AUTHOR'S NOTE: Here I am, back again. Hope you enjoy this chapter. And I wanna apologize in advance for my lake of medical knowledge and thus complete botch up of the doctors.

Thank you for the reviews, goldstranger and roswell26. I'm so glad you liked the angst. I worked really hard on it.

Anyway, onward through the pages…

CHAPTER THREE

He paced the length of his office in a fiery rage, hot enough to melt the toughest of steels and explode the biggest of stars, growling and muttering under his breath in anger. The Royals were gaining ground, he could feel it. The smugness of those impertinent brats could transverse miles of space and tickle his being until he was irritated enough to explode. He could just feel them. Taunting him with their self-righteous crap. Peace. Equality. Free will. The very idea sickened him. He was made to rule the planets. Him! Not some half human cloned brat. The Lythian system was made to be ruled as one, under one law. His law. And he could feel his hold of fear over the five planets slipping. This was not good. It wasn't good at all.

"Khivar," said a voice from the doorway. He turned to glare at the man that interrupted his thoughts. The man was slightly shorter than he was with long dark brown hair and cold blue eyes that shone with certain resentment of him.

"What do you want?"

"Reports just came in from the stations on Antar. The Royals took the palace late last night. Rebel forces are rising up in all the other parts of Antar and overthrowing our armies," he said, tossing a file of papers on a large desk. Some of the papers scattered, sliding out into the open for Khivar to see. "We've lost Antar."

Khviar was seething. He snatched up a vase from his window ledge and hurled it across the room. The man flinched as the heavy ornament barely missed hitting his head before shattering on the wall behind him.

"I want you to fix this," Khivar ground out through clenched teeth. "You remember our deal?" The man nodded curtly, running slightly mismatched hands through his hair. "You fail, and it's off."

"Yeah, whatever," he said, rolling his eyes. "Can I go now?"

Khivar smirked, walking slowly over to him, like a predator. "One more thing. Take those ridiculous pieces of plastic from your eyes." He stood there silently, not making a move to obey. "That is an order, boy!" he snapped.

The man sighed in irritation and reluctantly brought his fingers up to his eyes to remove the lenses that had thus far kept him in a blissful state of denial. "Happy now?"

"Quite. Your mother would be proud."

"I somehow doubt that, Dad," Lindsey said, flopping down on a chair and picking up a random ornament, tossing it from hand to hand. "She hates your guts. Maybe even more than I do."

"Really," Khivar said, chuckling sardonically. "Son, you wound me."

Lindsey rolled his eyes. "You know, if it wasn't for Wolfram and Hart being on my tail, I wouldn't even bother," he sneered. "In fact, I'd be first in line to help the Royals kill you."

Khivar waved his hand dismissively. "Yeah, whatever," he said with a smirk. He paused, taking a seat behind his desk in a soft leather chair and leaning back. "Don't you have some work to do somewhere? I knew Celeste would do a dull job. I would have never raised you to be so…lazy and incompetent. After all, a second in command needs to be more…active. More helpful to his leader. I can tell she's as useless as ever."

Lindsey rushed him, grabbing him by the collar. "Screw you! Don't you ever talk about mom that way," he growled menacingly. "You have no right."

Khivar just stared back at him dispassionately. "Are you quite through?" he asked, calmly removing his hands and smoothing his shirt. Clasping his hands behind his back, he turned and walked over to his window, looking over his kingdom. "You know, Lindsey, as much as I enjoy having you here, this arrangement isn't working out very well."

Lindsey shrugged behind his back. "Fine," he said moving to the door. "I'll just be on my way, then." As he pulled open the door, he was greeted by two burly guards. They each grabbed an arm and dragged him back to Khivar's side.

"See, that doesn't work very well for me. We had a deal. You help me, I help you. Now, I've helped you, but what have you done?" Lindsey glared at him, struggling against the guards' grip. "Whine. Complain. Walk up and down glaring at me all day. But that's gonna change." He walked up to him and ruffled his hair. "Dear old dad has just the cure." He smiled cruelly. "We're going on a little trip," he said in a fake chipper voice.

Khivar took a step back and uttered a short familiar spell and a swirling vortex appeared behind him. The spinning mass of colours sucked in all the light from the rest of the room in a strong gust of wind, making it the brightest thing in the room. Khivar calmly stepped through, motioning for the guards to follow.

Khivar looked around the room. There were many shelves filled with canned food products and potato chips. At the far end of the room, he could see a man behind the counter staring at the wormhole, stunned. They'd landed in the middle of a convenience store. He shrugged. He'd work on his aim later.

He turned as his guards came through with his son and closed the wormhole behind them. Immediately, one of the guards dropped him and started choking just seconds before he exploded into a cloud of dust and dissipated in the still air.

He turned to the other guard. "Antarian?"

"Yes sir," the guard answered, nodding. Khivar just shrugged and led them through the store and onto the cold streets of LA. Before them stood the massive building of Wolfram and Hart. Lindsey's eyes widened as he struggled harder.

"No! No, please!" he cried. The people passing cared little about his pleas, instead preferring to ignore his very existence.

Khivar spun on his heel and backhanded him.

"Shut up!" he yelled. "Have some dignity, boy. No son of mine is going to beg for mercy. Especially not from me. You should know better."

Lindsey could taste blood in his mouth from where his teeth cut into his cheek when his head snapped to the side from the force of the blow. He silently licked the wound with his tongue, spitting out the blood, his head hung low, resigned to his fate.

"That's better." Khivar sniffed. "Besides, what kind of father would I be if I fed ya to the dogs. Nope. I've got a better plan."

Before Lindsey had a chance to consider what that meant, Khivar grabbed him by the head, fingers digging into his flesh as he concentrated. He screamed as he forced his way into his mind, carelessly flinging thoughts, feelings and memories into a steel mental box to be hidden in the dark recesses of his psyche.

Visions played over the back of his eyelids as he screwed them shut under the pain of the intrusion. Visions of death, of war, of the cool, slick feel of an enemy's blood on you hands. Feelings of the pride of a first kill. The thrill of victory. The annoyance of defeat. The hatred of the enemy: The Royals. The need to grind not only their bones, but their spirits into the ground, their graves to be danced and spat upon.

He felt the raw power, the delightful tingle of evil, rushing through his veins. It felt…good.

It was great.

He felt truly alive for the first time.

Lindsey slumped against the guard as Khivar finally let him go.

Khivar stepped away, panting harshly. It was a tough job, harder than he'd expected. His son had a strong will. Stronger than he'd expected. But he was stronger. And it was for his own good. For the greater good.

"Lindsey?" Khivar asked, standing up straighter as he caught his breath.

The younger man finally looked up, long brown hair falling into cold grey eyes and they rose to meet his, a sinister smirk gracing his thin lips.

"Hey, Dad."

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"Oh my god," Rath said in shock, blinking in disbelief as he stepped closer to her. "Siare? You're still alive?"

She cocked her head to the side, looking between Rath and Michael. "Both sets survived?"

"Sort of…" he trailed off, remembering the dead body of Zan in the morgue. He turned to Isabel, who was still looking at Siare in confusion trying to place the face. "Isabel, this is Siare Xalere. Your mother."

Isabel gasped as she suddenly remembered where she'd seen her before. She was the woman in the message. The one who told them about their destiny. She couldn't believe she'd forgotten.

"Mom?" she said softly. Siare smiled brightly at her and nodded.

"Oh my God, I never thought we'd ever meet you," Isabel said in a rush, bending over to give her a hug. Siare stroked her hair lovingly with her good arm, happy tears running down her cheeks. She had hoped against hope that if she'd held out long enough in that dungeon she would live to see her children once again. The thought of them returning from Earth, full of life was all she needed to survive.

"Oh, Vilandra, my baby girl," Siare cooed, not noticing Isabel stiffen in her arms and the others flinch around her. "I missed you so much, Lonnie." Isabel straightened abruptly and stepped away from the bed. "What's wrong?" Siare asked frowning.

"Please, don't. I'm not Lonnie or Vilandra. They did so many terrible things, I just…I'm not…my name is Isabel, " she said. Siare just looked confused.

"They?"

"The Lonnie from my group betrayed us again…and…well…you know the original," Rath explained.

Siare nodded sadly. She'd hoped that the time away from Antar and Khivar would show her daughter the error of her ways, but at least one was good, one returned to her and that was all she could ask for, except…

"Where's Zan?"

The Saviours glanced at each other, none wanting to be the one to break a mother's heart. Rath scratched his eyebrow and shifted uncomfortably.

"Well…my Zan's a few doors down…"

"Oh good…"

"No actually, Siare, he's dead. He died yesterday…in battle." Siare gasped as tears sprung to her eyes. A day. She missed him by only a day.

"And the other?"

"He's sedated in another room," Isabel answered this time. "He was completely out of control."

"Why? Wh-what happened?"

"His fiancé jumped in front of a knife that was meant to kill him. She died in his arms and there was nothing he could do about it," Michael explained. "He couldn't handle it."

"Oh, my poor babies," she murmured, "So, Ava's dead also?"

"No, she's in her room. She only found out about Zan today when we rescued her from the dungeons," Isabel said. "She was there with us, remember?"

She nodded, vaguely remembering her saviours, but it was fuzzy since she was so scared. Afraid that Khivar had finally remembered her there in the dungeons and decided to have another round of torture the Queen Mother. "And the other? Max's Ava?"

"Her name was Tess. She and her protector made a deal with Khivar," Isabel said bitterly. "She was supposed to get pregnant with Max's baby and deliver us to Khivar for execution."

Siare shook her head in disbelief. "My Ava? She was so sweet and innocent."

"People change," Alex said with a shrug.

"And who are you?"

"Mom, this is Alex Whitman. My boyfriend," Isabel answered, sharing a smile with Alex.

Siare made a soft sound of disapproval in her throat as she eyed Alex up and down. He was tall and thin, lanky. His black hair was cropped close to his head, but not so much that he looked bald. His bright blue eyes shone with warmth and kindness. Her gaze shifted to the others in the room. There was a slim brunette standing behind Rath, her arm around his waist as she comfortably leaned against him. The other Rath was holding hands with a petit blonde, who was standing slightly behind him, silently giving her support, but at the same time, trying not to intrude. She could see her rubbing her thumb against the back of his hand comfortingly, though. There were three others there that she still didn't recognise.

She cleared her throat. "Your…protectors didn't give you the books? You didn't get my message?"

"What book? The destiny book?" Michael scoffed. "We couldn't even read the damn thing."

"What message?" Rath asked.

"There was a message in the orbs, she told us about our mission. Who we were in our past lives," Isabel explained, glancing back at Michael. "Who we were meant to be with."

Rath studied Siare for a moment, before shaking his head in disbelief. "You mean how she wanted us to pair up. I don't believe this. You were still trying to control our lives from light-years away. Siare, me and Lon, it didn't work then, it won't work now. Three times is enough to see it'll never work."

Isabel wrinkled her nose in distaste at the thought. "I have to agree. Just the thought of being with Michael or Rath." She shuddered. "It's disgusting."

"Hey! I'm standing right here," Rath and Michael said at the same time.

Isabel rolled her eyes. "You know what I mean. It's like incest." Michael and Rath nodded in agreement.

Siare sighed. "I just wanted you to be happy…and safe."

"I know," Rath said, patting her leg. "But you really suck at matchmaking."

Siare chuckled a bit. "I suppose," she said. "Well, do you want to introduce me?"

Rath sighed in relief that she wasn't going to push it. He was surprised, actually. Usually once she got something in her head, there was nothing that could stop her from doing it. Ten years in a dungeon would probably do that to a person.

"Sure," he said. "This is Faith Whitman, my girlfriend. She's Alex's adoptive sister." He embellished when he saw the look of recognition on her face at Faith's last name. Then he pointed to Maria. "And that's Maria Deluca, Michael's girlfriend. And the others are Kyle, Serena and Oz."

 "So you're the two that tamed the wild beast." Siare smiled warmly at them, leaning forward. "You know, if they get too out of hand, I know a couple of tricks..."

"Ma!" Rath exclaimed.

Siare gasped, tears springing to her eyes. He called her 'Ma'. He hadn't done that since she announced his betrothal to Vilandra. It meant that finally, after fifteen years and a whole lifetime, he'd forgiven her. She never thought she'd see the day.

"Don't worry, Rathikins, I won't scare her off," she said with a laugh, know the effect that nickname had on him.

Michael snorted. "Rathikins?" Rath groaned, rolling his eyes as his friends struggled to keep a straight face. Michael and Kyle didn't even bother, laughing openly at him. "Finally! You and me, Siare," he said, gesturing to Rath. "We gotta talk." Siare giggled, nodding.

"Mikey, you do know that any dirt you get on me is dirt on you, right?"

"No way, you're the only Rath here, bro," Michael pointed out. "I'm Deimon, remember? No mom, no fun childhood stories."

Rath rolled his eyes and cursed under his breath.

"Language, Rathikins," Serena said from the corner, taking great delight in his discomfort. "In front of the parent, too. Tsk tsk."

"Can we drop it now?"

"I dunno, it kinda catchy," Faith teased.

"Aw, not you too." He pouted at his girlfriend, trying to gain sympathy.

"I wonder if Cortenia knows…" Michael mused, grinning evilly.

"You wouldn't dare," Rath growled.

"Oh, grams'll just love this," Maria said.

"Yeah, I bet!" Serena laughed. She winced as a sharp pain sliced through her skull. Closing her eyes, she rubbed her temples with her fingers as her friends continued to banter back and forth.

"You alright?" Oz asked quietly, rubbing her back.

"Yeah, I just-ah!" She cried out as another shot of pain exploded in her head, making her fall back into Oz's arms in agony. The group stopped, looking back at the two. Kyle ran off to get a doctor.

"Serena!"

"It hurts," she moaned, tears streaming down her cheeks, eyes screwed tightly shut.

"What? What hurts?" he asked, sinking to the floor with her in his arms.

Just then, Kyle came back with Dr. Nykheb in tow. Jienne dropped to her knees in front of Serena and took her pulse, then forced open her eyes to check her pupil dilation. Serena wrenched away from her and started rocking back and forth, chanting.

"Make it stop, make it stop," she mumbled over and over, as Oz whispered soothingly at her.

Jienne leaned back and looked to the others, shaking her head. "I'm sorry, there's not much I can do. I don't have much experience with human physiology. I could give her something for the pain, but I'm not sure how it would work on a full human," she said apologetically.

"What about half humans?" Maria asked.

"Well, yeah, I'm prepared for hybrids because of the Royals, but…"

"Serena's half human," Oz interrupted her rambling.

Jienne froze with her mouth hanging half open. "What's the other half?"

"Carnasian."

Jienne nodded her head. "Good. Okay. I can work that." She scurried out of the room, returning soon after with a syringe. Before she could even inject it into her veins, Serena's eyes rolled back into her head as she slipped into unconsciousness. Jienne tossed the syringe aside. "Come, help me get her to the room next door, I can do a head scan on her from there."

Oz gently lifted her into his arms, carried her limp body into the other room and rested her on the bed. The others followed behind silently as the doctor ran off to another part of the medical ward to get the equipment she needed. A few minutes later, she returned with a handheld cerebral scanner and a white laptop computer. She pressed a button on the scanner and studied the screen as a laser beam bathed Serena's forehead in a soft yellow light. As it swept over her, a computerised picture of her brain appeared on the screen. When it was done, the beam retracted into the small silver box. Jienne then connected the scanner to the laptop using a thin cable and uploaded the information into the computer. Sitting at the bedside table she tapped a few keys on the keyboard and brought up another image on the screen.

"Okay," she muttered, studying the two pictures. She turned to the others. "Okay, I've called up a picture of a healthy human brain and compared it to Lady Serena's…"

"Wait, you don't know what it's supposed to look like?" Isabel asked.

"No, I'm not really trained for this. The basics I know. Broken bones, cuts and scrapes I can do, but the human brain and the chemicals in the human body? I haven't reached far enough in my training," she explained. "The only ones really experienced with that are either dead or severely injured from the attack on the Northern Base. You see, since they were the only really qualified doctors, they kind of tagged along with the humans because none of the rest of us would know what to do. Not yet, anyway. It was probably a bad idea, now that I think about it. My tutor is in a coma right now." She paused for a second as she looked at the pictures. "The last one I know of is in the Southern Base. I've sent the scan to him; I'll have to wait for a reply. Until then…" she trailed off helplessly.

"Well, is there anything wrong with her that you can see?" Maria asked.

Jienne shook her head. "It's the same. Look," she said turning the screen so they could all see. "Her brain is basically healthy. Nothing completely out of the ordinary. From the information I've pulled up, there aren't any signs of anything seriously wrong, but I need Dr. Gynell's confirmation. Perhaps there's something that's not showing up the same since she's a Carnasian/human hybrid. I mean, unless you know of another human/Carnasian brain I could compare it with, I'm completely in the dark."

The Saviours looked at each other as a dead silence descended upon them. There was another hybrid, but they had never been able to find him. For all they knew, Wolfram and Hart could have killed him by now.

Jienne snapped the laptop shut as she felt a tingle at the back of her mind. Someone had opened a communications link. She pressed her hands together then slowly brought them apart, creating a round screen about two feet in diameter. Closing her eyes, she opened herself up to the connection.

"Dr. Nykheb," the man on the other end said in greeting.

She smiled. "Dr. Gynell, thank you for replying so quickly. What did you make of the cerebral scans I sent you?"

"They're normal," he said. "Healthy, a little more used than a regular human's, which I suppose is from the Carnasian side. From this scan, the communications region of the brain was recently exhausted. That's probably the reason for the pain. Humans, even Carnasian hybrids like her, aren't evolved enough to handle that."

"But Serena doesn't have communication powers," Oz interrupted.

"Yeah," Maria added. "I've never seen her do that glowing ball thingie you guys do."

"We can't even communicate telepathically like the others do," Oz added.

"Hmm…" the doctor murmured as he looked at something off screen. "That's odd. This red portion is in the region of the human brain that isn't used, but it's in the communications region of the Carnasian brain. The red is a sign of overwork."

"How can she overwork something she doesn't use?" Alex asked.

They were interrupted by a loud groan from the bed. Oz rushed over to his girlfriend, holding her hand as she came to.

"Danny?" she moaned, as her eyes fluttered open.

"I'm here," Oz said, kissing her forehead and smoothing back her hair.

"What…?"

"You passed out."

"What?"

"You started screaming about a pain in your head and collapsed," the doctor answered. "Can you tell me what happened?"

Serena shook her head as she ran through the events of the day. Suddenly she gasped and shot up. "Lindsey!"

Oz looked confused. "Your brother? What about him?"

"He was here…"

"He wasn't," Oz said slowly.

"He was, I could hear him. He was screaming, Danny. They were hurting him," she cried. "It hurt so much."

"Who was hurting him?"

"I-I don't know. I could just feel it…like someone sliced open my head and-and scrambled my brain in acid."

"And you communicate with this…Lindsey often?" Jienne asked.

"No, I mean, I used to be able to feel him when we were kids, but…"

"Feel him?" Dr. Gynell asked curiously. Serena's head snapped around as she finally noticed the glowing screen with the man on it in the middle of the room.

"Well, yeah, but it stopped after Kh…" she trailed off, not sure if it was a good idea to mention Khivar to these people.

The doctors turned to each other and nodded.

"The pain in your head was caused by a sudden surge of activity from the communications part of your brain. Since it was apparently dormant for most of your life, the sudden activity would have overworked it and thus caused you pain, and ultimately the loss of consciousness," Dr. Ghynell explained. "Like shorting out, in a way."

"No, no, it's not that," Serena insisted. "It was like I was feeling his pain."

"Maybe Wolfram and Hart finally caught up with him," Faith said knowingly. She had been on their payroll once before and she knew how ruthless they were. Lindsey was a brave, and/or incredibly stupid man for trying to cross them.

Jienne cleared her throat. "I'll, uh, leave you guys alone," she said, closing her communications ball and walking out.

Serena pushed herself up on the bed.

"Whoa, whoa, where do you think you're going?" Oz asked, pushing her back on the bed. "You just collapsed. You need to rest."

"No, we have to go get Lindsey."

"Serena, it may already be too late," Oz said.

"Besides, we have no way of knowing where he is. He could be anywhere," Maria said. Serena sighed.

"You didn't feel it. It was like…ripping away at his…" she trailed off, searching for the right words. "…his very self. His spirit. And it hurt."

"Well, think Serena," Isabel said. "Can you remember anything? Maybe a feeling of where he was? Can you feel him now?"

Serena shook her head. "It just feels…empty now. Like…" Serena choked on a sob. "God, it's like he's not even there anymore." Oz held her close as she cried in his shirt. "Oh god, Danny, he's gone. I think my brother's dead."

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