To An. Nonymous:
Reviews are for critiquing an author's writing ability, not for
making idle chat. I've asked you this before and I'll ask you
again. Please keep your reviews on topic. Anything you have to say to
me that does not involve critiquing my writing ability or my story
should be
emailed to me personally at watsonsword at yahoo dot com (they won't let me post actual email adresses here.)
I removed your
last two off topic reviews just to drive the point home further.
Don't take this the
wrong way, you're one of my most loyal fans and I truly appreciate
it, but no one likes being spammed.
To Ri2: I was really surprised that you were the only one who actually guessed correctly who the emperor was. Although, something you pointed out along with another reviewer has forced me to come up with some impromptu changes to the story.
To Baal 626: What you and Ri2 pointed out about Stitch's personality has forced me to rethink what happened after Stitch crashed on Earth. I've added one extra piece to the story, which will be revealed later on. Fortunately, what I already added did not at all interfere with what I already had, so the story is going to progress as it would've otherwise, just with this added piece.
To All My Readers and
Reviewers: The joke with Cobra's real name is that it was a
reference to Samuel L. Jackson's character in Pulp Fiction. Sam
being the actor's first name, and Winnfield being the character's
last name.
However, his name was originally Sam Vincent, but I got my Pulp Fiction facts mixed up and had to correct that.
Little could be heard in the dark room. Dripping water in the distance, the occasional squeak of a mouse, the whooshing of the air ducts, but most of all, Stitch could hear his own breath. He didn't bother to focus in on whatever sounds may be beyond the room he was kept in, nor did he bother to change his vision to see in the darkness. There was no need for any of it, not here and now anyway. This was not the time to be doing anything. Even though Stitch was bored to tears, and worried about Lilo until it hurt, anything he could do other than nothing would only make it worse.
Stitch was about to give in and break free of his bindings and charge out the door. Not a moment too late, Stitch heard the deep click of the lock to his room's steel door turning, and a sliver of light passed right across his eyes. Stitch blinked, and like that his eyes had adjusted to their new surroundings. The sliver of light slowly got wider until Stitch knew the entire door had opened, and at last turned his head to see who had done it.
Two shadowy figures loomed in the doorway. Stitch's attention was immediately drawn to the large one. Cobra Bubbles? With hair? And sporting a commando getup? A moment's confusion was forgotten when smaller figure began running toward him.
"Stitch!"
There was no mistaking that voice.
Stitch effortlessly pushed his arms out to the side, snapping the ropes that bound him, reached his hand up to his face and tore off his makeshift muzzle and threw it on the ground, all in just enough time to wrap his arms around Lilo as she came crashing into him.
"This isn't right." Lilo cried into Stitch's ear. "Nani's changed. She's not Nani anymore. She was going to stab me electrified needles."
"Don't talk." Stitch whispered into Lilo ear.
Stitch continued to hold Lilo and press her head into his shoulder until her breathing stopped its stutter. With Lilo safely and comfortably in Stitch's grasp, he could now turn his attention to more curious matters.
Stitch lifted his head up to see the jungle commando Cobra Bubbles standing above him with the most puzzled of expressions on his face.
"Why does the little girl call you Stitch?" Sam asked.
Lilo lifted her head from Sitch's shoulder and pushed away slightly. Stitch got the message and released his grip on her. Lilo turned around to face Sam. She raised her hand and opened her mouth about to answer when she felt a furry arm wrap around her head and press its extended forefinger against her lips. Lilo paused and blinked for only a moment. When Lilo turned around she saw Stitch shaking his head at her. Stitch then walked up in front of Lilo to answer the question himself.
"Stitch is my name." Stitch said. He looked back at Lilo for a second and then turned back toward Sam. "Lilo gave it to me. It is much better than being called a number."
Sam narrowed his eyes and then raised one eyebrow, not flinching another muscle in his body. This gesture was not particularly comforting to Stitch, and even less so to Lilo, who took one step backward upon seeing it.
"The emperor would disagree with you." Sam responded.
"Well Stitch isn't the emperor!" Lilo shouted suddenly, charging up in front of Stitch.
"Stitch naga emperor. Stitch good!" Stitch added in, shaking his head.
"I'm not entirely sure at this point whether or not I believe you." Sam responded.
"But it's true!" Lilo pleaded.
Sam looked at Lilo with a totally vacant face. Looking into his expression made Lilo tense her muscles and grit her teeth. She slowly inched back from Sam until she felt herself pressing against Stich, who responded by placing his arms on her shoulders. This succeeded in relaxing Lilo only a bit.
The three of them continued like this for some time. Not one moving a muscle. At last it was Sam who broke the silence.
"Follow me." He said, and turned around to walk out the door.
"Where?" Lilo asked.
"To get you two something to eat. You look hungry."
The door opened to a large, unkempt rectangular room. Dispite its size, there wasn't much there. There was a circular table in the center with four folding metal chairs, another rectangular buffet table in the corner was cluttered with papers, pens, a few radios, and an open tool chest. There were cheep metal cupboards lining the right wall and an old dirty refrigerator on the left just to the side of an industrial steel sink.
Sam walked into the room and took a sharp turn left toward the refrigerator. Lilo and Stitch followed him into the room cautiously. Stitch looked at Lilo. Lilo motioned toward the circular table in the center of the room with her hand and they both proceeded to the table and sat down at opposite ends, looking at each other.
Both of them jerked their heads up in surprise as two square packets wrapped in dark green plastic and stamped with various serial numbers landed on the table in front of them.
After tossing down the packets, Sam placed a Styrofoam cup of water in the center of the table, and then pulled out one of his stained black bowie knives and set it down next to the cup.
Lilo and Stitch looked down at the packets and then back up at Sam.
"What are they?" Lilo asked.
"M-R-Es." Sam answered.
Lilo continued to look at Sam, blinking occasionally.
"Meals ready to eat." Sam continued. You can use the knife to cut it open.
Lilo reached over and picked up the bowie knife. She held it close to her eyes to see the grain of the stained surface of the blade, like ultra-fine sandpaper.
"Nani always told me not to play with big knives." Lilo said, turning her head back to Sam, who was now sitting in the chair adjacent to her with his arms folded.
"Nani's not here." Sam whispered immediately, as if he anticipated the question.
"True."
Lilo reached over and picked up an MRE. After bringing it over to her, she held it down on the table with one hand and carefully used to bowie knife in the other to cut the plastic wrapping off the top. She proceeded then to dump the entire contents onto the table, which consisted of more items wrapped in plastic.
Stitch followed suit, carefully watching Lilo's example, but used his extended claw to cut the plastic from the MRE package.
Lilo looked at Sam once again, who nodded at her. Lilo took the bowie knife again and used it to cut the plastic off one of the larger items. Inside was a large cracker that seemed as dense as lead. Searching for something to make a cracker seem more edible, she came across a tube, like a very small tube of toothpaste, marked 'cheese spread'. Lilo opened the tube and thoroughly coated her cracker before starting to eat it. It wasn't very good, but it was filling, and at this point, that's all Lilo wanted.
Lilo looked over the table momentarily to see Stitch squeezing his own cheese spread straight into his mouth, and then eating the tube once it was empty. Under normal circumstances this would've made Lilo laugh, but these were hardly normal circumstances.
Lilo sighed. Stitch stopped his gorging in reaction and looked over at her.
Lilo turned toward Sam, still in the same position he started in.
"Why did Nani become so mean?" Lilo asked softly.
Sam turned his head to the side and sneered. He then signed and turned back toward Lilo.
"Nani lost allot of people who were very close to her." Sam said just loudly enough to be heard. "And all of them in very bad ways."
Lilo looked back down at her MRE, most of the packages still unopened. "That would do it." She whispered to herself.
Lilo focused on the biggest package in front of her, a cardboard box. She opened it up and pulled out two more packages. One was just a plastic envelope filled with what looked to be a cross between a teabag and bubble wrap, the other was another plastic bag sealing something soft inside. Lilo looked at the bag carefully.
"Beef stew." She whispered to herself, and then turned toward Sam. "How do you cook this?"
Sam leaned over and picked up the cup of water in the center of the table and demonstrated how to cook an MRE using Lilo's meal. "The packets in this plastic envelope are filled with a chemical that reacts to water. You pour just a little bit inside, and it will boil in seconds. You then stick the envelope, and the packaged meal back into their box, and it heats up in a few minutes."
Stitch followed Sam's example, and they both were soon looking at small cardboard boxes with steam shooting out of them. While Lilo and Stitch were waiting for their meals to heat up, Sam finally decided this was the perfect time to begin questioning them.
"I want you two to tell me where you came from, and how you got here." Sam asked calmly.
Lilo turned toward Sam so fast that her chair slipped and she toppled over onto the ground. Too frightened by Sam's words to be even the lightest bit surprised by her spill, she scooted back away from Sam.
Stitch gasped at the sight, and jumped down from his chair to rush over and grab hold of Lilo. With Lilo safely in his arms, Stitch turned his attention to Sam and growled at him, baring his teeth. He didn't know what danger if any was there, but as Sam's question had clearly frightened Lilo, he felt he had to.
Sam stood up from his chair and raised his arms out in front of him.
"I'm not going to hurt you little girl." Sam said as reassuringly as he could. "And even if I tried, I wouldn't get very far since he's with you."
Stitch stopped growling, blinked and then sneered at Sam before turning his head down to look at Lilo.
Lilo's breathing was fast and shallow. She was looking in front of her at nothing I particular, obviously trying to get over the shock that Sam's question had imposed on her.
Stitch put one hand on Lilo's head and whispered into her ear. "It is OK. Stitch not let Sam hurt Lilo."
Stitch lifted Lilo up to her feet by her shoulders and guided her to her chair, now flat on the ground. After unfolding it and setting it back up, Stitch took Lilo by the hand and sat her down, afterwards putting himself between Lilo and Sam.
Sam sat down as well.
"So," Sam asked. "start from the beginning, and work your way up from there. I want to know everything, how you met Stitch, and what led you here."
Lilo turned toward Stitch. Stitch nodded at her.
Lilo lowered her head and sighed.
Lifting it back up again she finally began to speak.
"It was my parents. They uh… they died… in a car accident, a long time ago. Nani was." Lilo stopped in mid sentence and her breath started becoming erratic.
Stitch looked up at her and whimpered quietly to himself. He then climbed up onto the chair and sat down on Lilo's lap. Putting his arms on her shoulders and resting his forehead against hers, he whispered to her, "Keep going."
After hesitating many seconds, Lilo pushed Stitch's head out of the way and continued. "Nani was… because I was so lonely without them, she took me to the pound to get a dog. That's where I met Stitch. The people who hit him with their truck thought he was a dog and took him there.
"Stitch was… he was bad at first, but I taught him how to be good. I taught him how to love… Oh my god."
Lilo turned back toward Stitch, her eyes began to water and grit her teeth. Stitch was at a loss for words. All he could do was stay still and look back at her. Lilo finally broke and buried her head in Stitch's chest, crying violently.
"It's all my fault!" Lilo could barely get out her words through her crying. "I was never lonely with mom and dad! I was never taken to the pound! I never met you! I never taught you to be good! That's why!…"
Lilo could say nothing more, only cry into Stitch's chest as he tried his hardest to comfort her in his grip, which didn't seem to be working. Stitch looked up at Sam as if pleading for help, but he knew it would be of no use.
Sam looked at Lilo and Stitch with one eyebrow raised. "That's why he's the emperor?" For a moment, Sam buried his face in his hand, and then raised it again to look back at Lilo and Stitch. "I still don't understand the story, but it seems the little girl is in no condition to finish it."
Stitch looked down at Lilo, and then back up at Sam. "Stitch finish story."
Sam's face lifted up and both eyebrows raised in reaction.
"It was Jumba." Stitch continued. "Dr. Jookiba. Jumba build time machine for Stitch and Lilo to go and save parents."
Sam closed his eyes and breathed heavily. "So the reason the emperor is here today is because Nani's parents survived a car accident years ago?"
"Ih!"
Sam mumbled something to himself before opening his eyes, the only discernable part being 'moot point'. Stitch cocked his head to the side and was about to say something when…
"Ahem!"
Lilo, Stitch, and Sam all looked up toward the doorway to find Nani leaned against the wall with her arms folded.
"How long have you been standing there?" Sam asked.
"Long enough to hear the whole story." Nani answered. "And I still think it's a load a' crap."
"I told you already Nani, I've made my decision and it's final."
"Keno Hirasawa was just captured."
Sam's eyes widened as he stood up. He then turned his head to the side and clenched all the muscles in his face.
Sam brought his fist down on the table so hard he cracked it in two, sending what was left of Lilo and Stitch's MREs flying in all directions. Lilo hid her face in Stitch's chest momentarily and then brought it back out to look at Sam, who was now as cool and collected as ever.
"Who's Keno Hirasawa?" Lilo asked.
Sam closed his eyes again and breathed heavily before answering. "He was our contact with our sect at Marshall Islands. Now we've been cut off. We're being fractioned as we speak."
Lilo blinked at Sam. "But how would they know where to find him?"
"Because someone in our little resistance movement is a traitor."
Lilo and Stitch turned to look toward the door. It was Nani who said that.
"Who is it?" Lilo asked.
"If we knew that," Nani answered. "he wouldn't be alive for very long."
Sam and Nani looked over at Lilo and Stitch. Sam then got up out of his seat and began toward the door. Before he could make it out, Nani grabbed him by the arm and whispered into his ear. "You don't honestly believe what they're telling you."
"No I don't." Sam whispered back. "But I do believe that this just may be the lucky break we've been looking for."
Sam jerked his arm out of Nani's grasp, and continued out the door. Nani's focused turned once again toward Lilo holding Stitch in her lap. With her arms still folded, Nani walked up to Lilo with a smirk on her face and an almost eerily casual stride. Lilo held Stitch a bit tighter as she approached.
Once in front of Lilo, Nani bent over to be in Lilo's face and spoke in the most relaxed voice they've heard from her so far, "You two are going to get it, I swear by that. I will not just stand here and watch while you insult me and my sister."
Lilo's grip on Stitch tightened even more as she heard those words. Nani raised herself up again, and just as casually as before, walked out of the room.
Lilo and Stitch looked at each other, and then hopped off the chair and ran out the door.
In the middle of a makeshift square room with walls of shelves stuffed with various scraped electronics, a few desks and chairs were sprawled about where people with dirty faces and even dirtier clothes busily worked taking disassembling and reassembling weapons, radios, and discussing tactics over large rolls of paper dumped out over the desks and floors.
Lilo and Stitch entered the room and everything went silent. Everyone had stopped what they were doing to stare at the two of them. Lilo and Stitch stared back. A cough from the background eventually broke the silence, if only for a moment.
Lilo and Stitch slowly began walking forward, and the people in the room all cleared a path for them, until they stopped in the center.
"Um…" Lilo choked as soon as she said those words. With all these adults armed to the teeth, yet still staring at them afraid to move or speak, it was too much for her.
Stitch sensed this, and spoke for her. "Where is Sam?"
The people in the room all looked at each other. Murmurs could be heard throughout. After some time.
"Stitch good." Stitch said, trying desperately to talk with a soothing voice. "Not emperor. Stitch here to help."
A few more murmurs and the small crowed looked each other over once again. At last, one of the men came out and approached Stitch.
He was very young and skinny. He couldn't have been older than twenty. He knelt down and looked at Stitch in both terror and wonder simultaneously.
"If you're really good." He said. "Then you won't hurt me if I…"
The man slowly reached out his hand and wrapped it around Stitch's paw. Stitch got the idea, and put his other hand on top of the man's, and gently shook it.
After his hand was released, the man looked at Lilo and shook his head slowly. He stood up, turned around and began walking away, but stopped to say, "Sam is at the entrance with Nani discussing strategy." And then he continued walking away.
"Thank you." Stitch responded.
Lilo and Stitch walked out of the room side by side. The small crowd gathered around the exit of the room watching them leave.
At the entrance to the warehouse, Sam and Nani were talking to each other and to another middle aged man with a beard and glasses.
"The only one I can think to replace him is Kaipo Walters." Sam said.
"Ol' skinny fingers Kaipo?" The middle aged man retorted. "He's not up to the challenge."
"He's the only one who's been to Marshall Islands before."
"Yeah." Nani scoffed. "And he stuck out like a sore thumb. The shopkeepers were hounding him like vultures."
"Do either of you have a better idea?" Sam asked.
It didn't take a split second for Nani to answer. "I say we let Marshall Islands fend for themselves until we can find someone who can do the job."
"I'd have to agree with Nani on this one." The middle aged man replied.
"Excuse me." Suddenly asked the voice of a little girl.
Nani, Sam, and the man looked down to see Lilo and Stitch staring up at them.
"Isn't Hawaii part of the United States." Lilo asked rhetorically. "So wouldn't they try and help us?"
"They did try." Nani answered. "They're still trying. All they've been able to do so far is smuggle us our weapons and food and first aid kits. But those things are no match for the emperor's weapons."
"What kind of weapons?"
"Ray guns, jetpacks, force fields, flying cars, you know, you're typical space opera stuff."
Just then, all the lights in the building exploded into a showers of sparks. All the computers crashed and then began pouring out smoke, all the radios and walkie talkies blasted out ear piercing static before catching fire, and all otherwise electronic equipment broke in equally explosive ways.
Nani, Sam, and the other man all duct to the floor and covered their heads. Lilo screamed at the top of her lungs and pulled Stitch tight against her, just before they both fell over, and then all was quiet again.
The air reeked of smoke and ozone, the only lights were from the daylight seeping in through the cracks in the walls and ceiling, and that was only enough to see people as dark blue silhouettes.
"We've been EMPed!" Nani shouted out. "The little girl and the thing led them here!"
"Impossible!" Sam shouted back. "They would've had no way to contact them! It was Keno, they must've drugged it out of him!"
"What's going on!" Lilo screamed.
"We've been shot by an EMP." Sam answered. "An electromagnetic pulse, it fries anything with an electrical circuit. The emperor's troops always EMP a place before attacking."
"I'll go give the evacuation orders!" Shouted out the middle aged man, and he got up and ran back toward the darkness of the warehouse.
"Naga evacuate!" Stitch shouted out. "Stay and fight!"
"We can't." Sam responded. "No one's ever survived an direct engagement with the emperor's troops, we have to flee."
"Stitch stay and fight with you." Stitch spoke softly as he walked over to Sam and held his arm.
"I appreciate your offer Stitch." Sam spoke equally softly. "But I still don't know whether or not I can trust you. We're evacuating, and that's that."