. "Gantu's ship is just up ahead. I can't drive the car too close or he'll hear us, so we're on foot from now on."
"This is stupid," Fury crooned before getting yanked out of the car.
&&&
Lilo stood in the middle of the transport bubble, ready for Fury's response. "Is it the right coordinates?"
"Yes," Fury groaned. "This should take us straight to the hamster's detention cell. Now, stop talking, or we'll wake up 625."
Lilo watched the yellow cousin sleeping on a mountain of sandwiches, and thought to herself, "I've gotta think up a good name for him."
Fury joined the human in the transport bubble. "This will be interesting."
"Transport in three, two, one-"
BOOM!
Ganta fell out of bed, awakened by the sudden noise. "What the- huh- what happened?"
"Transport succesful."
Gantu looked to the teleport bubble and saw that the glass was red with heat. "Oh no."
&&&
Lilo hid behind Fury. "That's not Hamsterveil."
Fury rolled her eyes. "Really. I thought he'd just gained weight."
The monster before them was blue with bulging muscles, decked in a black- and-white striped prison uniform. He was also about 200 feet tall and lightly asleep, his huge body folded in upon itself.
Lilo leaned over to the red cousin. "What now?"
"What do you mean, what now?" Fury hissed. "I don't have any ideas!"
Lilo turned her head upwards, which made Fury ask. "What are you doing?"
"I'm looking for the air duct," Lilo stated as if it were a proven fact. "There's always an air duct for the heroes to crawl through whenever they're trapped."
"That's stupid. It will never work."
Lilo examined the cell and, just like she had hoped, saw a ventilation shaft. It was just a few inches above the prisoner's massive shoulders. "There! The air duct! We just need to crawl through there and into Hamsterviel's cell to find the cousins!"
The evil experiment sniffed and thought to herself, "Well, so there is always an air duct." She shook her head of the thought, mentally kicking herself. "And how to do expect me to do that?" she growled.
Lilo looked at her with an expression which clearly read "Uh, duh!" "Climb up the walls!"
"Need I remind you that I was designed Before Jumba harnessed the wall climbing gene? Experiments did not begin scaling vertical surfaces until 623 was made."
Lilo sighed. "Then climb up the alien guy!"
Fury gave Lilo another confused look, one that said, "Um.. No." without question. "You are kidding, correct?"
"JUST! DO IT!"
Lilo's shriek echoed endlessly throughout the cell blocks; numerous prisons woke up. The one in with the two foreigners, however, simply grunted and began breathing very loudly.
&&&
Stitch bolted upright from his sleep, some unknown force kicking him out of his slumber. "Uhn- Lilo?"
Stitch moved his paw and felt paper crunching underneath it. He picked up the paper and read:
"DeaR Stitch, Me and FuRy are gona Look For the LosT cosi(scratched out) cousins out in SPaCe. FeeD Puj, PleaSe. LiLO."
"Oh, okay," Stitch nodded. He placed the paper under his pillow and went back to sleep.
La dee dee dee da.
BING!
Stitch leaped out of bed, all four arms and antennae at the ready. "LILO!"
&&&
"You fool!" Fury snapped. "Now you've woken him up!"
"He's not awake!" Lilo whispered both quietly and forcifully, hurting her throat in the process. "Now, if you won't climb the alien guy, I will!"
"Wait, what?"
Lilo began to scuttle up the sleeping alien, climbing him as she had countless trees. She reached the air shaft without trouble, crawling inside and signalling for Fury to follow.
Fury watched in awe. "Quite impressive, little ratling."
Without hesistation, she jumped onto the alien's arm. But, right now might be a good time to point out a difference between Lilo and Fury; where Lilo has feet, Fury had sharp, pointy claws.
Which means.
The creature awoke with a start and threw Fury against the wall. The confused experiment, unable to move because of her hunched back, tried pitifully to crawl out of the way of attack, only to be smacked into the air by her assailant. She opened her wings and began to glide to the air duct, where Lilo was holding out her arms, waiting. Fury was gliding painfully slow, and was punched into the hole rather than landing.
Fury scuttled the rest of the way in before she realized that she was stepping on Lilo. The human girl was lieing on her side, cradling her right arm. "Aren't you supposed to be finding the experiments? Lieing down on the job, I see. Incompetent fool." She chuckled evilly.
Lilo forced herself into a standing posistion, still holding her arm. "My arms hurts. But I'm okay. Let's go."
&&&
Gantu was pinned in place by Containment Gum (or whatever that sticky green stuff is called), unable to stop Nani and Jumba from pointing plasma cannons at his head.
"Where's my sister?!" the native Hawaiian screamed.
"I DON'T KNOW where the little trogette is!" Gantu squealed. "I haven't seen her for days now!"
"Don't you know?" 625 asked in his terrible, nasal voice, either unaware or ignoring the fact that Stitch had him in a headlock. "She transported to Hamsterwheel's place a while ago with one of my cuzzes."
"SHE WHAT?!" Nani gasped, dropping the plasma cannon.
"Tell me, 625, are coordinates still in computer?" Jumba asked fervently.
"Uh. I dunno."
"Oh no!"
&&&
Lilo gasped in amazement! "The cousins! All of them!"
Fury corrected Lilo. "Well, all the ones Gantu captured."
Lilo gritted her teeth. "That's what I meant!"
Lilo and Fury were still in the ventilation system, but they were standing above the secluded room where Hamsterviel kept the experiments. Lilo could identify a few: Angel (part of her ear was missing, presumably from being bitten off); Fibber (his fur was ruffled in some places because of bruising); Amnesio (his eyes were covered by a heavy blinfold); and a few others Lilo recognized from when her and Stitch had found dupe (she could recall the faces, but could not remember their names. Either way, they were all badly cut or hurt some other way). Each one was tethered to the circular room by a thick energy chain, each reaching only about the length of their bodies.
Lilo quite visibly sunk, still holding her right arm. "Oh. this is terrible. Did I let all this happen?"
Fury went to state her callous response, but her throat tightened without warning. "Well-gek-gungk!"
Lilo startled. "Was that Turian?"
"No, it was me choking!" Fury complained as she pounded her voice box with her fist. "Anyway, these cousins being injured ar-ge-erk-dee-gak(hack! Cough)! What's wrong with me?"
"I'm going to wake up the cousins," Lilo told Fury. "You look out for guards."
She began to shuffle over the edge of the duct, working only with her left arm. Fury pointed this out by saying, "Um, if you used both arms, you could climb faster, -"
And she stopped. She was going to say something like "you moron" or "uh duh", but her throat seized up again and she couldn't! She was sure that if she said anything else, nothing happened, but if she even tried to use her powers (saying her usual insults), they stopped right in her chest!
Lilo nodded, "I would, but this arm hurts whenever I try to move it." Lilo didn't continue but kept sliding over the edge until she was hanging by her fingertips. Woah, wait a min- aaa!
"FURY! I'M SLIPPING! AAAAAA!" Lilo couldn't stop herself from letting go and falling 20 feet onto Thrasher's stomach.
"Lilo!" Fury jumped down from the spot and glided into Lilo's place, ignoring the waking, shreiking cousins. The human girl lifted herself with her uninjured arm, breathing deeply through her teeth.
"Li'o?" Fibber pulled at the end of his chain, craining his neck to see if it was true. "Li'o?"
"Lilo!" Experiments who remembered her name and even those who didn't cried out to her and shouted at her about how they were being mistreated and beaten and brainwashed and other unspeakable things. They only spoke in Turian, and yet Lilo could understand every word. Lilo tried to shush them before Hamsterviel woke up, but it took Fury's biting tongue to get everyone to be quiet.
"Now," Lilo calmy asked, "How do we set you loose?"
"Oo-chow! Oo-chow!" Angel whispered, pointing to a wall which housed a teeny tiny door.
"It's a key card in Hamsterviel's pocket," Nosy informed Lilo through a broken nose. "He sleeps with it at night along with his teddy bear."
"Okay, got I- (giggle) teddy bear. He he he he!"
"This is no time for giggling!" Fury pushed Lilo to the door with her head, hopping along as best she could.
As Lilo crawled away, Fibber caught Fury by one of the scales running down her spine. Angel growled as Nosy hissed, "One hair on her head gets hurt, and we're turning you in, 166. She's our one-way ticket back to paradise."
Fury passed off the comment nonchalantly. "She's already been injured, so there's no reason to go so hostile, 199. That goes for you too, 624."
Angel stopped growling, but kept her obsidian eyes entirely on Fury.
"Also, keep in mind that she might not try hard enough and send you to some raggidy little shack in Nebraska, for all you know," Fury added.
Angel hissed, "Better anywhere than here."
Fury's eyes widened. She'd never thought of it that way before. "Oh, yes. Right. Well, I'm off."
&&&
Hamsterviel's room was covered in draperies, blankets, and curtains, the walls plastered with newspaper clippings about Jumba and his experiment, not to mention a few news articles about Hamsterviel from his youth. The floor was scattered with stuffed animals and beating whips still hot from use. Hamsterviel slept atop a huge pillar in a comfortable crib, snoring loudly and talking in his sleep.
"Hamsterviel is very rich," Fury reminded herself. "Probably bribed the guards into bringing all of this stuff from home."
"And Hamsterviel's way up there," Lilo moaned. "Oh well."
She took her place on the elevator pad that would take her to the top of the pillar. Fury stepped forward. "Um. Lilo, aren't you going to ask for my help?"
"Nope." And away she went.
Hamsterviel mumbled a few things as Lilo snuck up on him. "Zzzz- My momma in the old country- zzzz- peas in a pie- zzzz- no, Ma'mant, not the frogs!"
Lilo had to hold a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing. This didn't help at all because she needed that hand to get the key card. She swallowed her laughs and carefully reached over.
She squeezed her fingers around the card.
And pulled back so quickly that it flew out of her hands!
She gasped as it fell and landed onto a stuffed tiger. Fury hopped over and picked it up, examining it; it was a simple red card with a couple of teeth in one side.
Lilo joined Fury at the key card landing sight, smiling and rubbing her arm. "Good job, Fury."
Fury felt the skin in her wings turning red. "Um, thank you?"
&&&
"You know, Fury, I noticed something," Lilo began to make small talk with the alien she had made tag along with her. She absentmindedly picked up Fury's forgotten leash; it was still attached to her collar. "Hamsterviel has done some good things, you know, back when he was little?"
"Yes," Fury payed little attention. "A newspaper had an article about him being in an 'Adopt an Asteroid' program."
"Well, when you were in the room with me and Hamsterviel, why didn't you make him upset over all the bad stuff he's done, since he's done so much compared to the good?"
Fury paused. "I'm not sure."
"Do you look at a person and see only the bad stuff?" Lilo wondered. "Or do you just ignore the good stuff?"
Fury didn't answer and unlocked an unidentified experiment. "You're 014, the sock stealer, right?"
"Eh," answered the pink-and-blue creature.
"Nice to meet you," Lilo cooed, and then continued. "Because, you know, Fury, Mom and Dad always used to tell me that there was some good and bad in everyone, and that to make friends, you had to focus on the good and not the bad. So, if you focus on the bad instead of the good-"
Fury unlocked the last experiment, a knot in her stomach and a warm feeling in her heart. "Alright, let's go."
"No, wait!" Nosy smirked. "Plasmoid and Heat wanna leave a little gift for Hamsterviel."
Lilo sensed an air of evil; she liked the idea, whatever it was. "Like what kinda gift, Nosy?"
Plasmoid and Heat swaggered out the door, followed by Nosy. "Watch us."
&&&
"Right there!"
Plasmoid sent a plasma blast into a pile of newspaper origama while Heat shot at a lace curtain. It immediately caught on fire. Lilo watched the fire burn; somewhere inside herself, an old pyromaniac had awakened and was telling her to watch and not look away.
"Alright, now we leave!" Fury grabbed Lilo around the middle and began to pull her away.
WORP! WORP! WORP!
"The fire alarm!" Nosy squealed. "Run for cover!"
"Ah-chooga moopa!" Angel squealed as she and her cousins raced to the do-
SLAM!
Hammerhead and Thrasher worked to pound the door in, but they were too weak. They collapsed in front of the door, jumping away when it began to glow with a red heat.
"We're locked in!" Lilo screamed, watching as a flaming sheep dropped down just a few feet in front of her. "We're gonna burn alive!"
"Someone do something!" Fury shouted to her cousins. Amnesio tried naively to blow out the flames with his wings, but that only fanned them and made them grow. "NO, YOU IDIOT! Where's the key card!?"
"Uh oh." Fibber motioned to the red-hot experiment door.
"Oh, wonderful," Fury groaned. Lilo and Fibber screaming brought her back to her senses. "Everyone, the glass wall! It opens whenever there's a fire! Hurry!"
They dodged in and out of burning toys and papers until they came to the glass wall, the outer space equivalent of jail bars.
But when they reached it-
"Hallo, experiments!" Hamsterviel laughed evily. Lilo gasped.
"NO!"
"Yes, little 'I-am-going-to-save-all-the-experiments-with-a-little-plan- that-will-never-work-and-now-I've-been-thrown-into-the-fires' girl!" Hamsterviel called from behind the shut door. "I was always taught to shut doors behind me, you know. Especially when there is an infestation involved!"
He laughed evily as Lilo looked on, a look of shock on her face, beads of sweat rolling down her cheeks. "No-"
"Oh, yes, little ratlings!" Hamsterviel watched while a throng of aliens passed him by. "Well, I'm off, experiments! I shall see you in- um- wherever your beliefs say you go!"
And away he bounced, leaving the helpless ones to boil in their oven. Lilo saw that the pillar Hamsterviel was sleeping on had melted and caved in on the side closest to them; it was ready to fall over.
"Fury, what do we do?" Lilo cried, her tears intermingled with the sweat.
"Yeah, what we do?" Angel sobbed. Nosy began praying to whoever he was praying to; Fury stepped in front of her "younger" cousins and unfolded her wings, shielding them from anymore fires.
"Die knowing Hamsterviel can't have us."
The words shot through Lilo's heart; her chest went cold, and her vision began to blur. Her breathe became shallow, and it felt airy and hollow against the back of her throat.
"Mommy."
Whether it was shock from hearing Fury's line, pain from her arm, or just the sweltering heat, Lilo began to faint. The last thing she saw was Fury turning to face her, her look surprised and worried. The last thing she heard was after her vision had left her; a whirring sound and a loud BANG!
&&&
"Lilo?"
The voice was far off. Distant, not familiar at all.
"Lilo?"
"Hello?" Lilo's voice called out into the void. She felt herself begin to drift upward.
"Lilo?"
"She's coming to!" More voices!
"Go get Stitch, hurry!"
"Stitch?" Lilo hollered before she had left the void. A bright light shined into her face-
&&&
Her vision cleared, and Nani's face slowly came into focus. "Lilo! Oh, Lilo, you're okay!"
"Nani?" Lilo sat up in her own bed and rubbed her eyes. She scratched her shoulder and realized it was in a sling. "What happened?"
"Jumba is better at explaining stuff like this than I am," Nani laughed. "I'm just glad you're okay!" Nani hugged Lilo tightly, earning a weird look and a sudden gasp.
"THE COUSINS! Are they okay? Are they hurt? Did Hamsterviel get away!? What wa-"
Lilo didn't get to finish because, as she was talking, Stitch lunged at her and tackled her back into bed, licking her like the dog he was disguised as. Lilo giggled and flailed about childishly, crying out Jumba's name as he stomped into the room, yelling in his loud and boisterous voice, throwing Lilo up into the air and catching her again multiple times.
"Jumba!" Lilo hugged his huge head happily(3). "Did the cousins get here okay? Is everybody alive?"
"Everyone is fine and dandy, as you say," Jumba began to explain. "One that got worst off was you."
"Me?" Lilo chittered, cocking her head.
Stitch jumped onto Jumba's back, resting at Lilo's eye level. "Dis-lo-cated shoulder, over-hea-ting, lotsa stuff."
"Me and 626 transported into Hamsterviel's cell just in time to pull all of you out of the fires!" Jumba boasted. "Older sister helped, even Gantu helped!"
"The big dummy?!" Lilo asked, happy to here that even the stupid-head was turning around.
"Said something about a paycheck," Nani added.
"But now entire 'ohana' is concious and accounted for, so we go down to see who you rescued!"
&&&
Jumba carried both Stitch and Lilo downstairs, where an entire army of experiments (and Pleakly) were waiting for her. The rescued ones, even ones she had simply found on Earth and reformatted herself, all rushed over to the child to make sure that she was alright.
This is kind of a round-about way of doing things, but let's wrap this thing up. More in depth anaylisis comes in the epilogue. Okay, anyway.:
Fury had been completely repurposed for good, learning that all people are evil; you must look past the evil to really see someone. Lilo recovered very quickly from her dislocated shoulder with Pleakly's help. The rescuees lived with Lilo until they were all healed and given their perfect place. And Lilo learned that you can't be too hard on yourself for your mistakes, because it only makes things worse.
Where were the experiments sent? That's for the next chapter.
DONE! Next up, epilogue!
Oh, just a quick note: Fury's original number was 616, then changed to 166. If you find any reference to the original number that I missed, please tell me.