The Blue Werewolf

Part II: The True Hearted

C/By: Kenjaje

Edited by: raVen

Chapter 2: Innocent?

October 29: 11:14 AM: Tower Bedroom

Lilo's eyes fluttered open as she began to stir. She swallowed the string of spit that had been leaking out of the corner of her mouth and wiped her lips with her arm and gazed about the room. The clock read fifteen after, and she wondered how she slept through the alarm. Not bothering to worry about it, she looked across the room.

"Stitch?" She called, but he wasn't around. Her stomach began to growl. "I'm starving." She told herself, and slid out of bed. The cold metal of the elevator sent shivers through her legs and toes. She stepped off the metal as it rested on the second story onto the soft wooden floor, popping her toes at the joints to help warm them up again. Without much noise she walked down the hall, passing her bedroom door. She didn't even pay attention to how it was strangely wide open; ever since she and Stitch migrated to the third floor, her room had been closed, and rarely ever opened.

"There you are!" Lilo said, as she came down the stairs, spotting Stitch on the couch in front of the T.V., watching early-morning cartoons. "Wow, you're up early," she commented, going into the kitchen, "I figured I'd be up before you."

"Stitch woke up while ago, let Lilo sleep in." He replied, flipping through the channels while his cartoon was on a commercial break.

"I don't even remember falling asleep." She told him, her voice slightly louder over the sound of fumbling noises coming from the kitchen. "Are you hungry?" She asked as she poured her cereal.

"Naga." He replied, stopping at the news. Lilo then came into the living room and plopped down on the couch, next to him.

"You're boring, watching the news." She said sarcastically.

"And this just in," said the anchorwoman, as a small packet of stapled papers was handed to her from someone off-camera, "strange destruction has been uncovered all over—." At her groan, Stitch flipped the channel, but she shifted alarmingly and told him to go back.

"Gaba?" Stitch asked. "Lilo said news bori—."

"Just change it back!" Heeding her, he did, catching the scene of a reporter standing before a mountain of broken boards and debris. The male reporter's voice began to fade in slowly as the news unraveled the scene:

"… What was once left of this quiet little market stand, is now in ruins. We have yet to determine what the cause of this massive devastation is, but police are guessing vandalism; however, the owner of the market-stand has quite another theory." The camera switched to a very elderly-looking man, short in stature, standing, rather leaning forward on his knees with large, thick glasses. He wore an orange shirt with black leaves, and very ratty looking shorts. His voice was rather innocent when he spoke, as if he was not sure where he was.

"I was here, last night, because I," the old man hesitated, trying to think, "I believe I forgot to lock the safe, or maybe it was…well," he scratched his chin, his eyes gazing to upward and to the left, "I can't exactly remember," he said innocently, shrugging his shoulders and lifting his large bushy eyebrows, "but, I came back here to check on something, when I heard this strange growling noise. I went to investigate, and I saw what looked like a very large dog. I don't remember much after that…I could swear I've been bit but I didn't find any injuries." The camera cut back to the male reporter.

"A strange case indeed," he commented. "But, police have found something creditable to the man's story; right behind me," he began to walk, the camera following, "you'll notice this plank of wood has, what seems to be, bite marks on the edge of it…"

Lilo's eyes moved steadily toward Stitch, who was watching the television intently, until he noticed her stare in the corner of his eye. They continued to listen to the story as it rolled; Lilo wondered what he was thinking, he stared back at her wondering the same thing. Her eyes seemed to accuse him, and his eyes seemed between guilty and wondering if he actually did do it. But he couldn't have done it; he knew he didn't do it.

"Stitch naga." He told her softly, as the story ended. But his tone made it seem like he was unsure of himself, as if he doubted himself. Lilo's eyes narrowed, not sure what to think. "Honest!" He protested, urging his innocence. "Lilo naga creta." He said with a sigh, dropping his ears and looking down at his feet. Her eyelids drooped and she put a hand on his shoulder.

"Of course I believe you." She told him with a comforting shake. "I know you know better than that. And besides, you've been a good werewolf all year long, why should you start being destructive now?" She slurped down the milk that pooled in her bowl and set it aside on the couch. "And plus that pile of wood totally wasn't your style." She joked, trying to cheer him up. "It was all stacked up and looked too orderly; you'd have probably thrown it all across town if you did it." Stitch smiled, accepting her words. She smiled back and took her bowl into the kitchen.

"Maybe we should go down there and have a look. If you didn't cause all that trouble, then that means—" She paused, realizing what she was about to say. She turned around and ran to the stairs. "We have to hurry; there might be a clue!" She yelled, running down the hall to her room to get changed.

"Gaba?" Stitch asked, idly following her and stopping at the elevator. "What does Lilo mean?" He asked, shouting through the shaft.

"That other werewolf, the one that I saw and that you fended off last year; it could have been what that old man saw!" She yelled, coming down from the third floor.

"Lilo still think that werewolf that bit Stitch still here?" He asked, as she pulled his arm.

"I'm almost sure of it! Maybe if we find something, anything, we can use Jumba's equipment to analyze it." She spoke, all while running down the stairs and throwing open the door. "If we can find out who bit you, maybe we can find out some other things—like why you're able to transform on nights when the moon isn't exactly full."

Their feet hit the freshly saturated ground, kicking up the odors of earth with each step. The sky was absolutely covered with dark, gray clouds which blocked out the sun almost entirely. There was a distinctly moist wind blowing through the trees as they made their way into town. Lilo's ambitions were running a bit ahead of her, and Stitch's confusion far behind him. But soon the damp mud and grass turned into street and cement as they crossed the subtle boundary between the suburban and urban areas.

A little while later, when the sky just started to drizzle, and people who had carried umbrellas now had them at the ready, two onlookers placed themselves out of sight in a not-so-out-of-sight area across the street. They looked as though they were just a girl and her dog enjoying an expected rainy day with a milkshake.

"You see anything, Stitch?" Lilo asked, leaning over to his ear after slurping a bit of slush down. Stitch's eyes, fixated on the debris, began to zoom in. The expression on his face made it seem like he was giving someone a very disgusted look, but no one figured such a look out of an ordinary dog. He sat upright on the grass, occasionally wagging his tail as he examined the destruction just across the street.

"Eh." He told her, "marks, on wood."

"Like they showed on the news?" He nodded. She slurped her shake again. "Anything else?" She began to lean over again, this time to scratch his head as tourists came by. She regretted not bringing her camera, as the day was in perfect overcast. He looked for a few more seconds, his vision zooming in and out, spotting broken wood, glass and pottery.

"Need to get closer." He said, focusing back to normal and looking up at her. She looked down, thinking, and then took up his leash.

"I've got an idea, come on." He followed, although he didn't have much of a choice. They crossed the street, heading toward the broken-down market stand, and almost immediately a policeman came and put a hand on her shoulder—oddly enough it was one of the ones that had come to know her, and her ways.

"What do you think you're doing Lilo? You're not getting into trouble again are you? I've got your sister on speed-dial, remember?" Lilo smiled sweetly, and loosened Stitch's leash.

"Me, trouble?" She asked, pointing to herself. "Not at all. Just walking my dog; he needs the exercise—too much coconut cake. But," she leaned in and whispered, "I think he's gotta go to the bathroom." Taking his cue, Stitch started acting antsy. The cop's eyebrows rose a bit. "I was just trying to find a place where he could go without being stared at; you wouldn't want people watching you while you went would you?" The officer scratched his neck and sighed. All the while, Stitch had taken his chance to casually walk around the debris, his leash practically free from Lilo's grasp.

"Look, Lilo, maybe you should think about going home, huh? It's supposed to start raining soon and your sister would get worried if she found out you were out in the rain, so why don't you—hey!" Stitch's ears shot up as he felt the officer's shout fall on his shoulders. He began to dive into the debris, but the cop caught onto his leash and started to pull him away. "Come on you!" He grunted, trying to pull Stitch, who was latched onto the ground. With a quick motion, Stitch pawed at a plank of wood which held something that caught his eye, and as soon as he did the officer yanked, causing him to fly.

"Stop it, you're choking him!" Lilo pleaded, taking his leash away from the officer. He stood to his feet and dusted off his pants, giving a very dissatisfied look at Stitch. "He's sorry," Lilo apologized, "he's just curious."

"I know, I know." The officer said with a billow. "Keep a better hold on that leash and walk your dog home," a boom of thunder echoed off in the distance, "and hurry." The officer added, while Lilo ran back toward her house.

"Did you find anything?" Lilo asked, panting, while she ran up the steps to the front door, her hair sopping wet from the rain. Stitch shook the water from his body and face, and then smiled, lifting up his arms to allow the lower-right to thrust out of his side. He opened it, showing her a piece of fabric that looked shredded, orange in color with a little black in the corner. "Cool, when we get inside, let's try to figure out where it came from." She turned the doorknob and opened the door, and immediately she heard a voice she didn't recognize.