To A. Nonymous: I am quite familiar with the
technique of the Deus Ex Machina. Although until now I didn't know it actually
had a name.
Like I said before. All my stories are pretty much planned
out completely before I type a single key. This means that any suggestion you
have for me, unless it's very small, or something to do with my style, probably
won't be put into the story.
Oh and believe me, learning who the traitor really is WILL
be great.
To hamishwarfare: I really didn't think that would work! Thank you for taking my blatant self-advertisement to heart! I actually do appreciate it.
A procession was slowly marching down the central street of Capitol City toward the great imperial palace. It was a procession to welcome back Emperor 626 after his week of absence. It was a small procession, but it was what one would've expected from such an occurrence. A procession consisting of only the most essential security elements rather than something grandiose to welcome him back. It seems the Emperor wanted to understate his return to the castle, and one couldn't blame him, as his disappearance would be an embarrassment to his leadership.
The procession marched down the street. At front was an old wooden black and cherry red carriage with navy drapes over the windows, being drawn not by horses, but by a force of eight people, more specifically eight scantily clad women, as a further testament to the emperor's insatiable vanity even during a time when he seemed to want to keep a low profile. Eight imperial soldiers walked in formation along side the carriage and thirty two more in front. Behind the carriage were squares of marching soldiers that stretched roughly a city block. A little over a thousand of them would be a rough estimate. At last, in the very back of the procession, driving slowly down the road, was a flatbed semi with its large contents draped over by a dark gray tarp, weighed down with cinderblocks to the sides of the flatbed.
In the carriage itself sat two more imperial soldiers in the back seat, clinging their plasma carbines to their chests looking like they were ready to explode into action at any moment. Emperor 626 himself was a contradiction of his soldiers, sitting utterly relaxed in the front's only cushy cherry-leather. The emperor, in his classic folded napkin hat, and wrapped in an orange robe, lazily puffed away at a large cigar with his one exposed hand, adorned with almost eight gold, jewel studded rings. The emperor laid back all the way against his chair and puffed at his cigar with eyes half closed in a look of pure indulgence.
Beside him, a dwarf draped in all black with only his eyes showing held up a plain white, porcelain platter filled with snacks like toasted pineapple rings, and albacore sashimi, which the emperor would occasionally stab with his claw and then slurp down his throat.
It was all too big to be a march, and all too small to be a parade.
The procession didn't go unnoticed. People came out of the doors of their apartment highrises, out onto their balconies to see what could only be the return of the emperor. Everyone stared in awe and shock at the small procession going down the central street, but mostly they stared at that carriage where the emperor himself must've been residing. Curious as they may have been though, none of the residents of Capitol City dared to step beyond their doorways, or to utter a sound. The procession at the annual bonfire was one thing, but this was so much different. This was unannounced, and so small compared to most of his public appearances. In a situation like this, stepping beyond the safety zone of your own porch and your own silence meant risking being shot by one of the emperor's guards. As if to confirm this, the soldiers outlining the small, and eirily silent procession looked out at all the people staring, and gave them all small nods, causing them to take steps back and then come forward again once that particular soldier had passed.
But could it really be the emperor? That must've been the thought on the minds of all who watched as the procession moved down the street, according to the one who sat in the cushy chair in the front of that carriage. It seemed time for a bit of reassurance to the crowd that indeed, their emperor had returned.
Emperor 626 stood up out of his chair and out of the covered area of his carriage where everyone could see him. Raising his one exposed arm still holding its cigar, he gave a slight wave to the people on their porches and balconies. A slight murmur went through the streets and then ended as soon as it had begun. The emperor sat back down in his chair and inhaled on his cigar.
It was dusty enough to make someone cough in this van if they weren't careful. A standard gray Imperial brand van with all it's seats and inner linings torn out. Sitting on a plywood box was a stout young girl with blond hair and nerdy glasses, the same girl who was given command of the resistance's most important task ever just a few hours ago. She listened on a cheap headset while looking at a pile of cheat, black and white TVs stacked against the side of the van. Each TV held a slightly different view of the streets of capitol City leading up to the emperor's palace, and finally of the palace itself. Cameras mounted on the balconies of those who lived in Capitol City, presumably those few who sympathized with the resistance, transmitted their signals straight to that van for the viewing pleasure of that young girl.
That girl watched the procession pass by her on her TVs and was barely able to find the words to speak into her headset.
"Uhh… good, formation people… stay casual… err… don't look suspicious."
One man next to her dropped his head into his hand as it was clear this girl had no idea what she was doing.
"They're doing fine." He interrupted. "No one's suspicious intercepted them yet and there's no commotion. It won't be until they reach the gates of the palace that we'll know whether or not this little shenanigan's working"
"But I'm just trying to…" The girl responded with her hand covering her mouthpiece.
"You're repeating yourself." The man interrupted. "Stressing out only makes an improbable victory even more improbable."
"Sorry." The girl said, lowering her head. She stopped talking and continued watching the procession on tape.
The procession had finally stopped. It had stopped at the gates of the Emperor's palace. For a minute there was nothing. A slight twinge of nervousness broke the side of the emperor's mouth as he crushed the end of his now mostly used cigar in his hand. His dwarf servant looked back and forth at him, and then at the gate, and back and forth, almost dropping the platter several times. Some of the soldiers began to look at each other. There was another minute of nothing. There was a noticeable tension in the air.
At last there was a loud clanking sound, and the gates to the emperor's palace began to slide open to let the procession through. There seemed to be a great albeit silent sigh of relief among all, including the occupants of the hidden van.
"I guess that means he hasn't come back yet." The young girl sighed out.
"Or it might mean he's expecting us." The man next to her added in.
The gate was slow and arduous. The time for one last breath of relaxation was then, before there would be no more again. But relaxation was the last thing anyone seemed to be feeling at that moment. All the slowness was causing anxiety to grow. A quick dive into the climactic final moments wouldn't have been nearly as nerve wracking, but this was a luxury that was cruelly not afforded.
The soldiers had begun acting very unlike themselves. They were twitching. Some were shuffling their feet in place. The women pulling the emperor's carriage were visibly jittering. This was taking way too long. The gate was opening, they shouldn't be worrying at the moment, but the sheer tedium swelled the anxiety in the air until it could be cut with a knife.
At last the gates were open, and the procession was allowed inside. They marched even slower than they did before up to that gigantic structure.
It was as big as the US capitol building, but many times stranger. It was pure white and made of columns and domes like the US capitol building, but was arranged into a far more modernistic design. The procession passed a garden of giant columns supporting nothing. The palace was drawing ever closer. No human had ever been this close to it before, and only at this close did its size truly hit you. The palace must've been almost a kilometer across. It was a structure of giant domes with towers jutting up from their centers, towers that must've been the width of great highrise apartment buildings, and just as tall. At the ground level, great hallways equally impressive in size to everything else joined all the domes in an octagon, with more going inward toward the central dome, the largest of them all. The columns though, were nowhere to be seen on the structure itself. Instead they encircled it on the outside, making a sort of permimeter, a fence of these giant columns that hugged the entire structure of the emperor's palace. It was a truly amazing sight. That palace was awe inspiring looked as majestic and monumental as any and all of the greatest inspirational architectural achievements of mankind.
At the same time it was saddening. To those who looked upon that palace, such a thing of beauty and craftsmanship deserved to be a monument to all that was great and just, it certainly looked like it was. Instead though, it was a monument to the voracious greed, the malice, the disdain, and the pomposity of one man who would dare fall from the sky, and then take it upon himself to enslave all the people's of the pacific islands, all the while calling himself a savior and a messiah to them.
But there was now hope yet for the people of the pacific islands. There was hope in the form of a freak quantum double of that man that fell from the sky. A freak quantum double who just happened to learn all of life's most important lessons through being shown the love of a little girl, and would now rise up to challenge his own mirror image to free the very people he himself once had the kind of mentality to enslave.
And today one side would fall forever. It would either be this wretched man who fell from the sky, or the people of the pacific islands.
The moment was coming quickly. Patrols of guards, of those blue skinned human, alien experiment hybrids dressed in flowing white and red robes and adorning extra long, old fashioned looking plasma rifles with silver and gold polish, and bright wooden stocks, with long braided ponytails and bright, blood red berets were now leaving their patrols and forming a kind of brigade around the great twenty foot high double doors to the palace.
The procession once again halted. The two groups stared each other down. The imperial soldiers in their mechanical black suits and crude looking plasma carbines, vs. the well trimmed imperial royal guards with their fancy robes and their elegant, rustic looking plasma rifles.
As ever more of these guards began to join the brigade, a small detachment of about ten or twelve of them began to march in formation toward the carriage up front of the procession. They were coming to greet the imperial troops, and to greet the emperor.
"This is it." The woman in the van whispered to herself. "Everything comes down to this. Everything we've ever hoped for and worked toward comes down to this."
These guards were fast approaching the emperor's carriage. They knew as well as any of the mysterious double of the emperor. Everyone knew that they would ask the creature in that carriage for proof of his identity, and everyone within the procession knew that the creature inside the carriage wouldn't be able to provide any.
They had come as close as they possibly could to the most heavily guarded sanctuary of Emperor 626 without any kind of skirmish, and now there was only one thing left to do.
The emperor slipped his dwarf servant something, it was pair of plain white, foam ear plugs. The dwarf quickly placed the ear plugs in his hears and nodded his head to the emperor.
The guards were almost upon the carriage now, and they were all holding out their hands.
With one swift twist, Stitch threw off his hat and robe and revealed himself holding two plasma carbines, along with two bandoleers covered in extra plasma tanks, and a leather sidepach wrapped around his waist.
At the same time, the dwarf servant threw back his platter, and threw off his black coverings, revealing himself not to be a dwarf at all, but a little girl. Lilo. Dressed in the helmet and torso piece of the armor of an imperial soldier, without the leggings, arms, or gas mask.
The guards were shocked and stunned. The rebels in imperial armor were poised for Stitch's signal for attack, which they got.
Stitch raised his lower right hand and pointed toward the emperor's palace. He screamed then loud enough for everyone within twenty city blocks to hear.
"TOOKIE BA-WABA!"
The huge squares of imperial soldiers broke and immediately began firing into the crowd of the royal guards. The guards were caught by surprise and many were blown back into the palace, into the columns, with charred torsos, heads and extremities. They scramble to seek cover behind the many thousands of columns and returned fire with their rustic plasma rifles, noticeably more powerful than the carbines, but without their compactness or high ROF.
Bodies were now flying through the air as they were hit with plasma shots, both the robed royal guards, and the black armored rebels. The columns each were taking cover behind were being slowly demolished into piles of black rock by the plasma fire.
In the middle of this, Stitch in his carriage and Lilo right by his side. Lilo knew exactly what to do, as they had discussed it in depth. She would be walking right into a battle with the empire's forces, the same situation that traumatized her to begin with. That was why the earplugs, and that was why she jumped on Stitch's back and shut her eyes as tight as she could, not wanting to see anything that was happening, not daring to see anything that was happening.
Stitch leapt headfirst off the carriage, which was pulverized by plasma fire as soon as his body was in the air. A guard firing out in the open toward wherever was stuck in the chest by the head of a flying Stitch and knocked to the ground. In the blink of an eye, Stitch shoved the muzzle of a carbine down his throat and fired, frying his insides, and then dashed toward the palace.
More guards awaited him. They stood on the stairway to the palace in plain sight and firing their rifles at him. Stitch ran at them like a quarterback, batting the shots out of the way with the palms of his hands before bounding up into the air and firing his carbines at them straight down. They all hit their mark straight in the head, and the now headless bodies of those guards fell down onto the stairs. Stitch landed on the ground with a thud, the impact was nothing on his body, but he knew the physical limitations of humans. That kind of landing must have knocked the wind right out of Lilo. Despite this, she still clung to his back hard as ever with her eyes pushed tight shut, not wanting to see anything that was happening, not daring to see anything that was happening.
Stitch glanced around him for only a split second to take in his surroundings. Everything was a'blur of motion. Bodies running back and forth between columns, bodies flying through the air with smoke pouring out of them. Bodies lying dead on the ground with smoke pouring out of them. Bodies both human and bizarre hybrid thing. Unintelligible screams from both sides and plasma shots whirred through the air. Almost deafening sounds of explosions and fire filled ones ears, but not a single truly big explosion could be seen. The closest that came to it was the brief flash as a body was hit with a burst of plasma and one's nostrils were filled with the horrid scent of ozone, tar, and burning hair, even worse for Stitch's nostrils, which were like those of a bloodhound. Less like explosions, it just seemed as if firecrackers were going off all around Stitch in the night, mixed with the sounds of screaming and the smells of burning. Though she heard little and saw nothing, how Lilo was faring through all this was anyone's guess. To Stitch though, it seemed almost surreal. There was so much fighting and death going on right around him, but none of it seemed coming his way. It was as if he was an outside observer to all this chaos. It was as if he was watching a war movie rather than actually being in a war. One thing was for sure though. It seemed now that both sides were at last even. The vastly superior firepower of the rebels touting the weapons of the empire's hardcore soldiers, versus the superhuman strength and agility of the royal guards, the death toll on both sides was seemed equal.
A shot of plasma flew by Stitch's ear, just nicking it, leaving a singing feeling behind. The shot had also flown by Lilo, nicking her in the shoulder. Though through her armor it only felt like a soft punch, Lilo tightened her grip around Stitch and shivered. The brief moments' glimpse into the fighting was up, and Stitch ran up the stairs toward those giant double doors.
But it was too late now, guards, one, two, three… seven of them in all had spotted him running up the stairway, and were poised to fire at him. Stitch couldn't let Lilo get hit, that armor could easily withstand a grazing or splashing of plasma, but not the dead accurate shots that those half human things could dish out. Stitch turned around and ran up the stairs backwards, shooting down all of those guards and blocking their own shits with the palms of his hands. If one of those blobs hit his bandoleer, and his ammo tanks ruptured, it would be all over for Lilo. Hitting those guards dead in the chest sent them flying back down the stairs, but with their whole chests nothing but a huge black bur, they got right back up and searched for their rifles. Only a head shot cold do them in, and that's where Stitch aimed next.
It seemed too little, too late. More and more guards were pouring toward him, and Stitch had his back to the double door entrance to the palace. Stitch shot them all down as fast as they could come at him, but parrying so many plasma shots was taking its toll. Stitch's lower hands were blackened and he could feel them burning, the outer layers of skin beginning to peel off. If he took much more of this, the skin itself would burn away exposing the muscle beneath.
A familiar sound was heard above. A savior at last came in the form of a streaking blue wedge of metal flying across the sky. Skyboat Blue had risen from beneath its tarp on that flatbed truck and was now firing at the royal guards from the air. It was working! The guards attention was being drawn away from Stitch, and moreover, away from the rebels. They aimed their rifles to the sky and opened fire on Skyboat Blue, with their attention drawn away from the rebels, they were now being picked off at an alarming rate. It seemed the tide of this battle was finally turning in Stitch's favor, but how long until reinforcements showed up couldn't be known, and things would be different once that happened.
In the meantime, Stitch was now able to focus his attention on those twenty foot double doors. Pure white, they were made of solid ballistics ceramic. It was tough material, perhaps too tough in a time clench like this one. But the hinges, the hinges were steel. Steel was soft enough. It was soft enough for Stitch to tear those door right off their frames.
Stitch set Lilo down in front of him, shielding her from the battle behind them. She curled up into a ball in front of him. Stitch didn't know if she did that on purpose or on instinct, but it didn't really matter now. If any fire went his way, it would hit his back, though it would be painful, he would make it through them and Lilo would only get splashes, easily stopped by her armor.
Stitch extended his claws and drove his hands straight into the ceramic doors. They chipped and cracked with the force of his fists, as did his own fingernails. But his hands were now jammed inside the door, which was what he wanted. Stitch pulled, and the steel hinges of the door gave way as if they were made of gummy. Stitch turned around holding that door above his head, and threw it into the fight. He would crush quite a few of those guards, and even a few rebels, but that's the way battles went. The only thing concerning Stitch was getting inside the Palace. Which he did.
Stitch picked up Lilo in his lower arms, still curled up into a ball, and dashed inside the palace.
The sounds, and for the most part, the smells of the battle were now behind him. The palace was strangely deserted, and none of the guards seemed to be following him inside. Why weren't they following him inside? The battle was being left outside and Stitch was no longer a part of it. Whatever the reason they seemed to be letting him go, this afforded Stitch a good look at where he was.
The inside of the palace looked more like the inside of a wedding cake. Everything was white marble, or at least a quality ceramic imitation. The floors were timed with tan and green marble tiles, or again a ceramic imitation. In front of him was a giant, six tiered white fountain, and in front of that, a split staircase converging at the floor above. The hallway went on both left and right. The place was untouched except for the doorway, and the smoke pouring in from outside.
But there were footsteps, loud ones. Stitch ears perked up. They were coming from the hallways to the left and right. It sounded like hundreds of them. They were running. They seemed pissed, if footsteps can seem pissed that is, that's what they sounded like. Stitch propped up Lilo onto his back and she clung to it like a leech. He ran over to the edge of the left side of the staircase and hid behind it, waiting for whatever it was that was coming at him from both sides. He didn't have to wait long.
Plasma streamed into the room from both sides, apparently with no aim, but just with the hopes of hitting something important. By the time the smoke cleared, the floor was a landscape of jagged rocks and the fountain was gone, only a huge spout of water shot up from a hole in the floor, covering the rubble of the floor quickly in several inches of water. It was more of those red and white robed guards with their braided pony tails and their antique looking guns. They walked carefully into the ruined hallway, looking every which way. They held their rifles tightly at their hips, sometimes raising them to their shoulders to aim at a crackling sound when a piece of rubble fell down and skidded across the floor.
Stitch still hid behind that left staircase looking out at the guards entering the room. Lilo still clung to his back not daring to open her eyes or unplug her ears. There had to be twenty, no thirty, no, thirty four of them total. That's why no one was following him inside. Not all the guards had come out to join the battle, many were still inside securing the palace hallways. They were looking for him. They would eventually find him. It would be best if it were on Stitch's terms. Stitch gulped and grabbed the side of the staircase, propelling himself up top. The guards immediately took notice and began firing at him.
Stitch ran backwards up the staircase firing back and doing as best he could to block those shots with his lower hands. But there were too many of them. One of them hit him square in the chest. It burned and it knocked the wind right out of Stitch. He cringed and slumped forward with the pain, but he couldn't let it get to him. With no breath he continued firing, running backward and blocking oncoming plasma with his lower hands. Those hands were now starting to blister. Stitch made a quick decision and dropped his carbines, grabbing them with his lower hands. He now used his unscathed upper hands to parry the oncoming shots. But there were only a few shots to parry. The guards quickly seemed to be realizing that firing at Stitch from a Distance was doing no good. They ran up the stairs after him hoping that at least enough of them would live to get in a few shots at him point blank.
This was what Stitch wanted. Now halfway up the staircase, with thirty plus guards barreling up after him, still running up the staircase himself he unlatched an ammo tank from his bandoleer in one hand, and reached into his leather side pack with the other and pulled out a small aluminum C02 cartridge. He jammed the cartridge into the nozzle of the tank and dropped it down stairs.
The guards continued running up the stairs not noticing the ammo tank bouncing down after them, now starting to low. In less than a second it was glowing brighter than a halogen light bulb, before finally exploding into massive green fireball, throwing all the guards clear across the hall the impact and taking out the left section of the stairs.
Stitch reached the top of the stairs and made a quick decision. More footsteps were coming at him from both sides again, this time from the second floor hallways, but not from straight ahead, that's where he was going. Diving headfirst straight though a solid wood double door, Stitch found himself running straight through the top balcony of the hallway leading to the giant center dome of the palace.
Outside the palace the battle kept raging on. The garden of columns was now all but gone and there were few things to take cover behind except sharp ceramic boulders. The battle slowed down noticeably now that the sound of distant roaring engines was heard. Something was approaching fast.
Those who were still alive, rebel and guard alike looked up to see Skyboats. A wing of them, seven in all, flying in a v formation, and headed a single skyboat carrier with a large metal tank strapped to the bottom of its frame. A trap door swung open on the bottom of the tank and black soldiers began falling out of the doorway like raining ants. Their jetpacks immediately kicked on as soon as they were in the air and they were now flying above the battle taking aim at whatever was on the ground wearing black armor. The reinforcements had arrived.
There was nowhere left to take cover. Cover was meaningless to an airborne soldier. The rebels scrambled every which way trying to avoid the fire from the airborne soldiers, desperately trying to fie back, but it impossible to get a good aim at someone who was flying through the air. From the air, the rebel scramble resembled a swarm of mice running out of all their hiding places to flee from a great intruder. They were easily bulls-eyed and reduced to hollow black shells.
Only Skyboat Blue could attack the flying soldiers, but the other seven skyboats were too much for it. It could only try to outmaneuver them and fire back, hoping to take them all out before its shields were totally drained. Without Stitch, without Skyboat Blue, the rebels on the ground were now utterly alone.
Stitch ran down the roof of the hallway toward the giant center dome with so many guards hot on his tail. He never even looked around this time. He didn't know how many there were. Only a few were firing at him though, and they all seemed to be missing. It was confusing Stitch. According to Jumba's disk, these things were supposed to be able to shoot a ten centimeter moving target from over a hundred meters away. It was as if they were missing on purpose.
Stitch had no time for ponderings right now though. He reached for another ammo tank, and another CO2 cartridge. Quickly jamming the cartridge into the nozzle of the tank he threw it behind him. In seconds Stitch was caught in the wake of an explosion that threw him head over heels and the last distance across the roof of the hallway, sandwiching Lilo between him and another wooden door, cracking the door.
Stitch dropped Lilo to the ground and looked at her frantically. She had scrapes and bruises, she was shivering, but she looked all right. That armor was really something. Unprotected, that impact would've crushed every bone in her body, but now it seemed she was just fine.
Not wasting any more time, Stitch cradled Lilo, holding her tight against him in his upper arms while shooting out the doors with the gun in his lower arms.
Another three section hallway! From the left and the right once again, more footsteps. Once again, it was forward Stitch went, leaving another improvised bomb behind him, hoping that it would slow them down.
Stitch ran fast enough this time to outrun the shockwave of the blast. But something was strange. At every opportunity to go more than one way, he had been cut of from every direction but one. It was as if he was being led somewhere. But there wasn't time to think about that now. More intersections and more instances of only one way to go, and more bombs left at those intersections to slow down Stitch's pursuers.
The cockpit of the third skyboat caved in on itself with a direct hit from the pure white plasma of Skyboat Blue. The skyboat tumbled over itself and two the ground, skidding hundreds of feet and digging up a wave of earth in front of it before screeching to a halt and burning up. Three down, but the other four skyboats continued their pursuit. There wasn't much left on the shields of Skyboat Blue though. A few more direct hits from the enemy skyboat's cannons and those shields went down. A few more hits and Skyboat Blue went down as well. Crashing cockpit first into the side of a palace dome, demolishing both the wall of the dome, and Skyboat Blue.
"We lost Skyboat Blue!" screamed the little blond girl in the van so far away from the action. Tears streaming down her face, she threw her headset to the ground and crushed it.
"What the hell did you do that for?" Yelled the man next to her.
The blond girl looked up at her TVs and watched with her face bright red and her eyes glossed over as seemingly the last of the rebel forces were slaughtered right before her eyes.
"It's all over!" She screamed. "We've lost! There's no hope left for us!"
"It's not over yet!" The man yelled back and he grabbed her shoulder and spun her to face him. "We're only a diversion remember! This is Stitch's mission not ours! It doesn't matter if the attack fails only so long Stitch succeeds! Got it?"
The girl in the van nodded her head lightly and then buried her face in her hands, continuing to sob.
Stitch was now cornered. There were three hallways of pure white tile and ceramic to choose from, and all three had those footsteps coming toward him. His back was against the wall. Lilo clung to his side and his arm was around her shoulder, holding his gun and pressing its side against her. The wall he was pressed against though wasn't a wall at all, but a door. It was another of those twenty-foot double doors like the one found on the entrance. But this time the hinges were not steel, but what looked like glass. But only one glasslike substance was strong enough to act as hinges for a door like this, and that was diamond. Synthetic diamond. Not even Stitch could break those hinges in time. It would take him almost ten minutes off pulling and straining every muscle and bone in his body to accomplish such a feat.
For a moments notice, Stitch paid attention to Lilo. Her breathing was shallow and stuttered. And she was covered in dust and scratches.
An idiotic idea came to Stitch, but he tried it anyway, seeing as how there was nothing else to do. The handle to that door was in reach by his arms. So he grabbed it and turned the handle. It was amazing that the door was actually unlocked.
It was confirmed now. This whole time Stitch was being led. He was being led right to the room behind him. Stitch hesitated, knowing that's exactly where they wanted him to go. Mystery door? Guards? Mystery door? Guards? Mystery door? Mystery Door.
Stitch pushed the door open, grabbed Lilo, ran inside and shut it behind him, locking it from his side as quickly as he could.
There was no banging on the door, no sounds of a lock being picked, no sounds of plasma fire. It was as if the forces outside had given up on Stitch as soon as he had entered this door, but for what reason? Why was he led here?
Stitch set Lilo on the cold floor and looked around.
The room was gigantic. It was dark. It was rectangular. It was about forty meters across and fifteen meters wide. The sides of the room were lined with more columns, and there were no windows, just solid walls. The walls, the floor, and the columns were different here though. They were not white. They were green, dark green marble. Or rather, they were dark green imitation ceramic marble.
Stitch leaned over Lilo and shook her a bit. Lilo only groaned and shivered. Stitch carefully removed Lilo's earplugs and she uncurled, clearly dizzy and coughing.
Stitch carefully unstrapped Lilo's armor and let it fall to the floor with a clank and a rattle. Lilo snorted hard. Beneath that armor, Lilo's plain gray t-shirt and shorts were dripping with sweat. Lilo was having a bit of a difficult time breathing. Stitch could only imagine how badly Lilo must be itching right now. But however badly she was, she showed no sign of it.
"Is okeytaka Lilo." Stitch said. "We're safe now."
Stitch's voice echoed and then echoed again through this new hallway. They both looked up and looked around. Lilo stood up, almost loosing her balance on the way until Stitch's arm steadied her.
"Where are we?" Lilo managed to hack out of her parched and chapped throat.
"Naga nota." Stitch whispered back.
Lilo and Stitch took a few steps forward. It was then that something in the middle of the room caught their attention. It was less something they saw than something they were standing on. It was something soft and plush, and warm.
They both looked down to see that they were now standing on a bright red rug. It was plain bright red with gold trimmings. Their eyes followed the rug straight to the end of the hallway where a large staircase led to yet a third massive double door. Only this time, that door was jet black, and was engraved with the sword in anvil logo of the Pacific Empire.
Something stood out even more than the door though. It was something standing on the stairs. It looked like another of those black armored imperial soldiers.
Lilo quickly hid behind Stitch, barely peeking out to look at the motionless figure. There was only one of them. But something was different about this one. That was the armor the imperial soldiers wore, but it was different somehow.
It was larger. It was so much larger. It must've been fifteen feet tall. Stitch's eyes counted sixteen feet four and a half inches. He was very familiar with that height, and he instantly knew exactly what that thing was.
The suit began to slowly descend the staircase. Stepping out of the shadows, more detail was revealed. This suit held two guns, both far bigger than anything the imperial troops would ever use. In one hand this suit held a sleek, rounded minigun, big enough that it looked like it was taken right off a chopper. In the other hand, resting it on its shoulder, was something resembling a bazooka, but many times bigger. Big enough that even this massive suit had to hold it on its shoulder.
"What is it?" Lilo whispered.
"Gantu." Stitch answered.
"Gantu?" Lilo shouted out.
The figure in front of them stopped. It placed its huge minigun inside an equally huge holster strapped to its leg. With its free hand, it unhooked its helmet and let it drop to the floor. The gas mask, with no more support, also fell.
It really was Gantu.