Mahina Has A Glitch!

From Failure We Learn

"Jumba? Jumba? What happened?" Pleakley asked.

She pushed herself to her feet. Brushing off the wrinkles in her clothes, she walked over to the super computer. It came on without a sound. Mahina started the work up again.

"That's it, Pleakley. It's over. I can't build a new fusion chamber." Jumba bemoaned, mourning the chamber and Stitch together. He paused, hearing the computer. Him and Pleakley looked over. They saw Mahina typing away at the computer. "What are you doing, girl?"

Mahina hit enter. The computer gave a negative answer. "Working."

"It's no use. The chamber is ruined." Jumba threw his arm over the destroyed remains of the chamber. "We failed Stitch."

"Nah, the first one just failed." Mahina countered. She was still typing away at the computer. "We just have to see where it went wrong, then make it better."

"Yeah!" Pleakley cheered. "You can do that. I mean, you built the first one."

"I didn't build first one!" Jumba admitted. "I ordered it... from catalogue."

"A catalogue?" Pleakley repeated.

"They still had to have a working system when they made it. If they figured it out, we can too." Mahina informed him.

She was whirled back. Jumba was by her side now. His four eyes full of grief already, tears too. "Stop, Mahina."

"Why? There's still a chance." Mahina replied, confused but not surprised that Jumba was giving in this easily.

"And now there is no hope for my little creation. Jumba has failed family." Jumba sat down, slumping against the computer.

Mahina sighed, shaking her head. She gave Jumba a pat on the head. "Okay. We can mope for a few minutes. After that, we're going to get back to work."

"But-"

"Did you get Stitch from a catalogue?" Mahina interrupted.

Jumba stuttered. "No?"

"You still built him." Mahina reminded him. "You helped us build the upgrades to the house. To the spaceship. Our hovercrafts. You're an evil genius."

"Jumba is not feeling like evil genius-" Jumba ran his hand over his face.

"I want to hear you say it." Mahina insisted. "My name is Jumba...well?"

"My name Jumba." Jumba obeyed, half heartedly.

"And I'm an evil genius." Mahina instructed.

"And- and I'm an evil genius." Jumba recited, a bit more excited. "No, I... I don't like to brag."

Mahina patted his head again. "All we did was fail this one time. There's not a lot of time to fail for good. We failed just once. If you had failed just once, you wouldn't be here! If I failed back then at sticking around like you wanted, I wouldn't be here with you know! I don't want to think about how that would've gone."

Jumba had to agree with that. He couldn't imagine life on Earth without Mahina. He hadn't intended to care for the people of Earth. He saw them as things for his experiment to destroy, tools in his plans for anarchy. But Mahina gave him the chance to see the other side. Looking at her back then, Jumba saw he couldn't wreak havoc on her planet. He couldn't leave her alone there either.

If he hadn't the courage to adopt her, Mahina could still be living on those streets. Or worse: she could be living on the continent, in one of those 'foster families' Bubbles had tried to send Mahina and Lilo into.

Jumba didn't want to imagine it. Not when he was seeing Mahina now. She was standing so proud by the computer. There was a bright idea in her amber eyes. That kind of determination that came with being young and full of hope. She wasn't an evil genius, but she was a genius like him.

"From failure we learn. Success, not so much. We gotta keep moving forward." Mahina told him. "Ready to commence a second test?" She offered.

She wasn't going to give up any time soon. Mahina worked like that. Over the past year, Jumba had seen how Mahina worked. She never gave up. No matter how many times her machines broke down, she went back to work on it without missing a beat.

If Jumba didn't give in, Mahina would probably go on to build the thing herself.

'Well...I can't let her take full credit.'

"Mahina, my wrench!"

Mahina smiled proudly at him. "Have Pleakley get it. I'm working." She turned to the computer, typing away again.

Jumba turned to instruct Pleakley on just that. He saw the alien wiping at their eye, clearly having just been crying. "Pleakley!"

"I wasn't crying!" Pleakely lied, brushing their arm on their face. They were trying very hard to hide the tears. It wasn't working.