Author Notes:
I've been meaning to say this for a long, long time, but every time I got the opportunity it slipped my mind.
Our Lilo and Stitch author Celebi has drawn for me a pic of the three siblings from Gems of Tommorow, Emerald, Ruby, and Sapphre. At the deviantart website she goes by the name Pyreo. But Like i said, this was LONG ago, so now the pic is on the second page. For those of you who read Gems of Tommorow, check it out!

Also, I've got a new livejournal account! Yay me!
Look it up! It's under my usual name WatsonSword.

625 stared at the newly solved Rubix Cube for a few more seconds. The device was pitiful, it wasn't worth his time and effort. A child would be able to solve that thing, or at least a child should be able to. He grunted a sound of tedium before dropping it back on the floor.

This was too much stimulation for one sleepless night. Only TV could now restore 625 to his normal vegetative self. Oh how he longed for a perfect world where all that existed was food and TV. But the necessary evils of life and the past had to come back to haunt him occasionally. Necessary evils they were to him at least.

625 shook his head and hit the side of his temple with his paw in a vain attempt at driving all conscious thought from his brain. It didn't work. He clawed at the inside of his ear and flicked the wax built up on his nail against the wall. He sighed.

He walked through the middle floor of the ship with his eyes closed. He didn't need to see, or hear, or smell or feel for that matter, so he shut out all sensory stimulus. Memory alone got him to where he was going.

625 hopped back up onto the massive chair and landed his feet in sticky, partly dried soda sprinkled with crumbs and morsels. He didn't care. He turned around and flopped down onto his butt, landing it too in sticky, partly dried soda sprinkled with crumbs and morsels. He still didn't care. But where was the remote?

There was an uncomfortable lump underneath 625's thigh. He leaned over and reached under his leg to grab the disk. His hands stuck to it like glue, and bits of bread and meat rubbed off into his fur, along with the orange syrup, the only thing left of the soda. He didn't care. He peeled his fingers off the side of the remote and turned on the communications monitor at the front of the deck. 625, in his infinite wisdom, had managed to break into Earth's communications satellite system and beam down three thousand channels of nothing straight into Gantu's ship. It was one of the few things he did that required any amount of effort, and that only because he knew it would pay off with indefinite laziness down the road.

He was getting the weather in Ankara Turkey. 625 balled his hand and hit the resulting fist against his chest, forcing up a burp exclaiming just how much of a damn he gave about Turkey. He changed the channel. It was some Portuguese infomercial about an all natural male enhancement product, the last thing he wanted to see at the moment. He changed the channel. Somebody screaming in Japanese as he sawed through a block of concrete with a kitchen knife while fancy graphics flew across the screen. Again. A rather distraught looking cat with strings tied to its limbs was being danced around like a puppet to music from The Doors as played by kazoo. 625 sneered at the image. That was just plain disturbing. Again. At least this one was in English, but no less appealing. Now you too can have pecs like these with our patented Swedish pec enlarger pumps!, shouted out the voice of a hyperactive old fart. Again. Something interesting at last, an unrealistic late night intrigue serial from the mid seventies titled Mission Unstoppable.

"Now how's we goin' to scale that wall?" asked a skinny middle-aged man in an all black suit and an impossibly blond afro.

"You just hold on to me baby," answered his heavyset black partner in dreads and shades, even though it was the middle of the night. "That wall's nothing for my collapsible pole-vault."

625 chuckled under his breath at the sheer lunacy of it all. Collapsible pole-vault, obviously a phallic reference. Shows from the seventies were filled with them. And nobody in their right mind would break into a beachside mansion in Cuba by scaling a two story wall when they could just gas the place and then walk right in through the front door. 625 knew this well as he had done many such raids himself. The golden rule was always, how can you make the mission easiest on yourself. The less drama, the less suspense, the better.

625 stopped laughing and a tear welled up in his eye. The memories came back, memories of his first field assignment brought on by the show. He thought maybe the TV would quell his memories for at least the time being. He should have known better. Once the memories start, they didn't stop until they ran their course. But the mission, no it wasn't the mission that was so disheartening; it was what came before it, and after it.

625 unscrewed the hatch to the air vent with his fingernail. The stuff from the cafeteria and the supply vaults were just too bland for what he had in mind. Only the best would do for his conniving little mind, and the best could only be found in Jumba's private suite.

He pulled the hatch back into the vent and looked through the room. The decorations were incredible. There wasn't a hint of polymer, ceramic, or dulled metal anywhere. Things were made of wood, real wood. Counters were built from patterned stone, natural stone, with real iridium trimmings. The soft, cool glowing tan of the iridium was downright seductive. Seeing it in real life, even from a distance, was so much different than in hologram. He looked around some more. A massive oval bed lay in the center at one end of the room. His own sleeping pod now seemed something for the impoverished in comparison. The bright red blankets with the indisputable polished tan of iridium colored trim were laid out perfectly. They looked as soft and smooth as his own golden fur. Carpets and artworks and architecture were everywhere. The sheer amount of culture and luxury pervading the room was almost overwhelming to someone who had never seen such things, at least not in person. But 625 was here on a mission. He shook his head and looked back into the room. He blinked his eyes and they came back a glowing red.

Looking at the room with his IR vision, 625 could see hot spots on the floor representing pressure detectors, and the wide beam lasers of motion detectors. Good thing none of it reached the ceiling. 625 climbed out of his vent and across the ceiling, looking for anything to use to deactivate the security. Finding it was all too easy, a control pad next to the door with a small hole next to it. The security was obviously meant to keep intruders out, and not to hamper intruders who were already in.

625 crawled across the ceiling over the panel. He waited until the motion sensor finished its sweep and crawled down. His extra arms, once hidden, now extended. In one hand he carried a small metal tube with a button on one end and a hole on the other. Jumba was scrawled on it in crude handwritten Tantalog. In the toher hand he carried a sandwich filled with his favorite meats and fruits and blended into a slaw. After swallowing the sandwich in one huge bite, 625 aimed the tube at the hole in the panel and pressed the button. A sprits shot out of the tube and into the hole.

Welcome Jumba, was sounded through the room in a pleasant female voice. 625 jerked around in sudden fright that he might have been discovered, but the lasers and hot spots were now gone. It must've been the security system, it was now off, that sample of Jumba's flaked off skin must've worked.

625 hopped off the wall and onto the floor.

"Too easy." He said to himself in his angelic voice that he couldn't get enough of. He rubbed all four hands together and then went to work.

625 crawled back up to the air vent and threw out a large black carrying bag. Now for the collection.

The blankets were a must. 625 spared no neatness in pulling them right off the bed and rolling them into a ball to throw inside the bag. He glanced around, what else could there be? 625 casually strolled down to the end of the room, passing a full length mirror on the way. He couldn't help but to glance at his own reflection. The radiance from his gem like eyes and glass like teeth were matched only by the glitter of his fur, the purest blazing gold. Tonight this thing of beauty was finally going to be put to good use. He continued.

On a shelf were a few large glass tubes open on one end and filled with a black gelatin. He'd read about this stuff. Pannsalt jelly it was called. It burned in six different colors and gave off the smell of saltwater oceans. Those were keepers.

What else was there?

On a small table off in the distance was a clay vase filled with long stemmed plants of some kind. The blue stems would grow into translucent bright orange spheres, which shrank back into its stem until it would reach the next sphere in the line. The spheres on the stems caught the light and separated it like a prism, but with an orange tint. Those would be great just thrown about randomly on the floor. But enough of atmosphere, now it was time for substance.

Something good to drink.

Something good to drink was always kept in cabinets beneath miniature kitchens taking up the size of small desks. Lo and behold, there was one of those right next to the huge bed.

625 walked up to it and opened the cabinet. So many bottles, real glass bottles of so many shapes and sizes and so many colors of liquid inside them all.

He grabbed one that seemed plain square with an opaque green juice inside. He opened it up and inhaled.

That was a strange smell, strange enough to bring out a cringe in 625's lip. It was something he was familiar with. Besides the dry, musty and nutty scent came something strong and slightly corrosive. It was a smell he normally only associated with rotting food. Yet here it was in a good drink, with none of its putrid companions 625 was so used to smelling alongside it. It was confusing. Either way the bottle touted itself as exclusive and superior, so he closed his eyes and took a swill.

625 gasped and heaved as the juice flowed down his throat. That slightly corrosive smell was infinitely stronger as a taste. It made him cough and wheeze. But something strange happened. As the vapors wafted up through his sinuses and into his head, it filled him with a light and giddy feeling. It was over in a minute, but common sense told him that if it got into his gut, then it would get into his blood, giving a longer lasting high. This was perfect for what was to come.

He closed the bottle and opened more, smelling each one. All had the scent of that chemical, some stronger than others, but all had unique smells on top of it that all promised unique flavors. 625 let his nose guide him as he picked out the ones he liked the best.

Soon his bag was packed and he disappeared back into the air vent.

625 waited laying on the bed of a dorm he knew wasn't his own. The sikly smooth blankets from before were folded over and over again and still they draped over the sides. The long stems with their crystalish spheres were thrown about the bed and the floor, just as promised. On every available surface were burning pipes of pannsalt jelly, all changing hues from blue to red to green, yellow, purple, and orange, bathing the darkened room in a rainbow of color and filling it with the scent of some far away tropical beach. The table, normally in the corner, now sat next to the bed with several bottles of dry and toasty beverages and two long, thin glasses looking almost more like test tubes. The atmosphere was perfect. Everything was perfect.

The door clicked and slid open. 625 knew who that was, the real inhabitant of this dorm, experiment 624. He thought he was prepared for whatever he may see. He was wrong.

624 raised a single eyebrow and instantly knew what was going on. She walked inside so slowly. She reached back with her paws and brushed back her tendrils, stroking them fluidly all the way to their bulbous ends with eyes and mouth partly closed. The way she moved was as smooth as water. It made 625 light headed. Or maybe that was his drink it was impossible to tell. Either way he liked it. But what was definitely her doing was his watering mouth and chest feeling like it was filled with some ultralight gas.

624 let her head turn only part way to her bed. Out of the corner of her eye 624 stared at 625 with narrowed eyes and a sinister smile.

625's pulse was sent into a panic as adrenaline shot through his system. He noticed everything about her. The way she let her tendrils hang over her shoulders, how she propped her hands up on the side of her chest, how she was halfway turned away not quite giving him a full view of her, he noticed everything.

He knew exactly what he was going to say at that moment, but the adrenaline made it hard to say. He was so afraid of stuttering in this condition. He was amazed he was able to keep his usual smug and sly face on at all. She was waiting. It was now or never. He swallowed the pond of saliva that had pooled beneath his tongue and opened his mouth.

"Evening."

Amazing to him even more is that he was able to keep his same smug and sly voice while talking. He swore what would come out of his would be a squeak or a scratchy breath. But he'd managed to keep his cool under pressure. 624 smiled a bit wider. He'd gotten past the first part, everything else should be a breeze.

"Evening." 624 answered back.

So 625 thought he answered in a cool, smooth voice, so he thought. But her response was in the voice of a polished woodwind instrument. Her voice was musical. It was intoxicating. It had perfect pitch and perfect inflection. How could he possibly measure up to that? Still, the moment had to pass and there were more things he needed to say.

"Care for a drink?" 625 asked.

"I'd love one." 624 answered, again in that enchanting voice of hers.

625 had a bottle specially picked out for this occasion. The fluid inside was a hot pink, just like she was, and it had the non-sweet taste of the earthy, tart fruits that grew in arid climates. It was just right for her.

625 popped the top off the bottle with his claw and filled the glass almost to the rim.

624 picked up the glass and gave it the briefest of sniffs.

"Careful there that stuff's pretty strong…"

625's eyes widened and his mouth dropped open as he saw 624 up end and swallow the entire glassful in a single gulp. She filled herself another and drank half of that.

"You've just got to get used to it that's all."

624 set the glass back down on the table and climbed up onto the bed. She grasped at the blankets, clutching them tight as she pulled herself up. As soon as she atop the bed she dropped to her hands and feet and not so much crawled but slid her paws across the blanket over to 625. She swung her tendrils over her head and wrapped them around 625's neck, settling their bulb ends just behind his ears, rubbing them slightly.

With that, all of 625's anxiety melted away and he was as cool right then and there as he'd ever been. 624 pressed her nose up against his. She smelled like sweet citrus fruit. 625's mouth watered all over again.

"So," He asked after swallowing. "What do you say?"

She didn't answer. She just pulled at his head with her tendrils and gave him the unmistakable look of a bloodthirsty predator closing in on its kill. And that's exactly what she did.

624 leapt up and landed on top of 625, startling him just long enough to pin down his shoulders and plant and slow lick starting from the bottom of his nose and ending atop his forehead.

She was upon him.

Darkness surrounded. The spheres on most of the stems atop the bed had been squished, leaving the sheets soaked with their floral yet woody perfume. All the bottles on the table were opened and some missed decent portions of their potables. One glass was in pieces on the floor while the other was on its side on the table. Only a couple tubes of Pannsalt Jelly still burned. At their last ends they filled the room with a scent of charcoal as well as tropical beaches.

In the little bed, covered by Jumba's exorbitant blankets lay experiments 624 and 625. 624 had her arms curled into her chest and her head pressed into the golden mane of 625. 625 lay on his side with all four arms wrapped around 624, holding her tightly against himself. One of her tendrils was curled up in 625's mane while the other sprawled itself out lazily over the bed, its bulb end resting just inside 625's lips as he lightly sucked it in his sleep.

Both of them slept without making a single noise. Both of them dreamt of last night, and many nights to come. But duty always calls, and the dream would not last long.

"Experiment 625!" Jumba's voice boomed out over the speakers in the dorm, "Reporting is to main conference chamberses."

The roar was enough to cause both 624 and 625 to jump out of bed and hit their heads against the cupboards just above. Though is was 625 who made an impression of his forehead in the metal.

"Ah! Ha! Ha! Ha!" Jumba shouted out jovially. "My ultimate 625. There is you are being!"

625 and 624 walked through the spiral shutting door into the huge, empty circular chamber of the lab's main conference hall, or at least the one in this section of it. The room coned downward toward the center stage where Jumba stood on a great glass platform in the floor.

"Is time for to be your very first mission 625." Jumba continued.

625 walked down a path beside the benches leading to the platform on which Jumba stood. 624 walked right beside him, holding his arm and her tendrils wrapped around his shoulders. Jumba wore not his lab attire, but a nice purple suit for this occasion. He stepped to the edge of the platform and lights lit up projecting a 3D hologram of the blueprints of a large building into the domed chamber. 625 kept walking until he and 624 were on the edge of the platform with Jumba.

"How are you being 624?" Jumba asked.

"Exceptional." 624 answered, bringing out a smile in 625's face.

"625!" Jumba exclaimed "This is being your very first mission! Err… I already was saying that. Oh I am so exited! What you see before you are floor plans of First Federal bank of Turo, capitol system of Federation.
"It is now that First Federal Turo Bank is holding largest private stockpile of fine cut Etherite stones."

625 and 624 looked up as the image above changed into that of an exquisite gemstone. 624's eyes lit up and filled with tears looking at the image. Each face of the gem shone in a different color. While some were transparent, others were opaque. The colors and the transparencies of each face changed with the angle it was looked upon. Blues, purples, reds and greens and sparkled like stars. It was a burning, glowing kaleidoscope that could be held in the palm of even the smallest of hands. And that was just a hologram.

"Etherite is made of Oxygen and Nitrogen crystallized within the atmospheres of hyperdense neutron stars. Only within the extraordinary gravity of the neutron star can these elements, normally gaseous, be formed into crystalline structures. Etherite is harder than diamond, brighter than flame, and-"

"Beautiful!" 624 interrupted

"Yes." Jumba replied. "Is very beautiful… and valuable. Only small handful of specimens is being worth many millions! You, 625, are to be infiltrating First Federal Bank of Turo, and be snatching away Etherite treasure trove!"

"Get me some!" 624 shouted, almost jumping up and down like a child begging for her favorite toy.

"Ohhh 624 you are dickens you. Etherite hoard being contained within bank is being valued of over sixty billion federal credits. Is being enough to fill your dorm with Etherites, and still having left overs to fund small empire! He! Hah!"

"When do I leave?" 625 asked.

"As soon as you are being ready."

"I that case I'll need a day or two. I'll need the floor plans, passports, access to the lab's central computer, and a swank looking ship with a state of the art cloaking device."

"All done!" Jumba said, snapping his finger.

At that instant 624, as hyper as a toddler on a sugar high, tackled 625 to the ground and pressed her lips against his.

The ship was big, at least for a private yacht. It was the size of some destroyers. The smooth wedge shape and tan exterior coating of Iridium paint gave away that it was a first class vessel. Unlike the bulky, segmented stock ships, this one was seamless, smooth, and no one could tell without close inspection that it was made from more than a single piece. Only the wealthy among the wealthy could afford such a ship. Over a hundred million credits it cost to buy this thing, plus an extra sixty for the cloaking device. It was pocket change compared to the money to be made in only a short while.

The inside was filled with real leather, carpeted floors, and only the sleekest of terminals. The captain's chair on the main bridge seated the only inhabitant. A seat perfectly contoured to fit Experiment 625.

"Passport verified." An inviting voice sounded through the comm. system. "Permission granted to land on docking pad three of the First National Bank of Turo. Welcome to Turo Danhondyn. We hope your stay here on the Federations capitol world is a most delightful one."

"Thank you." 625 answered. "I hope Turo is everything I ever heard it was."

With the press of a key the comm. system was cut. 625 spoke aloud to himself.

"Danhondyn, hah! That's gotta be the cheesiest name I've ever heard. Well as long as it works."

With the press of another key the ship's automatic docking sequence began, something else that stock vessels weren't equipped with.

A spiral shutting door opened and 625 was greeted with a hallway of glass and carpets suspended high above the dusk city lights. Flying cars and small ships buzzed this way and that between buildings many miles high. Giant holographic billboards dotted the skies and the highways shining their great advertisements in the faces of onlookers. Four tall lanky aliens without hair and great red robes bowed as soon as he stepped foot off of his ship.

"Welcome to Turo sir Danhondyn." One of them said. "Your hotel, chauffer and restaurant services have all been reserved in advance. If there's anything I can get you sir-"

"A hot toasted sandwich." 625 blurted out. "three kinds of meat and lots of cheese."

"Of course sir, right away."

625 sat in a large cushy leather chair as he spoke to another of the lanky aliens. One more stood beside him with an Iridium plate carrying half of a sandwich and a tall frothy black drink. The office was small and private, with a wall spanning terminal to the left side and and a wall and ceiling spanning tinted window to the right. One had the view of the entire glowing city as it spanned its hundreds of kilometers until it finally reached the mountains. 625 had never seen anything so vast and grand as this. Even the great labs of Galaxy Defense Industries' illegal bio-weapons division, as gigantic as they were, were like a grain of sand compared to this.

"May I see your claim of transfer sir Danhondyn?" the one on the desk asked.

"Right here buddy." 625 answered, his mouth filled with sandwich and his hand extended with a large ovoid disk. After inserting the disk into the computer…

"Two billion credits to be transferred to our protection in three, two, one… What the hell! There's nothing in here it's a fake account!"

"Oh, too bad." 625 responded.

"Now activating special command 625." Spoke an automated voice on speaker.

"What the hell is special command 625?" The man at the desk asked.

The lights turned out, shutters fell over the windows, and force fields went up over the shutters.

"Oh that?" 625 answered. "That's a little app. I wrote which I remote installed into your network after hacking into it. I named it after myself."

"What do you want?"

"The sixty billion in Etherite you got stashed here."

"You have to be joking. Even if you did disable our entire network this place is crawling with security. You won't be able to step outside the door without being apprehended."

"And that's the beautiful thing." 625 said, finishing the last bite of his sandwich. "The security's going to help me, because that little app. I mentioned is also onboard Turo Prime's positron defense satellites, which I'm now controlling via neural interface. With just a thought I can vaporize this whole damn bank, and take out half the city along with it."

The alien next to 625 dropped his plate and ran to the side of the office pounding away keys into a terminal. A picture came up of a three large metal spheres in orbit around the planet and their vitals.

"He's not kidding." The alien said. "Those satellites are at maximum charges and they're all aimed right at us!"

"Well…" The other spoke. "It seems we have no choice but to cooperate."

"I knew you'd see things my way." 625 responded. "By the way, that was a good sandwich."

Down a long metal hall strobe lights flashed as armored doors and force fields rose to let through experiment 625 and his escort of a dozen raptor guards in full armored suits, and then slamming back down again as they passed.

The final door opened into a rectangular vault loaded on all walls with glass crates. Each crate was loaded with tiny glass boxes, and in each box was a flawless, perfectly cut five gram Etherite stone.

"You know where my ship is." 625 spoke.

In less than an hour, 625's ship was loaded with the Etherite, and he and his stolen goods blasted off into space. And though a small armada was there to intercept him, they dared not make a move against him or even block his path so long as he controlled the defense satellites.

As soon as 625's ship made its jump and he was out of range of the satellites' control, the armada gave chase, but could not track him with his cloaking device.

624 threw all her weight down onto 625, forcing him to fall onto his back onto the bed. The impact threw the little Etherites sprinkled about into the air. 625 grabbed a handful of them, lifted his hand to the back of 624's neck, and let them go. 624 arched her body forward in rapture as the Etherites rolled down her back, making their crackling noise as they tumbled against each other.

Life only got better the more 625 lived it.