Disclaimer: I do not own "Lilo & Stitch" or any of the characters therein.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:
THE HOUR OF TRUTH

The negotiations were not going very well at all… both the Grand councilwoman and Le'Kruune were inflexible in their demands toward the other. I wondered whether the argument was more motivated by their past relationship than by the current situation. After Mother had been tossed aside, she had gotten up and joined me at a safe distance behind the Kaizaxx leader. She said nothing to me the whole time. She did not even look at me, although she squeezed my hand tightly until our palms began to sweat. I had a strong urge to throw my arms around her and hold on for dear life, but I resisted in light of our surroundings. At the least, I wished to ask her what she was thinking then, for I recognized clearly the signs of her clever mind at work on a plan. I remained silent. I did not receive a single hint to her thoughts until one of Le'Kruune's mechanics arrived on the bridge bearing a small metal device. The ZY drive! My heart leapt into my throat for a second before plummeting like a stone into the pit of my stomach. God only knew what Le'Kruune might demand of the Alliance now that he had his precious input restored. As the mechanic handed over the ZY, I sensed a subtle change in my mom, though what it was exactly, I could not tell. Glancing sideways at her, she was completely unreadable. For all I knew, she might have been petrified or ready to leap for joy. Le'Kruune took the ZY and held it up for the Grand councilwoman to see. He proudly explained what it contained, and proceeded to load the device into the drive on a nearby consul.

Above and behind us the wall opened up to reveal a large screen, at least half the size of the one facing it, from which the Grand councilwoman watched disinterestedly. As the input began to download, Mother squeezed my hand, so gently that one might have regarded it as a reflex, but I knew it to be a signal. With baited breath, I watched the screen. To my and everyone else's absolute shock, a large eye appeared on the screen. A child's laugh was heard on the audio. The eye blinked twice and began to shrink. As it did, the rest of the face came into view, revealing a small, greenish, and very familiar-looking child…I gasped. It was ME!!! I watched, half in horror, as my two-year-old image toddled clumsily on three skinny legs over toward my much-younger mother, who picked me up and tickled me viciously. My high-pitched laughter squealed over the intercom. Over this I could hear some of the guards snickering. I just stood there, gaping in shock. What was a home video of myself as a baby doing on the ZY drive? I looked at Mom questioningly. She merely smiled and continued to watch the screen.

"WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!!" demanded Le'Kruune, swinging around to face us. Mom looked up at him calmly and shrugged. Le'Kruune snarled hideously, breathing through his teeth and making little hissing noises. He stepped toward us and bent down until he was eye-level with Mom. "Where is it?" he growled through clenched teeth. "What have you done with my input? TELL ME NOW!!!" and without warning he grabbed her up and shook her violently.

"I TOLD you… I destroyed it! I had no use for it, and neither does the Federation! None of us has any right to the kind of knowledge that can annihilate entire galaxies with the simplicity of pushing a button!"

Le'Kruune seethed. "Then what the hell is THIS?!! Some kind of joke?" He gestured toward the screen, where my younger self was now gorging on pudding. As if in response to Le'Kruune, the child blew a loud raspberry with both tongues and a mouth full of pudding, thereby spraying green goo all over the camera lens. The control room erupted in gales of laughter at the scene. Glancing over at the opposite screen, I was stunned to see the Grand councilwoman smiling broadly. Le'Kruune ignored all this, shaking Mother all the harder.

"This is obviously some kind of a trick! You expect me to believe that you would destroy the input when it would have been crucial evidence at Wendy's appeal?!!"

"Well, in fact, yes." Mother replied calmly, even smiling a little at him. "I couldn't let that kind of dangerous information fall back into Federation hands, or anyone else's hands for that matter, and so for evidence I brought the next best thing: documented footage of my son as the innocent, loving person that he is. Bet you would never have thought of THAT for your trial!"

"There isn't going to be a trial, because I'm through with the whole lot of you!!!" and with that he threw Mother aside and ripped the ZY out of the drive in the consul, then proceeded to tear it apart with his own teeth. Bits of metal fell to the floor, although I was sure he had swallowed half of it. When he was done with his tantrum, he attacked Mom again, striking her mercilessly across the face with his open hands. His claws raked against her skin, drawing long gashes filled with blood. I screamed, throwing myself forward to protect her, but two Kaizaxx guards seized me by the arms and held me back. Mother flew backward, hitting the floor hard from the force of Le'Kruune's blows. She barely picked herself up when he kicked her in the side. The cloven hoofs of his feet left a deep impression from which blood began to ooze. Mother grabbed her side and tried to crawl away. She was winded, and gasped for air. Blood flew from her mouth as she coughed. Somewhere far away, the Grand councilwoman was swearing furiously at Le'Kruune, who ignored her completely. He kicked Mom again, this time in the back of the head. She rolled across the floor and lay still, clinging to consciousness. He stood over her sneering, then bent down and picked her up roughly by the hair and antenna. Mother shrieked and squirmed. With his other hand, Le'Kruune lifted her chin, forcing her to look at him before clamping his jaws firmly over hers. Her already blackened eye widened in terror as she attempted to scream. The sound was muffled. I watched, horrified, as blood began to leak out from the corners of her mouth. She swung her fists out blindly, catching parts of her tormenter on the end of them a few times, but her strength was diminished and so her punches had no effect. He pulled back finally, licking her blood from his lips and grinning hungrily at her. Mother was trembling violently now as Le'Kruune sank his fangs into her chest and arm. Her shirt was now drenched in blood.

BOOM!!! A thunderous bolt struck the Kaizaxx ship just then, causing it to shudder. I fell to the floor and flung my arms up over my head, expecting the worst. After a long moment of nothing, I looked up. Le'Kruune had dropped my mom, and she landed limply on the cold titanium floor. Everyone was now staring up at the enormous image of the Grand councilwoman, who looked positively enraged.

"THAT, Horsthar, was merely a warning shot! Surrender your hostages at once, and I will not feel the necessity to fire a second time. What you have done to Agent Vay will not go unpunished. However, seeing as she has punished you well enough by destroying your precious weapons input, I am willing to settle for a simple relinquishment of prisoners for now."

Le'Kruune knew he stood no chance against the Federation at this point. The whole armada had him surrounded, and the knowledge to construct his matter collapser was lost. He surrendered, but he did it in a highly dignified manner that suggested that the Federation was at HIS mercy, instead of vice versa. He managed to avoid capture, of course, but not before all of his hostages were seen safely into Federation custody. I was not reunited with Mother until after we were taken back to Federation Headquarters on Turo. Because of her condition, she had to be rushed in for emergency treatment, and it was a whole day before I was allowed in to see her. I was already in the hospital myself, being treated for various wounds resulting from my torture. When I went in to see her, I had expected to be horrified, but instead I was relieved, as she appeared to be much better than I had anticipated. Aside from her dark, swollen eye, the raw corners of her mouth, and a few stitches in the side of her head, she seemed perfectly normal, in body and in spirit. I marveled at her strength for endurance, but could not bring myself to admit it out loud. I cried in her arms for a while, mostly out of exhaustion for the whole ordeal, and when I looked up, I was surprised to see that she was smiling. There was that clever look again! Naturally, I had to inquire about it. In truth, there was a lot I wanted to ask her about, like the input on the ZY. This she explained to me with an eagerness that said she had been waiting for me to ask.

"Oh, that baby footage of you was all a ruse. A cover-up. I deleted a small, useless portion of the original weapons input from the drive and uploaded one of our old home videos to fill it in. It was a precaution in case it happened to fall into the wrong hands. And it worked! As soon as Le'Kruune saw it, he regarded it as junk and destroyed the input himself! In my opinion, it couldn't have worked out more perfectly."

I was amazed. I couldn't believe it. Mother had done it again! And she was right, too. It HAD been perfect… up until the point where he attacked her, that is. Scenes from that horrible nightmare came back to haunt me just then, and I shivered.

"Mom -," I began, but my voice caught in my throat and I had to look away from her. The bruises and bite marks still stood as a glaring reminder of Le'Kruune, and remembering our time aboard the Kaizaxx ship made me sick to my stomach. I just wanted to forget it and go on with my life. I wanted to be strong like my mom, FOR my mom, but I knew that no amount of self-assurance could make that possible. I wasn't anything like her, but I thanked our lucky stars that she wasn't anything like ME. If she was, then she probably would have gone insane long ago or killed herself. I don't know. All I DO know is, I wouldn't be where I am now without her. Throughout all of this, she has had enough strength for the both of us, but even that could not turn my thoughts from the fact that she has suffered needlessly because of me. I had to avenge her somehow.

"Mom," I began again, fighting back a sob. "Mom, I'm so sorry I -" I stopped. I had been about to say that I was sorry for putting her through this, but I knew all I would get in return was a stern reprimand for blaming myself, before she went out on a tangent about loving me too much to care. I changed course then, and made the following promise: "I swear to you, Mom, I will not let Le'Kruune get away with this. He will DIE, but he will suffer first, for all he's done to you. I will make sure of that. And I will not rest until I see his dismembered carcass rotting on some desert trashteroid.**"

* * * *

Phew! What an exhausting update! I'm sorry it's not as detailed in parts as it ought to be, and I am IMMENSELY sorry for what I allowed Le'Kruune to do to Vay, but she is a strong, remarkable woman, and you know that neither she nor Wendy will let that a--hole get away with hurting the other one. **Trashteroid** is a word I just made up, and if you can't guess what it means, then let me enlighten you: a combination of the words 'trash' and 'asteroid,' it refers to an asteroid that is used as a garbage dump, particularly for deep space travelers. Instead of jettisoning their refuse into space, they leave it on certain asteroids to avoid having floating debris all over the place that would ordinarily splatter against their ships and get them all dirty. Pretty clever, eh? Back to the story now… this chapter signals the end of the flashbacks, and with my next update, I will be bringing everything back up to the present, addressing such issues as where Wendy is now, where Vay is, what the Kaizaxx are plotting, and what Lilo and the gang are going through after reading Wendy's diary. To those of you who are used to calling him Pleakley: sorry, but I am now used to calling him Wendy, so please bear with me… I just love the name Wendy for him! It's perfect! I still can't get over that Fibber episode! Okay, I'll shut up now and post this chapter. Please, please, PLEASE R&R!!!