"High Dive from Heaven"
a fanfic by Jacob "Robertoa" Corley
Chapter 4: Manipulation
Lilo opened the door and entered the house, followed by 627. Lilo turned when she realized that Stitch wasn't with them. "Stitch?"
Stitch walked slowly into the house hanging his head. 627 looked back, but then turned and went up to Jumba's room. 627 was designed to be incapable of emotion; hence, he cared little of Stitch's booji bu problem. Stitch stood in the doorway trying to hold back tears, but he eventually collapsed on the floor. Between sobs, Lilo could hear him saying "booji bu". She helped him up, and the two returned to their room.
627 walked into Jumba's room and sat on the bed, exhausted.
Jumba, who had been on his computer, turned to face 627. 627 lay on his back and stared at the ceiling with a blank gaze. He muttered "Evil." He hated his new position helping Lilo and Stitch and would rather be put back into suspended animation in his pod.
"Did you hear the good news?" Jumba thought maybe good news for Stitch could cheer up 627.
"Evil."
"Well," Jumba said matter-of-fact-ly, "it appears that Stitch's booji bu has escaped Hämsterviel's prison and is now back on Earth!" Jumba tried to make the news sound great, but 627 was uninterested.
627 sighed. You're tellin' me he thought. "Evil."
"What?! You mean to be telling me that you have already seen her and she tried to-"
"Evil," said 627, trying to reinforce his point.
Jumba sighed, overwhelmed. "Ah, yes. I was fearing this at her creation. She has always been having bad attitude towards anyone refusing to give her her way. If she is after 626, she will let no one stand in her way. There is nothing she will not be doing to have him." Jumba hesitated, trying to think of some good advice to give. "It would be wise to... not underestimate her powers."
Angel sat at the control panel with her head in her hands. How could I be so stupid to let him see me like this?! She went into the bathroom and gazed at her reflection in the mirror. 583's once glowing blood was spattered on her face and had run down her right arm; it was now crusty and black.
She stood for several minutes staring into a face she didn't recognize, lost deep in thought. The setting sun cast an unusual red glow upon everything inside the ship. Staring into the face of a killer, she began to develop a fierce rage against all that she had done, and, not knowing any other way to take out her anger, threw her fist into the mirror.
The mirror shattered, and her hand was full of shards of glass and open cuts from which flowed a thick, swampy-green fluid. Angel recognized the blood as her own.
It had been this way when she was originally created. Unlike the other experiments, who were created to produce apparent mayhem, Angel had been created to be truly evil and spread her evil influence. Angel had taken a high dive from heaven: she was the only demonic experiment of them all.
Soon after creating Angel, Jumba realized what he was unleashing onto the world: 624 was destructive not physically, but spiritually. Her sole purpose was to destroy innocent souls and lead them to their own demise. Jumba had tried to destroy the pod, but, realizing his own power was no match for hers, found it to be indestructible. Therefore, he decided to keep her sealed in her pod and locked away with all of the others that were too powerful to be controlled, too dangerous.
The years passed, and Hämsterviel, who had funded all of the experiments, decided he wanted them back. At the time, neither he nor Jumba remembered 624, the one experiment that could easily defeat both of them and conquer all, as anything more than a number. Hämsterviel's ignorance would be his downfall.
Ignoring the physical pain, Angel stood staring at her fist, black and green gel flowing between her fingers. Sometimes, this being one of them, she tried to convince herself that the green was just an illusion, that her blood was still red. She remembered when. She remembered a time when this was not an issue, a time when her blood, too was red, a time she gave up evil for love.
It started as a mission like any other: trap an unsuspecting mortal and kill him. She had done it plenty of times without interference. However, she soon came to find that she and her "victim" shared a lot in common: they were the only two of their kind in existence.
She never intended to love him; it started as an act, as part of her mission. The more time she spent with him, the more she realized that she wanted to sacrifice her old life for this new one with him, and she did.
With Stitch, Angel had become a new experiment. She knew now, without even seeing, that her blood flowed red like his, that she was no longer a tool for evil, and, hence, no longer needed dull green synthetic life to support her. She knew she for once was alive. She was ready for new life, but was rudely awakened to the evil influences surrounding and controlling her.
The new life lasted for but a few moments. She was soon taken from her love and cast away, into the darkness, alone and forgotten.
More than by the taunting and ridiculing from the evil that once had saturated her, she was tortured by the fact that her love had never come back for her. She refused to accept that he had forgotten her, and she devoted the remainder of her possibly very short life to destroying whoever was standing between them. She swore vengeance on them all and invited her evil powers back into herself.
Now that Gantu had been taken out of the picture, Angel saw a new target: an abnormally short Hawaiian girl who loved Stitch as well. All she needed was bait.
Stitch couldn't help but hate himself for never going back for Angel. The whole time, he assumed she was sent to Hämsterviel and killed; the events of the day had proven him wrong.
Even though Lilo had said they would get her back, Stitch doubted it. Now, though, he knew it was possible. He swore to find her the next day.
Stitch watched Gantu and 625 run into the distance. He knew that, even with his speed, he would never catch them.
"It's okay, Stitch; we'll get her back. It's like you said, 'You gotta believe in love.'." Stitch knew otherwise, but he smiled anyway. He knew that Angel could do nothing other than play siren and, hence, would be useless to Hämsterviel and would be killed immediately. Even with Lilo's optimism, Stitch saw no hope for her.
When they got home, Lilo and Stitch went to bed.
"Good night, Stitch," Lilo said as she cut off the light. Stitch lay on his back and stared at the ceiling.
Lilo was about to go to sleep, but she could see Stitch by the dim light of the moon in the room. "Stitch? Are you gonna be okay?"
Stitch said nothing to Lilo, just mumbled "booji bu..." under his breath. He tried to hold back tears.
"It's okay, Stitch." Lilo tried to comfort him, but it did little. He knew her fate. "Even if we can't save her-" Stitch began to cry, "- we'll still have each other."
Stitch turned to face Lilo. It was the first time he had seen her smiling face since Angel had come into their lives. He felt better knowing Lilo loved him, even if she was touchy about saying it. He turned back onto his back and thought to himself, No matter what happens, I'll always have Lilo. He smiled, brushed the tears from his eyes, and fell asleep.
Angel searched through the cases full of previously captured experiments that Gantu had stored in the lower level, but she didn't find what she was searching for.
She quickly found the log of experiments that had been sent to Hämsterviel, and she found that X-323 had been sent soon after being captured. Blitznag she thought, now I'll have to go get it.
She walked into the teleporter room, replaced the broken glass tube, and quickly sent herself to Hämsterviel, gun in hand.
"Incoming transmission for Dr. Hamsterwheel"
"Hämsterviel!! I am Dr. Jacques von Hämsterviel, silly computer voice, you!" As usual, Hämsterviel fumed about the mistake rather than taking time to repair it.
The light in the capsule cleared and Hämsterviel saw Angel standing with her gun aimed in his eye.
He jumped back. "624?! What are you doing here?"
"I require the services X-323. If you fail to cooperate, you will be eliminated." Angel spoke sternly, her gun still aimed in his red eye.
Hämsterviel barked arrogantly at her. "You cannot kill me! I made you all that you are!! I am practically your father!"
Angel had the gun's sight to her eye. "Give me the experiment or die." One shot was all she needed.
Hämsterviel started to hold his hands up, but stopped midway. "No. Experiment 323 is mine, I will not give him to you." He reached to press the red security button on the console, but he was not quick enough. Before his hand reached the button, Angel fired, and Hämsterviel fell from his platform to the experiment cages below. His body hit an empty cage with a loud thud.
"Great," Angel said to herself sarcastically, "now I have to find this thing myself." Angel held her forehead: all of this work had given her a bad stress headache. For the next few minutes, she searched the cages until she found X-323, which Lilo had dubbed "Hunka-hunka". Phase 1 was complete.
"So the surfboards are..."
"Arranged by size, then color and lined up next to the masks."
"Which go..."
"On the shelf behind the main counter, sorted by shape, then size." Keoni spoke unenthusiastically. "If I'd known you'd drill me so much, I would have applied at the coffee hut for a summer job. Can I go to bed now? It's late..."
"Son," Mr. Jameson was stern in his words, "I won't have any son of mine working for a man named Kiki. You must carry on the family business here at the Rental Pavilion. Now, we'll go over everything once more, then you can go to bed."
Keoni let out a big sigh. There was no going against his father. "Okay, Dad. Once more."
After another hour of testing, Keoni was ready for bed. He was asleep before his head hit the pillow.
Angel tried to be as quiet as possible when opening the window. Awaking him could easily ruin her plan.
She slipped in and positioned herself next to his bed. Carefully, she placed Hunka-hunka behind his neck, and he was pecked.
"Huh?" Keoni sat up and grabbed his neck. He was half asleep wanted to be twice such.
Angel took care that he did not see her. She had attached a picture of Lilo onto the end of a stick and held it in front of Keoni's face, all the while saying, imitating Lilo's voice, "Hey, Keoni! I love you, Keoni! Ask me out, Keoni!"
Keoni watched confusedly for a moment as the picture danced before his eyes, then his eyes filled with hearts.
His head fell hard on the headboard, then on his pillow. He had been put into a deep sleep, and Angel quickly removed the tranquilizer syringe from his neck and left the room.
"What's for breakfast?" Lilo said as she entered the kitchen the next morning. As soon as she saw that Pleakley was cooking, she asked "It's not something weird, is it?"
"Of course not, crazyhead!" Pleakley was too busy cooking to turn around. "Just typical Earth food."
As soon as he had finished, he carried a plate of sushi and pico de gallo to the table. "Dig in!"
Lilo scrunched her nose. "What is this?"
Pleakley, more than proud to discuss his choices of breakfast, explained. "Well, it started as ham and eggs, but we were out of ham... and eggs... so I decided to just use what we had on hand! Now, eat it up before it gets warm!" He stuck a spoon in Lilo's hand.
Nani, who had just woken up, entered the room. "What smells like cilantro?"
Lilo rolled a roll of sushi around her plate; she didn't feel like fish for breakfast, especially raw fish served with dry salsa. "Nani, you need to start waking up before Pleakley."
At that moment, 627 ran into the room, jumped on the table, and started scarfing down all the sushi. Pleakley was yelling "No monsters at the breakfast table!!" when Lilo heard a knock on the door. Upon opening the door, she saw Keoni.
Keoni had a distant look in his eyes, and didn't look straight down to face Lilo, but he still spoke. "Hey, Lilo. Wanna go down to the beach?"
Lilo was taken back. She hadn't expected Keoni to ask her out for at least another 3 days, 7 hours, and 13 minutes, not saying she wasn't interested, of course.
"Okay, cool!" Lilo left, but not before yelling to Nani that she was going out.
At that moment, Stitch ran through the kitchen without sampling the breakfast. His Angel search began here. He ran past Lilo out into the wilderness that is Kauai.
"This looks nice." Keoni still had a distant look in his eyes as he laid their beach towel in the sand. Lilo had become suspicious; she remembered his "fakey love" from the Lono-Ikeaweawe, but wasn't sure if this was it.
"Yeah." She smiled, hoping this wasn't the work of Hunka-hunka.
Angel hid in the bushes, sniper blaster ready. This time, unlike with Neutrino, the gun was loaded with small C4 darts. The darts would explode on impact, so one shot was all that was needed to alert her target. Angel chose the head for her shot, as was typical.
"Should we go rent some surfboards or something?" Lilo asked, getting bored of sitting.
"Would you like to go surfing?"
"Well... yeah."
"Then let's go surfing!" With that, Lilo was sure that Hunka-hunka was back.
Stitch, who had been searching for Angel, finally found himself at the beach. He could see Lilo and Keoni. Grr... stupid surf rental boy. I ought to rip him to shreds. Stitch pulled out his spines, arms, and antennae, but regained control before doing anything he'd later regret.
He rolled his eyes and spotted something pink in the bushes above. Turning his vision zoom on, he recognized the pink spot as Angel.
"Booji bu!" he said and smiled. He immediately began to walk up the the ledge above the beach where she stood, until he figured out what she was doing and stopped dead in his tracks. He saw she was crouching, hiding, he saw the sniper blaster, and, most importantly, he saw the glowing red dot on the back of Lilo's head.
As confused as panicked, he yelled out, "Lilo!!" Stitch immediately began running towards Lilo, hoping he wasn't too late.
Angel looked up from the scope. Blitznag!! she thought. She quickly pulled the trigger, but, having looked up from the scope, she had fallen off her target.
The dart hit the sand a few feet from Lilo. The blast was enough to knock Lilo and Keoni off of their towel, and it sent Stitch onto his back, as well. Stitch sat up quickly "Lilo!! Akuta!!"
Lilo got up quickly and ran to the rental hut.
Angel, still hiding in the bush, quickly discharged the remainder of the gun's magazine. Several darts blasted the sand behind Lilo into the air as she ran, each explosion leaving a small glass chunk in the sand.
Eventually, Lilo reached the rental hut and jumped in the window. The thick corrugated metal roof would protect her from the torrent of explosive darts.
After realizing that Lilo was out of direct sight, Angel changed her target to the hut itself. She quickly loaded more darts into the blaster. A few shots rendered the wooden walls of the hut weak, and it collapsed upon itself, the heavy corrugated steel roof falling down upon surfboards, masks, scuba tanks, and Lilo.
Pleased with her work, Angel got up and walked off, back into the shadows from which she had arrived.
Stitch ran to the hut, seeing that Angel had left. "Lilo!!" Stitch clawed through the debris until he found her. Luckily, a large shelf full of masks had fallen over her and held the metal roof several inches above her head.
"Okie ka?" Stitch asked.
"I'm okay." Lilo crawled out and dusted herself off. "What was that?!"
Stitch paused, trying to swallow the reality of what he had just seen. "Angel."
Lilo paused. "You mean... she did this?"
"Ih."
"But..." Lilo had to stop and think. "Why was she trying to hurt me?"
Stitch shrugged. "Angel evil." I should have listened to 627. He helped Lilo out of the pile of rubble which was once the Rental Hut. The two of them returned home.
Angel stomped into the ship furiously. She sat down in the captain's chair, put her head down on the console, and let out a big sigh. Her ears perked up when she heard the sound of breaking glass coming from the lower level.
She quickly ran to the elevator and came into the storage room. 625, after cutting an outline with his claws, had mauled a big chunk of glass out of the side of the teleporter tube he was trapped in.
"Finally..." he said weakly between breaths "Need... sandwiches...". He looked up and saw Angel standing there, glaring at him.
Blitznag!! Why is she always right here?! Between breaths, 625 spoke in an angry tone. "Wha- what are you doing here?"
Angel continued to glare at him. "I came to keep an eye on you. You're not trying to leave are you? You know I'm not done with you yet."
"What's left?! Were you just planning on letting me rot away in there?!"
"You wouldn't die: you're ageless; don't you remember Jumba blocking your lifespan cells?"
625 was confused. He thought that Jumba stopped making experiments ageless after he created 624. Apparently, he hadn't. Angel, himself, Stitch, and 627 had no fixed lifespan. As long as they were either assembled functionally or dehydrated, they would last forever. 625 felt like an idiot for forgetting.
Needing a target onto which to vent her rage, Angel prepared to beat up 625 again, when, suddenly, a little light went off in her head. Lilo was mortal, this she knew. However, this whole time, she had been convinced that killing Lilo was the only way to separate her from Stitch. Now, she saw an alternative.
She needed time to work out another plan. She stuck another tranquilizer into 625 and left him lying in the pile of broken glass.