Chapter 22: Ohana, or Why You Should Never Eat Cafeteria Sandwiches

What the- Am I floating?

Amy slowly opened her eyes, and saw that she was, indeed, floating. She had managed to catch herself through telekinesis a few feet above the ground, and Reuben was standing beneath her, a relieved expression on his face.

"Nice catch," he said after a moment, "but you might wanna get down before anything else happens." She nodded, and slowly lowered herself, landing on her feet before her powers wore off and she fell to her knees. "Whoa, are you okay?" He started to kneel next to her, looking at the stunned expression on her face.

"Just… startled… I really wasn't expecting that…" Amy stood up, and looked at her hands. The microscope was still intact. Both she and Reuben sighed in relief, and Amy set the microscope down. "Done with getting all of that…"

"Ah, playing assistant, are ya? You shoulda seen Jumba when he learned Pleakley was leaving for a while, he acted like he was being robbed or something." Reuben smiled, then glanced at the sandwich he'd set down. "Don't eat that, cousin," he said to Sparky, who was sniffing it. "You're sick enough as it is."

"Cousin?" Amy looked at him in confusion. Reuben looked back at Amy, who had a furrowed brow, and smiled.

"That's right, Jumba never explained it to you, did he? You know he refers to himself as an evil genius?"

"It's hard to miss."

"Well," Reuben continued, lifting the sandwich from Sparky's path before the electric experiment could take a bite, "the reason he calls himself that is because he's created several – and by several, I mean about 629 – genetic experiments for evil purposes, from causing electrical problems to channeling your worst fear, and one couldn't do anything but bark. It was really annoying." He gestured to Sparky. "Sparky here is Experiment 221. I," he set the sandwich on another table, "Am Experiment 625, and the second-to-last officially named experiment, the last numerically being 626, also known as Stitch. Since we were all made by Jumba, we're all, by technicality, considered cousins."

Amy looked at Reuben, taking a moment to register everything he'd just said. When it sank in, she nodded, slowly.

"So…" she began, "you're telling me that there are, aside from you and Sparky, about 627 other genetically modified beings in the universe? And they're all different?"

"According to theory," Reuben shrugged. "One, called Leroy, was cloned about a thousand times, and another, Experiment 628, was never activated. And I have no idea what happened to 627. But yeah, there are a lot of us. And…" something in his eyes lit up as a thought occurred to him, "now that I think about it, considering you were made using some of Jumba's stolen DNA samples…"

"Ohana!" Sparky suddenly cheered, smiling at Amy. Amy frowned.

"What's ohana?" Amy asked as Reuben walked over to her, and she felt her cheeks heat up as he put a hand on her shoulder.

"It's kind of our motto," Reuben responded, smiling and patting her on the back. "It means family, and, according to my friend Lilo, it means nobody gets left behind."

"Or forgotten," Sparky added, rolling onto his back.

"That's right, or forgotten," Reuben smiled, before turning back to Amy. "Welcome to the family, Amy!"

"Belly?" Sparky asked, and Amy smiled, rubbing the yellow creature's stomach. Sparky purred (was it purring, or a friendly growl?), and nuzzled her arm with his nose.

Family… Amy thought to herself, I have a family… "Eek!" She jumped as the sandwich suddenly lunged at her. Reuben caught it, throwing it into the trash.

"I knew there was something wrong with that sandwich!"