Thanks for all the reviews last chapter! I'll take everybody's advice to heart. Enjoy this next chapter (if you can!).
Jumba avidly watched the television. Turning his head to the kitchen, he yelled, "Little Girl! Pleakley! 626! Hurry up, the game is about to begin!"
It was Sunday, and the whole family (Except for Nani, who as always was working overtime in an attempt to impress the boss and get a raise so they could all continue getting fed) was turning out to watch college football. The trio scurried out of the kitchen, carrying chips, pretzels, and a few cans of soda. Pleakley placed them on the table and sat down to watch the TV. "I find Earth sports fascinating, don't you Lilo?"
Lilo, who was only watching the game because she was still grounded and had nothing better to do, nodded silently. Stitch seemed a little more interested in the game, seeing as how violent sports were not against his religion. Jumba grabbed a can and downed its contents. "Football is reminding me of sport on my home planet. Only without the spiked balls. And the land mines. And the acid pits. And the forty-foot tall fire-breathing robots." He looked sad. "I miss the robots."
"Oh look, they're about to kick-on!" said Pleakley enthusiastically.
"That's 'kick-off', Pleakley," Lilo corrected.
Pleakley folded his arms smugly. "I graduated top in my class in Earth studies, I think I know what I'm talking about." Jumba snorted into his soda in an attempt not to laugh.
On the television, the two beefy and no doubt steroid-enhanced football teams stared each other down. One of them ran up to the ovaloid ball and wound back his foot to kick it when suddenly, the screen changed to show an anchorman sitting at a desk with the big letters "Special Bulletin" flashing around him. Jumba groaned. "Ooh, I find Earth news fascinating too!" said Pleakley excitedly.
The anchorman scanned his paper and started talking. "We interrupt this program to bring you a Channel 6 news report." An image in the upper-right corner of the screen enlarged to show an aerial view of a huge car accident, with vehicles piled up all over the road. "An oil truck driving through traffic on the Kauai turnpike swerved abruptly and overturned, causing this horrible gridlock. Fortunately, no one was harmed. We now go live to our field correspondent for an interview with the driver of the oil truck."
The screen changed to show a somewhat confused truck driver speaking into a microphone. "So, I was just drivin' down the road, mindin' my own business, when out of nowhere this cute pink baby elephant popped up on the road. I didn't want to hurt no poor baby elephant, so I hit the brakes and tried to turn away too quickly. My truck flipped over, and I barely made it out alive. But the darndest thing is when I looked around for the baby elephant, it was gone!"
The TV switched back to the anchorman. "Police have yet to verify whether or not the driver was under the influence while driving. We'll have more news at eleven. Thank you for your time, and we'll now return to the regularly scheduled program."
The football game came back on. Thoughtfully, Jumba drank another can of soda. "Sounds like the work of Experiment 138."
"Which one is that?" asked Stitch.
"Roadblock experiment. Has limited invisibility power to blend in with road. Is programmed to sit on galactic highways invisibly, then seem to appear out of nowhere when vehicle approaches. Vehicle swerves out of way, crashes, causing pileups, gridlocks, and MASS CHAOS!" He laughed evilly and drank some more soda.
Lilo got out of her seat. "Then we've gotta go stop him before he causes anymore accidents or Gantu catches him! Come on Stitch, let's go!"
"Okay." He got up and followed Lilo.
Pleakley frowned. "Wait, you're supposed to be-" The door opening and slamming shut interrupted him. "Grounded," he finished lamely.
Outside, Lilo jumped into the jeep and buckled her seatbelt. "Okay Stitch, floor it!" Stitch turned the ignition, pressed down on the accelerator, and eased out of the driveway very slowly. Lilo frowned. "Stitch, this isn't flooring it!" Stitch started to open his mouth. "Wait, don't tell me: it's against your religion to drive over the speed limit?" He nodded. Lilo groaned and leaned back in her seat. "This is gonna take a while."
An hour of slow driving later, they finally reached the Turnpike. Authorities were rerouting traffic down another lane, so didn't notice Stitch park the jeep off road. "Okay Stitch, is he still here?" asked Lilo.
Stitch looked around with his thermal vision. He immediately spotted a set of huge footprints leading into the jungle. "I'm afraid we're too late. Gantu has him."
Lilo groaned. "This would never have happened if you hadn't waited twenty minutes for that frog to move out of the way."
Stitch frowned. "What did you expect me to do, run him over?"
"You could have honked the horn."
He shook his head. "That would have been rude and inconsiderate."
"All the other drivers were honking at US to get out of the way." She argued.
"Yes, and that was very rude and inconsiderate of them, wasn't it?" Stitch pointed out.
Lilo sighed. "We don't have time for this. Let's find Gantu and get back Pinky before it's too late!"
Stitch raised an eyebrow. "'Pinky'?"
Lilo shrugged. "Best name I could come up with. Let's go!" They followed the giant tracks and soon caught up with Gantu, who was carrying the newly named Pinky in a glass capsule on his back. "Stop right there, Big Dummy!"
Gantu whirled around and saw his archenemies. He moaned. "Come on, can't you just let me go without a fight this time? My back still hurts from when you made my plasma gun backfire!"
Lilo smirked. "Well, I'm afraid it's just gonna get worse. Stitch, get Pinky back!"
"Okay." Stitch walked up to Gantu. "Do you think you could please give back my cousin?"
Gantu and Lilo stared at him in surprise. "Um…no?" Gantu said, confused.
Stitch frowned. "Are you sure?"
Gantu regained his composure. "Er, yes, I'm sure. You can't have him."
Stitch sighed. "Oh well." He walked back to Lilo. "I tried."
"But…but…you didn't even fight him! You said your religion allowed violence!" the confused Lilo stuttered as the equally confused Gantu lumbered off.
Stitch nodded. "It does."
"So why didn't you fight him and get Pinky back?"
"Because that would be stealing," he said sagely.
Lilo stared at him blankly. "Huh?"
"Gantu reached Pinky and claimed him before we did. To take him without permission would be stealing. And stealing is, of course, a sin," Stitch lectured.
Lilo tried to keep her frustration in check. "Does that mean we're not going to sneak into Gantu's ship and rescue Pinky before he gets teleported to Hamsterviel?"
"That's right. Not only would that be stealing, it would be invasion of private property."
Lilo rolled her eyes. "Do you even care that poor Pinky's probably gonna be tortured and experimented on like the other cousins we've lost?"
Stitch nodded sadly. "Of course I care. I am regretful that I could do nothing more to save him." He shrugged. "Oh well. Maybe we'll have better luck next time."
As they walked back to the jeep, Lilo decided something was very wrong with Stitch. She resolved to make a voodoo doll when she got home and try to use it to change Stitch back to normal.
625, Gantu's lazy, cowardly, all around useless sandwich-eating sidekick stared at the giant in disbelief. "I don't believe it. You actually snagged an experiment."
Gantu frowned as he placed the terrified Pinky's capsule on a large pad. "You say that as if I've never caught one before."
"You've caught plenty, but none recently or without a decent fight from my cousin. What, did you get this one while he was sleeping or something?"
Gantu puffed out his chest in pride as a large glass dome was lowered over the pad by a machine on the ceiling. "I'll have you know that the little trog was so scared of me he actually asked me to give him 138. I guess he's finally realized who the superior being is."
625 didn't buy it. "Yeah, sure, and maybe the Grand Councilwoman will call and give you your old job back."
Gantu scowled. "I'm serious! Bah, why am I wasting time talking to you? I have a paycheck to collect!"
He approached a console and pressed a few buttons. A huge viewscreen turned on, displaying the visage of Gantu's boss, the most nefarious villain to terrorize the galaxy in over a hundred years, Doctor Jaques van Hamsterviel. "Gantu! What is it this time, you smelly overgrown bipedal trout? Don't tell me you've actually captured another experiment!"
"In fact, I have," Gantu said, pointing to poor Pinky. "Experiment 138, ready for delivery Doctor."
"Hmmph. 138? The roadblock experiment? Well, I'm sure I can find SOME use for him…like a punching bag for my army to test their fighting skills on! Bwahahaha!" Pinky trembled like a leaf, frightened out of his poor little car-crashing mind. "Send him over immediately!"
"At once, sir." Gantu walked over to a console next to the domed pad and pressed a few buttons.
The large machine attached to the glass dome began to hum. "Teleportation sequence initiated," said a computerized voice. "Teleporting in 3…2…1…" Pinky squeezed his eyes shut, not wanting the next thing he saw to be the Hell he would spend the rest of his days in.
All of a sudden, the machine started shaking and spitting sparks. Smoke started spewing from seams on its side as the countdown halted. "What's going on?!" bellowed Hamsterviel.
"Blitznag, the teleporter must be malfunctioning!" said Gantu, shielding his eyes from the bright flashes of light emanating from the teleporter.
"Warning: Fatal malfunction detected. Teleportation sequence disengaged," said the computer, late as always.
There was an explosion, and a huge chunk of the teleporter was blasted into the wall. Coughing and blowing away the smoke billowing from the ruined machine, Gantu peered inside the teleporter to see what had caused the malfunction. To his surprise, there was a blackened rectangular object lodged between a very important power coupling. He pulled it out, nearly getting shocked by the coupling in the process. "What was this doing in there?!"
"Oh, so that's where I left my peanut butter and banana sandwich! I've been looking all over for that thing!" said 625.
Gantu growled in anger and was about to pummel his sidekick when Hamsterviel intervened. "You lame-brained irritating obese good-for-nothing oaf! You've ruined everything!"
"Same to you, Doc," 625 said irreverently, grabbing the burnt sandwich from Gantu and munching on it.
Hamsterviel turned his wrath on Gantu. "Gantu, I want that teleporter back up and running as soon as possible!"
Gantu nodded. "It'll probably take a few weeks for replacement parts to get here, but I'll order them immediately. It shouldn't take too long to fix the teleporter after that."
"It had better not, or I will cut your salary in half AGAIN. And if you lose THIS experiment, I will cut it into quarters! And one more thing: I expect you to discipline 625 better! A good evil lackey is one that listens to his master, though I'm not really surprised by his behavior seeing as how he has YOU for an example." The evil hamster-like genius signed off.
Grumbling under his breath, Gantu went to his computer and began the lengthy process to order new parts for the teleporter. Looking amused, 625 waddled over. "Looks like you're in the troghouse again, Ganster. Welp, I'd love to stay and watch you sink deeper and deeper into failure, but I've got sandwiches to make."
Gantu grabbed 625 by the back of his neck. "Oh no you don't! The doctor is absolutely right, I should discipline you better! As punishment for breaking the teleporter, no food for a week!"
625's jaw dropped. "That-that's inhumane! I'll starve to death!"
Gantu snorted. "Don't be ridiculous, you Experiments can survive for months without eating! It wouldn't hurt to put you on a diet anyway, you're getting far too fat for my liking."
625 put an indignant expression on his face. "I'll have you know my gut is solid muscle, fish-breath!"
"Oh really?" Gantu poked 625's belly. It wiggled like Jell-O, causing 625 to giggle uncontrollably. "I believe I've made my point." He tossed 625 at the teleporter's glass dome. "Take Experiment 138 to the cargo bay. That should hold him until the parts arrive."
"And if I refuse?" said 625 defiantly.
"Then no food for a month."
The sandwich-crazy experiment's face paled. "I'll be good," he whimpered. He raised the glass dome and picked up the capsule with Pinky in it. Before he could hop into the elevator to the cargo bay, he threw one last crack at Gantu. "You know, there's no way you can hold onto this guy long enough for the teleporter parts to get here. I bet 626 and that human pet of his will bust in here any minute now, grab 138, and leave you to explain to Hamsterviel how you lost ANOTHER experiment."
Gantu grinned sinisterly. "Oh, somehow I don't think so 625. Something tells me we won't be having any more trouble from Experiment 626."
And so the plot thickens. Wait until you see what happens NEXT time!