The Rebel *Sequel* (CC ALL, YTEEN) Ch. 26 - pg. 19 - 12 / 9 / 20

This is the place to post all your General Roswell fanfiction. Any Canon fics, which pick up directly from any episode of the show and that focus on Max/Liz, Michael/Maria, Isabel/Alex or Isabel/Jesse, Kyle/Tess, or all the couples together! Rule of Thumb: If Max healed Liz in the Crashdown in September 1999, then your fic belongs here. If it picks up from the show in any way, it belongs here.

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xilaj
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Re: The Rebel *Sequel* (CC ALL, YTEEN) Ch. 4 - pg. 4 - 3/1

Post by xilaj »

Can't wait Misha! That's great news, Alix
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Misha
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Re: The Rebel *Sequel* (CC ALL, YTEEN) Ch. 4 - pg. 4 - 3/1

Post by Misha »

Hey!

Sorry for the delays, but not only is this chapter long, but work is not being accommodating to my muse's desires, so... :roll:

As always, THANK YOU for all the feedback! Some interesting points:

xmag, here's some more of Van to feed your theories :mrgreen:

xilaj, it's a tricky balance, what to say in the present and then take you guys back to the past. I'm really telling two stories that keep spoiling each other.

Michelel in L.A., ah, where would the story be without your lightning beta speed! By the way, spy novels? Read the Bourne Identity. Love, love, loooooove that book! But just the first one.


So, back to the present!


Part 5 : Tales From Afar
November 2nd, 2011 – New York


1 : Liz


What about taking life as it comes? Topolsky once had suggested when she'd been playing high school guidance counselor a lifetime ago. Liz's harsh No! had been the only answer. Life without plans was chaotic. Running for one's life without a knowing where to go was plain suicidal. Keep it together, Liz, she told herself, her inner voice sounding suspiciously like Ray's. If there was someone who could make a plan on the fly, that was her self-defense instructor. And God, did she wish for a little bit of his wisdom right about now.

By her side, Jade's eyes were half closed, but the grip on her wrist belied any idea that he was not alert. He wasn't all there, granted, but he was there enough to make sure she wouldn't go anywhere without him tagging along. Which suits me just fine, she thought while taking a deep, calming breath. Prioritize your moves, Ray had instructed her, and take it from there.

First, escape. Second, find a hiding place. Third, panic about why Max's connection is so low. It sounded logical enough, even if her hands were trembling at the idea that something had happened to her connection with her husband. Thinking about what that meant was far more terrifying than the Unit, but the Unit was her problem now. Getting to Max was the problem after.

"Okay, here's what we have to do," she said out loud, the beginnings of a plan starting to form. "We'll get a bit further, change cars once or twice, and then we'll find a public phone. You wouldn't happen to have a phone, would you?" she asked, hope briefly shining through. Jade shook his head slowly. So much for shortcuts, she thought with resignation. "We have to contact Ray," she kept going with her half-constructed plan. "He'll tell us where to go, what's going on. Maybe he'll send someone for us."

Jade shook his head vehemently, as if she were arguing with him that he was not an alien. Maybe he’s hallucinating, she thought. Her hand was starting to become numb under his grip on her wrist.

"You don't know who's been compromised," he explained with an effort, "or if the Network has been breached…"

The Network, she thought, remembering her talk with Jade at the Bistro. "Dave. You said Dave was missing. Who has him? What's going on?"

Jade looked ahead. A couple of teenagers with headphones were mindlessly drumming their feet to the rhythm of their unheard songs. A man with a newspaper was further away. A few people passed in front of them, talking in Spanish or something close to it. Some gave them curious looks. A woman frowned. Liz tried to conceal the fact that Jade was holding her hostage by sitting closer to him, her free hand over the one holding her to look like an affectionate gesture. She wondered if she was fooling anyone.

He shook his head twice, and stared at her as if he hadn’t realized she’d been there all along.

“They warned us that if something happened to you… Zan wouldn’t forgive us…”

Who? Liz thought, the grip on her wrist finally loosing.

“I wasn't even born when Zan died… and I had… I had little hope for this Zan,” Jade said, his eyes closing again. “I volunt—volunteered to come… I thought… I would see firsthand what kind—kind of king we were fighting for.”

“Jade?” she tentatively asked. “Jade?” she said, placing her hand on his shoulder. He turned to her then, his eyes completely focused on her.

"Do you know… how he looks at you? When you're not looking at him?" Jade asked. It was too bizarre to see this stranger with Max's face speaking about such things.

"Jade, we need to—"

"Six years is a long time… to watch from the shadows," he continued, looking far more alert now than he'd been five minutes ago, "I was so incredibly angry when I was told I was not going to be part of Zan's Invisible Guard… Six years," he said again with almost longing, the memory of all he'd wanted and all he'd seen making him look older. "And then I realized," he whispered, getting closer to her, "that this was my last chance."

His eyes slightly glazed over again, and Liz was reminded of a drunken Max, one cold night ages ago.

"What—what chance?" she whispered back, getting closer to him as well.

"I never did it for the rebels, you know?" he said, moving back, his voice low but not a whisper any more. The subway stopped, more people coming in. "I did it for Van. And he's doing it for Zan." The doors hissed shut a minute after.

"Jade, maybe we should talk about this somewhere else," she suggested, trying to get a look at what station was coming next.

"I thought Van would make a great leader if he wasn't killed first, and those chances were astronomical. You don't know how it is, Liz. Khivar is ruthless, and everyone is afraid. Everyone but Van. And I wanted that, to feel so sure of myself and what I believe in…"

Van, the Rebels' leader, the guy who's meeting with Max, Liz's mind catalogued in a moment. The man I need to kick for putting us in this position, she thought grimly.

"So you came to this—this place because you were following Van?" she asked, the word planet almost escaping her mouth.

"Following Van's dream," Jade corrected, his eyes lazily closing again. He looked so tired, like Max used to do when he'd been pushing his limits regarding his powers.

"You came here for Zan," Liz said, frowning. At least Van was not trying to kill her husband, for once.

"I came here for Zan," Jade repeated, the glimmer of a smile on his face. "And to live free, I guess, even if it was in this alien world," he murmured, making Liz lean in to him further. "Even if I was not part of his Invisible Guard, but yours."

"Invisible Guard? Like bodyguards, right?" She thought she already knew, but the worst mistake about gathering information, she’d learned, was to assume and not corroborate.

"They follow him everywhere he goes that's not private space. All four of them, circling him, watching for anything that could damage Van's dream…"

How many shapeshifters have been following us all this time?

"Are there any others here?" Liz's eyes went to every single face on the car, all eyes everywhere but on her.

"No… just me," Jade answered, taking a deep breath. He rested his head backwards, closing his eyes.

"Jade," she said, pulling her hand, knowing he would react at the thought of losing his grip on her. He did. "Jade, what exactly do you want? Why were you at the Bistro?"

"I wanted to know," he slowly replied, as if that explained everything. She frowned. Jade sighed. "He trained us personally, you know? Van. Every detail. He trusted us to protect him, until he could come…"

"You didn't know that Max is not Zan?" Liz asked, glancing at the teens who were still listening to music in front of her.

It was Jade’s turn to frown. "There's never been a question about who he is," he said. "And when they assigned me to you, I realized I was in the unique position to learn who you were… who you are." His eyes were as intense as Max's when he was deadly serious about something. And then he shook his head, losing the effect. He was clearly fighting the drug effects, and was being only half-successful.

Liz slowly nodded, debating if she wanted to know who Jade thought she was. Technically, she was his queen, she guessed. But not-so-technically, she was also as alien to him as he was to her. That he'd been following her for the past six years without her knowing gave her the creeps. Every single cellphone conversation done on a public space, every girl-talk at a restaurant with Maria, every intimate moment on a night out with Max, Jade—and apparently four other Jade-like bodyguards—had been there. They had never been alone. What exactly do you know about me?

"So, that thing at the Bistro? Did you learn what you wanted to know?"

He looked at her again, his eyes clear once more.

"Do you know how he looks at you? When you're not looking at him?" he repeated his earlier question.

"What?" she asked, frowning, and truth to be told, blushing as well. She didn't need to see how Max looked at her, she felt it all the time.

"Here I was, so angry I'd been robbed of my one opportunity to learn who Zan was, who he was now, in this lifetime… That first time I guarded you, I felt like such an idiot not to have seen what was in front of me."

"Jade, slow down. You're not making any sense. You didn't want to guard me? What does that have to do with how Max looks at me?"

"I learned who Zan is through you. I thought I had lost my only opportunity, but instead I learned about Antar's future king in a way no one else has. But I have to know if you know…"

"Jade," she said with the same seriousness, "he's the reason I'm alive right now." Her heart contracted at saying the same words she'd once told to the future version of Max. "If there was anything you learned through me about Max, I hope it's what a great man he is."

"No one who loves like he loves you… can be anything but," he answered earnestly. "But…" Jade paused, and in the instant between one heartbeat and the next, there was a spark on her connection, a distant humming. Her heart skipped a beat. Max!

The car stopped. Not losing a second, Liz stood up, and was almost yanked back by Jade for her to sit down.

"Max is this way," she fiercely said, pulling Jade to his feet. He was heavier than she'd like, but at least he didn't fight her on getting out. Her connection was barely there, and she was not going to lose one second tracking Max down.

She didn't hear Jade's whispered words: "But you don't know how much he fears to tell you the truth."


2 : Van

There were many things in Van's life that were disturbing, some even a shade darker than he would like to admit. But nothing was brighter than his hope for the future.

And his future was collapsing right in front of him.

Zan had suddenly fainted not a minute before, and Van had watched him descend in slow motion, his own heartbeat sounding too loud in his ears as time lost meaning. He'd thought Zan was dead.

Now, having broken his fall, Van was sitting on the floor of the empty Observation Deck, holding Zan on his lap with a dread he'd never felt before. Not in the heat of battle, not in the shadows of tunnels, not even in the face of losing the civil war against Khivar.

Zan could not die, period.

Rationally, Van knew two very harsh truths: that there was no guarantee that the hybrid he held in his hands had any significant memory of Zan; and that even if Zan was there and he died, the Rebellion was too close to winning to let Zan's death stop it. No, there was no stopping it now, but Van could not envision a future without his brother, and without a vision, a leader had nothing to hold on to.

There was no Invisible Guard inside the time-shifting bubble. What Van and Zan had to discuss was for no one's ears but their own. Now that didn't matter.

"Zan," he almost whispered, unsure what to do. He'd tended hundreds of wounded men in the last years, he was certainly not shy of blood and guts and screaming men. Think, Van. Zan was breathing evenly, his eyes curiously moving beneath his eyelids. Dreaming, he'd been told, something Antarians did not do. Is it good or bad? He didn't know, but his hands moved to Zan's head, looking for blood. He found none, but a small entry point would be hard to locate without removing Zan's clothes. Had he been shot? Stabbed? Had this place been compromised?

That's impossible, he thought, dark eyes moving to the four corners of their position. The shifting device was programmed to allow only him and Zan in—that a shifter might have gotten past it was unlikely. But not really impossible, Van grimly accepted. If they were under attack, he needed reinforcements. The moment he turned off the time-shifting bubble, Zan's Invisible Guard would aid him, but they would have to deal with hundreds of humans as well.

"Zan?" he said a little bit louder, feeling utterly out of place to raise his voice at the legend that had guided his entire life. "Zan, I really need you to wake up."

He felt eight years old, begging his mother to tell him one more story about his older brother's reign.

For the first time in a long time, he felt young. And helpless.

Zan's eyes fluttered for a moment, and then stilled. Is that good or bad? He asked himself again. Zan's life on this planet, in this body had been unavoidable, and ultimately desirable for all the advantages it gave him, but there was no way to deny that through those veins ran alien blood, and Van had too little knowledge about the human body to be of much help.

His strategic mind started to weigh options and risks. Stay here and wait for Zan to wake up on his own—that was more wishful thinking than actual logic. Leave Zan in the bubble and get help—that would leave him unprotected, and it would take time. If he got worse… the thought of Zan dying alone did something unpleasant to his stomach. Dropping the bubble would gain him the Guards, and myriad obstacles. Get him out of this building, into the car, and to headquarters.

He looked at his brother's still face. What did Khivar do to you? he thought darkly. That man had taken everything from him, from his childhood to his parents, to his planet's future. He was not going to rob him of his only remaining family. A cold rage gave him strength as he lifted Zan by the shoulders, and half dragged, half carried him to a corner.

A moment later, a flash of green signaled the end of the shifting bubble. Humans walking, smiling, and taking photographs were everywhere Van's cautious eyes swept over. The only four people not mingling, not smiling, and decidedly looking grim were shifters, and boy, were they a welcome sight.


3 : Maria

"Okay, he said we had to take the subway and Isabel and Jesse the taxi," Kyle was saying as he practically dragged Maria down to the subway station.

No, he said you and Liz take the subway, while he never finished saying what Michael and I had to do, she fleetingly thought as her only goal for the moment was not get herself killed by some undercover Unit agent. Every man, every woman who crossed her path was a suspect. Every person who actually made eye contact with her was an adrenaline-induced heart attack.

The last time she'd run for her life had been so long ago she couldn't even remember it. One way or another, Maria had always been the least interesting prize. She lacked powers, she lacked alien genes, and right at this moment, she was sorely lacking her half-alien husband, too.

Michael had lived with this fear his entire life. It was one of his biggest demons, one that could not really be swept away because it was as real as the subway entrance she was entering. He knew he was always going to be hunted, and had learned long ago to accept it. She thought she'd accepted it as well, except that now that she was faced with this situation, she realized she had been kidding herself all this time. She would never get used to the idea that Michael could be hunted down like an animal.

Ray had taught her well, how to defend herself, how to flee. How to make a plan and act on it. She would never be a burden to Michael's safety, but what good was all that if she didn't even know where Michael was? One minute he'd been with her in an absurdly priced hotel room, and the next they were separated. Had he found Liz? Had they escaped the Unit?

You better not be in cuffs somewhere, Spaceboy, she admonished as Kyle stopped in front of the Metro map. It had been a while since they had been in New York, and usually they weren't headed to shabby, undercover warehouses.

"What do you think happened?" Maria whispered as her eyes followed colored lines. She was pretty good at reading maps and finding her way around big cities, but her mind couldn't concentrate. Every single metro line seemed to be going nowhere.

"They got Dave, did terrible things to him, and he told them where we were," Kyle summarized in one breath. "Okay, let's go," he said, taking her arm with one hand, and with the other pressing his head for one moment.

This must be hell for you, she thought.

"Yeah, so the faster we get out of danger, the sooner I'll be able to shut everyone out."

It's so creepy when you do that!

He just smiled at her.


4 : Jake

"Ray, what the hell is going on?" Jake asked, walking into a crowd of French tourists, all eagerly talking about the Statue of Liberty. How ironic, freedom is exactly what is on my mind, too.

"Jake? Didn't Rochelle just drop you off at the hotel?"

"You don't—you don't know? They raided the hotel, just two minutes ago! They are everywhere!"

"Calm down, Jake. Who is they, and is everyone all right?"

That's anyone's guess.

"I think the Unit, but I’m not entirely sure they are the only ones."

"Your friends at the government and the Unit on the same day? That's no coincidence."

It was hard to believe that four hours ago, Jake had been cornered at JFK, waiting for Ray to come up with a plan to get him out of there. Now New York City was his labyrinth to get lost in.

"Talk to me, Jake. What happened?"

"I met with Michael, Isabel, Jesse, Maria and Kyle at the hotel. They didn't know why the Network was down, but someone texted both Max and Liz to be at different locations at 4pm. Michael went to find Liz, but before any of them came back, all hell broke loose. We had to run out of the building, and I'm not sure that we're not being followed."

There was a tense pause at the other side of the phone. The French tourists he was following laughed and took pictures. He wished he were on vacation as well, he could use a good laugh right about now.

"You haven't found Dave yet, have you?" Jake whispered, his heart constricting.

"The Network being down is a catastrophic event in and of itself. We have most of it back by this point, but New York is still down. Are they running with you?"

"No. We scattered into groups. We are heading to an unmarked location."

"So Michael, Liz and Max are missing… Wait—I'm getting the reports of a fire at the hotel."

"That would be Isabel's doing. You trained them well."

"Yeah, I'll congratulate myself when they’re all safe and sound. I'm sending Rochelle for you."

"You have to send someone for Max first. He was summoned, by someone claiming to be Dave, to the Empire State Building. Someone must have hacked into the Network."

"That's impossible," Ray answered immediately.

"As much as Dave wants us to believe how great his Network is, I'm guessing it was the same someone who brought it down," Jake said, amused at Ray's negative.

"Jake, Dave himself brought the Network down. There's no freaking way anyone was able to get into it. There was no Network to hack into."

Jake stopped in his tracks. Behind him, someone almost collided with his back, and cursed him in a not so elegant way. He didn't hear him. A dozen different things had just clicked together in his mind, like pieces of an invisible puzzle.

"They're here," he barely whispered.

"What? Who?"

"The aliens. The Rebels. They are the only reason Dave would bring the Network down, and the only ones capable of reaching Max and Liz through their phones."

"Wait, wait, wait! Are you seriously suggesting a bunch of aliens landed on us on the exact same day that both the Unit and your past watchdogs did?"

"No, Ray. I'm saying they landed on us now precisely because all three of them are connected. Somehow, Dave managed to tie a knot around all of us…"

He had forgotten how much Dave's betrayal had truly hurt not even a week ago. He had even forgiven him for the most part. But this whole mess, with Ray and the kids and himself in the dark was all courtesy of his best friend.

If they haven't killed you, I will, he thought darkly.

"Listen, Ray. I know I'm not making sense, but Dave is in league with those aliens. He was expecting them. I don't know who has him, or why I was being followed, but chances are, both the Unit and the Alpha project are working together."

Silence met him on the other side of the phone. The French tourists were moving on, and Jake discreetly followed them. He was still wearing the mismatched clothes Rochelle had given him at the airport, earning a few glances from the people around him. He couldn't care less.

"Are the kids in any danger from these aliens?" Ray slowly asked, and Jake had to smile. Just as he had grown protective of the hybrids, Ray had grown protective of their human partners. They all still called them kids, despite the fact that they were almost 30.

"Maybe. They came to do some sort of test, about Max's memories of his former life. I'm not sure what happens if he passes or not. Dave didn't tell me that much. I don't think he even knew that himself, he was pretty sure Max was going to fail."

"That makes me feel so much better," Ray murmured, the sound of rapid typing on a keyboard coming through the phone.

"I think he's wrong."

"Are you hiding things from me, too?" Ray asked, his voice heavy with suspicion and accusation. Jake sighed.

"No, not really. Did you send Rochelle for Max?"

"No, not really," Ray answered back in a decidedly cold manner. Then he sighed. "I don’t know what we'll find waiting for Max there, so I'm going there myself. Michael and Liz will get somewhere safe and call. That's the protocol. You find the closest Starbucks and wait for Rochelle to call you. We'll figure this out piece by piece, and get the kids back."

The closest Starbucks was actually half a block away.

"Ray," Jake said before his friend would hang up, "What about Dave?"

"I'm working on it," was all he said.


5 : Jesse

Beside him, Isabel was slightly trembling. The only reason he could tell was because her hand was gripping his forearm to almost a painful point while she tried to look normal for the benefit of the taxi driver. He hated seeing his wife like this, a messy tangle of nerves.

Not that I’m faring any better.

It was as if the past six years of peace and quiet had been wiped out of time itself. He was back to her graduation night, when she had resolutely left him by the side of the road. He was back in the two years that followed, when he had been running from every shadow, trying to find her and avoid capture himself. Worse, he was back to the day he'd seen her shot, almost dying of a 113 degree fever.

He was in hell.

"Everything's going to be all right," he whispered, their taxi driver honking as if there were no tomorrow.

"I can hardly feel my brother, and Michael is… going in the opposite direction. The Unit is back, Dave's missing… I—I don’t know what to do," she whispered, a tear falling down her cheek. She immediately wiped it away.

"We'll do what we were trained to do, right?" he said, with a tentative smile. He could hardly claim he'd been trained to do any sort of physical escape. He'd spent his time with Susseth, learning the ropes of Dave's empire, and looking for ways for the whole gang to quietly disappear one of these days.

"Ray will say 'I told you so'," she said, her grip loosening a bit on his forearm. She sighed, gaining her composure back. "We get away from the danger, we find a secure place, we contact Ray," she said in order, her mental list being checked. They were getting out of danger, going to a designated safe house Jake had pointed out to them. All that was left was to call Ray once they were there.

It sounds so easy when you put it like that, Jesse thought to himself. He knew the only way to escape was to keep a cool head, approach things logically and practically. But inside, his heart was beating a million beats per minute. His anxiety spiked as Isabel stilled beside him, her hazel eyes turning to look at him too seriously for his liking.

"Jesse, I have to tell you something," she said in a quiet voice, her eyes filling with tears for a moment, before she blinked them away.

"Shh… I know we're in serious trouble, but we'll get through it," he said, soothing her hand with his free one, his eyes going to her golden wedding band. He'd spent two years holding that ring in his hand in the middle of the night, wondering if she was okay, if she had moved on.

"No, is not about this. Well, it's partly about this, but I don't want you to think I'm telling you now because of this, because I was already on my way to tell you and—"

"Hey, hey. Look at me. I trust you, okay? I love you. Whatever it is, you don't have to be nervous about it."

But she was nervous. He could feel it through their connection, this thing that had been slowly eating at her all day long. Isabel was no stranger to fretting, and usually Jesse just gave her space. But this… this was different.

"Michael intercepted a message… between Dave and… Antar," she started, her voice getting fainter, her face paler. He felt himself going cold.

"Antar?" he whispered back, his hand stopping his soothing movement on hers. "He's been working with Khivar all this time?"

"We don't know. Max thinks Dave might just be monitoring communications. We don't really know who is sending what—here, or to Antar. We don't know what the messages have been about."

"So everything that's happening is because of this?"

The taxi abruptly stopped as another car narrowly missed them in the intersection. The taxi driver swore in something that sounded like Arabic, though Jesse wasn't too sure. It had been a while since he'd heard the language.

"Maybe. All we know is that someone is going to come for us soon."

"How soon?"

"I… I don't know. But I have something to tell you, and it might—"

Sirens interrupted her. Turning to look behind them, a couple of patrols were coming, the traffic parting to give them way.

They're coming for us, the thought was automatic, his hand going to the door handle. He had started to move towards it, when the patrols crossed one block behind them. He hadn't even realized sweat had broken out on his forehead.

They both sighed in relief.

"You were saying?" he weakly asked, his eyes glued to the corner.

"That it might be better if I tell you somewhere more private," she answered, her hand gripping his once more.


6 : Michael

The rebel couldn’t drive fast enough.

The Empire State Building was barely visible through the skyscrapers in the distance, the setting sun reflecting on a dozen of them. Hang on, Max.

Just like Isabel, he could barely get a hold of his friend, but at least there was something to detect. Ten minutes ago, there had been nothing. Still, it was as if Max were sleeping or drugged, and neither of those options sounded good. The only silver lining was that Michael now knew the exact direction where his friend was, and for now, he didn't seem to be moving any further.

"General, are you sure something's wrong with Zan?" the man behind the wheel asked, his eyes pinned on the car in front, his knuckles going white.

General. It had been a lifetime ago since anyone had called him that, and Michael wasn’t sure how to feel about that. Here was a man who would obey his decisions without a second thought, but only if Rath proved himself to still be here. Michael didn't want to find out.

"Why do you think I'm wrong?" he asked, his eyes scanning the streets, his senses alert to a frying point. Somewhere, out there, Maria was also running, he just couldn't tell where. Please, be safe.

"I…" he started, for a moment turning to look at Michael, "I don't mean any disrespect… but if Zan is with Van, and if something's wrong with Zan, then Van might be in danger too. I'm just worried, that's all."

A tense silence filled the car for a minute, both men worried about their friends.

"Do you have a name?" Michael finally asked. If they were going to be working together for the foreseeable future, better start getting their information straight.

"Luke," the rebel said after a moment. "It's the closest sounding name, I guess," he muttered, stopping at a red light.

"This Van, he's your leader," Michael stated, turning to look at his companion. "What does he want?"

"It's… complicated."

Michael narrowed his eyes, his fingers tingling.

"We received information about ten hours ago that Khivar has ordered Zan killed. We don’t know who, or how this is going to happen. Not even where. We only know it’s going to be in the next 12 hours or less. That’s why we had to move so hastily. Plans were already in motion, but…” he trailed off.

"The space signal. You were going to come soon, that's what it meant."

"How did you find out—"

"That's not important. The Unit hasn’t come near us in over eight years. Why did they suddenly find us?”

“We don’t know. Nothing is going according to plan. We think the Unit got Dave, but we haven’t been able to trace him. They caught sight of Jade when he was talking to Liz at the bistro. Once they were under attack, I came to find you."

“So you sent those messages to get them out of the hotel?” the accusation in Michael’s voice couldn’t be missed. Things were finally falling in place to explain this day. Dave must have known he was going to be caught by the Unit, so he’d disabled the Network. This Van had probably feared Max would be caught too, so he’d lured him to the safest place he could reasonably secure on a few hours' notice. That still left Dave missing, Liz under fire, and Max cut off from Michael’s help.

“Van won’t let anyone touch Zan. There’s no safer place than at his side,” Luke tried to convince Michael. Have you ever been by my side? Michael somberly thought. He didn’t care who this Van thought he was, he didn’t know Max. There was no way he could invest as much in his care as Michael would.

"Just get me there," was all Michael dared to say before he blew something up.


7 : Max

He was moving.

Max's first instinct was to lie still, get all the sensory information he could, and play dead for a little while.

He was on his side, with no handcuffs, no headache, and a vague recollection that he'd been dreaming strange dreams. Beyond that, he got a hazy memory about going to the Empire State Building. His powers seemed to be intact, though he still felt as if he had a fog in his mind. He was also on the backseat of a car that was slowly going around and around. A parking garage, he deduced, a moment later recovering the last minutes of his waking mind: the green light, the other alien. Van.

"Are you feeling better?" the words were said in a low voice, heavy with concern. There was no point in playing dumb, Max knew. He didn't know what Van's powers were, or even if he had powers, but he was not going to play games with someone as dangerous as the Rebels’ leader was.

Slowly, Max opened his eyes. The interior of the car was darkened, the seats leathered, and for a moment Max thought he was in a limo. It took him a second to realize it was a much smaller car, even if the seats faced each other. Sitting right in front of him, Van regarded him with a calm expression, his eyes the only thing betraying his anxiety.

Carefully, Max scouted the car's molecular structure, targeting the weakest joints in his mind. The bigger the car, the more time consuming, but Ray had given them a tip or two about what to search first. If all else failed, disabling the car could become a well-placed diversion.

"What happened?" Max asked a couple of seconds later, gaining a sitting position himself. The windows were tinted, making the underground parking lot outside look menacing. Separated by an equally tinted glass panel, he could only get a glimpse of the driver and the co-pilot.

"We were talking, and then you fainted. Does this happen often?"

"No. We don't get sick. I… I've been feeling tired all day long, I guess."

"But it's not normal." It wasn't a question. Hardly anything seemed to be a question with him. "We're taking you to our provisional headquarters."

"Why?" Everything in Max's being wanted to bolt through the door and make a run for it.

"Why? Because you fainted for no reason. I've already sent for our best physician. She'll be waiting for us there."

"You won't take me anywhere."

They locked eyes, and for a moment, Max felt every bit in control as Zan would have been in his place. Zan gave orders and expected them to be followed. Van, on the other hand, was not used to being ordered around. Very slowly, Van leaned towards him, and whispered.

"Khivar will attack you, brother, and he will kill you and everyone you love just to prove his point. You need us."

“You’re asking me to believe you without real proof,” Max said, uneasy. It was one thing that Van thought of him as Zan, and entirely another for Max to act like him for a prolonged time.

Van regarded him for a few seconds, thinking. "The men who are in the front," he said, indicating the men behind him, in the front of the limo, "are shapeshifters, bound to you by the Royal Seal. If you tell them to kill me, they will. How about a compromise?" he asked in a softer tone. "You hear what I have to say while we ride. If you don't like it, you order them to stop the car and let you go."

"You wouldn't stop me?" Max's hands tingled with his nervous energy. He could disable this car in 6,3 seconds if it came to that. But three against one, especially when two of those were shapeshifters, was not going to be an easy win.

"I do not disobey my king's command," Van said, deadly serious.

They were coming out of the underground parking garage, the sun setting low on the horizon. Outside, people walked, talked on their phones, laughed with their friends. All so blissfully ignorant of what was going on between two beings that were not of this Earth.

Finally, Max nodded once. Van did the same.

“I always knew the day I met you would be… difficult," Van started, his eyes appraising him as if he were a long lost friend. "I’ve known you all my life. From the moment I was born, there was nothing more important than meeting you, ensuring your safe return.”

“Why didn’t anyone say anything? We’ve been here for seventy years. Someone could have said something by now…” Max said in a low voice. If he proved Van wrong—and he had little doubt he could—it would only mean Van would have more than a good reason to kill him. He didn’t need to be Zan—or Dave—to know that much. He just needed to see how far Van would go.

“We kept it a secret. Even within the Rebellion."

"That's a little convenient," Max said, narrowing his eyes. Van looked away from Max, his eyes growing darker as he watched through the tinted window the outside world.

"Khivar… he wiped us all out," his voice sounded so empty, so devoid of emotion. Van was telling a story that had been told to him, but that he wanted no part of. Briefly closing his eyes, he returned his gaze to Max. "I’m not sure how much you remember, Zan, but once you were dead, you had no direct living heir. No one to get the Seal. He went after all of them… anyone who had even the most remote genetic link to you and the Royal Family. Anyone who could have any claim, even without the Seal… All our genealogical tree was extinct before a month had passed. He proclaimed that genetic engineering was against the laws of nature. In reality he wanted to prevent you, this version of you, from having any claim.”

He wanted to prevent cloning… Max realized. “So this has… I mean, other leaders have been cloned before me?”

Van hesitated this time. “Cloning… has a certain stigma in our society. That’s why shifters are not really considered people, since they are not really born, they are bioengineered. But we knew it could be done, we just didn’t have use for it in a practical sense. A clone is just one more person. But about… I don’t know, a hundred human years ago, maybe? They were able to transfer memories successfully. Of course, it was one thing to transfer a handful of thoughts into an AI… and another thing entirely to bring a person back to life."

“They didn’t know if it was going to work…” Max whispered. He’d been nothing more than experiment half gone wrong. He wasn’t Zan, he didn’t think of himself as Zan, but he’d regained many, many memories from his alien donor.

“No, but they hoped. Hoped strong enough to form the Rebellion. Hoped enough to risk sending you to a far away, primitive planet, waiting for your return.”

There it was, that glimmer in Van's eyes that made Max feel very uncomfortable.

“Where do you come into all of this? You said all our relatives were killed, and that must have included…" A lump formed in his throat, preventing him to say my mother. He had few memories of his mother—Isabel was the one who remembered her the most—and all of them were about state affairs. Zan had had a very high respect for his mother’s view of things, the way she handled problems. But… there was little love in those memories. Not the way he loved his Earth mother, anyway. Those feelings were lost. Yet now that he was voicing the fact that she was dead, something stirred in his memories. Sorrow.

He missed her.

“No," Van said with a sigh, understanding where Max had been unable to go. "She was smarter than that. Khivar thought her dead, and that suited her just fine. She waited, like the rest of the Rebellion, for word about you.”

“But word never came,” Max said, knowing this part of the story. “The ship crashed, leaving only two survivors who knew the plan. And then we didn’t emerge for another forty years.”

Van nodded. “They thought all was lost, that they had to start all over again. They created me, and although we share the same Mother, we do not share the same father. I did not regain the Seal, it wasn’t supposed to be that way, but I regained a claim to the throne.”

“So you’re Antar’s true king,” Max concluded, but Van was already shaking his head.

“The true king is the one who wields the Seal, and that’s you. I’m the backup plan, yes, but there’s no greater honor than to be your backup plan.”

How can anyone be so glad about being Plan B? Max wondered for a second. “I… I don’t deserve your loyalty. I don’t even deserve your wish to protect me. Any of you.”

“Nonsense. You did great things in the brief time you were king. Changes that needed to be made. Truths that needed to be spoken. We want that, don’t you see? We need you. And I’ll be damned if I let Khivar’s dirty hands get near you again.”

Max had to look outside. Anywhere but Van's eyes.

The city was busy. Traffic was the single hardest hardship on anyone’s patience, but in Max’s case, it meant an escape route. He could disable the car, open the door, and be gone in less than a minute. It could all be lies, he told himself, but Van sounded genuine enough.

A brunette walked past his window, reminding him how much he missed Liz's side of their connection. He tried to sense her again, and all he got was a foggy feeling. He had no idea which direction she was, but he was fairly sure her fear was under control. Still there, but it wasn’t racing through her heart. Where are you? He sent into their connection. Nothing came back.

“They said you were not prepared…” Van said after a minute of silence. “We didn’t know you had survived until you activated the orbs eleven years ago. I wanted to get on the first spaceship here and take you home,” he chuckled at something he didn’t really find very amusing. “I was forbidden. So we arranged for the Summit. You were alive, but the other leaders wanted proof. Most of all, they wanted someone who could end this merciless war of ours… I sat down with them, and they said yes. Yes but you can’t go. You see, they couldn’t risk Khivar’s retaliation. He was not supposed to find out, but he did. It didn't matter, of course. By the time it was all over, you had already said no.” Van’s voice sounded so hollow when he said that, it made Max feel guilty.

“I had no choice but to say no,” Max said in a low voice, feeling responsible for letting this man down. He wasn’t Zan, but his own actions as Max, those were entirely his.

Van didn’t say anything, lost in some memory far away. “Had you come back that same day, the Rebellion wouldn’t have been able to help you. I wanted you home, but I didn’t want to watch your execution…” Van trailed off again, and then smiled. A tiny, barely-there, half-smile, but a genuine one.

“You have no idea what news of you did to us. To every single rebel fighting for you. You were real. The leaders of four planets confirmed that. You weren’t just some myth, some improbability anymore. The day Larek told us he had seen you, that day was the first day in my life I knew we were going to win this war.”

Nine years ago, Max had stood by the ruins of the Pod Chamber and had renounced his throne, his kingdom, his responsibilities. He had also renounced to being the Rebellion’s hope. In the face of one of his followers—his brother if that could be believed—all of it seemed childish. This man was not going to take no for an answer. This man was not going to see all his dreams go up in a puff of smoke just because Max said so. Max had to convince him he was not Zan, but it seemed the only one he would believe was Zan himself.

“I can’t imagine living… on Antar right now,” Max whispered, his eyes looking out of the window again. “All my memories of it are… of peace times.”

“Earth is hardly a peaceful place,” Van commented, following Max’s actions and looking out. Buildings, cars, people. “They chose Earth because of their similarities to us. There was no other variable taken into account. They didn’t think it was necessary, given the humans' technology level at the time. And yet these people almost killed you,” a shadow passed Van’s eyes. A shadow that was mirrored in Max’s own eyes. No one knew better than he did what humans were capable of doing to him. Sometimes, in his darkest nightmares, he would still hear Pierce’s impassive voice detailing how he was going to take him apart piece by piece.

“At least that’s a problem I could take care of," Van said, cold eyes still looking outside.

Max’s skin broke in goosebumps. “What… what does that mean?”

“I ordered them killed. Every one of them.”
"There's addiction, and there's Roswell!"
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Re: The Rebel *Sequel* (CC ALL, YTEEN) Ch. 5 - pg. 5 - 4/21

Post by keepsmiling7 »

This is getting more and more complicated......Zan's invisible guard......
Of course Zan can't die!
Van doesn't disobey the King.....
Cloning has a stigma....
and the big surprise, there is a back-up King!
Looking forward to more.........and where is Liz???
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Re: The Rebel *Sequel* (CC ALL, YTEEN) Ch. 5 - pg. 5 - 4/21

Post by xilaj »

So glad you were able to post this. I'm so impressed by how you're keeping everything moving along at such a fantastic pace. There's so much going on, and it's all fascinating. I'm looking forward to going back into the past in the next update, but I can't wait to read more about the present after that.
I'm looking forward to hearing more from Jade and from Van in particular. Unsettling for Liz to be with someone who knows so much about her, but about whom she knows nothing and how will Max deal with the weight of Van's hopes and expectations? I hope you drop in on Dave too. He's been out of sight for a while now - what's happening to him?
By the way, you say that the two stories are spoiling each other, and that must make it very difficult to decide what to tell and when, but I think you've chosen a great structure for the story. I think both the story in the past and the story in the present are much richer because they're running in parallel and we can make so many links between them. In the same way, when you've finished The Rebel, I'm looking forward to going back and reading The Offer again with all the knowledge I've gained from reading the rest of the story.
Thank you for this lovely long update, and looking forward to reading the next whenever you're ready to post it, Alix
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Re: The Rebel *Sequel* (CC ALL, YTEEN) Ch. 5 - pg. 5 - 4/21

Post by xmag »

Happy birthday to me :D ! You posted on the same day as my birthday, give or less a few hours. So, the Roswellian world is still in chaos, I see. Everybody is figthing to survive and to understand what's going on.

Van... a fighter, a resistant, Max's half-brother and judging by the last line of this part, someone who is not afraid to do what he must, even if it's brutal. Unfortunately, that's what it takes to be a leader. If Max doesn't want to go back to Antar, once they beat Khivar, at least, he knows that Antar would be in good hands with Van. Well, knows, not really, but he will learn about Van, who he is, and if he is trustworthy (I think he is), and so that could free him, and Michael as well, to live their lives freely on Earth.

I mean, when Max "died" in Season 3, Michael got the seal, not Van. But maybe there's a way around that, maybe if both Max and Michael renounce the crown... wait and see, I suppose, but Antar seems to be a complicated world, I'm not sure that by now, our roswellians would be the best to rebuild this world, or even are as motivated as someone like Van would be, to rebuild it. Which is normal, our roswellians are part human, they have always lived on Earth, it's their home. While Van is antarian. He would do anything for his planet. That's the difference between Van and the roswellians.

What did Khivar do to the antarians? How many of them died? Is the planet in ruins, in constant war, is there an industry? is there a cultural life? So many things to know about Antar. I mean, it's good to be for our Roswellians, but I can't forget that the Antarians have lived and are still living under a tyran's reign, for more than 50 years, the damages done to the planet, the society... how to rebuild that? Zan and co are a myth, wouldn't the antarians be disappointed with how humans they are, in the end, how their mentality, way of thinking, of behaving is alien to them?


This part, with Van, really made me think about Antar, its horrible past, and what it will take to rebuild it, and if our roswellians are the best to do so. Right now, I'm not so sure. They have and will always have other priorities, their loves, their families, their Earth heritage...
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Michael : From day one, I knew you were the girl for me, I never wanted anyone else.
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Re: The Rebel *Sequel* (CC ALL, YTEEN) Ch. 5 - pg. 5 - 4/21

Post by Timelord31 »

who did he order killed?
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Re: The Rebel *Sequel* (CC ALL, YTEEN) Ch. 5 - pg. 5 - 4/21

Post by Misha »

Hey!

Thanks go to my beta, Michelle in LA, for putting up with me and my last minute chapters :mrgreen: Thank you girl!

There's much to be said about Antar, indeed, and I'll get to it in small chunks as the story progresses. Ah, so much to tell, so much to plot... :twisted:

Timelord, I think he ordered kill whoever "almost killed" Zan.

Thanks for the insightful reviews!! They are cookies for the muse :mrgreen:


Part 6 : The Fine Print
January 2003 – The Compound

1 : Dave


“Ray, are you sure you’ve got them this time?” Dave asked over the phone, anxiously looking at the alien device that was sitting on his desk. The communicator would come alive any moment now, and Van’s questions were never easy. Especially when Max was still running for his life somewhere in the Rocky Mountains.

“Positive,” Ray answered, confident this time. He’d been tracking the kids for over seven months now, a low blow for his pride if there ever was one. “They’ve just checked in to a motel. My men are scouting the area as we speak. If everything's fine, we’ll get them by midnight tonight. And—shit! The Unit is moving in this direction!”

Dave’s heart seemed to stop for a second. Three days ago the kids had barely escaped the Unit, and that was news he did not want to give to Van, but would have to anyway. Van always had a way to finding things out, and it would do Dave’s plan no good if the rebel leader didn’t trust him.

Not to say Van trusted Dave at all. That man didn’t trust his own shadow.

“Ray?” he anxiously asked when a full minute had gone by.

“I’m not sure, Dave… I think… I think they are going to start the search tomorrow.”

“You have to move now,” Dave said, trying to sound calm and composed. If Ray noticed he was not, he didn’t say. He had problems of his own.

“We will. I’m gonna make sure the Unit stays way off track while my men take care of the operation. If things go according to plan, you’ll have them there before the sun rises tomorrow.”

Ray hung up at the exact moment Van’s communicator came to life. Dave had thought at some point it would be fun taking the little device apart and putting it back together, but one stern warning from Langley had made his wandering hands wander away.

It wasn’t Van’s voice that came through. No, this time the voice belonged to Luke, Van’s second in command. Where Van was guided by loyalty and a sense of duty, Luke was guided by a practical view of things. Khivar was not the right man for the throne, and Zan had been. Or at least, Zan had been better, and that made him the choice Luke wanted.

“Seven months is a long time to have our king missing,” Luke’s rough voice not so subtly accused.

“We found him, and he should be safely here in about ten hours,” Dave said. No greetings, just straight to the point. He couldn’t blame them, really. Being in the middle of a civil war always made it a priority be quick and efficient.

“Make sure he is. But Day-ve,” Luke paused, Dave’s name slightly mispronounced, “Zan’s will must be followed. If he does not agree to stay under your protection, you’ll arrange for his safety conditions to be met. We will not tolerate our king running for his life any longer.”

“I will certainly give him the option to leave once I make sure he’s safe and healthy,” Dave said, deciding the particulars of his plans were his own business. It was a risky move to withhold information from the Antarians, but damn if Dave trusted some 19-year-old's instincts to hold the future of the entire planet in his hands.

“There is another matter we wish to discuss,” Van’s voice took Luke’s place, younger, vibrant, and with hardly any accent at all. He sounded slightly out of breath. Although Kal had told Dave that the communicators were very capable of holographic imaging, it also made it riskier for their talks to remain private. Van hardly ever called him, and when he did it was always as a package deal: he would call Langley first, and Langley would give Dave the heads up. It was in both men’s best interest to be prepared.

“Yes?” Dave cautiously asked. There never was any other matter to discuss but where Zan was, and what was being done to ensure his safety. Ever. This change of subject did not bode well to Dave’s strategist mind.

“I want those humans dead.” The coldness in Van’s voice made a perfect match with the bitter winter outside the compound’s walls. There were only a handful of humans Van knew about, one of them Dave himself. That Van wanted him dead was not an unexpected feeling, but telling Dave straight out would not seem the best way to go.

“I beg your pardon?” Dave asked, in a perfect imitation of his father’s British accent.

“Every single one who hunted him, or is hunting him now. I want their names, and I want them dead.”

Dave’s eyes looked at the communicator in stunned silence. Those men were following orders, was not going to cut it. The only reason why Van didn’t want the entire United States wiped out was because he couldn’t afford it. Yet.

“I’m—I’m not sure I can… find them all,” Dave said, trying to think fast. That Van wanted some sort of retribution for crimes against his king was understandable. That Dave had to hand over an execution list was not.

“You will,” Van stated, no arguments there. “And we will see to their demise. That is our right.”

Van wouldn’t be able to spare any of his men for some time, so as long as he was out there and not right here, those agents would be safe.

For now.


2 : Ray
January 2003 – The compound
Six hours later


“You want me to get their names?” Ray asked, confused. He had barely finished the delivery of six unconscious teens to Jake’s capable hands not even two hours before. “We already have their names.”

“I know we have the current list of agents. I need every single agent involved when Max was captured by the Unit.”

“The mighty Dave couldn’t hack into it?” Ray teased, but lost the smile when Dave didn’t look amused.

“The records have been deleted. When Agent Pierce disbanded the Unit two years ago, he was very thorough in his work of erasing it from existence. There must be a printed copy somewhere. Archived files. A list on a napkin.”

“Most of them must have returned when the Unit re-formed a year ago.”

“That’s probably true, but not enough. We need to make sure the list is complete.”

“It may take a while…” Ray cautioned. Dave nodded somberly. “Is there something else I should know about these kids?” Ray asked at length. There were very few uses Ray could think for a list of this type, and none of them were good.

“Just that they have powerful enemies out there. I just need to make sure I know all of them.”

“You always find the weirdest people. With the weirdest problems attached, if I may add,” Ray said sincerely. In his years of work with Dave, he’d been asked to do many, many things; it didn’t mean he didn’t find them strange half of the time, and stranger the other half. Danielle, their French cook, was probably the strangest of them all, up until last night, when he’d kidnapped honest-to-God aliens. Was that technically abduction?

“Jake says I have a knack for it,” Dave murmured, his mood not improved in the slightest.

Ray placed a hand on the desk to catch Dave’s attention. “Hey. It took us too long, true, but we finally have them. In ten years, these kids are going to look back on this day and think this was the best thing that ever happened to them.”

For a moment there, Dave’s eyes clouded with shadows of fear. But the next, he finally smiled. “You didn’t seem all that happy when I approached you, if I remember correctly,” Dave pointed out.

“What can I say? I was young, naïve and you had way too much information about my personal life. Aren’t you used to it by now when people go running in the other direction when you appear from the shadows with a box full of surprises?”

“It always seems like a good idea when I’m doing it,” Dave said thoughtfully. “I don’t know. I guess I always imagined someone picking us up when we were kids, with a box full of surprises and no secret agendas…” Dave said wistfully. Ray stared at him. It was incredibly rare for Jake or Dave to talk about their past, that this was a rare insight into it.

“What would you offer yourself? I mean, if you could do it right now, what would you say to your younger self?”

The day Dave had come with his offer, Ray had been a desperate father in need. He’d been dishonorably discharged, but he’d happily gone to the mother of his child. Only to find the child and not the mother. Stranded in a foreign country, without friends, money or contacts, life had become hell.

“Am I rich?” Dave asked, his head slightly cocking to the right.

“No, you’re a poor devil in need of something fast. You know—think of me, when you found me.”

Imagining Dave as a poor devil was actually hard. Dave and Jake had the same brains, but where Jake was soft, Dave was practical. Where Jake liked things nice and easy, Dave was cunning and resourceful. Dave probably thought Jake’s life was boring, while Jake thought Dave’s way was too risky. How two people as different as these two had become life-long friends was a total mystery.

“I would ask for a computer with internet access,” Dave said, leaning on his leather chair. “I would make a counteroffer, see how far this Dave person would dare to go. I would just start from scratch.”

And build this life back, Ray finished. That was what he liked about Dave: he knew exactly where he wanted to be, and how to get there. He smiled at the man's honest answer.

“I’ll get you your list,” he said, turning around and leaving Dave’s office, completely missing the guilt ridden look those words instilled in his boss.


3 : Ash
January, 2004 – New York City


The strangest aspect of their new home planet was picking a name. Not only were their true names barely pronounceable here, but they lacked ethnicity. It was not the same to be called John Smith, than John Schmidt, or Juan Vasquez or Hareharekrishna. One's skin color, speech and traditions had to match with one's name, because getting it mixed up raised all kinds of alarms and questions, and totally defeated their main purpose of being invisible.

Kal Langley had explained it all the week before when they had just arrived, all tight bundles of energy and excitement and wonderment. Now, seven days later, things were starting to get less star-struck and more practical.

They were so eager to get outside and guard their king, that their headquarters felt more like a cage than their new command center. Yet a routine had to be established, rules to be approved and followed. Adjusting to this new life, on this new planet, living among 7 billion aliens, could be scary some times, but none of them were backing down from their duties as Guards. None of them ever would.

And their duty this morning was picking a name.

Hundreds of pictures were scattered over the dark blue rug, each one with a brief info that made little sense out of context. Being a female or male, young or old, white or black, was dependent on their mission, but they had to choose a base human form, one to fall back on in moments where they had a quiet time to themselves or when things were so hectic or dangerous that choosing that form would be an automatic reflex.

Shifters were neither "girl" or "boy". Or rather, they could be both. Because men had more appeal as soldiers when it came to perception, shifters were, as a general rule, all male in form, but their minds could be either gender, some days feeling more female than male. There were few that were locked on a specific gender, like Luke, and they had no problem with sticking to it. Most of them, though, picked two forms, because one never knew what the day would bring.

Antarians had no gender issues. They had genetic ones, but this world was barely contemplating getting out of the former to know what was awaiting them with the latter.

He wanted a small form. He was more of the mind that innocent looking creatures were the best disguise, the one his enemies would approach without their defenses on high. The main problem on Earth, though, was that no human could know they were here, and that ruled out shifting in public. If he chose a form that was not practical in as many scenarios as possible, it would be a disadvantage to himself and a disservice to his king.

"So, not too young," he murmured, practicing his English out loud.

The one grateful thing about his first mission was that all his targets where in the same country. And the great thing about the United States of America was that any ethnicity was allowed. He could be black, white, yellow and all the shades in between, with hardly anyone batting an eye.

"Not too big," he said, placing face down the images that he was rapidly discarding. His eyes kept changing color as he subconsciously matched the ones in the photos. Blue, brown, green, his irises adjusting without a second thought.

Within two minutes, he was staring at 21 candidates to be his next face.

Van said he could not tell a human and an Antarian apart, and all shifters smiled at that. The differences were so obvious to them, it was painful, but to the untrained eye—one that didn't have to disguise itself every day as someone else—he guessed he could see why.

As he stared at the face of a mid-twenties male, Ash was unable to not see them: humans' faces were more rounded, where Antarians' were sharper, longer. Noses were slightly too small in humans, along with the size of the irises and eyelashes. Their bones were heavier, and their muscles not as flexible. Human hair grew at an alarming rate, and they lacked the skin patterns on their backs that Antarians had.

When Zan came back, his alien-ness would be easy to hide, but it wouldn't pass a close inspection. Everyone knew in Antar that Zan had been genetically modified to survive on Earth, but most didn't know that, physically, Zan was about 90% human. Yet ironically, that was what gave Ash the certainty that Zan's reign would be the best thing that could happen to shifters: their very own king would be as much a product of genetic manipulation as they were. It was almost as good as having a shifter on the throne.

Khivar was using that rhetoric to induce fear in the population. Claiming that bringing someone from the dead was not just a crime against nature, but against their very own selves. Immortality, Khivar had said the last time Ash had heard him address his subjects, is the worst form of selfishness. Those who are gone have made room for those who will come, the new ideas, the new blood that has to replace the old. To live again is to take away the rightful place of those who had not yet lived.

"Well, here's a little replacement for you, Mr. Usurper. We are going to replace you with the newer version of Zan."

"Talking to yourself out loud is never a good sign, you know?" Violet said, the only one of the Invisible Guard who preferred a female gender at all times. She'd picked Asian for her form, long, straight black hair cascading at her back, an impressive feat. Hair was difficult to maintain consistently between shifts, for one, and long hair was reserved for royalty. Yet another difference between our worlds.

"Just trying this language out while picking a form. You picked yours rather fast," Ash said with approval, wondering if having long hair would be a big deal.

"I asked Kal what kind of woman looked both smart and athletic, and out of his suggestions…" she trailed off, striking a pose to show her form. "The eyes take a little getting used to, though," she said, blinking a couple of times, her thin eyebrows arching, giving her a comical look.

"All the differences are annoying," Ash said, picking five photos. "I still haven't decided myself. God, but the human body has way too many muscles!" he added, studying the body of a chocolate-skin man. Antarian bodies would never bulk the way this guy's had. It was physically impossible to augment their muscle mass that much. Shifters, on the other hand, would have no problem, but keeping that form would take practice. A lot of it.

"Maybe you should do it backwards, like Jade and I did," she suggested, getting a closer look from her place behind him. "Pick up the name and then go see what looks like it. Or use a form from your own name, something Earth-sounding."

He looked at her with a skeptic face. "There are so many variables, really…" he murmured, breaking his own name in bits, trying to see if something stuck. Ash doesn't sound half bad, except that it didn't match the faces that were looking back at him from his printed copies.

Violet sat down beside him, taking the five photos out of his hands. She promptly discarded three, and left two. One man, one woman.

"He's rather tall," he said, slightly narrowing his eyes while he contemplated the pros and cons about this form. Yellow hair reached to this man's shoulders, crystal blue eyes looking a little dazed. He was from some place called Australia, and the information card warned that there was a different speech pattern to learn.

"Then just be a girl," she said, shrugging.

He took her form, appreciating the slim figure. She laughed out loud. Taking the same form was usually considered taboo among shifters, except when they were picking forms.

"You're right, the eyes feel odd," he commented, playing with a few different adjustments until he fell back to his Antarian form. "I don't think I can decide today," he said with a frustrated sigh. He started to pick the photographs that were turned down, piling them into a stack, and Violet started to help. Soon, she picked one that he had set aside: Zan's photo.

She changed into Zan, her eyes glued to his image. For one second, it felt as if she were truly Zan, and Ash was Guarding him, all this training left behind, his mission over, finally fulfilling his destiny.

"You think he'd… talk to us?" she whispered, losing Zan's form and taking her own. It was against the law to impersonate the king except on duty.

"Zan was the most vocal proponent in equal liberties for us, even letting us out of the military life if we chose to. You've seen the archives. He saw us as people. He never feared us."

"He had a Seal to protect him," she said, fearful eyes turning to look at Ash, knowing her words could be interpreted as treason.

He placed a hand on her forearm, looking her straight in the eye. "Van wouldn't have chosen wrong. And he talks to us, all the time… at all times," he added, eliciting a smile from her. Being a rebel did not keep office hours. "But I think… I think we'll Guard him from the shadows long enough to get to know him, you know? By the time he comes home, we can decide to stay here. Earth is far enough, and diverse enough, for us to get lost in."

"Like Kal thought he was doing?" she pointed out in a somewhat troubled manner, her eyes going back to the photos, her hands sorting them out in stacks.

"I guess… I thought you liked Kal," he said as an afterthought. Kal was the only shifter who'd served Zan long before Zan had taken the throne. And the only surviving shifter from the original mission.

"I do, I do… It's just… Why did he wait so long? If Van hadn't made contact, Kal wouldn't have bothered, that much is clear. Don't you see? Kal doesn't think Zan is there, or is ready, or whatever. Kal is willing to forget about Antar's life and soul, letting our former leader grow old on an alien world, in an alien body… What if we change our minds, too? What if we betray Van by not believing in his dream?" she barely whispered, her eyes still looking at the now empty rug, her hands in fists.

"Hey," he said, getting her attention back. "We'll learn, we'll watch, we'll Guard. By the time this is over, we'll make a decision. If we stand by Zan, or if we stand by ourselves. We're not fighting to remain slaves. We're not even fighting for Van, when it comes down to it. If this Zan is not the man we want, nothing, and I mean nothing can hold us down to this war."

He would be haunted by those words for the next seven years.
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keepsmiling7
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Re: The Rebel *Sequel* (CC ALL, YTEEN) Ch. 6 - pg. 5 - 5/12

Post by keepsmiling7 »

The plot thickens......
Zan is 90% human like.....
Thanks for the great update,
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xmag
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Re: The Rebel *Sequel* (CC ALL, YTEEN) Ch. 6 - pg. 5 - 5/12

Post by xmag »

Interesting insight into the shapeshifters's world. I never gave much thought about how they chose their human appearances, which ones were more convenient or how they chose in order to adapt to our world and to their job.

Zan and Co are 90% human? What are the 10 other percent, what's alien in them, since the powers they have are humans, dixit Nacedo in season 1. Is it the soul or essence?
Last edited by xmag on Sun May 19, 2013 2:46 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Timelord31
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Re: The Rebel *Sequel* (CC ALL, YTEEN) Ch. 6 - pg. 5 - 5/12

Post by Timelord31 »

nice update
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