It was minutes, or maybe it was hours. Either way who the hell cared? At least that's what 625 thought. The rain still hadn't cleared up. In fact it was beating down on the hull as hard as ever now. Although the sky was not quite as dark as it was the last time 625 was paying any attention to anything at all. 625 blinked and noticed his eyes were chapped from having kept them open so long, staring at the rain through the kitchen window.

The memories all crept back to him that night like a lamprey sucking at your ankle that you just couldn't get rid of. Beyond irritating, it was painful, but not painful enough to warrant anything drastic like seeking the help of others. Besides, that would've taken effort, effort 625 just didn't have in him anymore.

625 knew how to get rid of those memories, to be a peace until they dared to start sucking and biting at his ankles again. He didn't want to do it, but he knew he'd be trapped in that one moment of being caught in the radiation blast forever if he didn't. It was the one effort he was willing to take. Though he didn't want to, if being injected with mace would've had the same effect he'd have opted for that route. But it wouldn't. There was only one way to get rid of those memories once they started, and that was to let them live themselves out to the very end.

It was mind boggling to 625 how he came up with the near supernatural drive and ambition every time, but somehow he did it. 625 let his head drop and held his paws open in front of him. His ugly, disfigured, mutated paws. The only reason he didn't have them lopped off is because he needed them for his sandwich assembly. That bare, brown, scar covered skin of his paws, surrounded by the equally grotesque fur. The fur was like steel wool to the touch and had the color of something like a cross between rusty rocks and sulfuric waste. 625 remembered it all so clearly. That fur was softer than down, and smoother than silk. It was such a brilliant gold that whenever he looked at it he could almost swear he was glowing. Lord knows how many times he asked Jumba if he was made luminescent. And the skin, the skin, where it did show, was the soothing creamy tan of iridium. Its texture was like perfectly polished marble. Now his skin felt like a plastic bowl that had an unfortunate run in with a blow torch.

However much he wanted to look away, 625 kept staring at those paws. It's what made the memories pass quicker, and pass quicker they most certainly did.

The hideous Scithera all fell ontop of him, then a great flash of Violet, and then pain. 625 had felt pain before, but never like this. The pain was something he didn't have words for. It was so intense he couldn't focus on anything else. Every instinct, every fiber in his being screamed into his mind make the pain stop! Then he realized, it was burning. This must have been what it felt like for normal creatures when they're burned. 625 had been shot with plasma, wadded through molten metal, and been sprayed with some of the harshest known corrosives, but he had never felt the pain of being burned. How powerful this violet light must be to cause him of all creatures this kind of pain was something to truly behold.

Then it was all gone. The pain was over and 625 felt himself in a refreshing, cool darkness. But that wouldn't last. He looked up in relief, only to find them plummeting toward him. The Scithera. They were just above him, falling, getting closer. But no matter how long they fell, they never quite reached him. 625 only hoped they wouldn't, because if they did, they would summon the violet light, and the pain would begin anew.

They did reach him, at last. Their legs hooked into his skin like giant barbs, and the flash of violet started again. Then there was the pain.

The cycle repeated itself so many times 625 lost count. How he lost count was beyond him; something in this time loop seemed to dull his mind. Each time he prayed the schithera would never reach him. Each time it took so long that it seemed they never would. But each time they did, and the pain began anew.

"625." A voice cried out from the darkness. "625 are you hearing me?"

It was the voice of 625's creator and guardian Dr. Jumba Jookiba.

The pain ebbed away. Darkness gave way to a light yellow blur. 625's body throbbed with regular ache and relief and ache again. It must've been a dream. The constant cycle of pain and relief with the light and the scithera must've been caused by the throbbing aches he felt now. The fact that he couldn't tell how many times it happened was proof that it was a dream. The job at the abandoned lab must've really done a number on him. Never again would he accept any mission that involved mildly venomous, predatorial arthropods.

Now at last 625 could wake up and be rid of that nightmare. Now he could go back to 624 and shower her with the affection and the gemstones she loved so much. She was always able to bring him out of any slump he'd been through so far.

"625." The voice said again. "Is amazing you are being alive. "

625 blinked his eyes several times. They felt different somehow, as if they were drooping.

The blur faded into clear vision. 625 was in a small circular room strapped to a metal table. The walls were a dull yellow totally covered in flashing yellow buttons. He recognized it as the lab's OR. He'd seen other experiments being treated there, but he'd never been strapped to the metal table himself.

"Can you speak?" Jumba asked.

"I can."

For a moment 625 didn't think he was the one who said those words. His voice was smooth, childlike and enticed tingles in all who listened to it. his voice was beautiful, this voice was not. This voice sounded like the quacking of a duck, that is I 625 would've known what a duck was back then. It was like some obnoxious noise making toy you'd buy at an amusement store. It took 625 some time to register that he was the one who said those words.

"My voice!" 625 cried. "What happened to my voice?"

"I am being so sorrying 625." Jumba said, shaking his head. "You were caught in blast of X and gamma radiation as containment field of fusion power plant destabilized. All of abandoned laboratory was vaporized, as was Hyperglow, and all life on tip of laboratory's peninsula. Your vocal cords were scarified in blast."

"That shouldn't have done this." 625 pleaded with Jumba as if he could change reality. "My voice should still be the same."

"Am sorrying once more 625." Jumba as almost crying then. "Radiation blast was on magnitude of many hundreds of times greater than any destructive force you had yet been exposed to. Is amazing you are even alive."

"Am I going to have this voice forever?" 625 pleaded again.

"Am afraid is being so."

625 was in too much shock at that moment to have any kind of emotional reaction to what he just heard. He let his head lean to the side and saw his paw strapped by metal bars to the table next to his face.

The paw… it was… it wasn't his own. 625 could swear he was looking at the paw of some other experiment. It wasn't his. His was gold brighter than gold itself. His skin was like smoothed velvet. This fur was coarse, bristley, and the color of earth toned vomit. The patched of bare skin on the palm and fingertips were hardened and a shade of greasy sandstone.

625 couldn't accept that he was looking at his own paw. Not until-

"As you are seeing," Jumba said. "Vocal cords are not only scarified parts."

"How much of me?" 625 whispered.

"All of you."

He was the symbol of perfection. His physical prowess was matched only by his physical beauty. The largest, most exquisitely colored and cut etherite in the galaxy could not equal his allure. Only one thing could. How would she react to him, seeing him like this. There was only one way he could know.

"I want to see myself." 625 commanded.

"No!" Jumba shouted. "You cannot! Will be too traumatic."

"Right now dammit!"

Jumba sighed and knelt over.

625's pulse skyrocketed at that moment. 624 aside, how would he react to seeing his own image. Jumba said he was scarred. If his paw was any indication, it would not be pleasant. 625's breathing became shallow and Jumba started to rise. He was going to be some kind of deformed freak he knew it. But he had to see. He had to know just how deep and how vast these scars went. A lump formed in his throat and his eyes began to water. Jumba stood up straight. 625 looked into a plain square mirror.

When he first saw them, 625 believed he would never be able to fathom anything more hideous than the schithera. The horrid things with the unnatural single heads and split bodies, clawed arms coming out of their mouths, and bodies covered with barbs. And then there was that appalling rattle they made by beating their claws together. Nothing could ever be more revolting than that. That's what he swore when he saw them for the first time.

But he was wrong. There was something uglier. There was something so horrific that no words in no language could ever express it. 625 was looking at it.

What happened to him? What happened to his glimmering golden fur? What happened to his great loppy ears with their razor sharp tips? What happened to his perfect almond eyes? They were all gone. He was a scarred, disfigured, twisted, and unnatural shadow of his former self. He was once a showpiece, a trophy, the symbol of perfection, strength, superiority, and sex, by which all other symbols would be judged. Now he was a freak.

His ungliness of his fur only accentuated his now dirt colored nose, which further accentuated his eyes. Gone were the fierce and witty almonds, replaced by sagging flops of flesh. His ears were reduced to wiggling nubs, and his antennae and quills were gone entirely, along with his lower arms. And his deadly fangs were now the tackiest of buck teeth.

He didn't even want to know how it happened. But his wish was not to be.

"Antennae, quills, all disintegrated by radiation." Jumba whispered. "Lower arms damaged too badly for to save. Amputation was necessary. Canines were pitted and had to be shaved down. Rest of body is deformed permanently."

Permanently?

That word finally drove 625 over the edge. He would be like this forever. His legacy was gone. He would never be hailed as the founder of the galaxy's dominant species. A special place in the history books would be reserved for him under the word failure, but all that he could live with. The one thing beyond his ability to cope was what he was now compared to 624.

The precious 624, the only creature alive who could make him feel humble. Her fur was like a cloud. Her shape was beyond perfection, and the way she moved was as smooth as water. And she smelled like sweet citrus fruit. He would never forget that smell.

What was he now compared to her? He was less than nothing. He didn't deserve her anymore. And after hearing the word permanent, he knew he never would again.

625 couldn't hold back any longer. Tears streamed down his eyes, soaking his fur. His stomach felt like it was turning inside out. His breath was shot. His arms and legs jittered involuntarily. He grit his teeth together and clenched his fists. An anger unlike anything he knew built up inside of him. He tried holding it back, but he knew it would get the best of him sooner or later. It turned out to be sooner.

He screamed.

Jumba was taken aback by the volume. He dropped mirror, shattering it, and fell to the floor covering his ears.

Adrenalin rushed through 625. He pulled at his restraints, tearing them from their molecular welds. He leapt forward and crashed into the door of the OR. Not even waiting for it to slide open, he clung to the door and tore to shreds so he could get through.

With his eyes covered in tears 625 could only see a blur. He raced on all fours through corridors and hallways, not caring where he was going. When he encountered a barrier, he ripped through it and kept going. Charging through hallways he passed by so many other experiments, many of whom he'd never seen before. But all of them were shocked and frightened by the display. None of them tried to stop him.

He hit his head against another wall. He unsheathed his claws and plunged his hands into the metal. Pulling and tearing, the wall finally gave way and he was free to continue. But cold air blew in his face.

625 wiped the tears from his eyes and looked forward. He saw an infinite calm ocean over a cloudless red sunset. He looked down. Great metal pillars dropped many hundreds of feet into the water below.

It was the end of the lab. It must have been built as a rig over an ocean. He'd never actually been outside it before, aside from the shuttle trips to his various missions, but even then he never saw the outside of the lab.

Water was his only weakness. It was the only conventional means to kill him. In an instant 625 made his decision. He let his body lean forward and drop from the end of the lab. The water drew ever closer with the promise of relief. He closed his eyes just before impact.

It was dark. The dark was comfortable. Consciousness was like a dream, and even that was slipping away. The promise of whatever lay beyond was the greatest comfort of all. Be it existence of a different kind, or nonexistence. Whatever it would be promised to be better than what was.

But then consciousness came back. At first the dreamlike state returned, but that soon faded into higher consciousness, and finally, waking.

625 had never felt so cold. He felt cold on the inside. He didn't know if it was real or only in his head, but he hated it. He opened his eyes to a blur. Blinking a few times the world cleared up. He was back in the lab, though he didn't recognize the plain square room. Wherever it was, the dull lighting and lac of anything inside seemed to fit the mood. He laid on his back wrapped in a thin blanket. A tube reaching down his throat had sucked the water from his lungs. He breathed through the tube. Jumba had saved him. But why would he do that?

"625?" Came the familiar accented voice.

The opportunity to find out why Jumba had saved him just arose, but 625 didn't want to take it. He reached up and pulled the tube out of his throat, and laid there in silence.

"I was with warnings of you yes?" Jumba continued. "I am so sorry 625."

"You should be." 625 whispered back. "It was your god damn mission that did this to me."

"Uhhh…"

Jumba was about to speak but paused. Jumba had many ways of openly expressing sorrow. Crying was not one of them, but 625 knew he had to be suffering at that moment. He was unmoved, until he heard sniffling. Jumba wouldn't have been doing that. Someone else was there. Through the sniffles came a peep of a voice.

"No…" 625 groaned. "Please don't tell me that's her."

As an answer to that question, the bright pink face of experiment 624 appeared above his eyes. Her face quivered at the sight. She shook her head.

"Naga…" She whispered, as if hoping that through sheer will that reality could be undone. "naga… naga… naga."

"Don't look at me like this."

But she didn't listen. She continued to stare. She saw him like he was now. That was the last thing he ever wanted. Whatever learning of his suicide would do to her would be nothing compared to her seeing him as he was now. And she just saw him as he was now.

He wanted to cheer her up somehow, but at this point only Jumba would be capable of that. He took a risk.

"Are you absolutely sure this is permanent?" 625 asked.

"Yes." Jumba groaned back.

"Can't you… grow me new skin? New ears? I wouldn't mind if I went without my second pair of arms, or my quills or antennae, but you could at least grow me new skin couldn't you?"

"I tried." Jumba answered. "Radiation blast was causing of numerous genetic mutations. Said mutations are impossible for to account for completely. Your body will be rejecting any attempting of graftings of artificial tissue."

"I see."

625 closed his eyes and laid motionless as 624 continued to sob into his chest.

625 sat in a cushy chair with small electrical nodes attached to his fingers. In front of him was a small field of moving images. A small fishlike creature with a flattened head and clearly predatory markings wearing a police uniform held blasters out in front of him fending off an oncoming horde of fully suited lizard soldiers. They were both commonly seen species. The first resembling four foot, what 625 would later come to know as hammerhead sharks, and the second being of the same race that guarded the abandoned lab he'd attempted to raid a little over a year ago.

The little shark man responded to 625's every twitch of the fingers to defend himself. What 625 knew for sure was that he was playing a small time cop who was caught in the middle of a massive arms smuggling deal. Any details beyond that he didn't care to pay attention to.

A shadow moved across the floor. 625 noticed it but paid no attention. A similar figure stood next to him and placed a large plate on the arm of the chair. A quick twist of the wrist and everything within the image in front of 625 froze in place and turned to grayscale.

625 looked down to his armchair. The plate had quite a large sandwich on it. It was toasted, and filled with all of his favorite meats, cheeses and vegetables. His mouth watered for the sandwich but his mood gave him no reason to be thankful.

"I could use a sandwich right about now." 625 grumbled.

625 pulled the nodes off of his fingers to better handle the meal. He took no time to savor, but tossed the entire sandwich in his mouth, chewing just long enough to get it to go down.

625 looked down passed the plate to see 624 with clasped hands and an unsure expression. Why she still did these things for him he couldn't understand. It had to be out of pity. After that day she never made love to, or even slept with him. He didn't blame her, after all. She couldn't possibly be attracted to him now. Even more than that she couldn't even still care about him, despite the fact that her eyes always swear that she does.

"Are you ever going to stop playing your games?" 624 asked.

"Is there anything else for me to do, I mean besides the stuff I don't want to?" 625 answered.

"The only things you ever want to do anymore are play games, sleep, and eat sandwiches."

"I know! It's a great way to live isn't it?"

"Jumba just completed 626's testing. He says 626 is just like you, but vicious like a bloodthirsty animal."

"Good for him. At least he can't feel anything."

Angel sighed. Anything she said in response he would just have some witty retort to, and usually an insulting one. She looked a bit more carefully at her former lover. He'd let himself go to the heap over the past year. He wasn't trim or muscular anymore. He was flabby, and he was fat. He never did anything anymore except play his games, make sandwiches, and make insulting comments at anyone who tried to reason with him, even if it was her. She wanted so desperately to comfort him somehow, but words wouldn't be any use here.

624 crawled up onto the chair and curled up against 625. She winced. His fur was like the bristles of an abrasive cleaning instrument, and he knew it.

625 promptly shoved her off of him, and off of the chair. She landed with a thud on the cold metal floor and looked back up at him longingly. The gaze that could once hypnotize him now only angered him.

625 hoped out of the chair and stood over 624 menacingly, snarling and claws extended. 624 scuffled away but continued to stare right into his eyes, only fueling his anger.

"You don't get it do you?" 625 yelled. "There's nothing of the man you once knew left inside me! I'm a husk! I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, some kind of yellow amorphous blob! Those games and those sandwiches? Those are the only things left in my life! Oh sure, there's you, but you know what? But you're nothing more than a pain in my side now. And do you know why?"

625 started crying.

"Because I'm worth your attention. I'm not worth your attention, I'm not worth your feelings, I'm not even worth your pity! And when I see you wasting your time and effort on me, well I know how much of a hassle I must be now, and it makes me feel horrible. You get it? You make me feel horrible!"

625 raised his claw.

"So take this message to heart, and don't ever waste your time on me again."

625 swung his claw down, swiping it across 624's check. She flung herself down against the floor and then looked back up with watery eyes and parted lips. Three red streaks could be seen on her face trickling dark pink blood.

624 began to cry, but just as quickly her face became enraged. She stood up and stood right I the face of 625.

"If that's what you want. You want me to hate you? Fine! I hate you!"

624 shoved 625 out of the way and made her way toward the door. 625 smiled and breathed a little easier after what just happened. She was no longer going to torture herself over him. She was going to seek other, more worthy experiments to occupy her time, and maybe even her bed. She would try her damnedest to forget all about him. That was how it should be, and 625 felt a weight of shame lift from his shoulders as she stomped away in her rage.

624 reached the door, it slid open letting a stream of light into the room. At once the light turned from pale white to bright red. Sirens rang out through the hall. 624 jumped back in shock.

Jumba's voice echoed through the hallway over the intercom.

"This is not being drill!" Jumba screamed in the utmost panic. "Repeating, is no drill! Laboratory has been breached by Federation troops! All experiments report for dehydration! Repeating, all experiments report for dehydration!"

624 turned around to look at the only hope she had left to alleviate the crisis.

625 folded his arms and huffed. "Looks like the cavalry finally caught onto ole' President Hammy's fiendish plots. I guess it's off to the ice ovens we go."

624 ran up to 625 and grabbed hold of the fur on his sternum.

"How could you say that!" she shrieked. "You've still got all your old powers! You can stop the assault! All the other experiments are counting on you!"

"I forgot the part where that was my problem."

Those were the words that finally told 624 the man she once knew was dead, that she was looking at a stranger.

Crying out loud, she turned around and ran out the door. 625 followed far more casually.

625 huffed and slumped over on his butt. Stress eased away from his body as the last of the memories floated away from his brain. He would be safe in his world of idleness and lethargy until the day they would rear their ugly heads again.

625 stood back up and looked out the window. The sky was starting to blue, which meant the sunrise wasn't too far away. The rain had died down and the clouds parted. But something was still amiss. Some guilty feeling still bit at the back of his neck. He searched for some time and realized what it was. The memories were incomplete. There was still one thing left for him to do.

625 turned around and dropped from the counter, walking out of the kitchen.

Someone rang the doorbell. At six thirty in the morning? Who in their right mind would do such a thing? Stitch lifted his head from the couch pilow and stared lazy eyes at the front door.

"Aga blabla." He grunted to himself, and flopped his head back down onto the couch pillow.

The doorbell rang again. Stitch yanked the pillow out from beneath his head and shoved it ontop of his head to block out the noise. The doorbell rang a third time and Stitch could hear it even through the pillow.

Stitch tossed the pillow to the ground and got up. After rubbing his eyes and yawning he began to make his way to the door.

"Nala queesta." He muttered under his breath, rubbing his eyes again.

Stitch pushed his way through the dog door to be met with the solemn face of 625.

"Gabba?" Stitch asked.

625 handed Stitch a photograph of someone they both knew very well.

"Angel?" Stitch asked again.

"You don't know this, but I knew her long before you did." 625 answered. "I knew her in quite a few senses of the word too. But that was a long time ago, and allot's changed since then. I guess what I'm trying to say is, if we ever get her back, you can keep her.
Just make sure of one thing. You take good care of her, because she's the best. Believe me, I would know better than anyone else."

625 turned around and walked down the peeling steps of his cousin's house, leaving Stitch to ponder just what it was he was saying.

fin