Hi everyone!
The next chapter has been sent off to my editor and while we wait for it to get back to me, I thought it would be sound to give you a recap since it has been
years since my last update. I'm reusing the recap I wrote and posted when I updated a couple of years ago, also because of a lengthy absence
with some changes to the end.
AI and I worked together to put together my ideas of how the two different types of Antarians look like. The original Antarians (the nicer ones) on the left and the Royals (eg. Command and the Mayor) on the right.
Here we go:
Liz has always been wary of the three beautiful people at school: Max, Isabel and Michael. But Max, especially, has been a person to be suspicious of. There’s just something about him that puts Liz on edge. Jokingly considering them to be vampires, Liz keeps her distance until she is dragged to a Halloween party by her best friend, Maria. Where she accidentally witnesses Max healing Isabel’s wound. Liz is hidden at first, but is discovered as she makes a noise of shock at the sight. But before the trio can determine how much she has seen, Liz passes out. Due to a generous intake of alcohol, Liz has trouble remembering the incident at all and even though Max gets the task of erasing her memory of it, he postpones the task, thinking that Liz won’t remember.
But she does. And he erases her mind.
But then Liz’s mother dies. In what seems to be an accident. A fire at their home. Liz (having been away with her father at a camping event with school) comes home to find their home on fire. She rushes in to save her mother but the lethal smoke gets her instead. She wakes up outside of her house, with Max, who is removing her pain and her wounds.
The secret is out after that. Or at least, pieces of it. She tries to put the rest of the pieces together on her own after that, doing everything in her power to pump Max of information while simultaneously grieving her dead mother.
What she eventually finds out is this: Max, Isabel and Michael are all hybrids, born to human and alien parents. Max and Isabel are twins, their father Philip an alien with the rare ability to heal. He had to find a suitable woman to mother his children in order to make sure that his children would carry on the healing trait.
There is a large alien community on Earth, consisting of both pure aliens and hybrids. The alien community is ruled by a person called Command. He is a descendant of the royal family from Antar, meaning that he has the ability to take on any ability from other aliens, including special abilities such as healing.
This alien community has been utilizing humans for their own agenda. In particular, one type of human. A gaea. Which is a female who can be used as a big battery. In other words, an alien - usually of the alien military - will be assigned a gaea whose life energy can enhance his powers and refuel him whenever his has been emptied (for instance, during war). The gaea trait is passed on to females and Liz happens to be a gaea. So was her mother. Which was also the reason why she died. Her energy was being tapped to the degree that her health was being compromised and her mind was being damaged from all the memory wipes. Since gaeas don’t know there are aliens using them, their memory is wiped after any incidents. The frequent use of Nancy Parker’s life energy meant that she eventually turned mad and was threatening to hurt Liz (read: kill Liz) to prevent Liz from having to live her life at the hands of the aliens, like her mother had been forced to. As a precaution, Nancy was killed. Her death was covered up in the fire.
Being a gaea, Liz has been tested her whole life. Tested to see when she would be “ready” to be used as a gaea. Her upbringing was therefore filled with examinations and memory wipes. Her healer was Max. Her assigned “energy-sucker” was Sean, the son of the military man that had used Nancy Parker as an energy source. Her protector was Alex. Yes, Alex. Also an alien.
When Max healed Liz, he formed a connection. With superficial healings, the healer won’t have to form a connection. But Liz’s burns were too extensive. After the healing, the healer is supposed to break the connection. But in this case, the healing of Liz was so strenuous that Max passed out after the procedure, never breaking the connection. And he does not do so later either. It enables him to protect Liz’s mind from Sean, whose special ability is mind manipulation. And as long as Liz is connected to Max, Sean can’t connect with her, which he is itching to do.
But to connect with a gaea, who you are not supposed to connect with, is synonymous with death in the alien community. Max is caught between wanting to protect Liz from Sean (and secretly loving her) and to break the connection to prevent both of them from risking their lives were the aliens to find out about the connection.
The aliens do find out about it, eventually, though. And Max requests to attend an alien meeting to explain the situation and explain why he and Liz needs to stay connected.
The meeting doesn’t end well. Sean attacks Max, Liz tries to protect Max and is hit with an energy blast. In the chaos that follows, Max and Liz are separated and imprisoned at separate locations. We follow Liz to her prison at the hands of Sean and his father. Where they try to break through the connection and get into Liz’s head. But the connection remains. Even when they try to weaken Max at the same time, to weaken his hold on Liz.
Eventually, Liz is taken to Max as a test. To see what their connection could do if they are put together. Shortly after they have been reunited, Sean and his father pays a visit. Sean brought a gun, because the room they are in has a force field which has inactivated everyone’s alien powers. Foolishly enough, Sean shoots Max during a confrontation. And while Liz falls to her knees to protect and help Max, and Sean and his father approach from behind, the connection answers and protects the couple by turning Sean and his father into dust. Literally.
Max and Liz get help after that and end up with Isabel, Alex, Philip, Nancy and Diane at an abandoned building outside of Roswell. There they find out that there is a rebellion. A rebellion secretly working against Command. A rebellion that very much opposes to seeing humans being used by aliens. A rebellion that believes that Max and Liz’s connection might be the weapon they have been looking for to win in a war against Command.
Max and Liz are trained in battle. Liz mostly so. Maria arrives at one point, having been saved by Michael who took it upon himself to look after Maria and save her once men started to move in on her. She’s not happy in the beginning, but after finding out the truth and slowly warming up to the scary thought that she is surrounded by aliens, Maria is along for the ride.
Their hiding place is attacked. Diane is killed and they flee into underground tunnels. Max is shot with an energy blast during their escape, leaving a gaping wound through his middle. Liz is able to heal him. They are also introduced to Dresden at this point. The leader of the rebellion. A person whose wife took care of Max when he was little and put in an institution to remove a memory of having connected with Liz already as a child. It was this childhood connection which signalled to the rebellion (which Philip Evans is part of) that Max and Liz needed to be protected.
Soon they stand face to face with Command. Who kills them. But as he tries to steal Max’s healing power at the moment of death, the connection strikes back, infecting Command with pure goodness. Because of his pure dark soul, he is destroyed. From the inside out.
Because it seems as if Max and Liz are both parims. Untainted souls of pure goodness. Stemming from the original Antarians. The Antarians that were initially pure energy without a physical body. But they would later realize that if slightly tainted, they could acquire a physical shape, which was desirable. But with that taint, they lost their purity. And the royal families that followed several thousands years later would consist merely of blackness, having almost no goodness left. The Blood War which transpired between the Royals and the Antarians would destroy their own planet, having them seek out escape destinations. Finding Earth, they sent children there to start a new life. It was meant to only be Antarians, but unfortunately some bad eggs ended up on the same journey. They landed on Earth in 1947 and became the ancestors to Max, Isabel, Michael and Alex. But what they would later find out was that Antarians had been on Earth since the early 800s. Those Antarians, however, suffered grave infertility and decided to only watch over the humans and do good until they died. Fortunately, their life spans were greater than that of a human.
Max and Liz finds this out after the battle. When Command is dead and they are employed to fight the darkness within the rest of Command’s men. Unfortunately, Command’s closest man - the Mayor - disappears during the heat of battle and the search for him commences immediately.
Meanwhile, Max and Liz finds out that they were pregnant. That Liz was pregnant when she was killed by Command, killing the child within her. After the battle, she miscarries, which breaks her along with all the pressure from the battle and the terror she has been witnessing.
While recuperating from their ordeal, Liz expresses how much she has missed going to school and the normalcy that comes along with it. Arrangements are made, “lifeguards” are placed to protect Liz while in school and Max and Liz realizes - officially - that they have many allies within the kids their own age. But that there are also those who strongly disapproves of how Liz has entered the alien world and in effect rearranged their whole world.
Before we last left Max and Liz, we had skipped ahead. To 2027, when Max and Liz are 28 and consist of a small family of 3. The Mayor has been missing in action and everything has been calm on Earth (at least when it concerns the aliens). They attend regular meetings - although they have been more infrequent lately - which brings them up to date about the rebellion and eventual sightings of the Mayor. The last chapter I posted described one of those meeting and that is where we are going to pick it up and continue.
I hope you are ready to come along for the ride.
I tried to get as much in the summary as possible, while not being too lengthy. Of course, there are A LOT of details I have left out, so if you’re lost about the details, give me a shout out in the feedback and I’ll answer any questions you might have.
/Jo
that's a good use for AI. And yay for the 3 chapters!! Can't wait to read them.
