Matched Heartbeats
Chapter 2: Slow Start
Everyone was alerted about Lilo and Angel's accident. They all gathered at Lilo's house to discuss the matter. Nani took the news quite well. And by quite well, I mean she stammered unintelligibly for a few seconds, passed out, woke up, went into hysterics, passed out again, woke up again, and then calmly accepted it.
Stitch was baffled to say the least that his best friend and his girlfriend had been combined on the molecular level.
Pleakley, quite predictably, started screaming and running around in circles before Draco did everyone a favor by bopping him on the head, knocked him out, and therefore shutting him up.
Draco and Chip were more interested then surprised and asked Lilo and Angel questions about what it was like.
"Well," said Lilo, "It doesn't fell different physically yet. But on mentally it's like sharing the same bedroom with someone and allowing them to learn all your, Chip will stop waving that around my head?"
Chip had converted one of his hands into one of those scanning/detecting things that security people used at the airport. Only this one was a lot more advanced looking.
"Sorry," said Chip, "just collecting data for my journal."
"Journal?" asked Angel.
"I'm recording the process in case something similar to this every happens again, which I hope will not. So far, you're still on Stage 1, subject still resembles one of the participant's original form."
"Stop it Chip," said Draco. "Can't you see Angelilo is have trouble coping with this?"
"Angelilo?" said Lilo and Angel.
"Yeah," said Draco, "I figure since you two will be staying like this for a while, we might as well not be calling you 'Lilo and Angel' or 'Angel and Lilo' all the time."
"Draco," said Chip, "this is not the time. This is real life, not some silly action-based anime show."
Unexpectedly, a trio of man-sized ninja parakeets broke through the front window, crying out various action phrases in Japanese. Morph jumped in front of them and said his own Japanese action phrase. One of the ninjas tried to use a sleeper hold on Morph but he batted off all his attempts and used a swinging kick to send that ninja back out the window. Another ninja pulled out a set of throwing stars and started tossing them at Morph. Morph was hit by the stars but his plasma body absorbed them and spat them back out. The ninja who threw the stars had his clothing caught by the stars, carried out the window, and was pinned to a tree. The last ninja made a ball of energy in his hands and then shot the energy as a beam. Morph countered it with his own stronger beam and blasted the ninja out the window. Then Morph used a device from his TechPack to fix the window the ninja parakeets came through. "Man those guys are annoying," said Morph, "I tell them to leave me alone, but they attack anyway. I can never get any peace with them. What were you saying Chip?"
"Eh, never mind. The point is that we need to take this seriously."
"I am taking it seriously," said Draco. "Making a fused name will be a lot easier than saying their names individually when you're talking about both of them. Besides it's creative."
"While Draco's right about the fused name thing," said Lilo, "he's forgetting that this is only temporary and we will disjoin when Jumba's done redesigning the teleporters."
"But not in time to prevent you from going into Stage 2," said Chip.
"What's Stage 2?" asked Angel.
"Subject develops small part of secondary participant's most signature physical feature."
"What?" said Lilo and Angel.
Chip showed them a hand mirror to Lilo's face. Lilo looked closely and saw that right next to her hairline, there were two hard to notice bumps. She also noticed that her hairline was developing a widow's peak.
"What are those?" asked Lilo.
"Angel's antennas," said Chip, "come to think of it, we should add a more specific label to that stage."
"How long do these stages last?" asked Angel.
"Actually, it's hard to tell. Jumba says that the progression in stages is triggered by strong emotions, adrenaline rushes, and one other event we have yet to identify."
The rest of the day was actually uneventful. Angel was adjusting to Lilo's human body. When they talked to each other, they decided to do so mentally more than vocally to not draw attention. Stitch treated Lilo the same, but kept the romantic talk with Angel to a minimum. Stitch was still having a bit of a hard time seeing that Angel was Lilo and vice versa. But then again, so did everyone else.
Later that night, while Angelilo was brushing their teeth, Lilo asked, "Angel, exactly what do you see in Stitch?"
"Well," said Angel, "he's smart, funny, cute, and of course, fluffy. And he's a really kind person. He breaks a lot of things, but he's really sweet. Not to mention he's pretty handsome."
"Yeah," said Lilo as she gargled, "Stitch is pretty, nice that is. You two make a really good couple."
"What about you and Keoni?" asked Angel as they changed into Lilo's nightgown.
"He's busy with that other girl, the one who keeps claiming to be his girlfriend. Besides, I'm totally over him."
Just then Stitch walked into the room. "Goodnight Lilo, goodnight Angel," said Stitch as he crawled into bed.
"Goodnight Stitch," said Angel and Lilo at the same time. Stitch did a double take at this but then crawled under the covers. Angelilo did the same thing and soon fell asleep.
The morning sun was shining over Kauai. A rooster flapped its wings and crowed. But then Melty shot a fireball at it to make it shut up so he could get some sleep. Lilo woke around this time. She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and got up stiffly. She walked over to the bathroom, passing the still sleeping Stitch. She got the water running and splashed some water on Lilo's face. Suddenly Lilo felt something on her face. It wasn't something like eye crumbles or drool, but something that was attached to her head. She looked in the mirror and her groggy eyes shot open. The little bumps from yesterday had extended to about a third of the length of Stitch's antennas. The widow's peak has progressed to halfway down from the antennas. She put her hands on the side of her head in shock. As she felt that the ears have moved closer towards the top of the head and were a bit longer. The last one was what really made them scream.
After that, everyone gathered to Angelilo's side. She had calmed down from that and was now actually flicking the antennas. "Well," said Chip, "that solves the question of the mystery event. When Angelilo fall a sleep, their subconscious triggers the phase that causes the mutation. Interesting."
"Well, I can hide my ears under my hair," said Lilo, "but what do I do about these things?"
To answer her question, Stitch grabbed a headband and put it onto Angelilo's head. It obscured the antennas wonderfully with causing any pain. "Thanks, Stitch," said Lilo, smiling at Stitch.
"No problem," said Stitch, smiling back.
Then Nani said, "While we're up, let's have some breakfast."
Everyone was at the table, enjoying a bowl of cereal. Stitch, Draco, and Morph finished their cereal and cereal bowls very quickly. Suddenly there was a muffled gagging sound. They looked down the table to see that Lilo had her cereal bowl stuck in their mouth. "Stand back," said Chip, "I know CPR." He got behind Lilo and performed the heimlich with all six of his arms. The cereal bowl shot out and hit Pleakley in the face.
Pleakley slowly removed the cereal bowl from his face. Cereal and milk were all over his face. "I'm going to wash my face now," said Pleakley. He calmly left the table and left the room. After he left, they all heard yelling all sorts of cries of disgust.
Nani looked at Angelilo and said, "Angel, you can't make Lilo eat the easily replaceable bowls that Jumba made yet. Her mouth hasn't developed enough."
"Actually," said Lilo, "she wasn't doing anything, I did instinctively."
"Apparently Stage 3 is when Lilo starts getting some of Angel's mannerisms," said Chip as he got back in his seat.
"In that case, no coffee for you, young ladies," said Morph.
"Mannerism isn't the same thing as metabolism," said Angel.
"At least not yet," said Draco. He got up from the table and said, "Well, I'm gonna go see how Jumba's doing."
Soon after, Draco went into the lab where he found Jumba typing on the computer. From the look of the bags under his four eyes, Jumba had working all night long. "Hey Jumba," said Draco, "how's it going?"
"Very slow, 6-2-8," said Jumba, "molecular fusion is more complicated than you can imagine. Even more complicated then genetic engineering. In fact, molecular defusion is untouched field. Would be fascinating if not used to separate little girl and 6-2-4."
Suddenly there was a flash of light from the teleporter pods. Draco looked over at the pods and saw a glowing circle of light in both of them. They seemed to show some sort of landscape in them. "Uh, Jumba, what are those?"
Jumba blinked and said, "Uburmium is know to have slightly otherworldly energy signal. Perhaps molecular disruption has caused them to open dimensional portals. Should try to shut them."
"Why?" asked Draco. Suddenly one of the portals opened wide and something large and roaring came out. Draco's eyes shrank as he said, "Oh; that's why."
There's another chapter. Not enough action? Disappointed by the slow rate of Angelilo's transformation? Well the next chapter ought to fulfill your expectations. Please review.
