Author notes: At long last I've updated my fanfictions! Do you know why? BECAUSE SCHOOL'S OUT: ))
The past four weeks were the last third of the college term, and during that time I'm always much too loaded with work to do anything fanfiction related. Do you know what kind of hours it takes to write five thousand words in three days? But anywho, I'm taking the summer off, so all throughout you can expect regular updates.

Lilo was on her knees puling at Nani's pant legs. It was her favorite way to get what she wanted out of Nani, and it usually worked, especially when she was able to force up false tears from some reservoir. Lilo altered her voice every sentence from sobbing to screaming and back again. By now Lilo had gotten pretty good at being able to tell beforehand what she would be able to weasel out of Nani and what she wouldn't. Lilo knew what she wanted now had very little chance of getting Nani's approval. But it was too important just to give up on.

Lilo yanked at Nani's jean leggings at every emphasized syllable.

"Please Nani! Please! Please! Please! Please! Please!" Lilo begged, yanking with each please.

"It's too dangerous Lilo," Nani countered. "I'll let you do it after this situation is all over."

Stitch heard nothing of this conversation just outside the living room except for a droll hum. He sat on the gray denim couch with one arm on the right armrest and the other below his chin, his forefinger rhythmically waving back and forth. Stitch was too lost in thought to pay attention to anything outside himself. It was obvious to anyone knowledgeable what he was thinking about. The past few days, and what were the implications for him and Angel. Hamsterveil had Angel right now, and the smell of her fur gave away the kind of continuous, half conscious torment she was being put through. According to the freeloaders, their own Hamsterveil was planning an attack on his time. That certainly meant something for him and Angel, but exactly what it was he could not fathom.

Stitch jerked his head to the left as a third voice brought him back to the here and now.

"What's all the racket about?" asked a half-dressed, bed headed David just emerging from the hall behind the living room currently rubbing his left eye.

"Nani won't let me go looking for experiments!" Lilo instantly took the opportunity to shout back.

"Well, why won't you?" David asked nani.

"Because its too dangerous!" Nani snapped back. "What with all this whatever going on, I'm sorry I just can't allow it."

That last part was clearly directed back at Lilo. She turned her attention away from David and back toward her older sister. Lilo grabbed Nani's pant legs and yanked again.

"It's not too dangerous!" Lilo shouted. "Stitch will be there to protect me! Right Stitch?"

Lilo turned her head toward Stitch at those last two words. It caught him off guard, as he was only half paying attention to them in the first place. He quickly tried to think of some way to respond.

"Uhmm… Ih."

"See Nani!" Lilo pleaded. "I told you Stitch would be there to protect me."

"And that's the only reason I let you go out experiment hunting normally." Nani not quite shouted back. "But this situation's too much. I'm sorry, but not until it's all resolved."

"I don't see there isn't anything Stitch can't take care of." David interrupted.

"Well you don't know just how many times I've seen him come hoe badly hurt."

"Hurt? Stitch?"

"It is possible, however much you don't believe it."

"Nani!" Lilo yelled, at last getting both of the to pause and look down at her. "I'm not catching bugs! They're people too, I can't just let them stay out there all lost and stuff."

Nani huffed and rested her forehead in her palm. "I'm sure they can take care of themselves for just a few days."

"Now you're just being-"

"If stitch isn't enough, we'll go with her too."

Each person in the room looked at each other, not immediately recognizing the voice that just spoke. After less than a second they discovered to look down behind David, where ruby stood with all four hands clasped, and Sapphire following behind.

"Yeah," Sapphire added, not really paying attention. "We'll go with… We'll go with her?"

Sapphire's darted his head toward Ruby. His ending seemed panic stricken. Ruby nodded her head excitedly with a large smile while Sapphire violently shook his head and waved his hands out in front of him.

Ruby's sudden interjection got the attention of Stitch as well. Stitch joined with Sapphire in frantic flailing about with his hands and shaking his head. Soon they were both swiping fingers across their throats, though each for a different reason. Stitch at this point wanted only a quiet morning by himself to reflect on what has happened recently, what might happen, and what would be the deeper meaning of it all. Sapphire's reason was more dire.

"Well…" Nani huffed. "I suppose with the two of you and Emerald and Stitch going with her it would be ok. Alright Lilo, you can go experiment hunting."

"Yeah!" Lilo yelled at the top of her lungs as both Sapphire and Stitch pulled at their ears in frustration.

The previous night's shower left dew on all available surfaces, and the road several shades darker than normal. But for the downpour during last night's sleep, the sun so early in the morning swept all but a few clouds away, and even in its brevity, left the dirt dry enough for the squeamish to walk on without concern. But that's the way it went in Kauai. A torrential downpour could go on for an hour, and an hour after it ended, there would be no sign that it was ever there. They all heard the rain beating against the roof of David's apartment, and Lilo knew there would be new experiments running about after that.

Lilo walked along the sidewalk through the main shopping road of Kokaua. It was a place all of them knew quite well, though for a portion it was both less crowded, and more dilapidated. The sun left no one indoors that day. Almost everyone they knew in town they passed up.

Emerald, Ruby and Sapphire all had hidden their extra extremities, except for Sapphire who had none. They all followed Lilo intently while Stitch lagged behind, dashing only to catch up when it looked as if they would go out of his sight. Stitch grumbled incoherently to himself as he passed by old cars, old shops with peeling paint, small gardens, masses of weeds, and streams. What occupied his mind at that moment was not Angel nor Lilo, but these strange new experiments themselves. How much longer would they have to stay here with him? Not necessarily how much longer would they stay on this island, in this time, or whatever the proper phrasing of that question was, but how long until he could get some time to himself to continue thinking? Stitch dug his nails into his paws as he thought more. Would he ever really be their friend? What would that mean for him and Lilo? What would that mean for him and his occasional need for solitude? They insist that in the future they all would be friends. How would that affect his life? Certainly it would resemble nothing of the life he has now. So what would it be like?

Though aware of it, Stitch paid no mind to the equally serious conversation going on in front of him.

"We can't interfere!" Sapphire would've screamed at Ruby had he not been whispering. "I refuse to believe even you can't see the importance of keeping our present intact. That means we intervene only when he have to, and we can't be seen by the public as anything more than pets!"

"That's what I was doing!" Ruby cried back. "This is what they'd do normally isn't it? So I'm just letting them do it!"

"She is right about that." The third, and thus far silent of the siblings added. Sapphire stopped in his tracks. His jaw hung open as Emerald walked by him with her arms folded.

"Beaten in an argument by Ruby." Sapphire whispered to himself.

"And don't forget your slipup with the shaved ice guy." Emerald continued as she passed him.

Sapphire shook his had and ran to catch up after he was passed by Stitch.

Lilo strolled along as if unaware of the conflicts going on right behind her. Her mind was set on alert mode and she was looking for anything out of the ordinary, aside from the out of the ordinary seen every day in this town. Lilo's eyes darted to and fro searching for any sign of an unrecognizable creature. Around and over the roof of Kiki's coffee hut, through the alleys and windows of the two or three trinket shops, through the bins of old lady Hasagawa's food stands situated in the grass and dirt between a trinket shop and a pizzeria. Despite her intensity, youth overwhelmed Lilo, and a familiar sight canceled her Alert mode.

"Victoria!" Lilo shouted, waving her hands in the air.

Victoria was running toward her, Snooty held to her chest, and her face rife with worry.

"Victoria!" Ruby shouted right back, before two blue furred hands pressed themselves against her mouth from behind. Sapphire's harsh whisper rang in her ear.

"We can't let her see us." Sapphire spat out. "We have to hide."

With that, Sapphire and Ruby dashed out of sight into a convenient patch of especially tall grass lining the alley between the pizzeria and the post office.

Emerald ran toward Lilo, briefly whispering into Lilo's ear, "We were never here." Before joining the others in the grass. Lilo nodded in acknowledgement.

Victoria stopped just in front of Lilo and leaned over to breath heavily. She placed and arm on Lilo's shoulder. Lilo grasp the hand and looked back down at Victoria rather worried.

"You alright?" Lilo asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Victoria answered between breaths.

Victoria leaned up and back in one last breath, causing Snooty to flap his wings with an obvious look of relief.

"You know," Lilo said, looking down at snooty. "I think you were suffocating him when you balled him up like that."

Victoria blinked her eyes in confusion for a moment before looking back down at Snooty and lifting him up, cradling him in her arms.

"I'm so sorry!" Victory sighed.

Snooty gave out a brief snort. Lilo giggled.

"I think that means he forgives you."

"Yeah he does." Vicoria answered, letting Snooty suck on her finger. "Oh yeah! Who were those other three experiments who were with you?"

The words we were never here, flashed through Lilo's mind.

"What other experiments?"

"The other three that were with you! The ones that ran away when I came near!"

"I didn't have any others with me."

"Well whatever. Oh, what's wrong with Stitch?"

"Huh?"

Stitch wasn't anywhere near Lilo. She followed Victoria's gaze and a few buildings down she saw Stitch laying on his back on top of one of the table umbrella's a Kikki's. His hands rested behind his head, each with one pinky wrapped around the end of the pole sticking up from the fabric. He stared straight up into the sky. He only hoped they wouldn't find an experiment today.

"I don't know." Lilo said. "He's been like that all morning."

"We'll there's more important things right now." Victoria instantly said back. "There's a new experiment on the loose!"

Lilo shook her head and swung it right back toward Victoria. "A new experiment! That's great I was just looking for one!"

"Well, this one's got differently colored eyes."

At that time, emerald, Ruby, and Sapphire were still hiding in their patch of grass. Something about those three words, differently colored eyes, made emerald's eat skip a beat. Her breathing instantly quickened and her pupils dilated. A single tear welled up in her eye as she remembered the events that led her to know what had happened to whom specifically she was thinking of.

"Lady Zafyrie?" Ruby asked. "Where's Angel and Stitch? Where's my Ohana?"

Zafyrie closed her eyes. She didn't want to tell them this, but she had to.

"After his hostile takeover. Hamsterviel's first target was Earth. He used the fusion cannons on the Zodiac to melt the polar ice caps, and then to boil the oceans. Stitch, Angel, all your other siblings, and your adoptive human family… are all dead."

The gleeful faces of the three little creatures shattered upon hearing those words.

They could only hold it in a few seconds. They all burst out into tears buried their heads in Zafyrie's legs. Zafyrie could barely manage to wrap her arms all the way around them, and hold them closer to her.

Zafyrie… Emerald and her brother and sister were among the few in the galaxy who on a first name basis with the overseer of the Federation's Grand Council. Though as she knew it, it only existed here in the past. A fugitive delivered the news of her home and family's destruction to her at that point. Those words, two differently colored eyes, brought it all back to her, as one particular experiment who fit that description was all she thought about the moment she first of what happened to the earth she knew.

What suddenly happened to Emerald was not lost on either of her siblings. Emerald had always put up the guise of the perfect leader, lady, and hostess, but they both knew she was something quite different.

Emerald crawled forward, now almost peaking out from the grass.

"She's gonna lose it." Sapphire whispered to Ruby.

"Two different colored eyes?" Emerald almost wheezed.

Emerald began to crawl out of the grass when the weight of both her siblings fell on her back and pushed her to the ground. That was enough to bring her back to her senses.

"You can't be seen by Victoria." Sapphire whispered into Emerald's ear. "And you especially can't be seen by him."

"Where is it? What is it doing?" Lilo shouted at Victoria, almost jumping up and down.

"He's burning trees and then freezing them!" Victoria shouted back. "He's almost at the edge of town!"

Snooty added a snort to the end of Victoria's statement.

"Burning and then freezing?" Emerald whispered to herself. She got back up on her hands and feet and started to crawl forward again, before again being dragged back to the ground by the force of her siblings.

"Stitch!" Lilo shouted.

Stitch grumbled to himself and sat up scratching his stomach, now with only one hand holding himself on top of the umbrella. He knew what that meant. Lilo had found an experiment. Stitch didn't like it, at least not at the moment, but he had a job to do. He let go of the pole and slid off the umbrella, landing on his feet on the table below.

Immediately Stitch off the table and into the street as the customers who sat below him shrieked in surprise and all spilled their drinks.

"Hurry up!" Lilo shouted again. "It's a burner and freezer in one!"

Stitch landed poised right next to Lilo to see the first glimpse of this new experiment walking down the street, past the first few abandoned, decrepit wood boxes that made up the edge of Kokaua.

It looked quite a bit like Stitch. It had the same basic body design. The face was sculpted a bit more angularly, a bit more predator like, and his ears were short and pointed straight up, appearing almost fox-like. He was not quite a foot taller than Stitch. His fur was a bright orange with a sky blue belly. From here Stitch could see his eyes, the left bright blue, and the right bright red.

"Kelvin?" Emerald said to herself, getting up again, and again being dragged back to the ground by Ruby and Sapphire.

"Kelvin can't see you!" Sapphire whispered harshly. "Remember that above all!"

Victoria screamed and ran away, her and snooty hiding behind the wall of the first available trinket shop, and both barely peering out to watch. Lilo and Stitch both held their ground watching the new experiment The experiment casually walking toward them from so many blocks away.

The experiment stopped and grinned to himself. He narrowed his right red eye and widened his left blue one. The eye shined like a blue flash light. He turned his head toward the first of the old abandoned sheds in front of him. White mist shot out of his eye engulfing the building. After just a second The experiment blinked and the jet stopped. The old building was covered in a layer of opaque white ice several inches this, and the surrounding ground in snow. The experiment turned toward his other side and widened his red eye. Flames spewed forth as if from a geyser, totally enveloping the second old building. After another second, The experimentg blinked and the geyser stopped. A pile of smolders was left.

The experiment stared right at Lilo and stitch and grinned wider this time. He knew another experiment when he saw it, and was daring them to attack him.

Lilo's body was clenched and she took two steps back.

Stitch did not seem impressed. He cracked his neck, leaning it side to side, and his back twisting, and ran down the street on all fours.

The experiment stood motionless waiting for Stitch to get close enough. As he did, The experiment widened his red eye, and a stream of fire shot forward toward Stitch. Stitch jumped into the air to dodge the blast. The experiment's eye followed him with his eye, but the fire couldn't keep up.

Stitch landed on his feet inches in front of The experiment and pounced on him, pinning his shoulders to the ground.

"Naga emba-dooka!" Stitch barked right into The experiment's face, snarling at him as soon as it was over.

The experiment smiled and spoke in a voice fittingly pitched for his size, raspy and yet smooth at once. "Dobou-patookie."

A bight red light shone in Stitch's face, and the next he was some distance in the air surrounded by white fire. It was only slightly painful against his skin, but it seared the insides of his nostrils and felt like acid against his eyes. He wanted to scream, but didn't want fire to get down his throat.

"Stitch." Emerald whimpered.

"No!" Sapphire hushed.

The flames stopped and Stitch could at last see how far up from the earth he was. It was over fifty feet. He fell back down and landed faee first on the concrete, smashing it. The experiment continued to walk forward just as slow as before, occasionally turning his head to freeze a car or burn down a tree.

Stitch lifted up his hands and pushed down on the concrete, lifting his head from the pothole created by his face. His fur was blackened and the skin underneath tingled and burned slightly. The impact made him see double. Stitch stood up, almost falling over at first, but righting himself and again running after The experiment.

The experiment stopped, seeing the burned Stitch still alive and in fighting condition. Shock was abound on The experiment's face, but soon it was replaced by Anger.

"Blitznack!" The experiment screamed.

Stitch didn't know exactly where he was going. He tried to run up between the two images of The experiment he saw, but was too disoriented to see the light building up in front of him. Only feet from The experiment, Stitch reared back a claw to swipe between the images. Before he could begin to swing forward, everything went gray, and his mind became foggy.

The experiment had widened his blue eye. Waiting for perfect moment to strike, when Stitch was right in front of him, and could jump out of the way fast enough, he released his jet of cold. What was left of Stitch was a block of opaque ice roughly in his shape, fused with the street.

From behind their trinket shop shield, Snooty started growling and squealing and flapping his wings in Victoria's arms.

"Uhh… all right go get him." Victoria said before letting go of her experiment.

Snooty flew high up into the air, out of sight of The experiment, again casually walking forward, now passing up Mrs. Hasagawa's stand, the only person besides Lilo who wasn't hiding from the flurry.

Snooty arched his wings straight back and plunged downward toward The experiment. The experiment looked up just in time to see a thing dive-bombing him. They bashed faces and each fell down to the pavement nearly unconscious.

Victoria jumped slightly hearing rustling behind her. She turned to see that Lilo was now right beside her shielding herself with the trinket shop.

"Why aren't you helping Stitch!" Victoria whined.

"Stitch is fine." Lilo barked back. "He's shrugged off things much worse than that. I'm worried about Snooty. Do you think he can handle it?"

"I don't know."

Both experiments in the street fumbled over themselves trying to be the first to stand up, but neither did so faster than the other. As soon as Snooty had regained his composure, he saw a glowing red eye staring at him.

In a flash Snooty was in the air, just barely having avoided the jet of flame that passed right by Mrs. Hasagawa, singing the tips of her hair. Snooty fluttered about over the food stands as unpredictably as a moth, dodging every stream of fire that came his way.

Mrs. Hasagawa was oblivious to the fact the fire shot through the air just above her. She sprayed her produce and stopped only once to make a snide and somewhat senile comment.

"It's too hot, somebody turn down the sun."

The experiment snarled under his breath. His spray of fire just wasn't fast enough to hit the thing taunting him. He narrowed his right eye and opened up his left. A surge of cold flew past Snooty, clipping his wing and sending him spinning to the ground.

Icy mist poured down onto Mrs. Hasagawa's stand coating everything in the slightest frost.

"Ahhh… That's better." She sighed in relief, and continued to spray her produce.

Snooty crashed into the ground rolling over himself several times before winding to a stop and folding his now useless wing beneath him. The experiment walked up to Snooty with teeth bared and clenched. Snooty squealed a tried to fly, but only flapped his way a few feet into the air before falling back down.

"Snooty!" Victoria screamed, and ran out in the middle of the street. She covered Snooty with her won body.

"Victoria no!" Lilo screamed and ran after her. She tried pulling Victoria off Snooty but couldn't.

Soon, they all saw a light glowing brighter in front of them. All three stopped and looked to see the enraged The experiment now with both eyes glowing and staring at them. They were stunned and helpless but to watch.

"Lilo! Victoria!" Emerald shrieked.

All six tendrils sprouted from her, throwing Ruby and sapphire from her and into the street.

"No don't" Sapphire screamed, reaching for her with one hand.

Emerald propelled herself into the air with her bottom tendrils. The experiment turned his head and had only time to see two green ropes flying at his face. They struck his jaw and sent him spinning before landing on the ground.

The tendrils from Emerald's head reached back and grabbed a lemon from Hasagawa's stand. The tendrils holding it in front of her face, Emerald sliced the top off with her claw and then squeezed all its juice into her mouth.

Growling and roaring, the experiment stood up and faced Emerald from inches away. Both his eyes glowed, but before he could unleash anything, Emerald sprayed all the juice from her mouth right into his eyes. The experiment instantly dropped to the ground holding his eyes and shrieking in pain. He rolled over and over aimlessly.

"Emerald…" Lilo whispered. "You saved us."

"Emerald?" Victoria asked. She looked over to Sapphire and Ruby still getting up and rubbing their heads. "So there really were three others with you."

"Kelvin is powerless with his eyes closed." Emerald said calmly, looking down with a bizarre mix of sorrow and pride over a very distraught experiment writhing and gurgling. "He won't be a problem any more."

Sapphire stood up and saw it all. Just as he predicted, Emerald lost her self-control and acted on instinct. Victoria, Snooty, and Kelvin were now aware of them, and they would all want to know where they came from. There was no way Lilo would lie to Victoria. The last barrier had been broken. The odds were infinitesimal now.

Sapphire dropped to his knees and pulled on his ears. His head leaned up to the sky and he clenched his teeth. He breathed as deeply as he could and tried to scream louder than he ever had before, but nothing came out. Sapphire could only cry now. Tears running down his fur, he stood up and walked away toward no where in particular.

Stitch didn't know who thawed him or how. He only regained consciousness on the couch of David's apartment after everyone else there had fallen asleep, including the new experiment caught by none other than the freeloaders. Now the new experiment slept in a capture container and blindfolded with a long bandage. It was strange that emerald should choose to sleep next to that instead of on the pile of blankets in the living room floor with the rest of the experiments.

Stitch woke up to find that, and Jumba sleeping on the couch, while Pleakly slept on the foldout chair covered by about six sheets. If he knew Nani, she'd be sleeping with Lilo in the master bedroom while David would be forced to sleep in the guest bedroom.

But that had happened hours ago. Right now, Stitch was out on the asphalt shingle roof. The only sounds were of the wind and the occasional coqui frog, a great relief from the earlier racket. An assortment of whatever he could scrounge lay out in front of him. This time it was a bottle of instant hand sanitizer, tweezers, several hand towels, another bunch of cotton balls, a quarter gallon carton of pass-o-guava, and a leftover slice of pizza, both from David's fridge.

Stitch muttered angrily to himself angrily as he just as angrily grabbed each of his items and shoved them inside his green backpack. The freeloaders insisted on ruining his reflections, accompanying him and Lilo. And now it was they, not him, who saved her. It wouldn't be long before she would be telling them improvised bedtime stories about fictionalized versions of themselves.

Stitch's attention was caught by a light scratching. He focused his ears and heard it again, coming from the other side of the roof. He looked out across the roof. A hand reached out and pulled the face of ruby out from the edge of the roof. Stitch clutched the backpack to his chest while he growled at ruby pulling herself up to his side of the roof.

"That's for angel isn't it?" Ruby asked.

"Gaba?" The question caught Stitch off guard. He quickly growled at her again. "Gaba Angel haka nota?"

Ruby sat down on the top of the roof and looked up at the sky. Stitch blinked and looked up with her.

"Angel always used to tell us how you would give her what she needed to stay alive when she was with Hamsterveil. She said she wouldn't have survived without it… at least not her spirit anyway.
"She never talked about what happened to her when she was there with him and whenever we asked she changed the subject. I guess you're the only one who'll ever really know. But we all know this.
"She didn't really love you when you first met. She cared about you, but more like you were a pet than an equal. It was also that way when she was taken. She fell in love with you only after she was sent to Hamsterveil. It was all the nice things you sent her, that's what did it for her.
"I just came by to give you these"

Ruby extended a lower arm from hiding. In it she grasped a box of Jr. Mints.

"They were always her favorite."

For a moment Stitch forgot about his hostile feelings toward this experiment. He looked straight into her eyes with nothing more than a gentle curiosity in his own. He looked for what exactly she was. What he found was a creature utterly incapable of dishonesty. Maybe it was just because of how simple she was, or maybe something more. Whatever the cause, Stitch suddenly felt a little bit less angry with her and her siblings.

Ruby walked forward and put the box of Jr. mints down in front Stitch before walking toward the edge of the roof. Stitch looked at the box of Jr. Mints in front of him and imagined that maybe would grow to like those so much precisely because of Ruby's actions tonight.

Ruby walked to the edge of the roof and was about to jump down to the sidewalk when Stitch spoke up.

"Ruby?"

Ruby stopped and turned her head toward Stitch.

"Takka." Stitch said.

Ruby smiled and nodded at Stitch. She turned back and looked at the sky again. Sniffing a bit, Ruby suddenly snorted and extended her tongue up into her nose, digging out whatever she could before sucking it back into her mouth. Then she stepped off.

Stitch was in a bit of shock from what he just saw. That was something done only by him and a very few other experiments he was especially close to. Not in a hundred years would he have expected Ruby to do that.

Stitch huffed to himself, "hummm…"