Protection

C/By Kenjaje

Chapter 6: Fog

"C'mon, c'mon!"

"Stitch coming, Stitch coming!" Lilo shouted in aggravation as she sprinted behind Stitch, trying to keep up with him. It wouldn't matter if they were separated, Stitch knew the way to the Aloha hut by heart, but he'd rather not let his body get away.

"Do you want me to carry you again?" Stitch asked, as soon as no one was around to hear.

"Naga," Lilo snapped, "Stitch is fine." Though the sound of her panting voice suggested otherwise. The air was still considerably chilly, and her lungs felt chilled and dry as she panted. But she suppressed the stinging irritation and pushed on; they were almost there. At last what seemed like a mile-long run, ended as the stairs to the building came into view. Stitch continued on, while Lilo slumped down at the base to catch her breath.

"Stitch, don't stop now." Stitch begged, running back down the stairs to help Lilo up. "You've gotta be me, and I have to be at hula practice, now hurry, c'mon!" With a few more hustling words and nudges, Lilo finally lifted herself up, and ran up to the door, bursting inside.

"Ah, Lilo," Moses started, interrupting what he was saying before, "Welcome back. You can sit next to Mirtle." He pointed at the spot near the end of the semicircle the other girls had arranged. Stitch—Lilo tried her best to be in character—half pranced, half hobbled behind Lilo, and sat next to her. "Ok, now that we are all present, I think we should discuss the plans for this month..."

"So Weird-lo," Mirtle began insidiously, ignoring Moses' speech, "decided to come out of your 'lair'?" Her nostrils flared as she spoke. Stitch—as Lilo—knew that Mirtle was just trying to get under his skin. The strange thing was; it was working. "You may as well have not come at all, we've been very happy that you haven't come lately, and now you're just infecting us again." Lilo growled hoarsely.

"...Now all we have to do is come up with a charity fund-raiser, so that we can do our service to the community. Does anyone have any ideas?" Lilo continued to growl through Moses' introductory speech. Though he paid a little attention, she wished more so to pummel Mirtle into the ground. Stitch kept a hand on her shoulder however, to urge her not to stand out; Stitch didn't want any confrontation until they were back to normal. "How about you, Lilo?" Moses said, as if out of the blue.

"Huh? Miga?" Lilo asked, pointing to herself, somewhat jarred that she--of all the other girls--was the one Moses picked.

"I don't see anyone else here by that name." Moses spoke softly. "Do you have an idea?" Lilo—as Stitch—also received a ping of panic. She had hoped that they would just be able to hide today, and not have to answer any questions. She knew that Stitch was panicking; he began to utter nervous grunts and conversation fillers, and glancing at her as if to ask for her to come up with something. Mirtle smirked slyly, as if she'd won some kind of battle, but Lilo ignored her and concentrated on thinking of something to say to cover Stitch. "Well?"

"Uh...-"Lilo started to speak.

"My throat hurts..." Stitch's voice came coarsely, as Lilo tried to sound as much like herself as possible, to give a convincing excuse. Stitch glanced back at his body, and saw Lilo wink his own large eye. He got the hidden message, and pointed at his throat, to emphasize what wasn't said by him.

"Oh," Moses commented, "I see. Well then, perhaps Mirtle can give an idea?"

"Of course!" Mirtle said ecstatically, as if she had all the ideas of the world. "We can go to the Aloha stage, and put on a show to ask for donations. We can come up with a routine and everything."

"Hmm..." Moses put a hand to his chin, thinking the idea over. "I like it Mirtle. We'll put on an Aloha performance for a charity, and also show what the meaning of Aloha Industries is all about at the same time."

"Yeah!" Mirtle chimed in, along with her passé, with false excitement. Stitch and Lilo remained in the shadows as Mirtle leered at them and smirked again, as if she'd won yet another battle.

"Well then, I think it's settled. We'll plan out our presentation today, and put it on for next week." Moses stated, scribing his plans on a chalkboard. The other girls ran to a far corner of the room to gather their supplies, and spread out upon the floor. Lilo and Stitch meekly joined in as the staccato of voices began to murmur.

"This'll be easy." Mirtle chuckled. "Just a few hulas, maybe a play, and definitely a spotlight show on me." She spoke with pride, lifting her nose to the air. Her eye opened and fell upon Lilo and Stitch, as they paced themselves over to the group. A frown crossed Mirtle's face. "You can collect the money, I suppose." She decided.

"Oketaka." Lilo said airily.

"Right, oke-whatever. Just don't interfere with our plans. You might infect them with weirdness." The other girls laughed, as they merely jumped Mirtle's bandwagon. Lilo sat down, and put her hands against her cheeks, and her elbows on the grass skirt covering her legs.

"You know how much I want to-"

"Yes." Stitch interrupted Lilo, as she spoke in turian. "But you can't." Lilo leered angrily at Stitch, but not angrily toward. The other girls began to talk amongst themselves again. "Whoa, do I look like that every time I talk to Mirtle?" Stitch whispered.

"Sometimes." Lilo replied quickly.

"Would you stop talking to your dog?" Mirtle shouted out of the blue. Stitch scooted back a little bit, and Lilo leered angrily at Mirtle. "Sheesh. You don't have to be so angry about it." Mirtle continued, turning back to the two and continuing on with her plans.

"Lilo?" Moses asked, walking toward the two lone persons outside of the huddle. "Are you feeling alright?" Lilo looked up at Moses, trying not to seem angry, and shook her head. "Maybe you should go home if you're not feeling too well. I'll arrange another day for us to meet so we can go over the plans together after Mirtle and the other's are done." He offered. Lilo nodded.

"Sure." Stitch muttered, trying to throw his voice.

"Alright then. But, since you're going, would you mind dropping off this letter to the post office? It has to deal with the arrangement for the stage next Saturday, and it would be a big favor." Without a word, Lilo stood up and took the envelope in Moses' extended hand. "Thanks, Lilo. Get better soon." He called as she and Stitch gathered their things and went out the door.

"That could have gone better." Stitch scoffed. A moist, humid feeling made his fur poof out a little bit. It took him a second to realize that there was a very thick fog looming outside. "Wow. This is new..."

"Eh, strange." Lilo said, the anger relieved from her voice.

"Thanks for not attacking Mirtle in there, I know how she can be." Stitch said as their feet made soft clunking sounds on the wood of the stairs, which they could barely see from the denseness of the fog.

"Welcome." She replied. Stitch grabbed onto Lilo's hand.

"We'd better stay close, I can't see too well."

"Miga naga loota." Lilo agreed. They paced slowly down the road, sticking close to the buildings they recognized; one wrong turn would literally throw them off, the fog was far too thick to see anything beyond just a foot and a half or so.

"What is up with the weather today?" Stitch commented, as a zephyr blew some unseen paper across the dirt path. Not a soul seemed to be out, or if they were, they were sure being quiet.

"Naga nota." Lilo said, "But Lilo's hair annoying." She continued, trying to move the frizzled matt to another shoulder.

"Here's the drop-off box," Stitch spoke, taking the letter from Lilo's hand. She heard the sound of metal clinking, but couldn't see what Stitch was doing. A loud creek signified Stitch had shut the box. "There, now we just have to get home. And I think it's...this way." Stitch led, Lilo keeping up diligently behind him, looking at the ground to make sure she didn't stumble over any rocks or other obstacles in her path. She could barely see a thing, Stitch's hand gradually turned into an opaque silhouette as she panned up his arm. Stitch stopped for a second, then moved on, but then stopped again, abruptly. Lilo slammed into him.

"Soka." She said, and waited for a reply. "Lilo?" She asked rhetorically.

"Shush." Stitch said quietly. "I hear something..." Lilo tried to listen too, but couldn't hear anything.

"Gaba?" She finally asked.

"I don't know, but it's coming from this way, c'mon." Quickly Lilo was tugged in a random direction, her arm jolted as her feet stumbled to keep a steady stride. For a while she was able to barely keep up, but Stitch was going too fast, and Lilo didn't see the tree root on the ground.

"Yow!" She yelled, as she let go of Stitch's hand and fell on her stomach, her palms and right knee scraping against the ground. "Soka, Lilo, miga regatta ji...Lilo?" She asked, realizing that her referred wasn't present. "Lilo?" She asked again, an uneasy quaver in her voice.

"Are keeping up ok Stitch?" Stitch asked, panting hard, but he didn't hear a response. "Stitch?" He too, discovered that they had parted somewhere along the lines. He thought that Stitch had just let go to keep a better pace, but it dawned on him that Stitch might have gotten lost. "Stitch!" He yelled, but there wasn't an answer. He continued forward, calling out to Stitch, but he never received a response. "Ok, ok, think calmly Lilo...if you were still you, and you got lost, what would you do?" She thought aloud, confusing himself with the "you"'s of his hypothetical question. "Uh...wait, I know, I think I would stay where I-"A noise sounded close, a rustle, possibly of leaves.

"Stitch?" He called out quietly. "Is that you?" An uneasy silence answered back. Stitch walked forward timidly; alert in case something was going to pounce him. He crept up to the small bush (or at least what was made out to be a bush in the fog) and put a hand into it, ruffling the leaves to try and scare whatever had made the noise. Nothing seemed to be jarred, so he let a sigh out and relaxed. He stood up, chuckled to himself, and turned around.

"Whoa!" He screamed, falling back into a sit as he bumped into a dark figure. His heart pounded as he stared at the ominous silhouette. It was an experiment; tall, slightly taller then he was, and appeared to have its back facing him. "Stitch? Is that you?" He asked meekly. A tingling fear leapt down his back as the creature's head turned, its eyes an eerie white against the fog. His heart skipped a beat as the figure then suddenly disappeared literally into thin air. Stitch screamed—though very loudly as Lilo was used to screaming—and bolted in a random direction.

"What was that, some sort of ghost-experiment?" He thought. "I gotta find Stitch; we gotta get out of here!" Stitch stopped abruptly in his run, and another jolt of fear ran across his spine as he saw yet another figure in the dense fog, but his shoulders relaxed and a sigh of relief came upon him as Lilo took color. "Stitch!" He sighed, as he ran up to hug Lilo.

"Stitch found home; follow." She said assertively.

"Ok. And once we get there, we have to talk to Jumba; there's another experiment on the loose, and I think it's another horror one."