This chapter is one to be remembered. 324 will finally be activated and 001 will confront Stitch in the prelude to an incredible showdown. From this point on, the plot is officially twisted!
Nukerisr, they never used Finder on the show because if they did there would be no reason to make any more episodes, because Finder would ruin all the fun of experiment hunting.
TT, I'm honestly starting to fee a little sorry for Holly too. I had no idea the readers would respond to her this well! Poor girl. She just wants to be loved…
Mimic12355, 001 was indeed inspired by 552, but I've tried to make him completely different. You'll see.
Anonymous, the reasons will be given this chapter.
LTC, I agree with your long and winding rant for the most part, and once more blame Disney for butchering Lilo and Stitch. But that's what we authors are for, right? To fill the holes they put in the series with our own ideas! Too bad we kind of butcher it too…I honestly don't find Lilo much different, though I do think they shouldn't have made her that cruel to Hunkahunka. And Nani's problems are probably related to being the only working member of a household of five, three of which are lazy and/or dangerous aliens, plus a strange little girl. It's gotta be hard to keep putting food on the table with all the repair bills Stitch, Jumba, and possibly even Pleakley run up. Not to mention all the times Gantu keeps pulling the roof off, which must cost a lot to fix. And Stitch is actively trying to be less destructive these days, so he'd naturally lose a little of his coolness. But I for one am trying to sharpen his edge again by giving him awesome action/fighting scenes! Anyway, you'll find out how Lilo's doing in a little bit. As for 001…he wasn't supposed to be this bad but as you can no doubt guess, something went horribly wrong. That, and the reason for his oddly familiar accent, will be explained in a couple of chapters.
…
It was around sunset when Angel landed the Stitch Machine by the beach. As she had expected, most of the experiments were still there, caught in the power of Hunkahunka's love spell. Hopefully Finder would still be there too.
She walked over to Kixx, who was simply digging in the sand and not molesting something like his cousins. "Hey Kixx, what are you doing?"
He looked up from the four-foot deep hole he had already made. "I fell in love with this beautiful sand crab I saw a coupla hours ago but she burrowed underground. I'm trying to find her!"
"Why don't you ask Digger for help?" she asked.
"He's too busy digging for the sand crab that he fell in love with."
Angel shuddered. "Would you happen to know where Finder is?"
"Finder? Yeah, he's with this palm tree he met down the beach. Lucky bastard, he gets to spend the day with the person he loves while I'm still looking for mine. It ain't fair, I tell ya!" he complained.
He went back to digging. Angel stared at him for a minute. "Okay…" Getting an idea, she took out the amnesia dust she had gotten back at the house. "Hey Kixx!" He looked up, and she threw a handful in his face. "You're in love with a sand crab!"
He blinked as his love for the crab vanished and then looked at Angel. He smiled eerily. "Hey, do you think Stitch would mind if-"
She threw down another handful. "You're in love with me!"
Kixx blinked and looked at the walls of the pit. "Say, I never realized until now just how sexy sand is…"
Angel hurried away from the hole. Her test had just proven that while amnesia dust made Hunkahunka's victims forget they were in love with someone, his love juice was still in their system and would simply make them fall in love with the very next thing they saw all over again. Truly the corrupted hummingbird possessed incredible power! It looked like she would still need 324 to break Hunkahunka's power once and for all.
She soon found Finder, who was attempting to rob a poor young tree of its virginity. "Hey Finder, do you have a minute?"
He looked up for a second. "No." He went back to desecrating the poor tree.
"I need your help finding something," she said, knowing that would get his attention.
He looked up again. "What kind of something?"
"An experiment pod. Number 324."
He thought for a minute. "Hmm…no, I don't think so."
Angel nodded. She calmly walked over to the side of the tree and extended her claws. "If you don't help me, I'll cut this tree down."
Finder gasped. "You wouldn't!" She started running her claws down the side of the tree, carving out deep gouges. "Okay, okay, I'll help you!" he screamed.
"I thought you might," said Angel with a smirk.
Finder hugged the tree. "But only if we can bring Flora."
Angel blinked, unable to comprehend that he had been smitten enough to name the tree. "There is no way in Hell we're taking that stupid tree with us."
…
"I can't believe we're taking that stupid tree with us," Angel grumbled as she piloted the Stitch Machine above the town.
"Don't talk about Flora that way!" said Finder angrily, hugging his uprooted tree in the seat next to Angel.
She gritted her teeth. "I don't have time for this. Where is 324?" Finder pointed. Angel began her search.
It took half an hour to get there due to Finder constantly getting distracted by 'Flora', but they finally made it to where the pod was lying dormant. Amazingly, it was near the same waterfall pool where Gantu's ship used to be. He had been right over it the whole time and he never even knew! As Finder went back to trying to violate the tree in the cruiser, Angel picked up 324's pod and tossed it into the water.
The pod shimmered and swelled into a ball of light, exploding to reveal a small brown hummingbird nearly identical to Hunkahunka. The bird looked around in confusion. "Huh? Where am I? This isn't the lab!"
"We're not on Turo anymore. Welcome to Earth, 324," said Angel. She quickly summarized the major events of recent times to the hummingbird, from Stitch's trial and arrival on Earth to the release of all the experiment pods on the island and Hunkahunka's subsequent corruption and incredibly evil plan for revenge. She finished by explaining that 324 was the only experiment that could restore the natural order Hunkahunka had disrupted, due to her ability to neutralize the other hummingbird's love powers.
324 looked shocked when Angel had finished her description of Hunkahunka's plot. "But that's impossible! 323 would never do anything like that!"
"Oh no? Let me show you what he did to my friend."
She led 324 over to Finder, who was still trying to penetrate the tree. "Come on, Flora…you know you want it…"
324 cringed. "Hunkahunka's done the same thing to people all over town. Now do you see why I need your help?" Angel asked.
324 nodded solemnly. "I still can't believe he would do this…" She flew over to Finder and pecked him, breaking Hunkahunka's control over him.
He froze in the midst of his faux lovemaking, suddenly realizing what he was doing. "Oh my god!" He started crying. "What have I done? I've de-virginated myself! And I was saving it for Clip, too!"
Angel blinked. "Finder, it was a tree. If it couldn't do it back to you, I think that means you're still a virgin."
He thought that over. "Oh. Okay. But why was I trying to do it with a tree anyway?"
Angel quickly explained Hunkahunka's evil plan of vengeance, and how 324 here could save them all before their familial bond was shattered forever. Finder got angry when he realized who 324 was. "Hey, I remember you! You made me hate food that one time! I couldn't eat for weeks until somebody accidentally splashed water on me and broke your hate spell!"
324 laughed. "It was hilarious how you were starving yourself to death for no real reason! Jumba thought you were protesting the quality of food in the cafeteria and had the menu changed, and you still wouldn't eat!"
Finder grumbled, "I didn't think it was that funny." He looked over at Angel. "So, did you name her yet?"
Angel shook her head. "It never occurred to me."
"Name? What name?" asked 324 in confusion.
"It's a part of fitting into Earth society. Everyone here has names instead of numbers, so all us experiments have our own names. I'm Angel, and 158 over there is Finder. You'll need a name too, 324." Angel explained.
324 looked interested. "Huh. What do you think would be a good name for me?"
Angel shrugged. "I don't really know. Lilo's always been the best at making names."
"Speaking of which, where is Lilo?" Finder asked.
"Oh, she went over to Mertle's for a tea party a few hours ago."
Finder frowned. "I thought Mertle hated Lilo."
Angel shrugged. "I guess she decided to turn over a new leaf." She suddenly got a horrible thought. "That, or she got pecked by a certain evil lovebird!" She jumped into the Stitch Machine. "Come on, we've got to go get her before the love juice makes Mertle do something that will destroy Lilo's innocence!"
"Lilo's innocent? She didn't seem so innocent to me that one time she heard your evil song and pathetically tried to conquer the world," Finder joked.
Angel grimaced. "You know what I mean! And that was an accident anyway. Come on!" Finder and 324 hopped in the cruiser, and they took off for Mertle's house.
…
Lilo sat on the bed in Mertle's room, humming to herself as she mutilated one of Mertle's dolls. She picked up a pair of scissors and used them to chop off the doll's hair. She tossed it in a heap with the hair from the other dolls she had similarly defiled and proceeded to pull off the doll's limbs, which would be thrown into a different pile. Without warning, the bedroom door burst open. "Lilo! Thank goodness you're all right!" said Angel.
Lilo looked up. "Oh, hi Angel, hi Finder. Hey, is that a new experiment?" she asked, spotting 324.
"Yes, but that's not important now, we're here to rescue you!"
Lilo looked confused. "Rescue me? From what?"
"From Mertle!"
"Oh, her." Lilo made a dismissive gesture. "She's in the closet."
Finder walked over to the closet and opened it. Mertle fell out, wearing a dress, tied up with a piece of duct tape over her mouth. She lay on the floor, unconscious. Angel blinked. "Lilo, why was Mertle tied up in her own closet?"
"Well, when she took me here we had a nice time at first, having a tea party and playing board games and stuff, though it was weird because Mertle kept looking at me funny. Then after she had to go to the bathroom for a really long time she suggested we play Princesses, so we got into pretty dresses and then Mertle dragged me in here and locked the door. I got suspicious because there were all these dolls everywhere sitting on the floor and there was this one doll dressed up in black at the end of a red carpet, and Mertle asked me to marry her. I thought she was joking. Then she tried to kiss me and I punched her lights out. I tied her up and threw her into the closet to keep her from trying again," said Lilo matter-of-factly.
"Oh." There was a pause. "And why are you torturing those dolls?"
"Well, after stuffing Mertle in the closet I realized that no matter what I do Mertle and her friends will never like me, but that's okay because I've got all you guys to keep me company so I'll never be lonely again. But I was really angry at them anyway so I decided to pretend these dolls were my regular voodoo dolls so I could punish them for being mean to me all these years. And also because they're stereotypical role models for little girls like myself."
"Ah."
Lilo looked at 324, who was hovering over Mertle, looking at the obnoxious girl in curiosity. "So who's the new experiment?"
"Oh, that's 324. She can make people hate each other by pecking them," Angel explained, getting back on track.
Lilo grinned. "Cool! I think I'll name her Chocola, like chocolate."
Angel looked confused. "Why Chocola?"
"Her color makes me think of chocolate. And I hate chocolate. Since she causes hate, it's a perfect name for her!" Lilo explained. After mulling that over for a few minutes, Angel discovered that actually made a modicum of sense. "Hey, where's Stitch? Wasn't he with you earlier?"
Angel gasped. "Stitch! I completely forgot about him! Come on, we've gotta go get him!" She raced out of the room. Confused, Lilo followed. Finder shrugged and went after them. Chocola hesitated a moment, then pecked Mertle once to break Hunkahunka's spell, then pecked her again so she'd instantly hate the first thing she saw when she woke up. Snickering, she flew after the others.
…
Angel explained the Hunkahunka situation to Lilo on the way to the secret valley. The little girl got a guilty and upset look on her face when she heard the things Hunkahunka and the other lost experiments had gone through. Concluding her story, Angel said, "Hunkahunka said you guys abandoned him and the others. Is this true?"
Lilo sighed. "It's not exactly false."
"I'd like an explanation."
Lilo fidgeted. "We didn't really have a choice with Tank or Amnesio. Tank was too big and powerful for Stitch to defeat on his own, so we had to let Gantu take him. And if we had gone for Amnesio right after he was snatched, Gantu would have just used his mind-erasure powers on us and taken off, so we decided to lure him into a false sense of security and rescue Amnesio when we were least expected. Unfortunately, we got caught up with my birthday party so we didn't get a chance to go to the ship until it was much too late to save him."
"I guess those two are excusable. And the others?"
"Well, no matter how hard he tried, Jumba couldn't really fix Felix. He was either an overzealous cleaner or a total slob. It hadn't occurred to us to re-dehydrate experiments too dangerous to tame, so we figured sending him to Hamsterviel could actually hinder him and sabotage whatever evil plans he's cooking up. I never thought he would get his fur taken off…" she frowned. "As for Nosy, we didn't have much of a choice either. He was telling too many big secrets to Mr. Jameson, and Gantu showed up just before he could tell the world Pleakley was gay."
"So? What's wrong with that?"
"Mr. Jameson is homophobic. He just assumed Pleakley is one of those weird but quaint people who like to try on women's underwear. He would never have hired Nani if he had known the truth," Lilo explained.
"Ooohhh…"
"Gantu just happened to show up at the right time. If he hadn't, Stitch would have had to knock Nosy out to shut him up, and that might have made Nani look bad and she could have lost the job. We intended to go get Nosy back later and send him somewhere far away…like to Hollywood to work as one of those reporters who spies on celebrities…but he was teleported before we could save him."
Angel nodded, accepting the answer. "And Hunkahunka? He seemed to recall you saying, 'Let him go, Stitch. We don't need his fakey love on our planet.'"
"…I was angry at the time," Lilo admitted.
"Why?"
"I tried to use Hunkahunka to make Keoni fall in love with me, but all it did was make him a mindless servant. I didn't want him like that. I took my frustration at not getting the guy I liked out on Hunkahunka, something I still regret to this day."
"Okay, but why didn't Stitch go after Hunkahunka even if you didn't want him around?" Angel asked.
Lilo scratched the back of her head. "This is going to sound kind of weird, but…Stitch was scared of Hunkahunka."
Angel stared at Lilo. "You're kidding me."
"No, I'm serious. This was before he met you. He was still in the whole 'Love icky' stage. He was afraid that if he tried to rescue Hunkahunka, he'd get pecked and fall in fake love with someone. He was terrified of losing control of his mind or heart to, say, Gantu, or anyone else that way. He still would have gone after Hunkahunka, even though he was scared, but I told him not to. That gave him an excuse to stay behind. We both really regretted it later, but…" She shrugged. "It's in the past. There's nothing we can do about it now."
"You could use Jumba's Time Surfboard," Angel suggested.
Lilo shook her head. "No, I learned my lesson the last time I used that thing. Changing the past totally ruins the future. Who knows? If we had gotten Hunkahunka back that Valentine's Day, there's a chance that Stitch would never have fallen in love with you. And that wouldn't have been good at all, would it?"
Angel sighed. "Good point. I doubt Hunkahunka would see things that way, though."
"I'm really sorry for what we did to him," Lilo said sadly.
Angel shook her head. "Apologies won't change what happened. He's been tortured to the brink of insanity thanks to what you and Stitch did, and now he's going to take it out on our entire family if we can't stop him in time." Lilo said nothing more for the rest of the trip.
A little later, they reached the valley. As Angel landed the Stitch Machine, she was disgusted to see that Stitch and Holly were still having sex. "What are they doing?" asked Lilo, looking frightened by the torrid act of lovemaking.
Angel winced. She had totally forgot Lilo was too young to understand sex! She quickly threw amnesia dust in Lilo's face and yelled, "Stitch and Holly having sex!" as Finder clapped his paws over the girl's eyes.
"Huh? What's going on?" Lilo asked.
"Oh, nothing. Just didn't want you seeing our secret spot, that's all." Angel said quickly.
"But I already saw it when we flew in-"
Angel threw another handful of dust into Lilo's face. "What the secret spot looks like!"
Now Lilo was confused. "Why can't I see anything?" She tried to push off Finder's paws.
"Oh, Finder's just keeping your eyes closed so you don't see the secret spot," Angel explained.
"Why?"
"It wouldn't be a secret spot if everyone knew where it was, would they?"
Lilo thought about that for a minute. "I guess not. Never mind, then."
Chocola snickered. Angel shot her a glare then gestured for her to get out of the cruiser. They got out and went over to Stitch and Holly. She pecked the blue one, causing him to stop suddenly in the middle of his passion. "Stitchy? What's wrong?" asked Holly.
Horrified, Stitch shot to his feet and backed away from her. "Oh my God…WHAT HAVE I DONE?!"
"Shagged me for the last few hours. And I can honestly say you're the best I've ever had," Holly purred seductively.
Stitch, in his frenzied panic, suddenly noticed Angel. "Oh God…Angel, I'm so sorry! I don't know what came over me! I just felt this unbridled urge to make love to her all of a sudden, and…and…"
Angel shut him up with a kiss, then hugged him to her chest tightly, glad he was back to normal. "It's okay. I forgive you. I love you too much to let you go just like that." Sensing the sudden rekindling of love, the valley sprung back to life. The sand returned to its regular white color, shining like diamonds under the moonlight, and all the flowers and trees blossomed anew.
"Hey, get away from him! He's MINE now!" Holly snarled.
Angel glared at Holly. "He was never yours. The only reason he had sex with you is because Hunkahunka made him do it!"
Stitch blinked. "Hunkahunka?"
Angel sighed and explained the evil hummingbird's plot for the fourth time that night. When she was finished, Stitch was furious at the hummingbird (and feeling guilty, since it was partly his fault that Hunkahunka was like this in the first place) and Holly was devastated. "You mean…you mean it wasn't real? It was nothing but a stupid spell?"
The girl sounded so heartbroken that Angel couldn't help feeling a tinge of sympathy for her. "I'm afraid so."
"But…" She started crying. "But it felt so RIGHT!"
"I'm sorry Holly," said Stitch softly. "It wasn't real. Not in the way you mean, anyway."
Holly continued to cry. Angel pulled away from Stitch. "Here…I think I know something that can help."
Holly looked up, sniffling. "What?"
Angel threw amnesia dust in her face. "You are Experiment 411. You are a drug addict, a whore, and a stalker who just wants to be loved and always expresses it in the wrong ways. Your name," she said after a pause, "Is Holly."
The dust worked immediately. Holly blinked in confusion. "Who are you?"
As Stitch looked at the amnesiac girl in surprise, Angel took over. "I'm Angel and this is my boyfriend Stitch. We're your family."
"Oh." Holly blinked. "And who am I?"
"You are the 411th experiment of Dr. Jumba Jookiba, but we call you Holly. Your primary function is…" Angel paused, unable to think of anything good.
Stitch quickly caught on. "Making popcorn."
"Yes, that's it," said Angel in relief. "Making popcorn."
"Oh…okay!" said Holly cheerfully.
Angel took Holly by the arm. "Come on, let's get you home." She doubted Pimp would be happy that they had deprived him of his best employee, but he could go screw himself for all she cared. There were dozens of other poor teenage girls he could easily replace her with.
As they started heading back to the Stitch Machine, a cold wind suddenly blew through the valley. Nesting birds suddenly took flight, leaving in a great hullabaloo of squawking and flapping. The moon turned blood red in the sky. The trees quivered as if in fear as a small white figure stepped out onto the beach. The second his foot touched the sand, darkness spread out, turning the beach black as the darkest void. The creature smiled, showing bloody fangs. "Hello 626. It has been a long time."
Stitch's fur stiffened. He immediately extended his extra arms, spines, and antenna. "Who is that? That doesn't look like any experiment I know of," said Angel.
"001," growled Stitch.
Chocola gave a start. "001? I thought he was just a fairy tale Jumba and the older experiments made up to scare newbies!"
001 chuckled and stepped fully out into the moonlight. His white fur practically glowed. "Oh no, I am being quite real."
"The last time I saw you, I blew you into a million pieces with a plasma bomb," said Stitch, tensing his muscles.
001 gave him a malicious grin. "I got better."
Stitch took a step forward. "Angel, get Lilo and everyone else out of here. I'll take care of this psycho."
"But what about you?" she asked worriedly.
"I'll be fine. I beat him once before, I can do it again. Now go! Get out of here!"
Angel hesitated for a moment, then nodded, grabbed the confused Holly, and ran, followed closely by Chocola. 001 shook his head. "No…" He gestured, and a circle of fire formed around the Stitch Machine. Startled, the girls stopped in their tracks. Lilo and Finder hugged each other, terrified. It was a real shame that neither of them knew how to pilot the cruiser. "I am not thinking anyone is going anywhere. Not until this is over." He grabbed his right kneecap and clenched his teeth. "After all, what is a good slaughter…" He ripped what appeared to be an extremely sharp dagger made from polished bone out of his knee. The skin closed up after it was removed. "Without an audience?" Howling, he charged at Stitch.
…Bet you all hate me for that, right? To find out the result of this thrilling battle, tune in next time!