Michael stepped back from Vilondra, now understanding that this was not Isabel. He banged into the wall, and jumped a little.
"What did you do with Isabel?" He asked.
She giggled fondly at him, and pulled some hair behind her ear. "She's right here. Darling."
"No, Isabel would never betray us."
Snorting from her laughter she answered. "But you forget Rath… Michael…" She rolled her eyes. "Whatever you call yourself, I betrayed you all before – old habits die hard."
"Your betrayal killed you in the last life. What makes you so sure it won't happen again?"
Her shoulders shrugged. "A hunch… see, last time I put my trust in people who weren't up to par… this time, I'm doing everything on my own."
"What do you want?" He inquired.
She smiled brightly, and reached out, touching his chest. "I want the key to the throne, of course."
"What?"
Sighing, she pressed her palm harder against his chest. "You, Tess, Zan and I all have sections of one ultimate power; a power that allows total rule over our planet – and gives us incredible power."
Michael frowned. "Don't you mean Max?"
"No, Max died, so technically his key was passed down to Zan, his son. No need to fret though, I haven't forgotten my brother. He'll still get his."
With that Isabel's hand pressed viscously against Michael's skin. Her hand lit into a flaming red color – leaving Michael screaming in pain. Her palm burned into him, much like Nasado's palm had killed, all those years ago. Flashes of memories swept though him – and finally he remembered who he was.
Their past lives
At the head of a vast army, was one man; Rath. He commanded the army of Antar. This was to be their greatest victory. They would become rulers of their solar system, and their world would reach a new era of peace.
"Charge!" He yelled.
Thousands upon thousands of men, and women charged the lines of war. Some rode animals that looked like a cross between Elks and Horses. They were brown and white, with the heads of horses, the horns of Elks and no tails at all. Others rode in machines that hovered slightly from the ground. They were pointed with sharp blades, and had no visible doorways or hatches.
In his hand, Rath held a weapon. On one end it was a sharp silver and gold blade – on the other end it was an energy blast weapon. He gripped the energy blasting end, and sent a wave of his own power through it. Amazingly, the strange device fired a beam of light that was so powerful it cut through anything in its path.
Rath was a warrior. He was the sole commander of his world's vast army. Only one man stood above him, the king. As his gaze went to the far-east, he saw upon the mountain top three figures silhouette by the shining of their suns. It was the King, Queen and Vilondra – his bride-to-be, and princess of all Antar. He fought for them, for her. He may have been contracted to marry her, but he had grown to love her – deeply. In fact, he'd never loved another the way he loved his Lonnie.
Their present lives
"I loved you." Michael sobbed through moans of pain.
Isabel chided his words and laughed horribly. "Love? Love is for the meek, those who accomplish don't love; they conquer."
Michael gritted his teeth together and snarled at her, his eyes glaring fire. "Get off!" He screamed, shoving her back with his palms against her chest.
Isabel stumbled back, quickly gaining her balance. She watched with a small smirk as Michael fell to the ground, his energy drained from her touch. The skin on his chest sizzled in the shape of her handprint.
"Feeling ok, lover?" Her head cocked to the side, as her lips curled slyly into an evil smirk.
Michael raised his head, as he leaned on his knees and hands against the floor. "Take what you want from me, because if you let me live, I'll kill you." He grimaced at her.
"Is that so?" She grinned, kneeling by his weak, shaking body.
Her hand found his chest again, reconnecting against his wound, and causing great screams of pain to echo from his lips. After a moment, his body began to shake, blue swirls of energy rose from his chest, flooding into her hand, wrapping around her glowing red fingers, and finally fading into her skin. As the light dimmed, Michael collapsed to the ground, breathing shallowly.
"Thank you, Rath." Isabel smirked. "You've given me one fourth of an awesome power."
Michael said nothing. His chest rose and fell quickly, as if he were suffocating. Isabel stood to her feet, glancing down at him. He began to motion, as if he was going to grab her ankle. She stepped back and kicked him swiftly in the stomach. Watching as he doubled over in pain, rolling in agony, unable to breath, unable to stand. He was helpless.
"Please don't touch me; you'll get your filth all over my new pants." She sighed, dusting her legs off and heading to the cell door. "Open up." She ordered. The trooped slung open the heavy door and Isabel walked to the doorway, turning her head to say her goodbyes. "If you live much longer, I'll be surprised; when you pass, give my regards to mother when you see her." She chuckled.
"I found something!" Max exclaimed. "I think this spot is weaker, if we use our powers together, it might weaken enough for us to get through."
Tess walked to his side, and placed her hand on the same spot, on top of the back of his hand. She looked at him, staring him in the eye. Max closed his eyes, as did Tess – with their concentration as one, they began to bore a hole in the very thick cement wall. Together their hands pulsated with green energy, reminiscent of a time before, when Tess had helped Max maintain his barrier, while at congresswoman Whitaker's funeral.
"Almost there." Max said, as his eyes opened to find the hole had widened enough to slip through.
She opened her eyes, and released his hand. "Let's go."
Wasting no time, they slipped through the small hole, and fell to the corridor outside. Tess crawled to her feet, and ducked into a doorway as a line of troops passed by, pulling Max in just in time. They were pressed together, their chests touching with each breath. Tess turned her head, and looked behind her around the corner.
"It's all clear." She said quietly.
Max touched her cheek.
"Max?" Tess turned her face to his, her cheek being held by his hand.
He smiled fondly. "I want you to know that-"
But before his words could come to a conclusion, moans echoed down that hallway. They turned toward the sound of the voice. Knowing, all too well who it was.
"It's Michael, sounds like he's hurt." Max said in a hush tone.
Tess nodded. "That way." She pointed.
They snuck down the hall until they found the cell. Using their powers to open the door, they walked inside.
"Michael?" Tess whispered.
Max squinted, but could see nothing. "Hold on." He said.
His hand rose into the air, the glow of his palm lit the dark room lightly. Tess gasped, as did Max, upon what they saw. Michael was lying on the ground, looking near dead.
"Hold on, I'll heal you." Max said at once, bending down to heal his kin.
Michael reeled on the ground, grabbed at Max's shirt with his fist, painfully pulling himself up to speak. "Maxwell…" He grunted. "It's Isabel."
"What?" Max said, confused.
"Isabel, she…" He collapsed to the ground, unable to continue.
"What's taking so long?" Tess asked, seeing that Michael was no better.
Max shook his head. "I don't know…" He ripped open Michael's shirt, to find the wound not that of a human's doing. "Oh my… God." He gasped.
"Is that… that looks like an alien wound." Tess said.
Max shook his head in disbelief. "That's not possible." He looked at Michael. "Who did this?"
The Alien King's second in command didn't answer. Michael's body let out a long, slow gasp of air then went limp. His body seemed to decompress, and deflate – relaxing beyond its normal ability. Unable to comprehend what just happened, Max touch Michael's shoulder.
"Michael?" he begged. "Michael…?"
Tess let out a small whimper. "Max… he's…" She began to tell him the truth.
"No. No, don't say it." He pleaded with her.
She touched his shoulder, and let him cry a moment. "Max, we can't stay here. We have to get Zan." She paused cautiously. "And Isabel, Kyle and Liz are probably in trouble."
His body shuddered, as he sobbed for his lost brother. Shutting his eyes, and touching his friend's face once more, Max rose to his feet and met his wife at the door. One more Alien death, a casualty of a war they were born into – Michael was dead.
"I'm going to kill them all for this." He gritted his teeth.
Tess shook her head. "Max, focus." She led them out of the cell and into the hallway. "We have to find the others, and save Zan before anyone else dies."
He nodded, agreeing but not happily.
Isabel took long strides down the hallway. She made a right turn and walked directly into an office. She closed the door and sat down across the desk from a man in uniform.
"Don't look so nervous." She smiled. "If I wanted to kill you, you'd already be dead."
The man loosened his tie and nodded. "Right then, why are you here so soon?"
"I can't find the orb." She sighed. "I think one of the little runts you're holding hid it from me."
His eyes narrowed. "We want that orb; my people need it to defend ourselves against your people."
"They're not my people… there are factions on my planet that would like to see Earth, as well as a few other planets destroyed – for resources, okay?" Isabel crossed her legs and gave him a wry smile.
The officer sighed with both longing, and fear. "Do you know which one hid it?"
"I have a good idea." She said with a smirk. "I'll need a key or two to get into the cell."
Meanwhile, Tess and Max were wandering quietly through the cell halls, looking for their son first and foremost, and hoping that on the way they might bang into the others as well.
"This is just great." Tess was frustrated.
Max sighed, wiping his brow. "All these halls look the same."
"Well, I have no clue where to go." Tess threw her arms to the air, and let them fall to her sides.
Then, as if on cue Tess dropped to the ground, holding her side in pain. She bit her lip to keep from screaming. Max fell to her side, alarmed that there seemed to be no cause for her agony.
"What is it?" He asked.
She said hushed. "Zan… he's… something is happening."
The cell door creaked open. Polished heels clicked on the cement floor. A figure scurries away, cowering in the corner. Isabel turned, shutting the door.
"Liz…" Isabel called. "I want the orb."
"Where'd they take Kyle?" Liz begged.
Isabel sighed, grabbing the girl by her sides and lifting her off the ground. "I do not have patience. Do you understand? Tell me now, and I'll make sure you die quickly."
"I can't tell you, I have to show you…" Liz offered.
The Alien princess threw the girl across the cell. "Fine, you better not lead us astray. Or so help me… I will make it very painful."
Liz crawled to the doorway, where four troops awaited her. They snatched her up and dragged her down a long hall. As she watched the doors of the hall go by, she saw one cell that was open, Michael lay inside, dead. Another cell had Kyle pacing back and forth – alone. She couldn't find Max or Tess; maybe they were already dead like Michael? Liz began to worry that Isabel would keep to her word and kill her.
"What do you mean something is happening?" Asked Max, he helped Tess to pick herself up.
She gulped back her want to cry. "I don't know, it's a feeling, like he's calling me."
Nodding, he sighed. "When you… when you two were on Antar and I was trying to find a way to get there, I had something like that happen. I was swimming in a pond and almost drowned."
She grinned, proudly. "Our son is connected to us, deeply." She crouched down, pulling Max with her. A few troops went by. "We should go, now."
They crawled past a windowed wall, and made their way into a hospital looking section of the base. It seemed to be where they were holding Zan.
"Over here, doctor, here." A nurse drags a doctor with a pad, and pen to a small table where Zan was laid out with all sorts of wires attached to him. He began to cry.
"My God." The doctor gasped.
Zan's cries caused sparks to fly off the electronics, and blue electricity run along his skin. He seemed to be in some kind of trauma.
The nurse checked a machine. "I don't understand these numbers. It's not humanly possible." She panicked.
"He's not human." The doctor explained. "Go get the team… we're gonna have to run some tests."
The nurse nodded and sped away to retrieve items for the tests.
"Something smells funny." Max noted.
Tess sniffed. "Smells like sulfur. That's weird."
They carefully walked down a corridor. Ahead of them was a room with a row hospital beds. People lay on some of them, many unconscious or writhing in pain. No one seemed to care that these people suffered the way they did.
"These poor people." Tess muttered.
They grabbed a few doctor's coats and used them as a disguise. As they wandered from bed to bed, Max grew more and more upset. Tess wandered into the next room, while Max remained in the first room. He had passed by a bed with a little girl. Her face had consumed his attention. She looked amazingly like Tess had in the pod. Her blonde hair, blue eyes, those curls. Her face was flushed with red, and her eyes puffy and swollen. Max touched the small girl's face, her eyes opened a bit.
Upon seeing the alien king standing over her, she gasped wildly. She sat up and reached out to grab his arm. Her hand leaving a silver hand print on Max's forearm. He pulled away for a moment. She sat back, breathing heavily.
"W-who are you?" Max asked quietly.
The girl looked into his eyes, pulling his hand into hers. "Zan, they are coming. You should go." She gulped back some pain. "The people need you."
Stumbling back, Max accidentally pulled back a sheet that had covered the view of other beds. When he turned, Max saw something that was utterly horrifying. Before him now, was not one, but four children. One of them children looked like Isabel, with her long blonde hair and big eyes. Another was diffidently Michael, his wild brown locks framing his mischievous face. Then, the last child was most shocking. It was that of his own face. The child before him was himself!
"How is this possible?" Max spun around.
The children rose from their beds, arms spread out to receive Max into them. They circled around him, chanting in an alien language. The alien king strained to understand. The kids become so close they encircled him, joining their tiny hands around him. They circled around him, spinning. The faster they spun, the faster they chanted. Soon their joined hands began to glow with sliver light. Suddenly they stopped. And where each child stood, the ground glowed. They hands disconnected and plunged their palms onto Max's body. He fell to his knees, as a swarm of light engulfed his quivering body. When the light had faded, the children were gone, and all that remained was Max, lying on the ground, unconscious.
Isabel and Liz were in an army jeep, heading into the desert. Liz was nervously shaking, watching the alien princess and the troops carefully. Suddenly Isabel grabbed at her head, and screamed so loudly that the vehicle shook. A brilliant beam of silver light shot from her eyes, her head snapped back, she faced the sky as the light beamed out into the cosmos. The car stalled out, and stopped. The trooped tried to re-start the jeep but whatever had just occurred had killed the engine for good.
Inside the base, Tess had reached a dead end. None of the beds held her son. She spun around and realized quickly that Max was no longer beside her. She looked from side to side. Her vision suddenly becoming blurry; so dizzy, that she grabbed at the curtain of a hospital bed to stop from falling. The curtain pulled down and she hit the floor. Her head spinning, she crawled her way into the room they had come from. On the ground was Max. He was silent. Tess managed her way to his side, and flipped him onto his back.
"Max?" Tess touched his face. "Max, something is happening." Tess begged her husband. "No, Max you can't leave me here. Please!" She shook him violently.
Max did not wake up. Tess held his hand, it was cold. Tears began to well up as the lump in her throat rose. Struggling to rise to her feet, she grasped at her head. Whatever had taken her for a moment seemed to be passing, she hoped.
"Forgive me Max, but I must save our son." She whimpered, staggering away.