Review Responses
To Bluefox Gantu's Lover and Mate: How can I respond to someone who posted twenty reviews for me in less than one day? I can't, other than, thank you. I think I've just got a new favorite fan.
To Xoxerguy: You know, I do have limits as to just how cinematic I make my stories.
To Prominence Flair: Great to hear from you! I have plans for my grand finale at which is still quite a few years away, and I need as large a fanbase as possible for me to pull it off with the kind of grandeur I want.
Everything was abuzz in Hawaii-01, in Capitol City. Capitol City was larger than Honolulu, though constructed in a similar fashion to the now overhauled Kokaua. All the buildings were identical, were plain square, plain white, and labeled only with a number and a function. But they were all much bigger than the ones in Kokaua. The plain buildings were a city block in area, and each a hundred and twenty stories high. The city was designed like a French garden, obsessed with perfect symmetry and a tribute to control over nature. As seen from the air, the city would look like a spreading curtain of suburbs, narrowing upwards into the long, wide band of commercial buildings, complete with giant tapestries depicting pacific imperial glory hanging from them, and light shows to dazzle the eyes of die hard Vegas goers. Beyond that was a regal fractal pattern of stylized buildings, domes, pyramids, great glass towers, odd shapes adorned the scenery, and the gargantuan pure white palace of columns, domes and spires at the end, where the Emperor called home, was like an attempt at turning the US Capitol Building into a piece of modern art.
Today was a very special day. The balconies of all the buildings were packed with onlookers throwing colored tissue paper, silly string, and various articles of clothing into the streets below. The air was so filled that it seemed as if it were snowing a rainbow of colors. The streets were filled to the brim with screaming, hollering, wailing fans of the pacific empire. Each one dressed in a bizarre costume just as different as any of the others. Beads, feathers, makeup, jewelry, drag, bones, hair permed in every shape and color known to man. The crowd cried out in ecstasy at what they saw in the streets.
The parade was thousands of men marching in perfect formation down the main sixteen lane street of Capitol City. The men dressed in solid black leotards with unbuttoned flowing white robes all had deep blue skin and hair. Their noses were flat, their eyes solid black, and elfin pointed ears.
In the first march the blue men all spun their plasma carbines in perfect synchronization. On the outskirts of the parade, the blue men would walk about the crowd and shake hands with the nearly awol crowd, patting the heads of children as they went, and signing cereal numbers like A25-K17-G91-J33 onto the eager pages of autograph seekers.
The second march of blue men were dressed gold on gold tuxedoes with gold top hats. They were the marching bands, carrying horns, clarinets, trombones, tubas, drums, and cymbals. They played their marching band music that would either inspire the greatest upwelling of nationalistic and patriotic pride, or send you hurling your guts out at the sheer superfluous tedium of it all.
Somewhere in the wild crowd surrounding the parade was what looked to be a small child clad in rainbow leather and a tiki mast with a plain brown fedora trying to worm his way through the maze of people to get a glimpse of the parade on his Imperial brand digital camcorder.
But before the camouflaged Stitch could reach the front of the crowd something had grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around. Stitch looked through his tiki mask to see Lilo looking back at him in the bizarrely plain dress of a gray sweatshirt and blue sweatpants. She smiled at Stitch softly.
Lilo! It was Lilo! She wasn't supposed to be here! She was supposed to be back at the headquarters waiting for his return. How did she get here? That didn't matter right now, she was putting herself in needless danger.
Stitch grabbed Lilo by the hand and dragged her back through the crowd into a back alley where the only things were garbage and garbage cans, and the only people were sleeping bums.
Lilo jumped at Stitch and wrapped him in a tight hug.
"I thought I lost you in that crowed." Lilo yelled out just barely loud enough to be heard over the screaming crowd and the playing of the marching bands.
Stitch pried Lilo's hands off of him and put his own hands on her shoulders.
"Lilo not supposed to be here!" Stitch yelled back. "Too dangerous! Sam say too dangerous!"
"I don't care! I'm never gonna' leave you! I don't care how dangerous it is!"
"Lilo could die!"
"Don't worry!"
Lilo smiled and winked at Stitch. She pulled up he shirt only half way, reached her hand underneath it, and pulled out what looked like a compact mp5 submachine gun. Lilo winked at Stitch again.
"I'm packing heat!"
Lilo hid the gun back in her shirt.
What the hell was she doing! She brought a gun to a place like this! In front of a parade of the same creatures that made up the emperor's army! Couldn't she understand what she was doing? If she showed a gun in a place like this, in front of people like this, she would be killed for sure, or even worse! She couldn't understand such a thing. She simply acts on what she first thinks might be a solution without seriously thinking about whether or not it will work. Maybe she was ready to kill, but she was clearly still a child.
In the blink of an eye, Stitch reached up into Lilo's shirt. She screamed. Stitch pulled out Lilo's gun and tore it in half with his bare hands. Lilo began to cry.
"Why did you do that!" Lilo screamed, hitting Stitch in the shoulders.
How could he explain such a thing? Not thoroughly, considering he still didn't have a full grasp on the English language. He had to settle for something basic.
"Lilo show gun; parade attack; Lilo die!"
Lilo lowered her head and tears began to well up in her eyes. Despite the crudeness of Stitch's words, she seemed to understand just what kind of mistake she just made.
"I'm sorry." Lilo said just barely loud enough to be heard over the parade.
"Don't be." Stitch tried to reassure her with his hands on her shoulders. "Just stay close to Stitch."
Stitch grabbed Lilo by the arm and they both headed back into the crowd. They shoved and writhed their way through the impossible mass of bodies, all the while trying not to be noticed. Stitch was trying not to let his mask or hat fly off, revealing himself.
At last Lilo and Stitch reached the front of the crowd, and looked out over the parade. Now the floats started to come by. A voice like an overzealous rock station DJ boomed over the crowed from speakers mounted on the buildings.
"Hey! Hey! Hey! Let's see! Let's see! Who's the first to greet the us here at the third annual Imperial Pacific Bonnfire, proudly brought to you by your own westward footware!
"Yes! Oh yes! Here they are! One, two, three, all four of them! Their they are! The future of the Pacific empire! They are the brightest, the hottest, the most loyal, and the plain best youngsters in all the Pacific Empire. That, ladies and gentlemen, is why they are the Emperor's chosen children!"
The float passed by. It was massive. It was all stained glass in so many bright blues, reds and silvers. The float was a red stairway surrounded by blue columns ending in a great silver thrown upon which sat four little girls all in gold tiaras and red robes and capes all lined with white fur. The four girls waved and blew kisses into the crowed eliciting cheers and whistles from all. They were very familiar to both Lilo and Stitch.
"Myrtle!" Both Lilo and Stitch shouted out in unison.
"Elena! Yuki! Teresa!" Lilo screamed and her jaw dropped as the float passed right by her.
As Myrtle stood up to wave at the crowd with both hands she looked down and caught sight of Lilo. Their eyes locked. Myrtle's shock was even greater than Lilo's. For a moment, all the noise of the parade and the crowd seemed to go silent, and the world went in slow motion as Lilo and Myrtle passed by each other.
The float would eventually move on beyond Myrle's vision of Lilo, but she would continue to stare back until she felt a hand on her shoulder. Myrtled jumped and turned around to see Teresa looking at her curiously.
"What's the matter?" Teresa asked.
Myrtle paused and blinked before answering. "I thought I just saw a ghost."
"Let's hear it for the future generation of the Pacific Empire!" The voice boomed out over speakers.
Lilo continued to stare out with the most shocked expression at the stained glass float driving away into the distance. Stitch was busy fishing through his pockets for something. He found it, and pulled out his digital camcorder, opened the side monitor, and began recording the parade.
The stained glass float drove off into the distance. Another wave of blue men strolled by in three columns. The outside two wore the black skin of the troops' armor without the rigid plates. They marched in perfect formation carrying extra long and silver plasma rifles leaning against their shoulders. The middle column was another marching band clad in their golden tuxedoes.
Lilo was now inched away from these blue men. They all had the same strange face she saw on the troop she pulled the mask off of more than two weeks ago. Seeing these creatures from the distance of the back of the crowd may have been fascinating, but now Lilo was right out front. She was close enough to reach out and touch them. She was close enough for one of them to reach right down and grab her.
Lilo looked up as so many of these blue men walked right by her. Some would even dare to turn their heads to look at her. This was too much. Lilo found herself gasping for breath looking up at those blue men. She began to sweat uncontrollably. She tried to scream but couldn't.
To Lilo, at that moment all she saw were those faces. The noise from the crowd was a blur. The music from the marching bands became like squealing static. It rang in her ears hurting like nothing had ever hurt before. No. Her whole body hurt from that noise, so it couldn't be what she was hearing that caused it.
The faceless, colorless mass of the crowd grew taller. Ten feet. Twenty feet. The buildings leaned over to trap Lilo in a cage like a rat. The blue men stopped their march and turned toward Lilo. At a snails pace they began to walk toward her. Their nails grew to four inches in length as they got closer. Lilo's body was ice cold, except for her chest which was burning hot. Her heart felt like it was going to explode.
Lilo snapped. She turned around and tried to shove herself back through the crowd, back to the alley she came from, or anywhere other than here.
Stitch continued to record the parade from out in front of the crowd. The marching band continued to pass by unnoticing of the spies in their midst. Stitch reached over with one hand to grab Lilo's shoulder, but instead found his hand on the hip of one of the raving fans next to him. In the excitement, the man didn't even notice Stitch's hand on him as he hollered into the crowd. "Long live the Pacific Empire!"
Lilo was gone! Stitch had turned his attention away from her for just a moment and she disappeared. Panic struck Stitch as he had no way of finding her. In this noise, there was no way to single out her voice. In this bustle, there was no way to pick up her scent. A wave of cold ran up and down Stitch's body, standing his fur on end when he realized he wouldn't be able to find her. He had to try anyway.
Stitch closed the camcorder and jumped up onto the head of the same man his hand was on just a moment ago.
"Ah! Get the hell off'a me!"
Stitch ignored the man's raspy yelling and scanned behind the crowd only for a split second before finding his target.
Stitch jumped off of the man just before he clasped his hands over his head, and onto the head of another among the crowd. Stitch jumped from head to head, receiving the same welcome every time, until he was behind the crowd again, in the same alley he pulled Lilo into earlier.
One of the blue men in black suit saw out of the corner of his eye, a small figure with a big blue nub for a tail. He stopped and looked out at the crowd until the soldier behind him walked right into him, and then they both hurried to get back into place.
There she was, curled up into a ball on her side and shivering, pressed up against the plaster wall of the building that sided the alley.
Stitch immediately ran to Lilo and wrapped himself around her like a blanket. Lilolet her head out of her arms and screamed at the top of her lungs. The extreme high pitch was the only thing easily discernable from the parade and the crowd, and made Stitch cringe with the pain in his ears.
Lilo bit down hard on the first fleshy thing she could find that wasn't her own. She was unaware that her teeth couldn't do anything to the flesh of Stitch's wrist, nor that it was Stitch who was holding her, until a voice rang in her ear.
"Lilo! Is okie-taka. Is Stitch."
Lilo looked up hoping to find her fried, but instead just saw a gawking red Tiki for a face. She screamed again and tried to struggle, but to no avail.
Stitch grabbed her by the chin an forced her to look back at him. His mask had been lifted up revealing the face beneath.
Lilo threw her head into Stitch's chest and hollered uncontrollably.
"They're everywhere Stitch! The blue men! Get'em away from me!"
"Naga!" Stitch shouted back. "Blue men all in parade! Only Stitch here with Lilo."
Lilo at last started to calm down. Her veins began to sink back beneath her skin. She closed her eyes and went limp in Stitch's arms. Her breath was still stuttered, and she couldn't stop crying and shivering.
Maybe Lilo was ready to kill, but she was clearly still a child, and the experience of combat was not one that she could take, even after it was long gone.
It was some time before Lilo regained her composure enough to stand and talk by herself.
"We go back up front now." Stitch said to Lilo.
"No!" Lilo shouted back. "I'm not going near those things!"
Stitch caught himself looking back and fourth at the crowd, and then at Lilo, groaning the whole time and his face ablaze with angst.
"Let's follow parade from behind crowd."
"What's that!"
Stitch barely had time to finish his sentence as Lilo pointed up at another parade float.
This one was made of marble, or at least what looked to be marble. It was a huge rectangular wall of columns resembling an old Greek palace without the roof. Right in the center was a massive marble chair. In the chair sat a proud waving someone dressed in flowing white robes and a crown of olive branches on his head. He too, was someone very familiar to Lilo and Stitch.
"And here comes the biggest man in body, and the second biggest in heart!" Shouted out the voice from the speakers yet again. "I have yet to see such loyalty and devotion as his. He's been by our side, by the emperor's side since the beginning. His faith in our highness' power and wisdom has never wavered a millimeter. He is the very symbol of what it means to be a citizen of our Pacific Empire. Let's give a big welcome to emperor's very own inspiration, the great Count Gantu!"
The crowd erupted in unanimous cheer greater than ever before at the new float. Gantu bowed repeatedly to his applause as he was showered with flowers thrown from the audience.
In the middle of all this, some teenage girl in pigtails ran out into the parade itself. She ran right toward Gantu's float.
"Gantu! Marry me! I love you!" Was all she could get out when one of the blue men picked her up and carried her over his shoulder, kicking and screaming, backto the crowd.
Gantu, gave a single silent chuckle to himself as he watched this happen.
The float was large enough even for Lilo and Stitch in the back of the crowd to get a clear glimpse at it.
"Gantu!" Lilo shouted out. "Gantu works for the emperor!"
"Eegada Queesta!" Stitch added in.
Lilo climbed atop Stitch's shoulders to look out at Gantu's mock-marble float as it passed into the distance. Lilo and Stitch stared at it in disbelief for as long as they could. No one in the parade noticed them, which was a good thing.
Gantu's float now just a blur in the distance, Lilo turned to look at the parade right in front of her. It was another wave of those blue men. These ones all wore tight fitting blue spandex with full sleeves and turtlenecks. Their hair was grown out long, unlike the inch long spiked hair of all the others. These ones did not march but flipped and cartwheeled and leapt their way down the street like acrobats.
A sudden wave of uneasiness swept through Lilo as she watched these men. It was not the full blown panic attack that came when she was only inches from them, but it was enough to cause her to fall down off of Stitch's shoulders.
Luckily Stitch caught her just before she hit the ground. A chill sent down Lilo's spine made her shiver quickly, which made Stitch squeeze her a bit tighter for the moment.
"I am not going near those things." Lilo told Stitch.
Stitch only nodded his head in approval at her comment.
The two of them stood there for a few minutes, leaning against the wall of the giant building, leaning against each other, trying to drown out the noises they heard. This peace would not lest when suddenly…
"And here it is! The man you've all been waiting for!" The voice cried out again from the speakers. "He is our master! He is our savior! He is a true lover of all his islands and their peoples! His strength is incalculable, but his hands are the gentlest in all of Hawaii! His voice is the teacher of all wise men! His arms are the cradle for all children! To see him is to love him! He is ours! We are his! Let us all welcome Emperor 626!"
"There he is!" Lilo gasped out.
The crowd roared like nothing before as a new float approached. This one must've been three times larger than any of the others. The entire thing was one big staircase of flowers of so many colors. Atop the staircase was a chair made of flowers. Standing on the chair, waving to he crowd with all four hands was Empeor 626.
The emperor wore a tight red suit. But not any suit, this was the same red uniform given to him by the wardens of the Federation penitentiary that once held him. Once that uniform was prison issue, now it was regal. Draped across only one side of him was a cape of velvet, red outside, and yellow inside. Atop his head he wore a deep maroon napkin folded in the style of a bishop's spire.
The crowd called out to Emperor 626 with words of praise and worship. The emperor responded with waves and kisses.
This stopped for a brief moment when Emperor 626 was confronted by a group of raving teenage girls screaming at him.
"I love you 626!" "I want you!" "Be mine forever!"
Emperor 626 grinned to himself for a moment. He then winked at, and pointed to, the single most scantily clad of the teenage girls in the group. She fainted on the spot.
The songs of the marching band quieted to a drumbeat. This signaled the Emperor to face the crowd at large and hold out all four of his arms as if waiting for a hug. What he received was that, like a wave, the crowd clenched their hands into fists, and raised their arms above their heads bringing their fists together. In unison they all shouted, "RECLAIM!" Emperor 626 responded with a very enthusiastic "EVERMORE!" and the crowd lowered their arms.
The emperor motioned his paw toward one of the blue men beside the float. The man walked up to the crowd and picked out the hand of a relatively young woman and led her up to the emperor's float.
The look of joy and disbelief on the woman's face was staggering. She could barely walk without falling over. The man led her up the stairway of flowers, and up to the emperor himself.
The woman, tears streaming down her cheeks, knelt down before 626, not daring to look at his face, and him only the back of her hand. The emperor sneered at this, and shoved her hand away. The woman at last looked up with a face heartbroken beyond words, but not for long.
The emperor took off his napkin hat and jumped right into the woman's arms. She was shocked and bewildered. Her breathing was shallow. But slowly, she reached her hand up, and scratched behind the emperor's ear. He let out a soft purr that only she could feel. The woman burst into tears at that moment.
The emperor's unexpected display had unleashed a unanimous Awwwwwwweeee! from the crowd.
The woman now holding Emperor 626 in her arms was in too much disbelief to resist as he hopped out and put his napkin hat back on, or as the blue man led her back down the stairs, back into the crowd she came from.
A small distance away, Lilo continued to stare out from that same back alley, from atop Stitch's shoulders.
"Geeze Stitch!" Lilo said. "Were you always that much of a showoff?"
"Eh, he, he, he, he… Ih." Was all Stitch could say back.
Lilo watched as the emperor's float came closer, and closer, and finally passed right by her. As it did, the crowd swelled so much that it engulfed the alley Lilo and Stitch were trying to hide in. The two of them were dragged into the crowd like victims of riptide. Lilo was pulled off the shoulders of Stitch.
"Stitch!" Lilo screamed out.
"Lilo!" Stitch screamed back.
The inanimate object composed of tens of thousands of raving fans didn't notice their cries as it pulled them farther apart.
Before she knew it, Lilo had been thrust right out front, where she came face to face with the object she swore she would avoid. Lilo was in the arms of one of those blue men in their black soldier uniforms, minus the helmet. Seeing them from a distance made her nervous. Seeing them up close made her lose control, but this was just too much.
The fear running through Lilo's veins was so intense, and then it was gone. Her mind went blank. She lost the ability to feel or think. She froze, stiff as a board, in the arms of this blue man.
"Hello little girl." He said to Lilo in the sweetest voice. He either didn't notice her condition, or didn't care.
"How would you like to meet the emperor?" He finished, tickling her nose with his pointed nail, eliciting no response.
He hopped up onto the emperor's float, walked up the flower staircase, and plopped Lilo down right in front of Emperor 626.
Lilo stared straight into the eyes of the emperor. She was no at all comforted. This was not Stitch. She knew this from his eyes. Stitch's eyes always had the mixed feelings of joviality and anxiety. These eyes were much different. The emperor's eyes showed nothing but an absolute calm, and self-righteousness. This was not Stitch. This was not Stitch. Lilo still couldn't move. Lilo still couldn't think or feel.
Stitch let himself be dragged through the current of the crowd. As much as he hated it, he couldn't do anything for Lilo right now. If he tried to get her, he would risk exposing himself, and then all hell would break lose, and all bets would be off as for what would happen to Lilo. At least this way, she would most likely come out of her experience unscathed, at least physically.
Emperor 626 took of his napkin hat and bowed to Lilo. He then took her hand and kissed it. This drew out another universal Awwwwweee! from the crowd.
After picking a flower from the float and placing it in her Lilo's hair, the emperor replaced his hat and shoved her into the arms of the blue man, who carried her back to the front of the crowd.
Stitch was right there to grab her and drag her away. The emperor continued to accept visitors and show them his affections as Stitch tried to pull Lilo as far away from his float as possible.
Now Lilo was with the real Stitch. She let loose, crying and howling into his chest as he did his best to try to calm her down by rocking her back and forth in his arms.
From that point on, Stitch would follow the parade only from the back. Where the crowd was at its sparsest, the music its quietest, and where there were no floats. It lasted hours, and Stitch had to resort to pick pocketing to find money to buy food from all the wandering street vendors for Lilo and himself.
But the plan worked. The parade let them right to the area of Capitol City made of stylized buildings. At the end was the great pyramid. It wasn't much to look at. It was nothing more than polished steel hexagons skinning the exterior pyramid shape.
Lilo and Stitch sat against the bottom of the pyramid, opposite side of the parade. The sounds were distant now, and there were few things to keep them company other than trashed a foot thick coating of silly string and colored tissue paper on the ground.
"Sam was right Stitch." Lilo barely made whispered out in a raspy voice. "I shouldn't have come with you."
"No sense in wanting to change what you cannot." Stitch responded.
Lilo sighed and laid her head on his shoulder. "So… how are we going to get inside this thing."
Stitch stood up, disturbing Lilo's resting head. He looked up at the pyramid squinted. Stitch's eyes focused so intently that his vision magnified ten fold. Stitch saw what he was looking for. Up at the top of the pyramid were air vents, big ones, one on each face. Those things were large enough to comfortably fit three adults, so he and Lilo should have no trouble crawling their way through it.
Stitch blinked and his vision was back to normal.
"We climb!" Stitch told Lilo.
Lilo nodded, and she clung tightly to Stitch's back as he began his ascent up the sixty-degree slope of the great steel pyramid. Up what had to be eighty stories before he reached the massive air vent toward the tip.
Stitch reached over and tore out the grating of the air vent, and let it fly away in the wind. Stitch threw himself into the vent, and Lilo along with him.
Meanwhile.
Outside the emperor's palace the parade had finally come to a hault. Emperor 626 stood at the steps of his palace with the great Count Gantu on one side of him, and his chosen children Myrtle, Elena, Yuki, and Teresa on the other.
The crowd was now all gathered outside the palace to witness the spectacle. Emperor 626 raised his top hands in the air and a great red tapestry unraveled with the sword in anvil logo stylized into the center. Circling around the logo, the words.
The Empire of the Pacific Islands. To Reclaim The World. Our rightful Home Evermore.
Emperor 626 spread his arms out.
The crown in unison brought their clenched fists together above their heads and shouted, "RECLAIM!"
The emperor shouted, "EVERMORE!"
The crowd cheered.
Two of the emperor's black sky boats flew in from opposite sides and opened the hatches on their bottoms. One dumped out a hull filled with shoes. The other dumped out a hull filled with ethanol.
The crowd cheered.
Gantu reached behind him and turned back around wielding a gold torch in hand. He handed it into the emperor, who threw it into the pile of alcohol soaked shoes, setting them ablaze.
The crowd cheered.
Then, one by one, everyone was allowed to come up to the pile, take off their own left shoe, and throw it into the bonfire.