Avatar: Here's my Merry Christmas present to you all - the final chapter of Rebel Without a Cause! If you celebrate Hannukah, I've given you twenty-four chapters already, so imagine the last eight were Hannukah presents. If you celebrate something else entirely, too bad.

Stitch: avatarjk137 does not own Lilo and Stitch.

Lilo: He only owns Maverick, Absolute, the H-Series Experiments, the crew of The Protest, Gantu's shipmates, and the contents of this story.

Avatar: That was the disclaimer. Now enjoy the last chapter.

Chapter 25

Sowing Red Seeds

"Good morning," Lilo said musically as she took her seat around the breakfast table.

"I smell coffee," Stitch muttered, a drip of saliva hanging down from his lips. "And I need it." He opened his mouth wide, and poured the whole pot into his mouth. Then he shook his head vigorously, seemed to gain some realization of where he was, and began to make a new pot, which had become a semi-regular ritual with him.

"Who made the oatmeal today?" Lilo asked Jumba hopefully. Jumba was typing away on his laptop, spooning the mushy food absently into his mouth. "Nani or… Pleakley?" She knew Pleakley's cooking skills were improving, but she still remembered a certain trip to the emergency room that had been caused by her 'aunt' working with oats in the past.

"Neither," Jumba said. "I was preparing nutritious breakfast paste. Have been up for over an hour searching for new spaceship online."

"Oh, that's good," Lilo said in relief. Jumba's skill in chemistry made him a solid cook, and the fact that he was a mad scientist meant he was more creative with it than most normal scientists would be. When he did take the time to cook, it was arguably the best food in the house. She spooned out bowls for herself and Stitch, sat down, and squirted some honey into the bowl.

Pleakley walked into the room, staring at a crystal ball, and sat down. "Having Maverick in the house for a week got me thinking about precognition. Lilo, you never told me Earthlings had ways to tell the future. And to think, all a human needs to see the future is a deck of special cards or a sphere made of crystal. Fascinating. We Plorgians-"

"You are knowing that precognition is load of bunk, correct?" Jumba asked.

"I like the stuff. I think some of it is real," Lilo said. "Not the horoscope stuff, but some of it, sure."

"Lilo's right, Jumba!" Pleakley said defensively. "I may not know if telling the future in humans is bunk, but I know that it exists all over the galaxy! It might well exist in humans too!"

"Precognition exists in this galaxy?" Lilo asked.

"Yeah, I'd heard that," Stitch nodded. "Where, Pleakley?"

"Well, Jumba's already created an Experiment that saw the future," Pleakley said with a confident smirk, "which should be proof enough."

"That is my genius at work," Jumba said. "Besides, Maverick could be changing the future by seeing it. Be showing me one place where precognition is naturally occurring, and where future is unchangeable."

"How about Plorg?" Pleakley replied smoothly. "My race, I'll have you know, contained some of the greatest prophets in galactic history."

"So that's where your species' other eye is," Stitch laughed. "It points to the future."

"Ha ha, very funny," Pleakley said after swallowing his oatmeal. "I'm serious! Haven't you heard of the Prophecies of the Plorgians?"

"Ah, yes," Jumba replied distastefully, "it is called 'the book of coincidences' in the scientific community."

"You scientists are always just doubting Zorxes," Pleakley shot back. "Half the book's already come true, and in order! Just… never on Plorg."

"What are the Prophecies of the Plorgians?" Lilo interrupted.

"They were made by a group of wise men from my planet shortly before our first interstellar contact. One prophecy after another has come true, but not one directly concerns Plorgians," Pleakley explained. "It's really very strange."

Jumba was about to open his mouth and explain why it was all just a coincidence (something about prophecies being general and cryptic enough that they were open to too much interpretation), but he was interrupted by Nani hurrying in. "I'm late," she cried breathlessly, causing everybody else to sigh in exasperation. "Lilo, there's a bottle of megavitamins I just bought on a friend's recommendation in the pantry. I want you to have one after breakfast. LuvyaBYE!" Nani was out the door before Lilo could argue that the residual effects from the bite of an alien Experiment had rendered her indestructible and immune to disease, so there really wasn't a point to being on a vitamin regimen.

Lilo shrugged and grabbed the bottle, popping one into her mouth as she read the back of the bottle. As far as she could tell, it had about 5 times as much as a growing person could need… of every vitamin a growing person could need. "Wow, I wonder how they cram it all into such a small pill," Lilo wondered. She offered the bottle to Jumba and Pleakley, but Pleakley pushed the bottle back, shaking his head.

"No thanks, Lilo. Those vitamins are tailor-made for HUMANS. If you haven't noticed, we're not humans. Those vitamins will probably do horrible things to us if we take them!"

"Like what?"

"Are you remembering the time I was having large orange pustules covering my face?" Jumba said. "I was accidentally taking Pleakley's Plorgian multivitamins instead of high blood pressure medication meant for me."

"Then why can we all eat each other's food?"

"Food is being one thing, but those pills are having outrageous amounts of the vitamins only earthlings are needing. Chances for severe reactions are being much higher."

"Oh, okay." Lilo frowned. "I don't like taking pills. I hope Nani doesn't make me take them all summer."

"Yes, finally!" Maverick cheered as The Protest came into view on his monitor. Although of all the places he'd stayed, this one was only a home in the loosest sense, it felt more like a home to him than anywhere else. It would be great to be back aboard the blue-red hammer-headed ship, with other Omnitaurians who knew him and understood him, who mostly even got along with him. And he wondered if they still wanted him as their captain, now that he was actually ready to fulfill the position. "Wait… what's going on?"

About a mile from The Protest was another frigate of similar size, a black-and-violet thing that was all spikes and swooping curves. The two were slowly circling each other, and between them were two smaller ships. One was a simple black fighter; a winged pod with a pair of blasters on the main body and some short-range missile launchers on the wings. The other was a fighter that Maverick recognized as belonging to his crew, used for when they needed a smaller ship. It was also painted in red and blue, with a belly-mounted rapid fire blaster as its sole armament. The real trick lay in the force field. A pair of short, stubby wings each ended in a round cage about a meter in diameter. Inside the cages were spheres of light, tell-tale signs of a force field generator. As long as the contents of the cages were intact and powered up, everything between them (the rest of the ship and its pilot) would be encased in a one-way force field. The two fighters were engaged in a fierce dogfight in the middle of a sparse asteroid field.

"Identify yourself," a voice rang out on Maverick's ship. A very familiar male voice.

"Calder!" Maverick exclaimed happily. "It's me, Maverick!"

"No way! I never thought I'd see you again! We were hacking into the GF mainframe, and there was no record of you being kept in any prison, but if you had gotten imprisoned, we'd have busted you out of there! But we had no idea what happened until you called us!"

"Well, don't worry, guys. I'm back, and I'm planning to stay this time. Say, do you think I could dock this stupid thing?"

"Yeah, sure." A hatch soon opened in the rear of the ship, and Maverick piloted the unarmed GF ship inside. His guess had been right; basic piloting wasn't actually all that hard. It was probably combat piloting and the large craft that were tough jobs. He walked out of the hangar and up to the bridge, and a cheer greeted him as soon as he walked in.

"Maverick's back!" Brennen and Darnun cheered, with Calder joining in slightly off-sync with the twins. The rest of the crew cheered as well, putting Maverick's fears to rest. Kherris cheered, and waved Maverick over. As soon as he did, she thrust a drink into his hands.

"Glad to see you back, captain. Come on, sit down, the show's not over."

"Show? What show?" Maverick realized they were watching the dogfight on a large monitor. "What's going on? I asked you guys to stay out of trouble!"

"You asked us to stay out of trouble with the GF. And we are. Jovus is in that ship. With captain Drak dead, all the other space pirates have been pushing in on our turf. We're defending ourselves from that crew over there with a little duel right now. We agreed not to waste resources with the big ships. Just a little honor duel – our best pilot against theirs."

Maverick turned to the screen and watched. Jovus was being trailed by his opponent, who was shooting missiles at the force field generators. Jovus braked hard, and the opponent's ship smashed into his shield bubble. As the other fighter stuttered, Jovus did a somersault and swung around behind him. His opponent tried to accelerate away, but Jovus fired a stream of shots towards his opponent, destroying two of the other ship's four stabilizer jets. The wounded fighter craft limped back to the larger frigate, and Maverick and the crew cheered. "Got him!" Jovus's voice yelled over the commlink. "This asteroid field is still our territory! Hey, Kherris, who was that ship that arrived earlier?"

"It was me," Maverick replied. "How are you doing in there, Jovus?"

"I'm fine. I cooked the other guy's tin can, though." Jovus's voice crackled for a sec. "Incoming transmission from the other ship."

A purple, pterodactyl-like face with glowing yellow eyes appeared on the corner of the screen. "This isn't over," he hissed.

"Yeah, sure, whatever, Rid," Kherris replied. "And maybe I'll tear out my horns and build you a harp with them. Now get out of here." She turned the screen off. "Okay, so… Maverick, are you ready to take on the role of captain?"

"If you still want me… sure. I'm ready."

"WOO!" The crew cheered.

"I think I know what this calls for," Kherris laughed. "I'm thinking party time, and then we pull a heist. It's been a while since we pissed off authority or had a good reason to get drunk!"

"Gotta disagree with you there," Maverick said. The room suddenly got very quiet, and Jovus's re-entry into the room went unnoticed. "Well, not about the party. Let's have a party. But after that, I'm not sure I want to lead us back into piracy. My Experiment body makes me too high-profile; if I lead us in any raids, the GF will go right after us. Besides, I'm not sure about all of you, but for me, piracy has been a form of escapism. I wasn't facing my concerns back home… back on Omnitaurus. I don't expect all of you – or any of you, even – to join me, but I'm going back home. And I'm starting a rebellion. Just think! For each member of our crew, each poor Omnitaurian who couldn't function in the current society, there must be dozens more who died before meeting us. I can't stand for that. I'm going home, to fix our government the only way I know how – with a good wake-up slap to the face!

"If any of you want to leave, you can go. I'm not going to stop you, it's your choice. If you all want to leave, you can even take the ship. But I, for one, want to take The Protest and take it where it's meant to be a protest. I want to make a difference."

"I don't know…" one of the others, a young, rebellious son of an Omnitaurian aristocrat, had spoken up, tweaking the rings on one of his horns doubtfully. "I swore that I'd never go back to Omnitaurus. I swore I'd make my name out here among the stars."

"I made about the same promise to myself," Maverick said. "That was only ten weeks ago, and now I've felt I've left my mark on the stars. I'm ready to come back home. But if you're not ready, nobody's stopping you."

"I'm with you, captain," Kherris said confidently. "I've never gotten to see our planet except for a few hours at a time; I was just an infant when my family left. It'll be fun. Plus, I've never helped to lead an army before."

"At least you helped to lead before," Maverick said. "I'm grateful you'll be there, I need your experience."

"I'm in, too," Calder said. "Being a pirate wouldn't be the same without captain Drak anyway. New captain, new direction in life. That's my Lord's way."

"We're in, too…" Darnun promised.

Brennen continued, "you'll need all the help you can get."

"Sure, why not?" Jovus said. "Maybe on Omnitaurus somebody will listen to me." More voices of assent could be heard, and Maverick smiled.

"All right," he said happily. "We'll drop off whoever wants to look for a new crew, and we'll head home. I think they'll be very surprised to see us. But first… we have one last party together as a pirate crew!"

"YYAAARRR!!"

"Junk. Crap. Trash. Drek. GARBAGE!" Bloodbath angrily threw an entire cabinet of Hamsterviel's possessions over his head. Had Hamsterviel always been such a pack rat? Bloodbath had planned on leaving some things there, for the GF to collect as evidence (and he was pretty sure they'd be coming, after the nice package he mailed them with return address) or reparations or for Hamsterviel's relatives to claim (he was pretty sure the gerbil had a neice) or whatever. But he wished Hamsterviel had a few more things of use to him laying around the lab. He would certainly take the weapons and food that weren't outdated, but the scientific and personal stuff was mostly worthless to him. He didn't want to create any more Experiments; his had all betrayed him, after all that work he and Hamsterviel had done. Fine then. If creations betrayed Bloodbath, he'd return to destruction; it was his forte anyhow.

"Let's see… Hamsterviel's books! Family photo album?" He threw it carelessly over his head. "College photo album?" Also thrown in a random direction. "Galactic Domination and You… Conquer the Known Universe in 15 Easy Steps… Control Planets Now! Ask Me How…" he checked them out closely. The first two were written by a celebrity and a cartoonist, but the last was written by a politician, so he burned it and put the other two carefully down beside him.

"Fur Grooming for Dummies… Firewood. What's this? Use Your Superior Mind to Get Laid. So it's true; mad scientists become mad scientists because they can't fulfill their sexual fantasies…" Bloodbath laughed and threw the pair of books into the burning pile he had already gathered. "Wait… what have we here? This one's dusty…" the orange Experiment grinned and gently blew the dust and years off of the cover. "The Prophecies of the Plorgians… I didn't know the little rat was superstitious."

Gantu's eyes narrowed dangerously. "You think you've beaten me, fool?"

Jorg, his opponent, chuckled. "I think I've got this battle about wrapped up. You should give up now, and save yourself the humiliation!"

"We'll see who's humiliated tonight!" Gantu gritted his teeth, and summoned up a reserve of strength that was beyond what even he thought he had. Jorg gasped in horror as Gantu swung his arm around, and scored another victory… in arm wrestling. Jorg, a soldier of the same race as Gantu, was skinnier and had skin that was more blue and less gray than his captain's. He was the BRB 9000's Master-At-Arms, as well as being a childhood acquaintance of Gantu's at military school. "I guess that's another victory for me," Gantu said happily.

Jorg grimaced, and said, "yeah, I guess so. I'm going to go check on… the lasers or something."

"Come on," Gantu shouted to the rest of the officer's recreation room, "isn't there anybody who can beat me in arm wrestling?"

"How about Reuben?" a lizard-person spoke up from over a magazine. "I heard he could beat you in a fistfight, if he really wanted to."

Reuben dropped the remote from his position in front of the TV. "Aww, c'mon, Danc, you know I don't want to. Too much hard work."

"Oh, Reuben," a female lupine alien snickered, "You need to exert yourself once in a while. Otherwise you'll just turn into a blob."

"I do exert myself," Reuben replied. "I have to walk all the way from my room to the galley and back to make a midnight snack. This ship's huge, I'm out of bed for a half an hour." But it was no use. By now the entire crowd was cheering for him to go against Gantu. "Oh, all right." Reuben hadn't had that much resistance to the idea, in truth. Although he still didn't like to use his real power, he was now doing so occasionally (in secret, it embarrassed him for some reason) to keep his skills from getting rusty again if his life was ever truly in jeopardy. "Come on, G, let's put on a show for 'em."

"I'll make it painless," Gantu said with a wink. They clenched arms (Reuben had pulled up another chair more suited to somebody his size), and began to shove. Gantu almost instantly ended it before Reuben began using most of his strength, and slowly began regaining ground. Sweat beads formed on Gantu's face as Reuben passed the mid-point and gained the advantage. "Come on…" Gantu exerted himself to the same level he had with Jorg, but this only slowed the onslaught for a second. He's going to win! Gantu thought. I'll never live this down!

"PACKAGE FOR CAPTAIN GANTU!" A small, shrew-like alien who worked scanners reported. Gantu slipped in the distraction, and accidentally used his mass advantage to throw both Reuben and his chair across the room before falling off his own stool.

Gantu got up and dusted himself off. "Thank you, cadet. That'll be all." He took the package. "Call that a draw, Reuben?" he offered as he pulled out a pen laser to cut the box open with.

"Yeah," Reuben muttered as he crawled out from under the chair. "Draw. Whaaatever." He suddenly wrinkled his nose as he neared the package. "Hey, chief, hold up a sec. What's IN that? It stinks like a month-old dumpster load."

"It kind of does," Gantu admitted. "Even I can smell it. Hmm… the return address…" he read a note on the card. "The GF checked it out. This is from Hamsterviel's suspected hideout! ...but they say the threat level from the package is negligible."

"Maybe he sent you some rotting meat for your birthday," Reuben suggested. "That's what it smells like. I recognize Hamsterviel's scent on it, too… and 627's…"

"Well, if this is what it smells like unopened, we'd better hold our breath," Gantu groaned. "What did they send us, Experiment 254?!" He took in some air, as did Reuben. Then he aimed the laser, cut the box's tape, pulled it open, and gasped out his held breath at the contents.

Hamsterviel gazed up sightlessly and open-mouthed at him; or at least, his severed head did. The look of fear and panic he had worn at the moment of his death would decorate his face until it rotted away, which it had already begun to do since Bloodbath severed it and wrapped it up in a box. His eyes were wide open, and the red shine that usually decorated them had milked over. One of his teeth appeared to have been yanked out. Inside his mouth was a white business card, upon which was neatly written (apparently in Hamsterviel's blood), "Don't make the same mistake he did. Join me or perish."

End of Story

That's two legs of this trilogy down. One left to go, and I won't be pulling any punches this time! It won't be exactly like the first two in format... the action will more be clustered toward the end. I will have a preview chapter coming in a couple weeks. I'm afraid I can't tell you when I'll actually begin posting. That's yet to be known.

Special thanks to Jimperator, who tried to be my beta at the beginning, but had to cease due to computer problems. Jimp, if you're still out there, I miss your con-crit. Special thanks also to Yellowfur, my sister and the person I bounce my ideas off of. Thanks to ProDG, Alius111, OurScars, and Kinger810, my most regular reviewers, as well as Yellowfur (again), Victor Delta Kitsune, Starforge921, and Experiment Sigma, for all your reviews. Thanks to Lilo and Stitch, Disney's masterwork. Finally, thanks to Yellowfur (yet again) and Rosepelt for leading me to fanfiction in the first place. You all have helped me to make this my biggest and best fic!

By the way, all of you who are regular writers as well as readers of fanfiction should check out my tournament, A Winner Is You. It's a tourney where each entering author chooses a canon character from any fandom, and the authors are pitted against each other. How does that work? Go to my forum to find out.

And now, the preview: The newly christened Bloodbath has returned, and he has an all-inclusive ultimatum: join him for an eternity of fun, or oppose him for a cruel death. As an ancient prophecy rears its ugly head, it's a question of who can overcome their personal demons long enough to come out on top - the forces of good, or those fallen to the darkness? Find out soon in my thrilling conclusion to the trilogy, Null.exe.