FINALLY, after for-freaking-ever, I give you an update! SMYZZYX!
CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
IT'S A SMALL WORLD
Saturday morning came with a bang. The sun and the residents of the Pelekai house were barely up when the news came. Two experiment pods had been activated. Lilo and Stitch were out the door before Nani could insist that they eat breakfast first. Vay, Kirk, Gidgel, and Pleakley were all still asleep. This left only Jumba and Leera to go after the two. As Jumba was just barely awake himself, and Nani had work in an hour, Leera volunteered to follow Lilo and Stitch and see to their safety.
There was a chilly mist in the air as Leera set out down the lush green trail following Stitch's tracks. She would gladly have taken the dune buggy if it weren't for the dense foliage and the narrowness of the trail. She moved at a brisk walk, panting heavily as she fought her way through bushes and low tree branches, acquiring a few scratches in the process. After a few minutes she emerged into a small clearing. Here she stopped to catch her breath and to take note of her surroundings. She spotted Stitch's fresh tracks in the damp earth, leading across the clearing and into an even denser-looking thicket on the other side.
Leera groaned. No way was she even about to try to follow them in that mess! Getting her breath, she glanced about the clearing, looking for an opening. She was just about to resume her chase when a distant shout caught her attention. Straight ahead, in the direction the tracks led, she heard it again: a girl's angry shouts. Lilo. Another shout followed a moment later, this time in a man's deep baritone. Leera could not make out what they were shouting; they seemed so far away. For a fleeting moment she thought she recognized the man's voice, but just as suddenly she wondered who she could have been thinking of. The man shouted again, and all reasonable thoughts escaped her as the ground trembled and bushes rustled frantically on the other side of the clearing.
Without warning, Stitch sprang from the bushes. Leera was so taken by surprise that she didn't even have time to move aside. Stitch collided with her and knocked her over backward. She landed hard on her patooki and Stitch tumbled over her and rolled into a tree. The containment capsule he'd been carrying slipped from his paws and fell clattering against a rock, where it popped open. The experiments inside crawled out and, at the thunderous sound of approaching footsteps, scampered off into the underbrush. Leera caught a glimpse of them as they passed: a dark purple lizard with two heads and no back legs, and a silver-and-white striped fur ball that looked like a kitten with a scorpion's tail.
They'd just vanished from sight when a second, much larger body burst through the brush. Leera, still sitting on the ground where she'd fallen, stared up in awe at the twenty-foot-tall gray alien who was now standing in the clearing. He was lean and very muscular, and the blue shadows thrown by the early morning sun cast him in a dramatic light that made him look as though he had been sculpted out of stone. His two small eyes were as blue as the dawn sky. They glistened like little jewels as he cast them down upon the semi-conscious Stitch. A deep rumble rose from his throat and he bared his pointed teeth in an unmistakable sneer.
"Little trog! Where are the experiments?" He took a menacing step forward and noticed the empty containment capsule. He frowned. "You let them go?"
Suddenly alert, Stitch jumped to his feet and picked up one half of the capsule, turning it over and shaking it as though expecting something to fall out of it.
"Ih? Gaba gone?" He threw the capsule down and proceeded to bang his head against it. "Naga! Naga! Naga!"
"Stitch?" Lilo's voice called out from somewhere nearby. "Where'd you go?" A moment later she came running out of the bushes into the clearing, where she collided with Gantu's leg.
"Ih, cousins gone," Stitch said sadly as he held up the empty capsule half he'd been banging his head on and shook it again. Lilo glared up at Gantu and pointed a threatening finger at him.
"You big dummy! What'd you do with those 'speriments?"
"I didn't do anything with them! I never got a chance to do anything with them, because your little trog set them loose!"
"He did not!" Lilo argued. "You made him lose them!"
"Did not!"
"Did too!"
"Did not!"
"Did t— "
"HOLD IT! HOLD EVERYTHING!"
The party in the clearing looked as one toward the source of the interruption. Pleakley came skittering out of the bushes behind Leera and Stitch, coming to a stop beside his wife.
"Leera, what do you think you're doing out here, chasing after experiments this early in the morning! And in your condition! You could have at least put something warmer on." He looked her up and down. Leera felt perfectly comfortable in her sleeveless muumuu. "And why are you sitting on the ground? Germs!" Pleakley squealed, grabbing her by the arms and pulling her roughly to her feet.
"Oh please, Wendy, stop being such a drama queen! It's just a little dirt, and you know, 'dirt don't hurt.'" But Pleakley wasn't listening. He was already stripping off the overcoat he was wearing over his pajamas. He started to drape it around Leera's shoulders, but she shrugged it off, saying, "No thank you. I'm fine. The hot flashes keep me warm enough. And so does the exercise, which is actually very good for someone 'in my condition.'" She said these last words in a mock airy tone that sounded very much like her husband.
"Well excuse me for caring," Pleakley muttered, obviously hurt as he pulled the overcoat back on. He looked up and noticed Gantu. "Oh, great." Then, to Leera: "He didn't hurt you, did he?"
Leera looked puzzled. "Why would he hurt me?"
"Well, get in his way when he's after one of Jumba's experiments, he's not gonna ask you kindly to move aside."
Meanwhile, Lilo and Gantu had resumed their argument.
"Did not!"
"Did too!"
"Did not!"
"Did too!"
"Did not!"
"Big dummy!"
"Vile Earthling!"
"Excuse me," Leera said loudly, calling their attention, "but would anyone mind telling me what in Blitznak is going on here? Lilo, who is this man? And what does he have to do with Jumba's experiments?"
"His name's Gantu, and he wants the 'speriments 'cuz— "
Leera gasped and stared up at the tall, buff alien. "Gantu? Captain Gantu?"
Gantu regarded her with a suspicious look before confirming his identity.
"Yes, I am Captain Gantu."
"Not anymore, you're not," Lilo grumbled.
Gantu growled inaudibly. "I am Gantu, recently retired captain of the Galactic Armada. And you are…?"
"Oh my God," Leera whispered, continuing to stare up at him. She blushed and suddenly felt faint. "I can't believe it." She placed one hand against Pleakley for support and the other on her belly. Pleakley snaked an arm around her waist and gently pulled her closer.
"Leera? Do you know him?" he whispered, sounding appalled at the very idea. Leera glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, biting her lip as she nodded, almost imperceptibly, before turning to address Gantu again.
"M-my name is Leera Analilia. You probably don't remember me, but… I could never forget you."
Lilo, Stitch and Pleakley gasped in unison at this revelation. Gantu only looked all the more suspicious as he narrowed his eyes.
"How do you know me?" he demanded.
Leera took a steadying breath and blinked back a small sting in her eye. "You saved my life."