Chronicles of the Elusive Angel (Vol. 3):

Peace

C/by: Kenjaje

Chapter 1: Missing

"Lilo, grab hold!" Stitch hollered reaching out his hand to Lilo, whom was dwindling crazily while hanging onto the ledge of the mountain trail. Stitch reached his arm as far out as he could, but Lilo was too far away for him to even get a close enough reach, and he wasn't able to latch onto the side; too much weight would dislodge the rock he was on, which was already off-balance to begin with.

"Stitch, you're too far!" She cried, trying her best to reach his outstretched paw, but her hand that held onto the lower edge was slipping, if Stitch didn't do something to reach her, it wouldn't be pretty. He looked around for something, a rope, a vine, something to extend his reach. He squinted as the crimson reflection off of Lilo's pendant came up under the lip of his eye.

"Eh, eh!" He said, thinking quickly of an object. He gripped his own pendant from around his neck and held it by the stone. He leaned over the edge twitching the looped rope. "Lilo, Lilo." He said, trying to get her attention; she was concerned about the hold she had on the lower ledge, but looked up to see Stitch's smiling face and the pendant in his hand.

"Rock-a-hula!" She cheered, gripping the rope of the pendant. Stitch pulled her up and took her off the unbalanced boulder just before it went crashing off the side to the bottom of the piedmont. "That was close. But where's dummie-head?"

"Zaza-ba!" Stitch pointed, and ran off in that direction, Lilo followed behind but was lost in Stitch's dust.

"Hey!" She moped with disappointment. "I wish he wasn't so fast..." Stitch, still running far ahead, now caught up to Gantu, whom was running to escape and take the experiment pod he had to Dr. Hamsterveil. Gantu turned around as he heard the footsteps of his little blue pursuer and gunned his pace even faster once he saw the bullet was on his tail. Stitch, however, still managed to keep on the tail of his enemy, and Gantu was desperate to the measure of taking out his blaster and attempting to halt Stitch with the point-and-shoot method.

"Hold still trog!" He commanded while running and firing at the dodging Stitch. To our hero, it was merely a game of cat and mouse as Stitch took a leap of life onto Gantu's back and covered his eyes with his hands, as his usual method was. "Hey, I can't see!" Gantu complained, while trying to fight Stitch off. Stitch's other two arms came out of his skin, and he snatched the pod which the big whale held in his hands and quickly took his arms back in, hiding the pod from sight. However Gantu had managed to grasp Stitch's back and pulled him off with one mighty tug, a moment too late however as Stitch now had the pod.

"Ju katchuta?"

"Oh you bet I'm angry!" He shouted, while pulling a second blaster and firing a shot, or at least a shot would have fired. All Stitch heard was the click of an empty barrel as he jerked his head to face his left shoulder. "Bah!" Gantu grunted, and tossed Stitch aside, hard, against the mountain wall, causing Stitch to make an indention of his body into the rock. "You can have this pod, trog" He thought sadistically, "I've done my job, and when our plan kicks in, we'll have you instead of that weak experiment!" He laughed to himself as he fled the scene, pretending like he had lost once again.

"Stitch! Stitch! ...Stitch?" Lilo ran past the crevice in the mountainside screaming Stitch's name, but then back tracked and looked over what she had missed the first time. "Are you ok?" She asked, as Stitch grunted with pain and lifted himself out of the hole that shaped around his body.

"Naga forubo, eh." He told her, shaking his head.

"Maybe if you hadn't have run off like that this wouldn't have happened." She said, folding her arms and looking away in a mock pout.

"Miga soka." Stitch said, now feeling completely bummed out about how he'd left Lilo behind.

"Hey..." she cooed, now realizing how bad her fake expression made him feel. "I didn't mean to make you feel bad, I was only kidding..."

"Huh?" He asked, now confused.

"You goof-ball! I wouldn't be mad at you over something like that. What do you think I am? Obsessively compulsive?" Stitch raised his eyebrow; Lilo straightened her face. "That's not funny..." Stitch smiled, the look of 'gotcha' on his face. "Anyway, did you get the pod?"

"Takah!" He proclaimed, extending his lower-left arm, revealing a small, concealed, blue experiment pod; the number's 055 engraved on it.

"Great! Let's take it to Jumba and find out what it does, so we can find the perfect place for it."

"Yeah! ...Ow..." Stitch said, rubbing the right side of his neck. A strange feeling of pain came to him, sort of a dull but deep throbbing pain, which got worse when he faced to his left shoulder.

"Are you ok?"

"...Eh. Stitch ok." He replied, where after came: "Ow..."

"What hurts? Let me see!" She demanded happily, toppling over Stitch and twisting his head to the left. He screamed loudly, but she seemed as if not to hear him while she examined his neck, and found nothing. "Nothing seems to be wrong." She lifted herself up and let Stitch go free, but he looked at her with big painful eyes, like a puppy that's just seen it's master leave it forever. "I'm sorry...did that really hurt you?" She folded her arms and held her chin at the knuckles of her hands looking down to the ground in sorrow.

"No." Stitch replied, a large grin now covering his face when she looked back at him.

"Hey! That's mean!"

"Lilo did it first!" He pointed out. She slumped her shoulders.

"I guess you're right, but still, you shouldn't have done it back." She told him, her hands on her hips. Stitch fiddled with his hands meekly.

"Stitch sorry." He apologized.

"No, it's ok. Now let's go, it's getting close to lunch time."

"But...buggy..." Stitch said, pointing to the side of the cliff. Lilo looked over and saw that the buggy they had used to get up to Gantu was now on the bottom of the cliff; Still in tact, but hard to get to.

"Can't you just climb down and toss it up? Or would that be too dangerous?" She said, handing back Stitch's pendant which she had pocketed until now.

"Uh...eh." He replied, after taking the pendant and placing it around his neck. He walked to the edge of the cliff, and jumped off, landing on the small buggy. "Iga...jiba...ziba!" He counted, lifting up the buggy and chucking it hard up and over the edge of the mountainside.

"Wow!" Lilo said in amazement, as Stitch climbed into the car acting as if that was nothing. (Which to him, it was.) Lilo climbed into the passenger's seat of the car, and buckled her seatbelt, as Stitch revved the engine and toggled the switch to reverse. He floored the buggy, except in reverse, sending them falling off of the edge of the cliff, and landing with screams at the bottom. Both of them were, of course, safe from the fall.

"Well now that was a waste of time wasn't it?" Lilo said, glaring at Stitch, who laughed embarrassingly.

"Ooops..."

"Jumba, Jumba!" Hollered Lilo, as she came crashing through the door to Jumaba and Pleakley's room. "Jumba we have another-what is that?" She stopped in midsentence; pointing to the small gun that Jumba was tinkering with on the table.

"Uh..." He said, turning to Lilo and trying to failingly hide what was on the table, even though it was pointless, as Lilo had already spotted it. "Is being...new toy?" He replied, except with a questioning tone and hopingly deceiving smile.

"Jumba," Lilo scolded, tapping her foot and twitching her finger, "is it something evil? You know you're not supposed to be evil anymore."

"Is...not evil." He replied, holding his hands up to reassure her. "Is...just device that makes people more open to other people's feelings and puts them under a trance should they be hypnotized by 383." He said quickly, and still smiling deceivingly. Lilo tapped her finger against her chin thinking Jumba's explanation over, while a few beads of sweat came on Jumba's head.

"Hm...good enough for me." Lilo told him, shrugging her shoulders, Jumba let out a sigh.

"Now what is it you are wanting?"

"Stitch and I found another experiment pod." She said, motioning to her left, however had she looked she would have noticed that Stitch was not present in the room, but Jumba said nothing. "We wanted to know what it does so that we can find it's perfect place." She said, brining her hands together in a praying manner while looking up at Jumba.

"Eh...will get back to you on that, for now, Jumba is busy, bidding you for to goodbye!" He shouted, shoving Lilo out the door, taking the experiment pod and slamming the entrance shut behind her.

"Hmph. He needs to spend more time out in the sun, right Stitch?" She immediately noticed the silence, and also noticed Stitch was not next to her as she looked to the right. "Stitch?" She called, heading down the hallway. His reply was coming from downstairs; loud slurping noises came from the kitchen downstairs. "Oh no! The coffee machine!" But it was too late, by the time she came downstairs Stitch had already slugged half the quantity down.

"Uh-oh." He said as soon as he heard Lilo come into the kitchen. "Blah!" He threw the coffee pot down and ran as fast as he could out the entrance that Lilo guarded, she tried to grab him but he slipped out of her arms and went around the back of the house, Lilo chased after. They ran across the whole house, breaking everything in sight, and reached the living room as Nani came in through the front door.

"Lilo!" She yelled instantly, Lilo finally caught Stitch and skidded to a stop right in front of Nani, whom was glaring at the little girl most menacingly.

"Heh...hi Nani!" She greeted, trying to sound cheerful, and quickly had to revert to keeping Stitch close to her in her grasp. "How was your day?" She asked, struggling to hold Stitch still.

"Oh, well, it was fine until I came home to a heart attack!" Stitch froze and looked at Nani as he heard her angry shout. "This is the last time that little blue wrecking ball drinks coffee. You two, go to bed, no dinner, now!"

"But...but...it's only six o'clock-"

"NOW!" Lilo scowled to the ground, and let Stitch go, he used this as a chance to escape but Lilo then grasped the scruff of his neck.

"C'mon Stitch, let's go." She said, dragging the hyper ball of fur up the stairs and into the elevator up to the tower. "I wish Nani wasn't so evil. Sometimes I think she's more evil then Hamsterveil, don't you Stitch?" Lilo asked, coming out of the closet after changing into her nightshirt. "Stitch!" She scolded, when she came upon him reading a book. "That's my diary, give it back!"

"Naga!" He said, jumping up to his bed. Lilo slumped and walked to her bed as he growled possessively.

"Keep it, I'll come back to you when you're off your coffee rush." She grumped, scooting under the covers and closing her eyes to go to sleep. Stitch closed his mouth and looked sadly at Lilo, then at the diary he held in his hands. Lilo heard a thump as Stitch dropped to the floor and walked onto her bed, and rolled over when he tapped her shoulder.

"Uh...soka." He apologized, handing her the diary. She took it and placed it on the nightstand near her bed. "Why sad Lilo?" He asked, she had laid back down and tried to go to sleep again.

"It's nothing, I just-"

"Naga, Stitch know Lilo sad for reason. Tell Stitch, Stitch listening." He said, holding a hand to his ear.

"I wish Nani would understand how hard it is to look after you all the time." Stitch crouched over guiltily and looked away. "No...I didn't mean it like that." Lilo cooed, Stitch didn't show any false guilt; she knew he was really feeling badly, unlike that afternoon. "Does your neck still hurt?" She asked, trying to change the subject.

"Ecaba..." He replied, still not looking at her.

"Well lay down, I'll message it for you." She forced Stitch to lay on his side near her feet, even though he resisted, and proceeded to message the left side of his neck. She did this until he fell asleep a minute or so later. She rolled over, falling asleep herself.

"Lilo...Lilo..." A voice called, shaking the sleepy girl awake.

"Ugh...Stitch? What time is it...Angel?" Her eyes bolted open as she saw Angel standing over her on the bed, shaking her awake.

"Finally! You sleep like a rock!"

"Angel...what are you doing here? Where's Stitch?" She asked, pointing to her feet, where Stitch was now not present.

"I don't know...I came to visit him tonight, and found him gone."

"Stitch is...missing?"