Review Response:
I have only one review response time. That's because most of the chapter 17 reviews were little more than showers of praise. And while I do love showers of praise, their not exactly the best material for writing review responses.
To A. Nonymous: You're going to be so surprised when you find out who the traitor is. And if anyone thinks they know, DON'T SAY IT GODDAMMIT!
Other News: I've just updated my profile. It includes a new favorite show, a new reccomended author for you all to check out, and I have ever so slightly softened my harsh words on crossovers for those who are sensitive to harsh words. Please note the phrase 'ever so slightly' and take that into careful consideration.
There was the sound of metal scraping against metal. A loud pop. A crack formed in the darkness and light flooded in. With a rattling noise, the crack widened. At last, the door to the back of the semi flew open. Dust clouded up at the impact of the door against the top of the hold, and at last, and as soon as the slight irritation it caused one's eyes subsided, you could see everything in the back of the semi.
It was filled with boxes. Large, gray plastic boxes with the black sword in anvil logo painted on each of he four sides and on the lid. There were racks on wheels made of metal that could be pulled out and pushed back where the boxes were kept inside. Two huge arms pulled out one of the racks, and then wrapped around the sides of one of the boxes. These arms pulled the box out of its rack and set it on the pavement of the side of the road. After he was done, Sam wiped the sweat from his brow and looked up at the sun beating down on him. It had been out for less than half an hour and the temperature had already rose from a chilly sixty to a hundred and one. For a moment, Sam wanted his old bald and clean shaven head back. And his shades. But that head was too easily recognized, so he had to go about shadeless with his uneven beard and messy fro.
Only a moment's wandering could be afforded to Sam's mind. In a snap he was back to where he was, staring down at that box. His hands brought themselves down onto the lid and unsnapped the sides from their grip on the box. But he hesitated to lift the lid, almost as if he was afraid of not getting what he was hoping for. Once again, time was of the essence, and Sam forced a moment's hesitation to cease. He threw the lid behind him with one hand and forced his eyes not to look away, but he didn't need to do any of that.
Inside the box was exactly what Sam had wanted there to be. Neatly piled was the black armored suit of an imperial soldier. To the side, a plasma carbine with three ammo tanks fresh from the assembly line not a day before.
Sam stood up and turned around toward two young rebels probably not even twenty one yet. They had a kind of worried look on their faces to make you think that expression was perpetual. But seeing a tiny smile crack the lips of, and those expressions melted into those of relief.
"Pay dirt." Sam said quickly, and just loud enough to be heard.
He looked over to the side, to the beach where Skyboat Blue was now parked on the sand, open door toward the semis now stuck between two piles of smoking rubble and shredded road. Two more rebels, again no older than twenty one hopped out of the door and toward Sam. They carried shovels and pickaxes, not stopping to ogle at their newfound toys, they went to work trying to clear away the debree from the road, to smooth out the shredded pavement, and to fill in all the holes in the road with dirt and sand.
One person was left in Skyboat Blue, staring out over the scene with as if her mind was wondering, Lilo dressed in her Imperial brand gray t-shirt and baggy shorts. Stitch, carbine still in hand, quickly ran up along side her. Lilo's head turned only for a moment toward him. She patted him on the head as she looked back toward that semi, bring out a slight content smile from him.
A shadow overtook Lilo and Stitch, causing Lilo to jump. Sam was standing right in front of her, but not looking at her. Lilo carefully got out of Skyboat Blue and stood next to him. She looked up at what it was he was looking at. A small hole bore in the hull of Skyboat blue from a plasma blast that just happened to make it through the shields while they stuttered being nearly overloaded. Inside, Lilo could see the circuitry within the walls, and wires, hundreds of them, thinner than a human hair, sprung out from beneath the circuitry and were now mending the broken circuit plates and reconnecting the severed threads. A few slightly thicker wires protruded from beneath the circuitry as well, those were busily pasting up he hole in the hull with a kind of gum that would later harden into ceramic.
"Amazing." Sam whispered. "It's repairing itself."
Sam shook his head afterward and stepped inside Skyboat Blue, and just s quickly stepped outside with a pickaxe and shovel in hand. About to join the others in clearing out the road, he stopped and turned toward Stitch.
"Your help would make this go allot faster." Sam said.
Stitch nodded his head, tossed his carbine back into Skyboat Blue and ran toward the others, tossing aside bits of metal and pavement with his hands.
Lilo walked over to the plastic box that still lay on the ground. No one was there to see her do it. Everyone was busy trying to clear away the road so that they could drive over it once more. Lilo was free to do whatever she wanted with this box now.
It was that black armor, the armor of one of those things. Only now it was neatly stacked inside a box where it could never hurt her, unless she hurt herself with it on accident. Still, there was something innately frightening about this stuff. It was a different kind of fright though. Not of when you are facing down a threat, but more of there may be a threat just around the corner but you can't know until you look. Even though there was no reason for this, that black suit was just an inanimate object. And her curiosity eventually got the better of her.
Lilo first picked up that carbine. She had seen those blue skinned soldiers use those things several times. They always held in so casually at their hips, always firing from the hip. They never seemed to become tense or anxious. It was clear that they had no sense of self preservation. That was both their greatest strength and their greatest weakness, at least until their so called 'flaw' could be dug up by Sam. She looked in the back of the carbine, a round orifice where an ammo tank could be fitted. This carbine wasn't loaded. She held it up to her shoulder and pointed it at distant tree. Her hands were not trained to be still, nor did she know how to breath when pointing a gun, so her aim wobbled relentlessly. Not knowing how to use this thing, of course, aiming was all she could do. Only Stitch and those he taught knew how to use these things, and he refused to teach her. She put the carbine back into the box where she found it.
Her attention was next draw to that helmet. She'd seen that thing close up twice, on the head on one of the emperor's soldiers. Both times were racked with fear like she had never known. Her heart beat faster just looking at that thing. It was empty and sitting there waiting to be played with like a toy, but to Lilo it was like looking at a black widow, something you generally want to see, but only from several feet away, and most definitely something you wouldn't want to touch.
But again, curiosity overwhelmed her. Lilo reached down to pick up that helmet. Something fell out of it and hit the chestplate below with a clacking sound. Instinctively, Lilo gasped and dropped the helmet, and dived back. It took a few seconds for Lilo to recover from her rapid, shallow breathing, and she slowly crawled forward to see what just had happened.
The helmet lay crookedly in the box in two parts. Lilo remembered she was able to pull off the mask of one of those soldiers while the rest of the helmet stayed on. She brushed the helmet aside and looked at that mask. She picked it up. It was cold. It felt like plastic. She looked right at that thing and it looked right back at her. Something about that gas mask just didn't look right, the shape of the eyepieces, the shape and placement of the filters, the color. It looked angry, that is if a gas mask could have an expression, but this one looked angry. A perpetually angry artificial face staring at you, just one of the many tools used to induce fear.
Something touched Lilo's shoulder. She dropped the mask and screeched, trying to claw her way away from whatever it was. In an instant, she was wrapped in a familiar warmth of a familiar blue fur.
"Is just Stitch." A voice cried out. "Is ok."
Lilo continued to try to claw her way out of this net, until it dawned on her what just happened. That was Stitch's hand she felt. Stitch had his arms wrapped around her right now. Lilo relaxed and leaned back into Stitch. After a few seconds, he released Lilo, and she turned around to see him and Sam staring at her peculiarly.
"What?" Lilo asked. "What's wrong?"
Sam looked down at the mask next to Lilo, and then back up at her. "How long have you been staring at that thing?"
Lilo looked at the mask, but didn't look back up. "I don't know, how long has it been?"
"Just over twenty minutes."
Lilo looked back up at Sam stunned, and then at Stitch, who nodded his head to agree with Sam.
"Twenty minutes?" Lilo asked. "I was looking at that thing for twenty minutes?"
"The road has been cleared, we need that box repacked so we can drive these trucks to our rendezvous outside Capitol City."
"What happens there?"
"There, we launce an all or nothing suicide attack on the emperor's palace. Every willing resistance member on all the big island has gathered there, over a thousand in all."
"Over a thousand!" Lilo gasped out with wide eyes.
Sam looked down at her with a kind of arrogant smile and laughed once under his breath before answering. "Most of the resistance members are spread out throughout the islands. Very few of them have actually been to any of our bases, or even participated in one of our missions. Like I said, this is all or nothing."
Sam knelt down to pick up the mask and helmet that Lilo had dropped on the ground. He put them back inside the box and replaced the lid before picking it up. Just as he was about to replace in inside its rack, he turned his head to Lilo and Stitch.
"You'd best be getting inside the truck, we're leaving as soon as possible."
Nobody had said anything for the last half hour. Lilo, Stich and Sam were focused plainly on the road ahead from within their lead point semi. The sun was falling almost right in front of them and the sky they looked at was turning orange. Sam was leaning forward and his whole body seemed strung like a rubber band about to snap. This confused both Lilo and Stitch. Mr. cool and collected was now so tense it looked like he was going to rip the steering wheel right off its bar. Neither of them knew why. Sam could almost on reflex relax his body in a combat situation, but something about what they were about to do now, combined with an awkward silence that managed to last the past half hour just made him incredibly uneasy.
If silence was what was upsetting Sam, then perhaps breaking that silence would get his to relax just a bit. Even if whatever was said wasn't directed at him, It should still work. Stitch knew this. That was partially why he suddenly spoke up, but the main reason was because of exactly what it was he had to say.
"Lilo." Stitch spoke just loud enough to be heard.
"What is it Stitch." Lilo answered, looking his way. From her face, from her voice, from her smell, it was clear to Stitch that Lilo was just as tense as Sam was. But Stitch had waited too long for the perfect moment to say this, only to realize that moment would never come, and so he would say it at the last possible moment, this moment, so he had to say it now or else it would never be said.
"When we fight palace, Lilo," Stitch continued. "When we fight, you need to be… away."
Stitch's grasp of English still wasn't perfect, and it took Lilo a second to realize just what Stitch was saying. You have to be far, far away when the attack on the emperor's palace, and not get involved.
"No!" Lilo shouted. "Stitch I wanna be there with you!"
"Meega nota." Stitch said, shaking his head. "But if… if emperor… if emperor gets Lilo… Stitch cannot fight."
That was pitiful attempt at explaining what he was thinking. Stitch knew this without even having to look at Lilo's bewildered face. It was fortunate that someone there understood exactly what he was getting at.
"I believe what Stitch is trying to say…" Sam said, not looking away from the window or even moving his head beyond his lips. "is that if Emperor 626 gets ahold of you, he could use you against Stitch. If that were to happen, it would be impossible for Stitch to win."
"But Emperor 626 is still missing!" Lilo yelled at Sam and slammed her palms against the genuine artificial leather seats. "How could he get me if he's still missing!"
"Is he really missing Lilo?" Sam responded. "Or does he just want us to think he's missing. Whether he is or is not, Emperor 626 knows we have Skyboat Blue, and he knows that because of this, our operations will be far more daring than we ever dreamed of before. He may even be expecting what we have now. That's why this is all or nothing, and that's why every willing member of the resistance will be involved."
Lilo's eyes began to tear up. She grabbed Stitch by the shoulders and pulled him into her arms rather uncomfortably.
"I don't care!" She screamed out. "I don't care I'm going with you!"
"Naga! Naga! Naga!" Stitch yelled back. He pushed Lilo away and back into her seat. "Is 'nother reason too."
"What?"
"If Stitch fight emperor, Stitch must fight alone."
"Why?"
"Stitch must fight emperor alone."
"But Why do you have to do that."
Stitch sighed. For once, he had the exact words to express perfectly what he was thinking, even more so than in his extraordinary moment of clarity just that morning. He had the exact words because he had spend the past week thinking of what they would be.
"Because, the emperor is my evil. He is my evil, naga anyone else's."
Lilo slumped back into her seat and buried her face in her hands. As much as she hated to admit it, it seemed Stitch was right, moreover it seemed Stitch was going to have his way. Until…
"As much as I agree with Stitch's reasoning, and I do, there are certain factors we simply cannot ignore. Factors that mean, despite however much I hate to say it, Lilo must accompany you during this attack."
Sam at last turned his head toward Stich when he finished his last sentence. Stitch took one glance at Sam and knew he was more serious now than Stitch had ever seen him before. But that still wasn't enough.
"Naga!" Stitch yelled out. "Lilo stay behind! Lilo stay at base!"
"I wish that could be done." Sam replied. "But think. First and foremost, what will this mission be about."
"Defeat emperor!" Stitch instantly barked back.
"Wrong!" Sam said, almost shouting himself this time. "It seems you've gotten so used to this world that you've forgotten it's not the world you came from. What this mission is about, first and foremost, is changing the past, so that you never become the emperor to begin with, and restoring the present to what you know it once was.
"Think about this Stitch. If we succeed in this task, and you are able to get back Dr. Jumba's time machine, how long do you think you'll be able to keep it? Long enough to bring it back to our HQ? You know as well as I do that as soon as we attack that palace, reinforcements from all over the Pacific Empire will be called in to fight it. Thousands of skyboats, millions of troops, and all of them will be after you. Not even you can fend off that kind of attack.
"Jumba's time machine must be used as soon as it's found. And that means both you and Lilo have to be there as soon as it's found."
Stitch drooped his ears and lowered his head. It was true, what Sam was saying. Every word he spoke was true. Especially what Sam said about him was truest of all. Though not in knowledge, but in spirit, he really had forgotten what this world was. This world was a mistake, the result of irresponsibly playing with time. Worst of all, this world was partially Stitch's own fault. Though what led to it was Lilo's idea, he had gone along unquestioningly with everything she said, knowing all the while he shouldn't be, and in the end it was he who made the critical move of rescuing Lilo's parents from a fatal accident, causing this whole mess to begin with.
The small convoy of semi's slowed and finally stopped before the roadblock in front of them. It was massive. There were hundreds of small gray sedans, and hundreds more of those gray minivans. The people there were so many Lilo couldn't count. Stitch counted though, he took one glance at the scene and counted one thousand four hundred and seven in all, and he was sure he couldn't see everyone.
Small tents and large tents and tables and boxes and chairs were set up alongside the road. Night had fallen by now, a cloudless night, but the distant lights of Capitol City obscured all but the brightest of stars. Even so, is was dark where it was, so the makeshift town as it looked was lit up with road flares, flashlights and petroleum lamps at every table and inside every tent. The bustle of activity was crazy. The people moving to and fro with their boxes and their raw materials looked like the commotion of ants scrambling to repair a damaged nest. Neither Lilo nor Stitch had ever seen anything like it before. Everyone worked silently and relentlessly, and so efficiently that there was never a single argument or mistake.
Stitch turned toward Sam and started tugging on his arm.
"Ih! Ih. Ih. Ih. Ih. Ih." Stitch sounded out to Sam, as he did whenever he wanted someone's attention.
Sam turned toward Stitch with a single eyebrow raised. "What is it Stitch?"
Stitch turned back toward the sight in front of him and pointed out the windshield of the truck, and then looked back at Sam. "Gabaga people work so gooder?"
"That's what I was about to ask." Lilo butted in.
Sam gave a single laugh under his breath and answered. "Group dynamics one-o-one, the more dire he situation, the better the group works together. Situations don't get much more dire than this. Especially since we have to get this all done and out of here before the sun rises."
"Why" "Gabaga?" Lilo and Stitch asked in unison.
"Because," Sam answered. "that's usually how long it takes for a gathering like this to get noticed by the emperor's satellites. And gatherings like this are usually gassed by the emperor's orders. Not to mention with this missing convoy, they'll be on high alert for anything suspicious."
A lump formed in the throats of both Lilo and Stitch that couldn't be swallowed. No wonder everyone was working so frantically, they were working with a lethal alarm clock poised on them.
Sam opened the door to his truck and hopped out. Lilo and Stitch soon followed. When they got out they saw Sam with a bullhorn in front of that makeshift town ready to give out what they were sure was going to be some sort of impromptu inspirational speech.
"If I may have your attention," Sam spoke through the bullhorn, but no one stopped what they were doing or even slowed down. The most Sam go was glances and nods from the majority of the crowd, but that was enough to sign that they were in fact, paying attention. Sam continued. "With the help of Stitch we have hijacked a shipment of imperial armored suits along with their weapons. We will use these when we launch our assault on the emperor's palace."
"How are we supposed to do that?" Someone from the crowd yelled out. It was impossible to tell who. "We don't know how to use those things."
"They come with their own operation manuals." Sam replied through his bullhorn.
"Yeah, but I bet they're all written in that crazy alien Tantalog language!" Another voice from the crowd rang out.
"Stitch read through the manuals." Sam assured them. "He understands these devices, and he will instruct you on their use."
Sam dropped his bullhorn and walked up to Stitch.
"Can you teach them how to use the empire's technology?" He asked.
"Ih!" Stitch answered with a quick nod.
"Good."
Without another word or glance, Sam turned around and walked into the crowed, quickly disappearing as just another of those who were working to unpack the trucks and arm everyone in the compound. Work continued like this for hours. Soon enough, everyone was wearing one of those black suits. Soon enough, ranks were formed of people learning about the various functions of those suits and their carbines from Stitch. They would in turn teach other ranks and so on until everyone there was experimenting with their new toys.
All the while, Lilo was in the middle of this doing not much of anything. This was getting to be too much for her. All those black suits walking around her, sometimes passing within only feet of her. It was nerve wracking for sure. Lilo tried as best she could to calm herself, reassuring herself that those were real human beings underneath those masks. It did her some good, but what she couldn't shake at that time was the more she watched those suits move around, the more interpolated all the sounds around her became. Lilo had decided a while back that she was going to go inside one of those tents so she wouldn't have to see those black gas masks any more. Now she was trying to remember what it was she had planned on doing. Those masks were slowly getting bigger. A slight numbness was felt in all of Lilo's extremities. She needed to do something quick, but couldn't remember what it was. Lilo's surroundings seemed to be growing darker, with the exception of those masks, which she could still see as I they were in daylight. It was something about those Masks that she needed to do, but what was it? Lilo felt her chest tightening up. What the hell was it she was trying to accomplish just moments ago? It had something to do with sight, or lack of it. The noises around her melded into a painful buzzing and all of those masks suddenly pointed in her direction. What was she going to do? She couldn't remember, so what was there left to do other than… scream.
Lilo pushed her eyes closed and screamed as loud as she could into the night sky. She screamed until her lungs were empty and she was left gasping for breath.
What had just happened? Everyone was staring at her now, staring at her in those strange black gas masks that the imperial soldiers wore. It was an uncomfortable feeling to have everyone staring at her like that, especially when they were all covered by those masks. It wasn't until one man took off his helmet and revealed his face that Lilo finally understood what had happened. For a moment she had forgotten just where she was, and for a moment she was back in some horrid exodus of the emperor's troops coming after her. It was all over now though. It was over now that she saw that there really was a real human being behind those things. But everyone was still staring at her, and the anxiety of that alone pulled all the words right out of her throat, leaving her silent.
"What the hell was that?" A voice rang out from seemingly nowhere.
Lilo looked too and fro until he saw another man, this time not wearing any armor at all. It was Sam.
It was a slight bit of a shock to suddenly see him. It was enough of a shock to enable Lilo to breathe again, and to speak again, albeit however unintelligibly.
"The masks… the suits… they were… staring… they were… big… they were… they were… them…"
That was all Lilo managed to stutter out.
Lilo heard soft footsteps to her side. She turned her head to look. It was Stitch walking toward her, squinting his eyes and rubbing his ears with his hands.
"What's wrong with him?" Someone asked, it was impossible to tell who, so Lilo answered to no one in particular.
"I'm sorry." She said. "Stitch is sensitive to high pitched sounds."
"What did you say?"
That was Sam talking. He had heard those words, Stitch is sensitive to high pitched sounds, and something in his head snapped open.
"Loud screechy noises make his head hurt." Lilo reiterated.
That brought Sam's attention back to Jumba's disk, back to the slight show. The inner of the imperial soldier was constructed the exact same way as that of the emperor himself. As a result, the hybrid troops had hearing just as acute as the emperor's, just as acute as Stitch's. That was it! That was the troops' inborn flaw! That was what could possibly be used to turn the tide of an attack on the Pacific Empire toward the attackers.
"Don't be sorry Lilo." Sam said, half yelling, half whispering. "You may have just saved us all."
"Huh?" "Gaba?" Lilo and Stitch said in unison.
Sam ignored the inquiries and hopped into the first van within arm's reach. One of the rebels ran up to him and grabbed the door of the van before he could shut it.
"What the hell are you doing?" He yelled out.
"Going shopping." Sam answered in his usual unperturbed voice.
"Then who's going to lead the assault?"
"You are."
Sam yanked the door out of the young rebel's hands and slammed it shut. He turned on the van and took off as fast as he could down the freeway toward Capitol City, ahead of everyone else.
This at last was enough to bring about a halt to the crowd's activities. Everyone was staring now at the young rebel to whom Sam had just given authority over their most critical mission ever, a short, nineteen year old blonde girl with freckles and thick-rimmed glasses. She looked more like college freshman bookworm social outcast than a soldier. Yet in a moment's notice, and for no other reason than convenience, Sam Winnfield had given her control over the assault against the emperor's palace.
The irony was not lost on anyone, not even Lilo, who stared at the short little girl bewildered.
Even so, there was a job to do, and she wasn't about to let anyone slack off.
"You heard him! I'm in charge now! Everyone get back to work!"
They all obeyed without question or hesitation.