Stitch escapes the Jaboodies and the Woolagongs and ends up in the Huangshan mountains. There he meets and quickly bonds with orphaned human girl Ai, and they look for a shrine while the aliens still go after Experiment 626.
Ai is ready to show off a strobe light at school, only for her and Stitch to fight against a Jaboodie who has possessed her teacher. Meanwhile, Jiejie tries to convince Daiyu that Ai is getting a good education at her town's school.
The Grand Councilwoman sends Jumba and Pleakley to Earth to rescue Stitch from the Jaboodies and the Woolagongs, only to find him now living with the little girl Ai, unwilling to go with them.
Stitch and Ai run off to a shrine and meet a strange sage who sneaks the two out. He gives Jumba a scroll, inspiring the alien scientist to make a qilin. Stitch and Ai then return home to find the Jaboodies' drones ready to take him away.
Jumba creates a dragon, which disobeys him. He then realizes the dragon needs a mate or it will turn evil for 100 years. They succeed in this, but have to fight off the Woolagongs, who threaten the newborn dragon egg.
Ai takes Stitch to a bridge with many locks to lock one on it as a symbol of their unbreakable friendship. Stitch does not agree with where to place the lock, resulting in him and Ai fighting over it and dropping it below the bridge.
Ai gets Dahu to direct the town's annual Chinese New Year parade, but Meiying and her posse accidentally burn the dragon puppet. Meanwhile, Stitch tricks the Jaboodies and the Woolagongs to fight each other over him.
As Ai makes a video for an online event, Jumba creates a nian who captures children around town. Stitch and Ai find out that the nian likes movies, so they use this to trick him into leading them to where he captured the children.
Daiyu brings Ai's cousin Bao to try to convince Ai to move to the city. Jumba creates a fenghuang that flies off to find a shrine. Ai, Stitch, and Bao head after the fenghuang and run into two alien hunters who are also going after it.
The Woolagongs send a spy with a "dream beam" to capture Stitch, but the spy's beam hits Ai instead, bringing her dreams and imaginary friend to life. Stitch, Jumba, and Pleakley search for Ai after she's absent from school.
Stitch mass produces mythical creatures Jumba has been working on, ruining the town's planned nuo opera in the process. Cobra Bubbles radios the Galactic Federation to capture Stitch, but calls it off after Stitch remedies his mistake.
Pleakley receives a strange alien cube, which gives Stitch and Ai "brothers" named Scratch and Yong. They all get along until Scratch starts convincing Stitch to destroy things, triggering Stitch's metamorphosis program.
Stitch has grown into a giant monster thanks to Scratch's influence and trickery, destroying a city under construction. Ai gets through to the real Stitch before he destroys everything on behalf of the Jaboodies.
