Chapter Seven: War
A/N: It's been a very looooong time since I updated, and I have two very good excuses for that: 1, I HAD this chapter written out, but then I lost it when I had to get a new computer because my old one, and all of its files, fried. And 2, I'm back in school this year, and it's a very intense program, so I really just don't have as much spare time to write epic fanfics like I used to. Sorry. But I hope you like this chapter anyways. Thanks so much to everyone for the awesome reviews, I appreciate it so much and you inspire me to keep it going!. xoxo
Thousands of subjects gathered in the palace courtyard, waiting to see their Princess and her new husband. An awed hush settled over the crowd as King Zan and his Queen stepped out onto the grand balcony. Zan addressed his subjects with a broad smile, his elation for his sister palpable and comforting.
"Good people of Antar, I present to you now High General Vanguard Rath, and Princess Vilandra of Antar, House of Zor," he announced. The crowd below cheered and the couple stepped out.
Looks of envy were common in the crowd as they took in the couple. The Princess was beautiful on any given day, but in her shining gown, with her long hair in delicate ringlets, and her engagement charm resting gracefully against the hollow of her throat, she was something else entirely. There was no known word to describe her.
The General was always a handsome man, but his position was a serious one and the people had never seen him with such an air of happiness before. His smile shone brightly and his eyes sparkled.
Even when the heavens opened above them the couple did not frown. They laughed and began to dance together, a soft tune echoing out from the ballroom. The King and his people watched happily.
The world around him seemed to implode on their hideaway. All thoughts of the tense silence between himself and his wife, of the unspoken attraction between himself and Ava, of his doubts at being able to lead...all were banished from his mind the moment that they came.
The ground shook with the force of the blast emitted by Nicholas and his army. The North wall of the warehouse was to reduced to rubble by the skin General. Nicholas and his men descended on Max's people in full uniform, ready to go to war.
The dust and smoke hadn't yet cleared when Max found himself climbing to his feet, pulling a terrified Liz to her feet as well. "Get to the van!" he told her, before hurrying out of their office in front of her to shield her from the army's path.
He could hear cries coming from the other rooms and knew that Michael would be coming soon. He needed his help.
Isabel was sleeping when they came; a light, restless sleep that was continually plagued by visions of the memories she'd seen in Rath's mind. Yet, when the attack came she found her mind and body slow to become alert, bogged down in the hazy surreality of "almost asleep". The blast of the North wall crumbling was loud, Earth-shattering even, but Isabel's head filled only with the sound of Lonnie's mental scream. Ava's scream pierced through the night next, coming from the room next door, and Isabel finally found herself flying to her feet.
She'd slept in her clothes, for which she was thankful now, and grabbed her backpack in her hand swiftly. She abandoned her blankets and crouched low in the doorway, peering out intently to see if the way was clear. She was vaguely aware of her hands shaking uncontrollably, for she was much more preoccupied in trying to decide her next move. "Get to the van!" she heard her brother cry, and echoed the order mentally to Lonnie. She hoped that she got it.
A series of yells echoed in from the floor below, where Nicholas and his men were storming the warehouse.
"Find them!" a strange man's voice bellowed, but Isabel knew that it was him. "They're here somewhere, the sensor led us here! Take them alive if possible!"
She knew that she had to move, and so she slipped out of her office, her hand up protectively in front of herself in case she needed to blast her way out. She heard heavy footsteps on the main staircase leading to the top level, and knew that the army was coming from that way. There was another staircase on the South wall, and she headed that way.
Ava could feel tears streaming down her face, mixing with the dust and probably caking to her skin. She didn't care. She crouched in the doorway and took a couple of deep breaths. She didn't know what to do.
As if reading her mind, the door across the hall from her opened, and Rath and Lonnie poured out, pulling their shirts on as they did. Rath caught her gaze and reached a hand out to her, grabbing her arm and pulling her along. "Get to the van!" he told her sharply, looking more afraid then she'd ever seen him. She didn't need to be told twice and took off towards the South staircase, away from Nicholas and his men.
They met Isabel in the hall.
"Have you seen Max and Michael?" she asked them, running beside them towards the stairs. Ava felt sick.
Michael had always been able to pack and leave in a hurry, it was a skill he learned while he was 10 years old. So when Nicholas's army came, he was the first one up and ready. He could hear the others crying out, and knew they were headed towards the van. He was in a different hallway from theirs, with Max and Liz, and ran hard to intersect them.
He'd been waiting for an attack, he figured that Rath probably had been too, since they'd left the city. Michael had been remembering more, and though he wasn't completely up to speed on his life on Antar, he did remember the feeling that he'd had for Nicholas. Fear.
General Rath was a brave and intelligent man, Michael knew that, but no intelligent man ever lived without fear. And Rath had feared Nicholas, more than he'd ever feared Khivar, because Nicholas was cunning, ruthless, and crazy. Seriously, insane. Michael was smart enough to know how dangerous that combination was, and he'd been ready for a fight for a while now.
But that didn't mean that he wanted the others to get stuck in one...so as he rounded the last corner of his hallway, lungs burning from the sudden exertion, and collided with Lonnie he couldn't help the sigh of relief that slipped from his lips. He took a quick inventory of his companions, and grabbed Isabel's hand, pulling her along anxiously.
"Where's Maxwell?" he demanded over the noise of soldiers blasting apart walls and timbres.
"Here!" Max came running back up the staircase, beckoning to them hurriedly. "Liz is getting the van, let's go!"
The six of them clamored down the stairs and spilled out into one of the lower offices. A shout of recognition could be heard from behind them and Michael spun around, sending an energy blast into the group of approaching soldiers behind them.
The ground shook with the impact and pieces of the wall began to crumble to the ground. They grabbed hold of each other to steady themselves.
Then gunshots echoed through the room, and they all dropped to the ground.
Lonnie ignored the fact that her legs were shaking, because even though she was cowered on the ground with the others, Rath's arm shielding her from bullets, she didn't want to admit that she was scared. The others were though, she could feel the fear radiating off of them in waves. In her mind she could hear Isabel anxious thoughts, and Rath's hands shook ever so slightly in tandem with his breath.
She managed to lift her head just enough to take in the sight of them, her family, terrified and trapped. "Lonnie!" Rath's cry of shock could be heard over the gun shots, and he tried to grab her arm and pull her back to the floor.
But she ignored it and shook his hand off, getting to her feet and staring down the approaching soldiers. "Get down!"
The six firing soldiers held their guns up, but seized firing in surprise. She held their gazes and could see them staring back in confusion, obviously not comfortable shooting any of them head on, especially not their former Princess. Lonnie didn't care what they felt though.
'You won't let them do this again,' she promised herself mentally. 'I can't see it another time.' The anger that she felt when she remembered the last time, the smell of smoke and blood on a burning and open field, consumed her.
She was hit with a flash. A field of fallen soldiers and burning grass...Ava's bloodied and lifeless body draped across her throne...Zan breaking down into sobs over his wife's corpse...Rath and Vilandra dancing in the rain...a child, his child, with its mothers' eyes...Rath, beaten and broken, pulling himself to his feet to move to his dead wife's side...
Rath's concerned cry, his hand gripping pleadingly at hers, broke her from the flash. 'They won't go through it again,' she promised.
Lonnie filled with rage; burning red and hot, like an all-encompassing fire building up and spilling forth. Her cry of anger mixed with those of the people around her, and in a flash the soldiers were gone, and the air was filled with dust...pieces of soldiers, of skins.
The aliens all hesitated for a moment, unsure what to say to her, and Rath's grip on her hand lessened, but did not release completely. Isabel looked oddly unsurprised.
"L-Let's go," Max finally said, his voice shaky but firm. The others climbed to their feet and followed him. "Ava we could use a diversion."
Ava nodded and closed her eyes in concentration. Nothing happened. "Something's wrong," she told them. "I can't..."
"He has one of those devices," Michael concluded, attempting to aim a blast at a nearby pile of rubble and sighing in defeat when nothing happened.
"Just run," Rath barked. They all started moving again.
They reached the south door and Max kicked it open, pushing Ava and Isabel through. Just as Michael was about to follow another gunshot rang out. Michael cried out in pain as the bullet tore through his shoulder. Isabel screamed too and they all ducked down again.
"Keep moving!" Michael barked at her, struggling to stay on his feet. Isabel and Ava both ignored him and reached out to help steady him.
"Leaving so soon?" his voice was different than she remembered, and the body was new, much more intimidating than the 14-year-old skin he had been in before. But Lonnie knew it was him, she would know that cold and calculating presence anywhere.
Nicholas.
"What do you want?" Max demanded, taking a step in front of Michael, Ava and Isabel.
"Who me?" Nicholas asked, waving his gun around and walking closer. "All I want is to get off of this god forsaken planet. But Khivar wants you, all of you, back on Antar."
"You shot him," Max snapped, gesturing to where Michael was now loosing a lot of blood.
"He didn't specify that you need to be alive," Nicholas shrugged and then turned his gaze to Lonnie. "Hey Lon...you look good."
Lonnie frowned. "I see you stole yourself a new body," she said snarkily. "It is an improvement."
"That's enough chit-chat," Nicholas rolled his eyes. "I was obligated to offer you a ride home to Khivar, but that was before you killed six of my men."
"They shot at me," Lonnie told him cheekily.
"Did they?" Nicholas asked. Then, to everyone's surprise, he lifted his gun again and fired.
Lonnie hit the ground in a split second, chocking on the mouthful of blood that bubbled up from the hole in her chest.
Rath was only vaguely aware of the scream that came from Ava's lips, and he collapsed to the ground beside her. He held a hand over the bullet hole and tried to apply pressure, but his fingers slid over the blood, staining his skin and making it impossible to grip.
"Lonnie?" he cried, pushing her hair out of her face and catching her gaze. She was pale as snow, except for the line of red that trickled from her lips. Rath felt as if time had slowed down, as if the world had stopped turning, like he was holding his breath under water. Faced with the end result that he knew was coming, Rath wanted to disappear. But she was there, right there, her blood warm and coating his hands, and he knew that he couldn't run away from it.
Her gaze held his and he was hit with a flash, so powerful that he stopped...everything.
And when it was over he looked down again and she wasn't breathing. "Lon?" he whispered brokenly, voice cracking through tear-blurred vision. "Lon? Lonnie?" He shook her shoulders carefully. When she didn't reply he shook the harder. "Lonnie! Lonnie! Wake up!"
He was having trouble breathing now, not even noticing the others in the room, or the skin behind him with the gun and the blank stare. She still didn't move though. Rath leaned down and pressed his forehead to hers. "Lonnie?" he whispered, pressing his eyes closed. "Wake up. Please...baby, please wake up."
She didn't answer.
He pressed a kiss to her lips quickly, tasting blood but ignoring it. "Lonnie?" her body felt solid and warm, so he knew that even though this was his worst nightmare, he was actually awake. "Please babe...I love you. Please just wake up!"
Suddenly his head shot up, because he was positive that he heard her sob. But he realized soon enough that it was just Isabel, her tear streaked face staring down at them with a mixture of fear, sorrow, and awe. Rath couldn't look at her, couldn't see his girls face on someone else right now, so he turned to Max instead.
"Help her!" he demanded. "Quick, she needs your help!"
Max didn't say anything, he just opened and closed his mouth wordlessly. He wanted to do something, Rath could see it.
"Please," Rath begged, all sense of pride gone. He just wanted Lonnie back.
"I-I can't," Max shook his head. "My powers...the device...I can't use them."
Rath turned to Nicholas then, his shoulders shaking with an anger and grief that he'd never felt before. Something that the human side in him couldn't fathom, and the alien side didn't remember.
"Now we're even," Nicholas said cooly, his sadistic smile looking forced even as his gaze fell on Lonnie's body.
Before he knew what was happening, Rath found himself flying at the skin. He caught Nicholas off guard and knocked the gun from his hand. And then he punched him. Hard. And sent him flying into a pile of debris.
More than anything Rath wished he had his powers now, had a way to channel the raw, unbridled rage that was pulsing through his veins. Nicholas didn't stir, and Rath knew that he'd knocked him unconscious.
For a moment none of them stirred at all. Then Max found his voice again. "Let's go," he bent down over Lonnie. "If we get her out of here we might still be able to..." his voice trailed off then but they all knew what he was saying.
Rath bent down and lifted Lonnie into his arms, shaking off Max's attempts to help. He ignored the gaping wound in his girl's chest, the stickiness of the drying blood on his own shirt, and the trembling in his hands.
"What about him?" Isabel asked, her eye's trailing over to Nicholas' prone body. Max hesitated.
"If we want to help Lonnie we can't wait," he concluded.
Ava and Isabel helped Michael out to the van and Max brought up the rear.
Rath felt as if he were still asleep, and desperately wanted to wake up.
Isabel couldn't even describe the feeling of relief that hit her when she pulled open the van door and they piled in. Liz looked terrified when she saw them.
"Oh my god!" she cried when Ava and Isabel helped Michael into the van. He groaned uncomfortably and laid back on one of the benches.
Then Rath came in holding Lonnie, covered in blood. "I-is she..." Liz couldn't finish the question and Isabel found herself averting her eyes.
"Drive!" Max ordered, climbing in last and slamming the door behind them. Liz nodded and the van was moving in seconds. Rath laid Lonnie down on the other bench and proceeded to pull the neckline of her shredded clothing down, so that Max could see the damage to her chest. Max turned to Michael. "Can you..."
"I can wait," he assured Max with a short nod, though he looked pained to move at all. "Help her!"
They all watched while Max reached out and pressed a hand to Lonnie's chest. He closed his eyes in concentration, his palm glowing white while rays of his power pulsed through the van. Isabel didn't breathe, she just waited.
Nothing happened.
"Why isn't she waking up?" Ava finally demanded.
"I-I don't know," Max's hands shook but he kept trying anyway. Isabel tried to call her twin mentally, but she got nothing. Rath looked lost, and it broke Isabel's heart. She reached out and grabbed Michael's hand, squeezing it tightly in hers.
Still nothing happened.
"Max..."
He sighed heavily and sat back, pushing his hair out of his eyes and leaving a streak of red there. "I can't do it," he admitted dejectedly. Max turned to Rath and looked at him seriously. "I can't bring her back...it's too late. I-"
"No!" Rath pushed him away and Max stumbled backwards. "Lonnie?" he whispered in her ear. "Please baby, wake up. Please wake up!"
Isabel felt tears streaming down her face and could hear Ava sobbing beside her. She sat down on the floor beside Michael's bench, unable to say anything. Max collapsed beside her and Michael clapped a hand down on his shoulder. Isabel leaned against her brother, her hand still intertwined with Michael's, and watched in silence while Rath tried in vain to wake Lonnie up.
"I'm sorry," Max's voice cut through the van, small and sorrowful, and they all looked up to see the unshed tears in his eyes.
Rath was covered, clothes soaked, in drying blood; dark red and sticky. He looked...helpless.
"But she's..." he didn't seem to have the words and just stared blankly back at them. "She's my whole world..."
Ava took a few tentative steps towards him, not bothering to wipe away the tears on her cheeks. Rath noticed and looked up at her pitifully from his spot on the floor. "Avy..." she touched his cheek sadly and he seemed to wilt before their eyes.
Isabel had never heard anyone sob the way that he did, gut-wrenching and heart-breaking while he reached out and hugged Ava tightly. She cried openly too, her fingers stroking his hair comfortingly.
Watching them, Isabel thought of when she'd lost Alex and the pain that she'd felt. She remembered what it was like to have to leave Jesse behind. She remembered the constant aching that she felt as a child every night before they found Michael. And she realized now, watching a man like Rath cry in front of all of them, that as painful as those things were, she had never felt loss like that. The kind where your whole world seems to have fallen out from under you, and you honestly don't know if it's worth staying behind by yourself anymore.
He was just broken, and as awful as she felt for him, she was so very glad that it wasn't her.
They splurged on a hotel room that night, because Michael needed somewhere to recover, and Rath just needed some time away from the others. They worried what Rath might do, once the shock wore off, and so Ava agreed to stay with him. Even more worrisome was that he didn't fight it, he didn't do anything. He just...was. They didn't know what to do with him.
"Do you need another pillow?" Isabel asked, already trying to wedge another one behind him. Michael groaned but leaned forward obligingly, letting her fret over him.
"I'm fine Isabel," he tried to assure her. "Max fixed it, remember?"
"But you're still sore," she sighed, looking particularly frazzled. Michael shook his head in denial - a total lie by the way! - and then hissed in pain when she pointedly poked his shoulder. "See."
"I'll be fine Isabel," he promised her and leaned back against the pillow mountain that she'd created for him. "Are you okay?"
"Yes," she replied. He raised an eyebrow in question. "No, not really," she admitted, sitting on the edge of her bed. "I just...you saw him today Michael. I'm worried about him. He's not really stable to begin with, but now..."
"It's gonna be okay," Michael told her. "He's gonna pull through this, and we're gonna find a way to stop Nicholas."
Isabel stared back at him quietly, clearly not believing him. They were silent for a few minutes, then she wandered over to the TV and grabbed the remote control.
"Family Guy?" she asked, sliding onto the bed beside him. Michael nodded and gave her a small smile. She turned the TV on and found a station. "Michael?"
"Yeah?"
She turned and looked at him seriously. "If you ever go and get yourself shot again I'll kill you," she told him, and Michael was pretty sure that she wasn't kidding. He smiled.
"Okay."
"Okay?" she questioned. When he nodded she smiled in relief and snuggled down into the pillow mountain, resting against his good arm.
Michael watched her out of the corner of his eye while she became engrossed in the show. He thought of Lonnie, and how it felt to see her lying there, not breathing and in a pool of blood. A stranger with her face. It was unsettling.
He'd watched his twin, a bad-ass murderer, break down and weep in front of them because he'd just watched his girlfriend die. A rough, tough, hard-as-steel soldier like Rath could feel that, but Michael...he'd never felt loss like that. While he was grateful for that, he also realized that he'd never felt love like Rath had before either. For anyone.
Michael looked once again at Isabel, who was engrossed in the show, and realized that that wasn't entirely true. He had felt that once, but not in this life. He remembered loving her that much though, his Vilandra. Maybe it was the alien side of them, the stronger side; maybe it felt everything stronger? Rath was definitely more in touch with that side than he was...
He found himself staring at the wall between their room and the Dupes', wondering what was happening on the other side. "Are you okay?" Isabel's concerned voice suddenly jarred him out of his reverie. He looked down to see her staring back in concern, her eyes wide and worried.
Michael nodded in response, and luckily she believed him. Isabel settled back against him and he tried to watch the TV with her. Truth was, he didn't think he was okay. Sure, his shoulder was fine-or it would be in a few hours-but he was scared, and that was a feeling that Michael was still relatively new to. If not even Lonnie was safe from Nicholas then the rest of them had cause to worry.
Things were going to get worse, and he instinctively knew that they were going to loose more than just Lonnie. They still had a long way to go before they were safe.
Isabel was starting to drift asleep now, resting against his shoulder. Michael pressed a kiss to her temple and then closed his eyes.
Ava was not a stranger to fear, having lived much of her life afraid of the world around her, the world that she didn't really belong in. She'd spent a lot of time being afraid of Rath and Lonnie too, murdering fiends they had been. But they'd been different this time, they'd greeted her warmly and Rath hadn't threatened her once.
And now, as she stood warily in the doorway, watching him stare blankly at a wall from his position on the only chair in the room, she didn't see the man that she'd once been afraid of. She saw the boy that she knew her whole life: the one that used to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade with her so she wouldn't be alone, who always stole extra cherries from the market carts because they were her favorites, and the one that had run up to her proudly when he'd been the first to develop powers. That was the Rath she saw now, broken, empty and lost, and it terrified her in a completely different way than he used to.
She'd convinced him to change into different clothes once they'd arrived, his old ones soaking in memories of her. His outfit was now devoid of blood stains, but he hadn't moved, or said anything, in over an hour now. Ava didn't know what else to do. It's not like they had been that close lately.
"Rath?" she asked him tentatively, taking a few steps closer. He didn't look up, didn't move, didn't even seem to hear her. "Rath?" she asked it louder this time, but her voice wasn't reaching him. "Soldier?"
He blinked to attention this time, his eyes searching her out, but he didn't speak. He stared back expectantly and she hesitated. "I'm going to go and get us something to eat," she said. "I'll be right back, okay?" He didn't say anything. "Will you be okay...for a little while?"
He nodded slightly and then went back to staring at the wall. Ava stifled the concerned sigh that wanted to escape and slipped quickly from the room, pocketing the key in her jeans.
She leaned against the closed door heavily, fighting back the tears. She felt sick about Lonnie, and her heart was breaking for Rath...and she physically ached from how much she missed Zan. It was all that she could do right then to make herself forget about the fact that Zan was gone because of what Rath and Lonnie had done. The pain she'd felt was so debilitating that she wouldn't wish it on anyone, not even on the man who'd caused it. So now, leaning against the door with the cool night air blowing against her cheeks, she cried for Rath and his loss. She would try to put the rest behind her.
She made her way to the little diner that was next door to their motel, and ordered burgers, fries, and cokes for her a Rath. Then she took a seat to wait for her food. After a few minutes she felt the hair on the back of her arms stand up, and the back of her neck tingled. Ava smile.
"Hi Max," she greeted him, before he even took a seat at the table.
"I didn't think you saw me come in," Max told her, slipping into the other side of the booth. She looked up with a small smile, a sad one though.
"I didn't," she answered. The unspoken words were that she felt his presence as soon as he entered the diner, but she knew that it was probably best to not mention that. He knew anyway, deep down.
"How's Rath?" he asked in concern, toying with the edge of his room key.
"I don't know," she admitted. "He's hasn't talked since we got here...it's like he's not even there. I don't know what to do, or what to say to him. I'm scared for him...I'm sad for him."
Max's hand dropped the key and snaked across the table to touch hers in comfort. Ava gasped when the flash hit...
...two suns high in the sky casting a warm glow onto a pool of purple water...Tess's young face, still entrapped in her pod chamber...bright blue eyes...little Liz Parker in the dress with the cupcakes...seeing Michael again...Tess in biology lab, kissing him on the table...Tess and him making love under the stars...Ava in a wedding gown, smiling...
She was breathing heavily when she managed to pull her hand away, and Max ended up staring back at her in shock, his mouth open slightly. She wondered what he had seen. Did he see the wedding too?
Ava couldn't find words now, and all thoughts of Rath vanished from her head. Max continued to hold her gaze, his eyes burning into her.
"Order's up honey," the waitress appeared so suddenly that both Max and Ava jumped. She blinked sheepishly. "Hon?"
"Thanks," Ava turned her attention to the waitress, taking the offered bag of food. The waitress left them and she turned back to Max. "I should go...he might be hungry."
They both knew that he wouldn't be, but they were uneasy now, and so Max nodded in agreement. Deny, deny, deny.
The sun broke over the horizon, signaling the dawn of a new day...a new opportunity. Rath watched it rise higher and higher into the sky, from his position at the window of their room. The last rays of yellow finally stretched their way to the window sill, illuminating him against the cold, dark night. Lonnie was gone, and the rest of them were being hunted.
He knew now what he had to do.
TBC...
