Instead of my usual review responses, I've taken this space to write to fellow Lilo and Stitch fanfic authors about my other current story, Gems of Tomorrow. It seems I've somewhat ran out of inspiration for that story, although I already have many future events, as well as the climax and emotional ending well thought out, the material I have is more like swiss cheese than a coherent story. There are too many parts I have yet to plan out, and I'm kind of stuck as to what they should be.
This is why I've decided to make Gems of Tomorrow into a collaboration. I've always found the best inspiration comes from dialogue between myself and someone of a similar level of creativity. So I'm asking if any author would offer themselves up as a partner to me in writing that story.
If you are considering this, than I must say that I would only be willing to work with the very best among Lilo and Stitch authors, and so far I've only seen three people who fit that category: The Great Red Dragon X, Ri2, and Bluefox Gantu's Lover and Mate.
The author I'm most hoping to get is The Great Red Dragon X. The kind of psychology he can put into the characters of L&S is absolutely incredible. –read Light on the Mayo and pay close attention to how he handles 625 for a perfect example– however, considering his almost godlike status in this site, as well as his knack for waiting six or more months between updates, I have my doubts that it'll ever get done.
A very close second is Ri2, and I honestly think he'll be better suited for this than The Great Red Dragon X given his amazing ability to write thrilling action sequences. However, Ri2, if your listening, the reason I put you as second is that, while you are an extraordinary writer, I personally don't care for the ideas you come up with. I do not like placing the paranormal/supernatural into the world of Lilo and Stitch. That, and I have a rather frail psyche, meaning I can't stand sad endings to great stories. So, if you're going to volunteer, just remember that.
My third choice is Bluefox Gantu's lover and mate, simply for her amazing eye for detail. I have yet to find anyone who can make me SEE what's I'm reading as well as she can. And while her sheer creativity and originality might not be on par with the other two examples, I would still love to have her as a partner for a collaboration just because of her gift for exquisite detail. Then again, her name tells all, and considering Gantu will have a very small role in this story, I have my doubts that I'll be able to get her either.
Or who knows, I may end up with someone else entirely! If you think that by some odd chance that you might be on par with the authors I mentioned, refer me to your story, and I'll tell you quite tactlessly whether or not you measure up.
Just be warned, I can be somewhat difficult to work with, as I typically want my own way.
Everything was dark. Everything was quiet. For some time nothing happened. Sam, Nani, Lilo, and Stitch got up. Lilo stumbled about, feeling her way around for anything short and furry. She didn't have to look, as four familiar soft arms soon wrapped themselves around her and a whispering voice shushed into her ear. Lilo turned around to see Stitch's familiar glowing red eyes as he saw in infrared.
A flash and a searing sound startled Lilo. As she turned around she saw it was only Sam holding a road flair in each hand. Nani followed suit, lighting two flairs of her own. All the flairs were dropped to the ground, and the sounds of more being lit up could be heard all throughout the warehouse, bathing the halls in a warm glow and a soft searing sound. Seeing the flairs illuminating the building, Stitch blinked, and his eyes turned black again.
Clacking of footsteps caused Sam to reflexively pull out two pistols and swing them around behind him. He only found the middle aged man with the beard looking back at him with his hands raised, and several dozen others standing behind him, some clutching rifles, others clutching wide tubes of black pvc pipe. All of them had at least two more tubes of pvc pie strapped to their backs.
Sam lifted his guns into he air and he middle aged man lowered his arms in response.
"It's just you." Sam said.
"The evacuation order's in." The middle aged man said. "I've brought the volunteers."
"Volunteers for what?" Lilo asked, but question went unanswered.
"How many RPGs do you have?" Sam continued.
"Just over sixty." The middle aged man answered.
"Only sixty?"
"Well, some people have been getting complacent recently."
Sam growled as he brought his head down and rested it on the stalk of his gun. "I just hope that'll be enough."
"What're RPGs?" Lilo asked again.
"Rocket propelled grenades." Sam answered. "They're the only things that can pierce the troops' body armor."
Sam's attention turned toward Nani. "I'll lead the volunteers, you go back and manage the evacuation."
"Sam!" Nani shouted in objection. "I can't let you risk your neck like that, you're too important to the movement!"
"I'm also a much better fighter than you Nani." Sam quickly retorted. "Do what I say!"
Nani scowled and shook her head slowly at Sam. It seemed like she was on the verge of screaming at him. But at the last second, she calmed down, lowered her head, and nodded with her eyes closed.
Nani began to walk back through the crowd, but stopped and turned around.
"I want you two with me." Nani said, pointing toward Lilo and Stitch.
"No!" Lilo shouted back. "I wanna' stay with Sam!"
"Ih!" Stitch added in. "Sam good! Nani nala queesta!"
"Do what she says." Sam told them in a harsh tone.
"But I wanna' stay with you!" Lilo pleaded.
Sam growled again. "Fine, but neither of you two leave my side for an instant!"
"Sam you can't-" Nani yelled out.
"You have your orders Nani!" Sam yelled back.
Nani snarled as she grasped her short hair, and then turned around and stomped off through the crowd of volunteers. They all looked back at her in mild apprehension until.
"What are you doing!" Sam screamed out at them. "Take up positions!"
All the volunteers scrambled forward, some falling down in the commotion. They knelt down and unstrapped the pvc pipes from their backs, aiming them over the shoulder at the garage door entrance to the warehouse. Some held the pipes in one hand and lighters or flairs in the other, others held on with both hands while someone else held a lighter, match, or flair behind them. All tried desperately to hide behind some sort of obstacle, no matter how ridiculous, some even tried hiding behind empty tin shelves. Sam himself halfway hid behind one of the makeshift walls. Someone handed him three pvc pipes bound together with cable ties, and he aimed it at the entrance along with the rest of the volunteers. Lilo and Stitch both clung to Sam's leg, barely peering out from behind the makeshift wall.
For some time, nothing happened.
"How long does it take them to show up?" Lilo whispered up toward Sam.
Sam answered without moving his head. "Anywhere from less than a minute, to half and hour. You can never tell."
Some time more, nothing happened.
"How do you know they're going to attack from the front?" Lilo asked again.
"They always attack from the front." Sam answered. "It's a matter of pride for the emperor that they always win despite using predictable tactitcs."
A little while longer, still nothing happened.
"What are these people volunteering for?" Lilo asked, even though she had an inkling of what the answer was, she wanted details.
"Holding off the troops long enough for the evacuation to stand a chance." Sam whispered back. "More or less, they're volunteering to die."
Lilo and Stitch both gasped in unison and looked up at Sam, who still didn't move his head.
"The survival rate of these volunteer efforts is less than ten percent."
Lilo froze at hearing those words. She stopped breathing and suddenly felt her head spinning. She was going to be put in the middle of a situation with only a ten percent chance of survival? And that was for a rebel with a machine gun and a pvp pipe bazooka. She didn't know whether to tense up, or to go totally limp.
Her breathing was stuttered, she was shivering, her hands were clenched. Lilo was unaware of any of these things, but Stitch felt it in his chest as he held Lilo against him, trying to calm her by rocking her back and forth. But his efforts were in vain, as Lilo suddenly came to realize exactly the situation she was in, and lost all awareness of even Stitch's embrace.
The tension building up in Lilo's tiny frame was finally too much for her to take, and she let out an ear piercing scream so abrupt and painful that everyone around her almost dropped their things in shock. Stitch was the most shocked out of all of them. His unrivaled sensitive hearing was too much to stand against such a horrid shriek, and he let go of Lilo and grasped his ears in pain.
As soon as she stopped screaming Lilo darted off into the halls of the warehouse. Sam took after her, only a few steps though, realizing he was more needed then and there.
"Hey! Get back here now!" Sam yelled as loud as he could into the dark tunnels of the warehouse. "Dammit kid! You're gonna' get yourself killed!"
"Stitch find Lilo!" Stitch yelled back. "Keep her safe!"
Sam turned toward Stitch, his face lit up with so many mixed emotions that it was impossible to tell what he was thinking or feeling. In the end it just looked like fatigue. But in such a circumstance, one would never have the luxury of worrying about such trivial things as the trustworthiness of the likeness of your enemy, or the safety of children.
"Fine! Go get her!" Sam said after some hesitation. "Just stay out of the fight!"
"Ih!"
And Stitch took off into the warehouse after Lilo.
Sam turned back toward the garage door entrance to the warehouse, all the other volunteers following his lead.
For some minutes more, still nothing happened. Beads of sweat running down his forehead is the only thing giving away the nervousness of the otherwise tranquil, and deep breathing Sam Winnfield. His gaze averted from the entrance only momentarily by the mechanical rattling of one of the volunteers constantly shifting his aim back and forth.
A few more minutes passed. Now a distant humming could be heard.
The volunteers looked around confused as to where it could have been coming from. Sam tilted his head slightly to get a better listen at the sound, quickly getting louder.
"They're coming in on skyboats." Sam whispered just loud enough for all the others to hear.
The humming became louder, and louder. The volunteers clutching their pvp pipe bazookas tighter, and their breaths quickening. Sam, on the other hand, loosened his own grip, and began to breath more slowly.
The humming continued to grow in volume and pitch until it was a shriek that hurt the ears of all who listened.
As the volunteers took aim at the garage door entrance of the warehouse, an ear-splitting crash preceded the roof collapsing in on the entrance to the warehouse.
The roof landed on three of the volunteers, crushing them. Two more had limbs trapped beneath the rubble; they were done for.
Before anyone had time to react, a jet-black, flying boat with a flat bottom swooped into the hole of the roof. Two spinning turrets, triple barreled, one forward, one aft, twirling around and firing globs of blue gelatinous plasma at unheard of rates of fire, exploding into ten-thousand degree clouds of blue smoke on impact, turning walls, obstacles, and people into thin, black husks billowing out ozone and carbon monoxide.
Half the volunteers were fried into searing skins before they even got one shot out at the flying boat, dying so quickly they never had time to scream.
All at once, a volley of RPGs were launched at the flying boat. The air filled with smoke of all colors, you could barely see what you were firing at. Only the explosions of RPGs and the flashes of plasma globules could be seen through it.
The RPGs never hit their target though. They were stopped just short of the flying black boat by what looked to be a spherical wall of red water encasing the boat. The turrets kept firing, and the volunteers kept dropping to the floor as skeletons wrapped in a thin black membrane. One could barely here the sounds of people screaming and swearing over the explosive firefight.
But the RPGs kept firing, and soon, it was clear they were having an effect. The red wall surrounding the flying boat began to turn color. Orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and finally everything went pure white, bright enough to blind the volunteers even through the smoke.
"Their shield's down!" Sam's scream was just loud enough for everyone to discern.
"Kill 'em!", "Fire!", "Right now dammit!", "Die you piece of!"
Everyone shouted out at once, and when the light finally faded, the RPGs continued flying, this time hitting their target. The boat was knocked back and forth. The turrets ceased firing as the shaking had compromised their aim. The RPGs kept flying and turning the smooth polished surface of the boat into a collection of gray and white dents and welts.
At last, one RPG tore a hole in the plating on the bottom of the boat. One volunteer, a tired old black woman with gray hair and an eyepatch stood directly below the boat. A flair in her free hand, she fired her RPG propped up on the ground straight into the hole torn into the plating.
Flames shot out of the hole in the plating, and the air filled with the horrid sound of tearing metal as the entire boat was lifted almost ten more feet into the air, and then fell back down, smashing the tired old black woman beneath it.
After some time, the deafening sound faded into the occasional clattering of a small piece of tumbling debris. The sounds of coughing and wheezing from all the smoke, dust, ozone, and carbon monoxide could now be heard clear as crystal. It was a morbid relief from the sounds that preceded it. The brown and black smoke was now clearing into a white fog, letting the rays of the sun inside through the roof to let people see once more.
Sam crouched behind a pile of smoldering concrete shreds. He could barely breath and his eyes felt as if they had been immersed in bleach. He still clung as if seeking protection to his bundle of pvc bazookas. Both ends of the pipes were blackened and ripped open from firing their RPGs.
Once the smoke cleared enough for Sam to catch his breath, he reached for the back of his belt and unlatched a canteen. He brought it up to his face and pulled out the lid with his teeth. As excruciating as it was, Sam opened his eyes to wash them out with the poring water from the canteen, and then drank what little was left from it, tossing it behind him when he was done. At last Sam felt decent enough to stand up and look around.
Nothing was recognizable. The walls of the entrance were now gaping holes wih smoking edges. The floor was a mess of shredded metals, concrete, and the smoking remains of human bodies. Sam made a quick count of the area. Only seventeen people were still alive, including himself. Seventeen of an original forty-one. They were sitting down, shaking and hugging themselves. They were washing out their eyes and pouring water down their own noses just to get the smoke out. They were wandering about trying to make sense of what had just happened. They were drenched in dust, covered in cuts and burns, a few even groaned in agony on the floor, gripping at black charred stumps where limbs once were.
Sam made his way clumsily to the center of the wreckage, accidentally stepping on the skull of a fried volunteer, crushing it into powder. He paid it no mind. As he reached the center, he looked up into the hole in the ceiling, and visored his eyes with his hand.
The survivors of the volunteers stumbled about looking for unused bazookas, or anything they could use to treat their wounds. Sam didn't even notice his own burns and bleeding as he looked up at the sky, now just visible.
Through the calm, a new noise could be heard, not like the humming before. This noise sounded like the screaming of jet engines. Many jet engines fast approaching.
"The troops!" Sam tried to yell out in his hoarse voice, but couldn't. Still, he was loud enough to draw the volunteers' attention. "They're coming." Sam turned back toward the remainder of the volunteers, all now frozen and staring at him. "Everyone with a functional RPG stay behind, the rest of you fall back with me."
Sam made his way out of the wreckage, and into the darker depths of the warehouse. Thirteen volunteers followed him, six of whom had to be carried on the backs of others. Sam grabbed a one of the few still working flairs as he disappeared into the warehouse. Only three volunteers stayed behind.
Their faces covered in dried, brown blood and dirt, the three volunteers still with working pvc bazookas crouched down behind piles of rubble, aiming their pipes over the shoulder at the hole in the roof in one hand, and rummaging around for glowing hot scraps in the other to light them with. Their fingers and toes were numb. They could barely see with the pain in their eyes. None of them thought they could actually hit the targets they were going to be fighting, but they had a job to do, and there was nothing they could do about it now.
The roaring of the jet engines came closer. The volunteers gripped their pipes tighter. But then the jets quieted. One of the volunteers loosened his grip on his pipe, and wide eyed, raked his nails down his forehead, thinking, hoping, that this was the end of a bad dream, and trying to wake himself up with the pain. But all he got was a stinging in his head, and only a slight amount of fresh blood on his fingertips.
None of them ever saw their targets. One after the other, three bright blue globs of plasma streaked into the wreckage of the front of the warehouse, and one after the other, hit each of the three volunteers square in the chest. They all flew from their places into the air, across the room, landing like rag dolls, twisted like pretzels, their entire torsos turned black and green, hardened to the consistency of brick, leaving their limbs and lifeless faces intact. Not one of them fired an RPG.
The sound of jets lit up again, and a lone black suited troop slowly descended into the heap of rubble and bodies where the entrance to the warehouse once stood. Only the soft glow of green lights from the troop's back gave any visual indication that he had flown in on some sort of jetpack. The light faded on his landing, and with it, so did the roaring of his jetpack.
This troop was different from the ones seen before. His suit carried no armor plating; it was soft. His mask carried the largest, and most ornate and complicated looking black goggles. His blaster was long, twice as long as those carried by the other troops. He was a sniper, or at least one would think so.
The troop quickly glanced around, moving no part of himself but his head and neck, and then shot a blast straight up into the air.
The sound of jets was heard again, and ten more armored troops with blaster carbines descended into the rubble. They held their carbines at their hips and casually walked forward into the warehouse.
Deeper inside, deep enough so that the only light given off was that of the flairs, Sam and three other volunteers, almost in a panic, rummaged through the electronic equipment on the cheap tin shelves in front of them, throwing whatever they couldn't use on the floor. At last they had come upon what they were looking for, motion detectors.
Sam gathered as many motion detectors as he could in his arms and ran to a table on the other side of the room, dumping them all onto the table. At the same time another of the volunteers dropped a load of sealed pvc pipes only a foot long on the table from the other end.
"We only have enough time to make five proximity mines, at most." Sam hurriedly said to the other volunteer. "The rest of you get going!" He shouted at the other two.
"But you know how slow those things move." The first volunteer replied.
"I also know they never stop moving."
Sam and the other volunteer began tearing open the plastic coverings of the motion detectors with their bare hands. They cut open bundles of wires inside them with utility knives, stripped them, wrapped the wires around nine volt batteries from a package already on the table, and stuck the ends in predrilled holes in sealed pvc tubes.
In their scramble, the two had rigged seven pipes with motion detectors before they heard the sound of blaster fire. They turned to see three globs of dark brown plasma flying toward them, but they were slow moving, and fell to the ground with a splat. The globs of brown plasma began pouring out burning red smoke upon landing on the ground.
"I'll lay down the mines, you get going. You're more important here than I am." The volunteer said to Sam.
Sam nodded and took off further down the hall.
The volunteer stared back at Sam for only a moment, and then began slowly following him with one arm full of pvc tubes. Crawling backwards across the floor, he carefully laid the tubes down on the ground, motion detectors facing forward, and flicked them on. Just as he laid down the last of the mines, he lifted his head to see the silhouettes of three troops emerging from the red smoke with carbines poised. The first one out didn't hesitate to fire. The volunteer had only enough time to blink as the blue bold struck him in the face. He was sent hurtling into the shelves behind him. A smoking black stump of flesh he now had for a neck, and nothing for a head.
The troops continued their advance, nonchalant as if they were strolling down the street, until one of them stepped in front of a motion detector. The tube exploded with the force of a bundle of dynamite, sending four of the troops flying off in various directions. The troops stopped their advance and turned to look at the ones who had fallen.
Two of them were dead. The other two had cracked and burned armor, leaking their strange pink blood from their suits. One was missing a right arm, thick pink blood dripping from the wound. But they both just stood back up, and picked up their carbines once more. Not the slightest sign of pain or wincing was given from either of them.
The troops stood and took aim at the pvc tubes in front of them. They shoot each one on the mark, blowing all of them, filling the room with knocked over shelves and white smoke. And then they advanced forward again.
Sam ran through the hallway, people around him panicking to fill backpacks with whatever they think might be important and then flee for their lives. Not looking where he was going, he tripped over something. Just after hitting the floor, he looked up to see what it was.
It was Stitch, with his extra arms, antennae, and quills all extended.
"What are you doing here!" Sam shouted out at Stitch.
"Meega naga Lilo haggata!" Stitch shouted back.
Sam could only guess as to what that meant, but he had no time for that. "Go get the little girl, take her to the back of the warehouse and don't interfere!"
Stitch ran back further into the depths of the warehouse. Sam turned back toward where he just came from to see two, then four, then six troops walking toward him. They opened fire as soon as they walked into the glow of the flairs set up in the room.
Rifle fire met plasma fire in a total confusion of light, sound, and screaming. Shelves knocked over and charred pieces of human bodies were flung about as the troops continued to advanced, unhindered by the rifle rounds, except for the occasional one in a thousand shot that would go straight through the eyepiece of the mask of one of them, and he would fall down dead, his bright pink blood flowing through the hole in the mask.
Sam crawled across the ground on his belly in the flurry. The troops, in their bizarre logic, never took aim at him, as if they didn't consider someone crawling on his belly to be a threat, or even a worthwhile target.
As Sam finally crawled his way into the next room, he sat up and pressed his back against the wall. He took off his bandoleer carrying grenades and waited for the sounds of the firefight to die off. He pulled the pin off one grenade, and then leapt across the entrance to the room an threw the bandoleer into the other room. The front most troop fired at him, the plasma barely skimmed his shoulder. The top of his sleeve burst into flames and he rolled around trying to put them out.
When the flames were out, Sam saw in the room, a commotion of people running back and forth yes, but in the center of it all, Lilo curled into a ball, covered in soot, shivering from all the noises of the gunfire and the explosions and the screaming. Stitch stood above her, holding her, trying to comfort her as best he could, knowing it was no use.
But the grenade Sam threw into the other room went off, and with it, all the others on the bandoleer. The floor rocked with the deafening blast, and all standing were knocked over. Four more troops were sent flying, dead or dying, from the blast.
Stitch's sensitive ears couldn't take it, and he was once again grasping at them in agony.
Lilo was tumbled about by the blast as well. She uncurled onto the floor on her back and screamed as loud as she could, just adding to the pain in Stitch's ears.
Without thinking, Lilo got up and ran, not knowing what direction it was in, not even opening her eyes to see. But as Stitch recovered and looked up, he saw. Lilo was running right toward the incoming troops.
Lilo ran right into the leg of one of them and was promptly picked up. She opened her eyes to see a vicious black gas mask staring back at her, and she screamed once again.
The troop held fast to Lilo as she struggled against him. His strength seemed superhuman. He stood there as the other troops passed him by, and then spoke to Lilo in a frightening monotone and mechanical voice, as if speaking through a fan.
"By the constitution of the Pacific Empire, all rebel children are to be taken to Capitol City and rehabilitated."
"Nooo!" Lilo screamed back.
Lilo hit him across the helmet many times, but no use. At last she grabbed his gas mask and pulled it off his face. What she saw was not human.
The troop's skin was navy blue. His nose was flat, his ears pointed as if elfin, and his eyes solid black, without iris or pupil.
Lilo screamed a third time, and the troop turned around and began to carry her away.
"Stitch!" Lilo screamed over the troop's shoulder. "Stitch! Help me!"
Stitch heard this, and it finally became too much for him.
The troops continued their advance, shooting into the room and frying rebel after rebel. Sam had been backed up into a pile of trash and shattered concrete. He pulled out his pistol and fired. It went straight through the eyepiece of the troop he was aiming at, knocking him over dead.
Another troop swung around and fired his carbine straight at Sam's face. There was no time to react except toshut his eyes tight, even though a million thoughts would race through Sam's mind as the glowing blue orb flew toward him.
And then… nothing.
Sam opened his eyes. It took him a few seconds to realize he was still alive, and a few more to realize that all had gone silent. The rebels, the troops, all stood motionless staring at Sam. No. It wasn't Sam, it was something in front of him.
Sam looked down to see a snarling, drooling Stitch. Stitch held the blue glob of plasma in his two top hands.
It took Sam another few seconds to realize just what was so remarkable about that site. That plasma would turn tempered steel into brown soup in an instant, and yet Stitch was holding it in his hands with no ill effects.
"My god." Sam whispered to himself. "He really does have the powers of the emperor."
The precious silence was broken as Stitch threw the glob of Plasma back at the troop who fired it, sending him careening across the room with a white, smoking chest plate.
Stitch cried out as he flew threw the air, head butting another troop and shattering his chest plate, and then grabbed him by the neck and twisted it, snapping it. Stitch flew off the now dead troop onto another, punching him in the face, driving his own gas mask through his flesh. And he continued, leaping from troop to troop, killing each of them, until he landed, legs wrapped around the neck of the one that held Lilo. A quick squeeze and his neck was snapped as well.
Stitch hopped off and landed on the ground with just enough time to catch Lilo as she fell.
Stitch then looked up. He was surrounded by troops. There had to be at least a dozen of them. Stitch arched forward and extended his lower claws, snarling at them, waiting for them to make the first move while Lilo pressed herself into Stitch as hard as she could.
But they never attacked. The troops surrounded him and stared at him, but they never attacked, nor did they make a move against the rebels, as their attention was drawn solely toward him.
Stitch looked confused for a moment, until he heard Sam's voice coming from the pile of trash and shattered concrete some ways behind him.
"They're not fighting back! They think you're the emperor!" Sam said, still sitting and leaning back against the pile. "Make them go away!"
Stitch continued to look at the troops some time more, before clearing his throat.
"The emperor gives new orders!" Stitch said. "Go away. Do not bug rebels anymore."
The troops all turned to look at each other, and then back at Stitch. They all then walked away into the darkness of the warehouse.
Everyone stared dumbfounded at what just happened. Stitch was more surprised than anyone that what he had just done actually worked. But his shock could only last the moment, as realized Lilo was in his arms crying into his chest, crying harder than she had ever cried before.
Stitch sat down and began rocking Lilo back and forth, shushing into her ear and stroking her head with his one free hand.
"Shhh. Is all okie-taka." Stitch whispered into Lilo's ear. "Fighting all gone. Bad things all gone."
The few still alive and healthy enough to do so, slowly gathered around Stitch. Stitch looked up from Lilo's ear, but still stroking her head.
They were all staring at him. But this time, their stares weren't of anger, or fear, now they stared in awe.
Stitch didn't care at this point. He just went back to shushing in Lilo's ear.
"Shhh. Is all over." He whispered. "No more fighting. No more shooting."
After a minute, Stitch looked up again to see Sam standing in front of him. Stitch drooped his ears and lowered his head submissively.
"Stitch sorry." He said softly.
"Sorry for what?" Sam responded.
"Sam tell Stitch not to interfere. But Stitch interfere anyway."
"It's okay Stitch. You were right to disobey me. You saved my life, and the life of that little girl, and the lives of everyone else still standing in this room."
"Um, Stitch?"
Stitch over up to find a young woman looking down at him.
"A man named Chase Flanders wants to see you." She told him softly.
Stitch stood up, still cradling Lilo in his arms, and followed the woman to the other side of the room.
Sprawled out on the floor was a young boy. He couldn't be older than eighteen. His right shoulder and right side of his chest was one huge burn. But even through his burns and his bleeding, Stitch could tell that this was the same boy who dared to shake his hand less than an hour ago.
"Stitch." Chase could only whisper. "Come closer."
Stitch obeyed and now looked down into Chase's eyes.
"I guess I should
feel lucky that my whole body is numb, considering what I must look
like. I can't even feel my own mouth moving.
"Stitch… the
emperor took my family from me. My home, my girlfriend, the town I
live in, all my friends, my entire life. Stitch, you're the only
consolation I have. If it's within your power to do so… kill the
emperor, do it hard, and do it well."
After those words, chase stopped breathing, and his eyes rolled into the back of his head.
Lilo at last dared to look out from Stitch's chest, and into Chase's lifeless and quickly paling face.
Stitch set Lilo down onto the ground, and she continued to stare into the dead man's face, her head shaking, her body shaking. She tried as hard as she could to cry, to scream, to do anything, but she couldn't. She could only stare, slowly shaking her head.
"I take it you have never before looked into the eyes of death."
Lilo recognized the voice of Sam from behind her, but still couldn't move.
Sam continued. "Chase
Flanders was only seventeen years old, but he told me he was ready to
die, as he no longer had anything in his life worth caring about.
"As horrifying as
this image is little girl, you must realize that the face of death is
not always so ugly. Sometimes it can even be soothing. But such
unsightly death as this, as horrid as it is, imparts on you a kind of
wisdom that nothing else can.
"So look little
girl. Look into the face of unsightly death, and never forget it."