Tempered Bonds

Chapter 1: Stars of Fate

Throughout human history, it had been said the stars controlled our destinies. Many astrologists and philosophers refer to the heavens to foretell the next significant event in the world. Of course, most of it is just dumb coincidence. But there have been instances where the stars did influence great change on Earth, some more directly than others.

…

Tonight, a clear sky of stars was high over the Hawaiian island of Kauai. There have been reports from the astronomers that a meteorite shower was expected tonight. Many people were staying up late to see the shooting stars and potentially make wishes on them. Of course, the meteorite shower had a somewhat bigger effect on a certain family who lived in a house somewhat out of town.

The members of the Pelekai house were all getting ready to watch the shooting stars. Nani and David were preparing several snacks that had enough sugars and caffeine to make sure no one dozed off. They were going to head out to the hammock to get the best view of the shooting stars.

Jumba Jookiba was busy adjusting his telescope and graphing machines. "Pleakley, please to be hurrying," said Jumba, "Astronomical phenomenon are not as common on Earth as Keltikwan."

"Oh, you can wait a little longer," said Pleakley, "I need to make sure my camera is working. Watching meteorites is fascinating."

Jumba rolled his four eyes. "Meteorite being destroyed by reentry heat happens on every planet," he said.

"Well, I haven't seen it on Earth yet," retorted Pleakley.

"Because you're incapable staying awake past 9," said Chip.

"I need plenty of beauty sleep," said Pleakley.

"Would be requiring beauty coma to produce anything," muttered Jumba.

"I heard that!"

"C'mon guys, I wanna go catch a falling star!" said Morph, holding up a butterfly net.

"Morph, how many times must I tell you?" asked Chip, "The chances of a meteorite landing on the island are incredibly slim. Not to mention you'd have to be going at, like, 10-and-a-half miles per second to keep up with one. And anything's left of them after being caught in reentry heat, it'd be the size of a pebble. Even if it didn't slip through your net, it'd snap the threads with the speed it's going."

"You're just jealous because you won't get your own space rock," said Morph.

"Morph, we're aliens, we have a spaceship, I could go out and bring a space rock big enough to carve into a birdbath if I wanted," said Chip.

"Do you mind?" said Draco, "There is company present who could take offense to that remark." He nodded his head towards Contrinus, who was helping with the snacks. The phoenix-like experiment had been staying with Draco, Chip, and Morph ever since the Soundwave incident two years ago. During that time, Draco and Contrinus had been on like 2 dates a month. Apparently, the only reason Draco hadn't proposed yet was because they should wait until they were the equivalent of 18.

"Oh, right, sorry about that, Contrinus," said Chip.

Contrinus shrugged and said, "I don't mind. I actually wouldn't mind a birdbath made of meteor stone. It would certainly suit me." But Contrinus's tone wasn't so passé, there was an undertone of worry that wouldn't elaborate on.

"Well, I think that should be enough to keep us up till midnight," said Nani, "Where's Angelilo and Stitch?"

"They're tucking away little Piki," said David. Piki was David and Nani's daughter. She was born 3 months ago. It was a night that could never forget. Particularly since Nani left David's fingers completely bruised from the huge amount of squeezing she was dong and that she shouted every swear word in English, Hawaiian, and some she even overheard the experiments using. However, Piki was a beautiful baby, already showing signs of her mother's charm and as relaxed as her father.

"I still don't see why you can't bring the little peachy thing with us," said Pleakley.

"It's her bedtime and the night air might be bad for her," said Nani.

Jumba laughed and said, "Atmosphere is no different during night cycle than during day. That is elderly married women's talk."

"I'm not taking chances," said Nani, "Who knows if those meteorites are carrying some space bacteria that could infect her."

"Nani, a meteor would have to be a large size than what's expected tonight to be able to carry any kind of organism," said Chip, "Besides, even it was able to survive the vacuum of space, which is rare, then it would more than likely be killed by the reentry heat. I don't think any aliens could arrive here via falling star."

"I wouldn't stay that, Chip." Everyone turned to see Angelilo and Stitch walk over to the hammock. During the two years since Leroy's attempt to kidnap and brainwash her failed, Angelilo and Stitch (or Kenny as he was known in his human form) had both grown into mature 16-year-old teenagers. Angelilo in particular was well into young adulthood. She had shot up another three inches, making her five-foot-eight. Even though she was only sixteen, her hips and butt were the same size as Nani's. Nani had the bigger bust, but that was due to her recent pregnancy and the fact that Piki wasn't ready to wean yet. Angelilo's breasts, however, were the same size as Nani's before she became pregnant. All in all, she was the most attractive member on the cheer squad, which she had become captain of. Her usual attire had changed slightly. She still mainly wore blue jeans and sandals, but now she wore three red wristbands on each arm and a red halter top that showed off her midriff.

Any boy at Kokowa Town High would have wanted to go out with Angelilo, except that she had the equally impressive Stitch/Kenny for her boyfriend. Stitch also profited from puberty. He was now six-foot-one, making him one of the taller boys in class. His position as football quarterback and his natural superstrength really brought out his muscles. He had taken to wearing unbuttoned Hawaiian shirts to show off his perfectly sculpted chest. He also regularly wore a pair of lime green shorts while still wearing sandals.

Between the two them, they seemed to have the admiration of every kid in school and several kids outside of school. Many people have suggested that they should moonlight as models, an idea that Angelilo and Stitch did consider often.

"What do you mean by that?" asked Chip.

"Well, I wished upon a falling star and it brought me Stitch," said Angelilo, "I don't think it's so absurd that we can find life on falling stars."

Chip rolled his eye and said, "That wasn't really a falling star, it was a crashing police cruiser. Anyways, only half of you actually wished for that."

The human/experiment hybrid shrugged. "It's been so long since I fused that I'm not really sure what is Lilo and what is Angel," she said.

"But I know it's all perfect," said Stitch, hugging her close.

"If cutesy display of affection is over, we have meteoric event to observe," said Jumba.

…

Quite soon afterwards, the ohana went out to the hammock. They didn't have to wait long for the show to begin. Streaks of light zipped across the sky as the extraterrestrial rocks vaporized in the atmosphere. It was an incredible sight, but Draco noticed a concerned look on Contrinus's face. "Hey, don't worry," said Draco, "They're perfectly harmless. You don't believe that old myth that they're harbingers of doom, right?"

"Actually, those would be comets," said Pleakley, "Not like that myth is true either."

"I just can't shake this feeling that something's going to happen," said Contrinus.

"Don't be ridiculous," said Draco, "What could possibly happen?"

"Ooh, there's a big one!" said Morph, pointing up. A rather large shooting star was heading down from the sky, leaving a red trail behind it.

"Whoa, it almost looks like it's coming right at us," said Nani.

Jumba check the telemetry of the shooting star and said, "That is because it is coming right at us. Duck!" Everyone threw themselves down as the flying object grazed over the trees and continued hurtling past.

"Phew, that was a close one," said Pleakley. Moments later, a loud thud was heard as the meteor landed near the house.

"Oh no, the X-Buggy!" said Angelilo. The X-Buggy was still well in service, seeing as how it was upgraded with alien tech. For Angelilo's 16th human birthday (Angelilo actually had three birthdays a year now, one for Lilo, one for Angel, and one for when they fused), Jumba had given the X-Buggy a big tune up to celebrate that she now had a driver's license. The X-Buggy had improved aerial capabilities, an onboard computer that could provide navigation, targeting for the new built-in weapons in the rail, and speakerphone communication with any phone number, a windshield made from glass-based nanobots that could near instantly heal any damage and could extend to create a protective dome around the passengers, and two extra seats in the back. Aside from the extended chassis to allow the buggy to have four seats, it looks pretty much the same as before except that it had silver decal on Angelilo's request.

Angelilo, Stitch, Jumba, Draco, Chip, Morph, and Contrinus ran to check on the X-Buggy. The meteor had indeed crashed into the driveway. But fortunately, it missed the X-Buggy by a mere four inches. The meteor was currently cooling down in the new crater in the driveway.

Morph looked down at the meteor and said, "Missed it by that much."

"Is good thing I applied for meteor insurance," said Jumba.

"How necessary is that that anyways?" asked Draco.

"More than you can be thinking," said Jumba.

Angelilo let out a sigh of relief and said, "I'm glad it missed. I didn't want to drive around with a big dent in my hood."

"So what are we going to do with this space rock?" asked Stitch.

"Wait for it to cool," said Jumba, "Then we can be seeing where this meteor was coming from."

"Rather odd thing," said Chip, "Its surface seems pretty rounded, even if was burnt by reentry."

"It's only a rock," said Contrinus, slightly hastily, "Nothing more. I say we leave it and go back to watching the other meteorites fall."

The others gave her an odd look. "Contrinus, are you afraid of meteorites?" asked Draco.

"What? Why would I-" began Contrinus. Then an idea apparently came to her and said, "Yes, I have a small phobia of them. I can't help but think that something out of the sky could fall and hit my head."

"Huh, guess she's part chicken after all," said Morph, only to get zapped by Draco and Chip.

"Well, I wouldn't count on anything bigger than this to land near here tonight," said Chip.

Contrinus glanced upwards and said, "I hope not."

Then they went back to the hammock to watch the rest of the meteorite shower. However, none of them were there when the meteor cracked open. It wasn't just a simple crack from cooling stone, but more like something pushed its way out. Then a strange object floated up out of the meteoric husk. It was some sort of metal orb with four handles arranged in an X formation, only the metal didn't look like anything from Earth and its center glowed with a bright yellow light. The object hovered there for a minute before spinning around, scanning it's surrounding. After the object scanned the X-Buggy, it floated over the hood. Then it tipped downwards and plunged itself into the hood. However, instead of just making a dent, it started to glow bright blue and seemed to melt into the hood. The glow spread to the rest of the buggy before it faded away. Asides from the halved meteor in the crater, it looked like nothing happened at all.

There's the first chapter of the new Matched Heartbeats story. It's a bit of a slow start right now, but it's showing much promise. By the way, you better have read Matched Heartbeats and Genetic Genesis before you read this or else you'll be completely lost. In any case, this story isn't going to be coming out as rapidly because I've recently changed my mind about the plot of this story and the future stories I'm hoping to right in this storyline. But you do not want to miss a single chapter of this. Since I'm working on other stories, I can't guarantee the next chapter coming out soon, but I'll try. In the meantime, please review.

(This is the second attempt at this story, the first story's plot sort of petered out after the first chapter. This time, I've thought it all the way through. The next chapter will be up tomorrow.)