Passion

C/By: Kenjaje

Edited/Revised by: raVen

Chapter 8: Shattering Tension

Stitch hadn't even seen it coming until it happened; one moment he was looking at Zeus, trying to figure out why she was so nervous, and the next he felt her lips against his. He was frozen when the realization hit him; he couldn't even react he was so frightened, like his brain had just stopped working.

Angel froze as well but not with the same emotion. Her eyes squinted as she saw Zeus wrap her arms around Stitch's back. Angel saw the look in Stitch's face; he was more impacted by the gesture than she was. She tried to convince herself this wasn't happening, a rising panic swelling in her stomach.

"He's surprised. That doesn't mean he likes it. In a few seconds he'll break away, and tell her that he loves me." Said Angel's mind. Her body, however, wasn't listening. "Look, see, he's struggling to get free." A ping of relief came through her as she saw Stitch try to move; he put his arms against Zeus and tried to break away, but as soon as each of his three hands made contact, they all went through her skin. The uprising in Angel's heart was soon slammed against a wall as she saw Stitch try to get free, but his arms were stuck inside of Zeus' body. Angel wanted desperately to see him get loose, but to her disdain she saw Stitch relax, and close his eyes, giving in.

"No…" Angel thought sadly, as the feeling in her body was sapped away. Her arms and legs were numb in the warm ice, her breathing slowed, her heart began to pound softly, and her eyes squinted viscously. "No." Her mind repeated, this time stern and coldly. She focused her quivering eyes on Zeus, and a great anger rose about her. She felt her arms and legs again, as the blood pulsed through her veins with her ever-increasing heartbeat; this time she didn't have anything to calm herself down; if Stitch wasn't going to break away, she was going to sever them herself.

Frustrated, she tried to move; nothing was able to even shift inside the block of warm ice she was in. She blinked the water out of her eyes, and twitched the drops off of her ears. Again she tried to move, tensing her arms and legs, hoping to somehow budge. But she was straining, and soon she was too tired to try. Her heart felt like it was going to explode, and her lungs burned with the cold air that came in through her nostrils. It was scary in its own way, being paralyzed wasn't something she was expecting, or used to.

As she lay trying to regain her strength, she felt unusually hot. The throbbing in her neck told her it was because she was angry, and staring at Zeus only made her even more enraged. Inside the ice she tried again, and this time, felt her arm move, but only slightly. When it did, water dripped over her fur. It was ice; and cold or not, her anger was melting it.

Stitch couldn't tell how long he'd been kissing now; his mind had blanked, and the only thing he could think about was Angel. He knew she was there, but was she watching? He wanted to open his eyes, and look for her, but that would mean looking at Zeus. He didn't want to admit it, but he was beginning to like the gesture passed to him by her. He wanted to get away, wanted to tell Zeus that he was already in love, but he already tried to escape, and failed.

Just when he started to feel Zeus break away—just when he felt his hands slide out from her oddly permeable body—he heard Angel growl with anger, and heard something shatter to his left. His eye shot open, barely catching Angel, now a pink blur heading toward them. He felt her hand push him away from Zeus, sending him to the ground. He hit the dirt flat on his back, his fourth arm shot out involuntarily, and the hairdryer that it concealed fell a distance from him.

His upper arms lifted him up, but that's as far as he could go; he was too awestruck by Angel's sudden outburst to move any more. He saw her try to throw Zeus to the ground, but she turned into a puddle and reformed behind Angel in the blink of an eye. Zeus tried to put Angel in the same hold Stitch used before, but Angel was surprisingly quick; in a single turn she attacked, swiping a claw across Zeus' skin.

That action gave Stitch enough reason to stand, Angel was angry enough to hurt Zeus. He began to run over, expecting to see blood, but what he really saw astonished him. It was like Zeus' body had turned into the ocean; as Angel's claw slashed through her again, water splashed on to the ground. To Angel, it was like clawing at a wave—everything just went through. Zeus didn't appear to feel pain, and everywhere Angel struck, her body brought itself back together again. Angel struck several more times, but at one point, Zeus quickly caught Angel's attack, and held her.

"What are you doing?" Zeus asked, with the attitude of speaking to a lunatic. "It's very unruly to interrupt a love-declaration."

"You don't get it do you?" Angel muttered, leering at Zeus. "If you knew Stitch so well you'd realize that he loves me."

"If he does, then why did you leave him yesterday when you met him in the field? It seems to me you don't love him very much." That was something Stitch knew Zeus shouldn't have said. Stitch felt the palpable, silent anger emanating from Angel as she bared her teeth. Stitch couldn't tell what to do, but dared not get any closer lest he receive friendly fire from the fight. But it was of Zeus whomhe should have been wary of.

With a fierce roar Angel tried to escape the grasp held on her wrist, and punched through Zeus' skin in the process. She felt the familiar warm-ice feeling as her hand was sucked in, and wasn't let out. She knew that her body heat would eventually melt enough of the shell away allowing her enough room to move around and break free like she did before. But this time, she was inside Zeus, and so she expected that method not to work.

She felt a tingle on her hands; at first it felt like a tickle, but then it gradually grew to a buzz across her fur, all the way around her body. At first she thought it was the fog that wafted constantly around Zeus' figure, but then she felt the sparks wash over her body, and the static electricity that made her fur stand on end.

"Angel!" Stitch shouted, as he saw what was going on. Shock by lightning was not a pleasant thing, and he wasn't about to let Angel have it done to her, even if it meant getting himself shocked, again. Without a second thought he vaulted over the two, his toes barely a foot away from the drop-off of the cape, and turned around, grabbing Zeus' wrists, and absorbed the shock just as she sent the electric wave. A flash, and then darkness; Stitch fell over, knocked out.

"No, Stitch!" Zeus cried, releasing Angel, as she saw her presumed boyfriend fall to the ground. "Look what you did!" She shouted to Angel.

"What I did?" She said, barely believing how Zeus could accuse her of the fault. "Stitch was knocked out because he was trying to stop you from shocking me."

"But…he's…" Zeus began to get teary-eyed.

"He's fine." Angel said lowly. "You on the other hand-" Zeus wasn't interested in what Angel was about to say, she'd had quite enough of the pink interrupter, and wanted nothing more than to drive her away. But Angel was ready, and when Zeus tried to restrain her again, she wrenched herself free from the grasp and threw Zeus down with ease. "All that training with Gantu really paid off." She thought to herself. "Even though I don't want to admit it."

Angel readied herself for Zeus' rebound, and braced her back foot against the ground, but felt her heel bump into something. She glanced behind her to see a hairdryer lying on the ground like a godsend. The scream that Zeus emitted snapped Angel's attention back, and she was just able to dodge the attack.

Ducking a fraction of an inch below Zeus' claws, Angel fell to her left knee and swooped down, picked up the hairdryer with her left hand, and struck Zeus with her right. Again, like hitting a wave, water splashed from the semisolid body into streaks as the remnant water escaped the mother body. But this time Angel wasn't intending to try claw Zeus; she was intending to blow away as much of the walking water balloon as she could.

Stitch snapped awake just in time to see Angel follow through her attack with a blast from the hairdryer. Zeus broke free as the wave of heat disintegrated her right arm, and backed up to the edge of the cape. She looked down, water crashed against the rocks below.

"Perfect." She thought. Angel came closer, but not as slowly as Zeus would have liked. She turned around to see the barrel of the dryer appear almost point-blank from her face. "I will win Stitch." She declared, as she dropped off the ledge and splashed into the water.

"He's not some kind of prize to win, and he's already mine!" Angel shouted, but it was merely an airy yell. She dropped her arms and let go of the dryer, which fell off the edge of the cape. Angel heard a noise behind her and turned around, her eyes still gleaming with anger.

Stitch flinched as though he'd just been caught for some kind of crime, or out of fear from Angel's gaze. Whichever one she couldn't tell, but she didn't drop it as she took a step forward. Stitch backed away, walking like a crab on his palms, and a look of guilt came over his face.

Angel tried to tell him not to leave, but before she could speak he scurried to his feet and bolted for it. Angel put her hand up as she tried to yell for him to stop, like she was trying to reach for him, but she was too out of breath to say anything beyond a whisper. As she saw Stitch turn into a mere blur in the distance, she dropped her reaching hand and closed her eyes, wondering why he ran away.

"Well, that's all the experiments. The log is updated and the scrapbook is complete so far." Lilo said, shutting the book of pictures. "Now what do I do?" Idly she looked over at the clock; it was nearing two-thirty, Stitch and Angel were gone for nearly an hour and a half. "I hope nothing happened to them." She thought aloud. "If only Nani would've let me go, then I wouldn't be so worried about them!" She screamed with a frustrated groan. "But, if I did go with them, I wouldn't have been able to get Angel's pendant." She retorted with a happy chime.

Upon mentioning it, she picked it up off the floor, and dangled it in front of her to look at the stone. It wasn't completely white; specs of black, gray, tan, and pink blended together on the polished surface. Though she wished she could have picked from a selection, it was the only one left, and she wanted to get it for Angel.

"But how to give it to her?" She thought, standing up to put it on the bedside table. "I'll think about that over some lunch. Come to think of it, I should feed Pudge today, I think Nani got some peanut butter at the store." Lilo went downstairs as she thought to herself, tapping her bare foot against the ground of the elevator as it whirred to the second floor. "And maybe by the time I get back, Stitch and Angel will be home."

Another explosion sounded off, probably the fifth or sixth one she'd heard that afternoon. She laughed to herself as she walked down the hall and reached the stairs. One by one she stepped down, rather quickly. She didn't see anyone in the house; it'd been quiet since she got home. Nani went to lie down, but she knew her sister wouldn't get any sleep with all the eruptions going on outside.

Humming her favorite song to herself as she entered the cool-tiled room, and made her way to the breadbox. Nearly seven loaves of bread were inside and on top of it; one already opened. Underneath was the peanut butter, which she put on the counter, and on the other side of the kitchen she went to get a knife and a plate.

A few minutes and three bread slices later (the first one broke because an eruption scared her), she finally had a peanut butter sandwich ready to eat. But another noise piqued her attention; the front door burst open and slammed shut, and a noise like someone keeling over came from the living room. Lilo rushed over to see what it was, and saw Stitch panting on the floor.

"Stitch?" She asked, trying to help him up. "What happened, where's Zeus?" She thought for a second, and then glanced around. "Where's Angel?"