Quite an emotional part. The guards who suffered so much to land their position, who sacrificed so much, finally see their sacrifices being rewarded. I kind of miss the fact that we will go back to Earth and miss much of what is happening on Antar.
Van is so much in awe of his older brother. His words being "law"... I wouldn't be surprised if he kept in regular contact with Max, Michael and Isabel, to keep them as councilors while he is reparing Antar. And let's face it, it's a daunting task, he deserves to have family to help him, even from afar.
The Rebel *Sequel* (CC ALL, YTEEN) Ch. 44 - pg. 24 - 7 / 15 / 25
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Re: The Rebel *Sequel* (CC ALL, YTEEN) Ch. 43 - pg. 23 - 7 / 13 / 25

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. 43 - pg. 23 - 7 / 13 / 25
xmag, you're right, we only get a glimpse of Antar and what happens next, but that's a story our Roswellians never wanted to be a part of, so... I did want to show what would happen to our dear Guards, since we've been hearing from them throughout the story. It's only fair we see that their efforts are paying off
Part 44: The Middle of Nowhere
November 3rd, 2011 - Canada
1 : Maria
For all she wanted to see if there would be a bigger reaction across Antar, Maria was more than happy to step out of the wormhole into the orange and red colors of autumn against a full moon and a starry sky. It was cold, too, and she had no idea where her coat had been lost, somewhere between escaping the hotel in New York and the taxi ride to the false warehouse.
Michael came to her rescue by placing his hands on her yellow blouse and transforming it into a wool yellow sweater.
“Thanks,” she said, her boots crunching over the already fallen leaves surrounding the luxury cabin in the distance. “I can’t believe it’s over,” she absently said.
“The Antar thing?” Michael asked, genuinely confused.
“This day,” she corrected him. “I can’t believe this day is over. See? It’s 1:12 a.m. so it’s been over for a whole hour now.”
He laughed, a short, heartfelt laugh that made them all chuckle around her. It felt good. That everyone had made it alive and unhurt was nothing short of a miracle. She knew the ‘Antar thing’ wouldn’t be over until Van came to have the Seal removed and destroyed, and that the Rebellion could still go awry, but for the foreseeable future, it was over.
She had not been in this particular safe house, but boy did she have expectations. I bet it has a big living room with big, fluffy couches in it, she imagined, the weirdness and tiredness of the day starting to drain her usually bubbly energy. Her stomach growled, reminding her that she hadn’t had a proper meal in ages, the few bites of instant ramen already forgotten.
She had no clothes, no toiletries, not even an idea of where they actually were. Knowing Dave, this place probably had a couple of cars and a cabinet full of cans of food. And wouldn’t it be peachy if the beds were big and soft and warm?
“What are you thinking about?” Michael quietly asked.
“Food, clothing, sleeping arrangements.”
“Good. That’s good,” he said, holding her sideways by her shoulder so he could warm her up with his powers.
“Why? What do you think I was thinking?”
“That you missed the opportunity of a lifetime to live in a palace, married to the General of the Royal Army, while being called the mastermind behind the coup that brought Khivar down.”
“When you put it that way…” she said with a smirk. “You do owe me a vacation, though. Somewhere in the Caribbean,” she reminded him, hugging herself.
“You sure you’re okay?” Michael asked, this time his fear coming through their connection that something in the last twelve hours had been terrible enough to crack her.
“Space Boy,” she said, stopping. “There’s a guy in another world leading a Rebellion who called me brilliant. You know what that did to my self-esteem? Hmm?” she kissed him then, holding onto his own newly waved sweater. “This day could have ended with me a widow or worse: with you stuck on Antar for who knows how long. I’m not forgetting this day ever, but only for the good things that happened, okay? So stop worrying.”
“I’ll try,” he said, kissing her back. And then he turned to look at the house. “I really hope they have food in there, cause I’m starving.”
2 : Jesse
Dawn found Jesse in front of the fancy coffee machine, bleary-eyed and exhausted. Isabel had been tossing around all night long, to the point he’d just stayed awake, holding her in his arms, telling her soothing words of love and assurance.
As the sun started illuminating their room, he had come down to get some absurdly delicious coffee so he could sit down with his wife and try to untangle the mess they had just survived. For the millionth time, he hoped Vilandra was finally gone.
She was sitting on the blue carpeted floor with her back against the bed, watching the mountains as the sun started to melt the icy air outside. It was going to snow, Jesse knew, but not just yet.
“Here,” he said, handing the mug with care, while placing his on the floor. He reached for one of the throwaways at the foot of the bed and silently spread it around her shoulders and his.
“Thanks,” she said, blinking fast for a moment, clearly lost in thought until now. “Oh, this coffee is good.”
“You gotta give it to Dave. He knows how to set a safe house.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if this was part of his plan all along,” she said, snuggling to him as they both watched the woods surrounding the property begin to receive the early rays of the sun.
Silence set between them, first the companionable one, and then the oppressive one. She knew he wanted to ask questions, and he knew she didn’t want to answer them.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he finally asked, unsure of what to do if the answer was no.
“I will be,” she said instead, sounding distant for a moment. “I mean, I think I’m not exactly okay right now, but I’m not—I’m not going to let this ghost keep haunting me. Not anymore. I just—I just feel kind of lost right now. Like I know where I’m supposed to go, I’m just not sure how to get there.”
“We all feel a little bit lost right now, I think,” Jesse said, his hand slowly moving up and down her arm as he side-hugged her.
“Are you okay?” Isabel asked then, turning to look at him.
“I’ve just realized that maybe I’m not as okay as I thought I was,” he quietly said, punctuating that with a smile so she knew he wasn’t mad. She already blamed herself for so much that wasn’t in her control.
“Why? What’s bothering you?” she asked, turning to look out of the window as she sipped her coffee.
“Walking on Antar—it made your alien heritage real, you know? It brought back all those fears I had when I first found out. Fear of what you might be, fear of losing the woman I loved and had married. As if Isabel Evans was going to disappear right in front of my eyes. Seeing you so angry, when you were watching that city, it really clicked on me that part of you truly belongs to that world.”
“I really, really want this whole thing to be over,” Isabel said, holding his hand in her lap beneath the throwaway. “It surprised me, too, you know? Feeling so protective of the palace. Wanting to rip apart those banners. But then you said I had already helped by keeping Max alive. And that made it click for me, you know? I’m on the right side of history now. I helped my brother because I believe in him, on what Zan represents for Antar. Not because it’s convenient, but because it’s right. Does that make any sense?”
“Isabel, would I have married you if you made sense?” he playfully asked. She laughed, a little bit bubbly, a lit bit sheepish, but all around real.
“You don’t feel indebted to Antar or your brother anymore?” He asked once they settled down again, sipping their coffees.
“I think that’s it. I’ve helped to right the wrongs of the past. I can’t do anything about Vilandra, nor do I need to be punished for what she did then. I just—I just feel like I still should be punished because I’ve felt that for so long that not feeling guilty is… weird.”
“You know what else is weird?” Jesse asked. “Our deal with Dave is essentially done. I mean, we could still keep working for him if we so desired, but… yeah.”
“He also has a lot to answer for. We need to know that side of the story. What did he hide from us?”
“That man loves his secrets,” Jesse said, placing his head over hers, “you think he’ll want to share any of that?”
“We can certainly make him,” she said, skidding dangerously close to the dark side of her powers.
“Yeah, before we do that…. We have to be smart about how we disentangle our lives from his. This was supposed to be a vacation, you know? I left plenty of things on hold that I would like to see through. You know, do a gracious exit so we don’t have a pissed off Dave following our tracks.”
She sighed, sipping her coffee for a few moments. “I hate it when you make so much sense that I can’t argue with you.”
3 : Max
It was a new day, and Max welcomed it as a new man. Yesterday, he had lived through Zan’s life and had died before sunrise reached his window. Today, he woke up as Max Evans, with the Seal no longer stenciled at the back of his head, and the weight of the crown no longer his to bear.
“Do you feel different?” Liz quietly asked as she rested her head on his chest. They had slept like the dead and yet had found each other on the bed, waking up together like this.
“Not physically,” he whispered back. “I never really felt the Seal inside of me. Even when Michael got it, it didn’t make a difference. But… I do feel different in other ways. I have no doubt that Van is the right choice. I didn’t give him the Seal just to get rid of it. So, it feels like I’ve passed on this responsibility, and the absence of its weight—I feel kind of empty inside. Not the wrong kind of empty, but…”
“The weight of the crown is off your shoulders, Your Majesty,” Liz said, smiling. He laughed, too, a low rumble in his chest.
“That I can certainly live without. Hearing them calling me ‘Your Majesty’ was the most surreal aspect of meeting Van and our Guards.”
“It made it real,” Liz whispered. “I mean, that you really are a king.”
“Yeah. I thought I was meeting Dave at the Empire State Building at 4:00 p.m. sharp and then suddenly, I’m surrounded by these people who meant business, and I had no way to escape them. To escape the crown, to escape my past life; certainly not to escape that my every word was their command.”
“It must have been weird… to have all that power at once.”
Max shook his head, even if she couldn’t see it. “Zan was used to that kind of power, that wasn’t really what threw me off balance. I honestly thought Van was going to kill me. I was surrounded by four shifters and a man posing as a brother I never knew I had, I knew my chances were almost none.”
“You must have been so scared,” Liz said, hugging him tightly. Their connection had been severed by that point, so she hadn’t felt him.
“I didn’t have much time to be scared, actually. I was looking for ways out, just like Ray taught us for so long…. You know what scares me the most? If Van had turned out to be a jerk. A Khivar-wannabe who only wanted the throne for his own selfish reasons.”
Liz froze at that, feeling through their connection the fear that an imaginary what-if was inducing even now.
“Rath once told Zan that power attracts all kinds of people, but seldom the right ones. That he’d joined the Palace guard because he wanted to be the right kind of people to protect the power bestowed onto the king. Van could have been all sorts of things, and all I had was but a few hours to think it through and offer it to him.”
“So what made you decide in his favor?”
“My Guards. They told me why they had come to watch over me. I knew they had to know who I was, what kind of person I am. That I didn’t act as a king or made plans to go back. They all had these idealistic reasons… And Zan… Zan was an idealistic king, so much he made some terrible choices some days. Which I can say only because I’m here and not there. Yet they all cared so much about Van. And Van cared so much about Zan, about following in his steps, building a world with Zan’s vision as its foundation.”
“If you had to go back,” Liz said, untangling herself from him and looking him in the eye, “would you have followed Zan’s vision?”
“Most of it, I think so. And by the sound of it, they’re ready to accept it this time. They’re ready for a future that doesn’t include Khivar twisting ideas and playing with everyone’s future. But to be honest, I’m just glad I’m here and not waking up in Antar.”
“Really?” Liz said, now looking at him with a smile in her eyes.
“Yes. A thousand times yes,” Max said, meeting her to steal a kiss.
“I do want to hear about Zan. About Antar. About that life—”
Max kissed her again. She wasn’t scared, or mad, or remotely doubting if she was kissing her husband or an alien king—he could feel it through their connection, stronger than ever before. All the fears he’d had, all the secrecy regarding this side of him, all of it was now gone.
That’s the real weight that is off my shoulders, he realized, deepening the kiss. He opened their connection and let her see Antar as Zan had seen it. The silver and blue banners, his coronation, the day he’d met Rath. Bits and pieces of what being Antar’s king felt like.
They came for air, and she grinned maniacally at him. “Oh, you better tell me everything, mister!”
“With my pleasure,” he said, before kissing her again.

Part 44: The Middle of Nowhere
November 3rd, 2011 - Canada
1 : Maria
For all she wanted to see if there would be a bigger reaction across Antar, Maria was more than happy to step out of the wormhole into the orange and red colors of autumn against a full moon and a starry sky. It was cold, too, and she had no idea where her coat had been lost, somewhere between escaping the hotel in New York and the taxi ride to the false warehouse.
Michael came to her rescue by placing his hands on her yellow blouse and transforming it into a wool yellow sweater.
“Thanks,” she said, her boots crunching over the already fallen leaves surrounding the luxury cabin in the distance. “I can’t believe it’s over,” she absently said.
“The Antar thing?” Michael asked, genuinely confused.
“This day,” she corrected him. “I can’t believe this day is over. See? It’s 1:12 a.m. so it’s been over for a whole hour now.”
He laughed, a short, heartfelt laugh that made them all chuckle around her. It felt good. That everyone had made it alive and unhurt was nothing short of a miracle. She knew the ‘Antar thing’ wouldn’t be over until Van came to have the Seal removed and destroyed, and that the Rebellion could still go awry, but for the foreseeable future, it was over.
She had not been in this particular safe house, but boy did she have expectations. I bet it has a big living room with big, fluffy couches in it, she imagined, the weirdness and tiredness of the day starting to drain her usually bubbly energy. Her stomach growled, reminding her that she hadn’t had a proper meal in ages, the few bites of instant ramen already forgotten.
She had no clothes, no toiletries, not even an idea of where they actually were. Knowing Dave, this place probably had a couple of cars and a cabinet full of cans of food. And wouldn’t it be peachy if the beds were big and soft and warm?
“What are you thinking about?” Michael quietly asked.
“Food, clothing, sleeping arrangements.”
“Good. That’s good,” he said, holding her sideways by her shoulder so he could warm her up with his powers.
“Why? What do you think I was thinking?”
“That you missed the opportunity of a lifetime to live in a palace, married to the General of the Royal Army, while being called the mastermind behind the coup that brought Khivar down.”
“When you put it that way…” she said with a smirk. “You do owe me a vacation, though. Somewhere in the Caribbean,” she reminded him, hugging herself.
“You sure you’re okay?” Michael asked, this time his fear coming through their connection that something in the last twelve hours had been terrible enough to crack her.
“Space Boy,” she said, stopping. “There’s a guy in another world leading a Rebellion who called me brilliant. You know what that did to my self-esteem? Hmm?” she kissed him then, holding onto his own newly waved sweater. “This day could have ended with me a widow or worse: with you stuck on Antar for who knows how long. I’m not forgetting this day ever, but only for the good things that happened, okay? So stop worrying.”
“I’ll try,” he said, kissing her back. And then he turned to look at the house. “I really hope they have food in there, cause I’m starving.”
2 : Jesse
Dawn found Jesse in front of the fancy coffee machine, bleary-eyed and exhausted. Isabel had been tossing around all night long, to the point he’d just stayed awake, holding her in his arms, telling her soothing words of love and assurance.
As the sun started illuminating their room, he had come down to get some absurdly delicious coffee so he could sit down with his wife and try to untangle the mess they had just survived. For the millionth time, he hoped Vilandra was finally gone.
She was sitting on the blue carpeted floor with her back against the bed, watching the mountains as the sun started to melt the icy air outside. It was going to snow, Jesse knew, but not just yet.
“Here,” he said, handing the mug with care, while placing his on the floor. He reached for one of the throwaways at the foot of the bed and silently spread it around her shoulders and his.
“Thanks,” she said, blinking fast for a moment, clearly lost in thought until now. “Oh, this coffee is good.”
“You gotta give it to Dave. He knows how to set a safe house.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if this was part of his plan all along,” she said, snuggling to him as they both watched the woods surrounding the property begin to receive the early rays of the sun.
Silence set between them, first the companionable one, and then the oppressive one. She knew he wanted to ask questions, and he knew she didn’t want to answer them.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he finally asked, unsure of what to do if the answer was no.
“I will be,” she said instead, sounding distant for a moment. “I mean, I think I’m not exactly okay right now, but I’m not—I’m not going to let this ghost keep haunting me. Not anymore. I just—I just feel kind of lost right now. Like I know where I’m supposed to go, I’m just not sure how to get there.”
“We all feel a little bit lost right now, I think,” Jesse said, his hand slowly moving up and down her arm as he side-hugged her.
“Are you okay?” Isabel asked then, turning to look at him.
“I’ve just realized that maybe I’m not as okay as I thought I was,” he quietly said, punctuating that with a smile so she knew he wasn’t mad. She already blamed herself for so much that wasn’t in her control.
“Why? What’s bothering you?” she asked, turning to look out of the window as she sipped her coffee.
“Walking on Antar—it made your alien heritage real, you know? It brought back all those fears I had when I first found out. Fear of what you might be, fear of losing the woman I loved and had married. As if Isabel Evans was going to disappear right in front of my eyes. Seeing you so angry, when you were watching that city, it really clicked on me that part of you truly belongs to that world.”
“I really, really want this whole thing to be over,” Isabel said, holding his hand in her lap beneath the throwaway. “It surprised me, too, you know? Feeling so protective of the palace. Wanting to rip apart those banners. But then you said I had already helped by keeping Max alive. And that made it click for me, you know? I’m on the right side of history now. I helped my brother because I believe in him, on what Zan represents for Antar. Not because it’s convenient, but because it’s right. Does that make any sense?”
“Isabel, would I have married you if you made sense?” he playfully asked. She laughed, a little bit bubbly, a lit bit sheepish, but all around real.
“You don’t feel indebted to Antar or your brother anymore?” He asked once they settled down again, sipping their coffees.
“I think that’s it. I’ve helped to right the wrongs of the past. I can’t do anything about Vilandra, nor do I need to be punished for what she did then. I just—I just feel like I still should be punished because I’ve felt that for so long that not feeling guilty is… weird.”
“You know what else is weird?” Jesse asked. “Our deal with Dave is essentially done. I mean, we could still keep working for him if we so desired, but… yeah.”
“He also has a lot to answer for. We need to know that side of the story. What did he hide from us?”
“That man loves his secrets,” Jesse said, placing his head over hers, “you think he’ll want to share any of that?”
“We can certainly make him,” she said, skidding dangerously close to the dark side of her powers.
“Yeah, before we do that…. We have to be smart about how we disentangle our lives from his. This was supposed to be a vacation, you know? I left plenty of things on hold that I would like to see through. You know, do a gracious exit so we don’t have a pissed off Dave following our tracks.”
She sighed, sipping her coffee for a few moments. “I hate it when you make so much sense that I can’t argue with you.”
3 : Max
It was a new day, and Max welcomed it as a new man. Yesterday, he had lived through Zan’s life and had died before sunrise reached his window. Today, he woke up as Max Evans, with the Seal no longer stenciled at the back of his head, and the weight of the crown no longer his to bear.
“Do you feel different?” Liz quietly asked as she rested her head on his chest. They had slept like the dead and yet had found each other on the bed, waking up together like this.
“Not physically,” he whispered back. “I never really felt the Seal inside of me. Even when Michael got it, it didn’t make a difference. But… I do feel different in other ways. I have no doubt that Van is the right choice. I didn’t give him the Seal just to get rid of it. So, it feels like I’ve passed on this responsibility, and the absence of its weight—I feel kind of empty inside. Not the wrong kind of empty, but…”
“The weight of the crown is off your shoulders, Your Majesty,” Liz said, smiling. He laughed, too, a low rumble in his chest.
“That I can certainly live without. Hearing them calling me ‘Your Majesty’ was the most surreal aspect of meeting Van and our Guards.”
“It made it real,” Liz whispered. “I mean, that you really are a king.”
“Yeah. I thought I was meeting Dave at the Empire State Building at 4:00 p.m. sharp and then suddenly, I’m surrounded by these people who meant business, and I had no way to escape them. To escape the crown, to escape my past life; certainly not to escape that my every word was their command.”
“It must have been weird… to have all that power at once.”
Max shook his head, even if she couldn’t see it. “Zan was used to that kind of power, that wasn’t really what threw me off balance. I honestly thought Van was going to kill me. I was surrounded by four shifters and a man posing as a brother I never knew I had, I knew my chances were almost none.”
“You must have been so scared,” Liz said, hugging him tightly. Their connection had been severed by that point, so she hadn’t felt him.
“I didn’t have much time to be scared, actually. I was looking for ways out, just like Ray taught us for so long…. You know what scares me the most? If Van had turned out to be a jerk. A Khivar-wannabe who only wanted the throne for his own selfish reasons.”
Liz froze at that, feeling through their connection the fear that an imaginary what-if was inducing even now.
“Rath once told Zan that power attracts all kinds of people, but seldom the right ones. That he’d joined the Palace guard because he wanted to be the right kind of people to protect the power bestowed onto the king. Van could have been all sorts of things, and all I had was but a few hours to think it through and offer it to him.”
“So what made you decide in his favor?”
“My Guards. They told me why they had come to watch over me. I knew they had to know who I was, what kind of person I am. That I didn’t act as a king or made plans to go back. They all had these idealistic reasons… And Zan… Zan was an idealistic king, so much he made some terrible choices some days. Which I can say only because I’m here and not there. Yet they all cared so much about Van. And Van cared so much about Zan, about following in his steps, building a world with Zan’s vision as its foundation.”
“If you had to go back,” Liz said, untangling herself from him and looking him in the eye, “would you have followed Zan’s vision?”
“Most of it, I think so. And by the sound of it, they’re ready to accept it this time. They’re ready for a future that doesn’t include Khivar twisting ideas and playing with everyone’s future. But to be honest, I’m just glad I’m here and not waking up in Antar.”
“Really?” Liz said, now looking at him with a smile in her eyes.
“Yes. A thousand times yes,” Max said, meeting her to steal a kiss.
“I do want to hear about Zan. About Antar. About that life—”
Max kissed her again. She wasn’t scared, or mad, or remotely doubting if she was kissing her husband or an alien king—he could feel it through their connection, stronger than ever before. All the fears he’d had, all the secrecy regarding this side of him, all of it was now gone.
That’s the real weight that is off my shoulders, he realized, deepening the kiss. He opened their connection and let her see Antar as Zan had seen it. The silver and blue banners, his coronation, the day he’d met Rath. Bits and pieces of what being Antar’s king felt like.
They came for air, and she grinned maniacally at him. “Oh, you better tell me everything, mister!”
“With my pleasure,” he said, before kissing her again.
"There's addiction, and there's Roswell!"