A/N: This chapter is somewhat out of the ordinary...
the fic will be returning to its original "style" in the next chapter
:)
Chapter 4
Let me tell you a story. Like any good story it has
princes, princesses, kings, queens and villains in it. It could even start with
"Once upon a time..." But this isn't a fairy tale. There are certain elements
that might tell you otherwise, such as the fact that the main characters in the
story have powers. Yes, that's right. They can do all these cool stuff just by
thinking about it. If they one day wake up and take a look in their closet and
they don't like what they see, they can just wave their hand and they suddenly
have a completely new wardrobe. And homework...well, that's no problem. See,
with their advanced minds, homework is no biggie! They can just skim through it
once and they will remember it forever. But this story isn't just about powers
- you've probably already figured that one out.
This story goes way beyond that. Let's go back in
time, about eighty years. We travel through space, gracefully avoiding all of
the planets (hey, it's going really fast here, okay?!) and we suddenly find
ourselves on a green planet. Well, that's what it looks like on the outside,
because the atmosphere consists of hydrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide and a lot
of other trace gases. Some of you might stop here and think... Isn't that the
same gases that the atmosphere on Earth consists of? Well, right you are!
However, on this far-away planet, the composition, and more specifically, the
amount of the different gases is different from Earth. For instance, the gas
called oxygen that is so important on Earth for metabolic reactions to occur is
not as abundant on this planet.
The lack of oxygen has of course some ramifications on
the appearance of the habitants. Due to the lack of oxygen, the processes in
the body aren't able to work as fast. Result; the inhabitants are smaller in
height. However, they are also more healthy-looking. They have rosier demeanor
than Earthlings, since more red blood cells (the ones that binds the oxygen and
transport it to the different areas of our body through the blood) are produced
to bind as much oxygen as possible. Otherwise, they are pretty similar to
Earthlings. The importance of this similarity will show itself later.
So, let's move on. We are now on that far away planet,
and it's a really exotic place. Let's call it Antar. The sky is, as mentioned,
green and the sun is red. The sun in this solar system is dying - but the
inhabitants of this planet have existed for a long, long time. Let me put it
into perspective. When the very first humans started traveling out from Africa
to spread across the Earth's surface, the Antarians had already invented highly
advanced technology. However, there are some differences here of course, and
this is where the royalties come in. We have our beautiful queen, and our
handsome king. They are actually getting to rule the whole planet. Not just
some part; they have to make decisions that affect the whole planet. We're
talking big responsibilities here.
As Earth is putting a time of hierarchy behind them,
Antar is actually embracing the idea. We have the peasants: the poor people
feeding off of the land, barely making it through the day. They live in
cottages in their fields. We have the bourgeois - well, let's call them that
for now. They are in the middle class. They are often working in the defense
sector, or as counselors to the royalty. Unfortunately, there is an abundance
of the poor. Not all are peasants - some are fishermen or foresters. Also,
there are the separatists… but I will come back to them later. Finally, we have
the royal family. They are at the top of society, of course.
Remember this beautiful royal couple I mentioned? Well,
they had two children; one boy and one girl. The boy was quiet and shy, whereas
the girl was talkative and outgoing. They were as different as night and day,
and sadly they never really got along. They couldn't understand each other. It
wasn't just sibling rivalry. No, it was something much deeper than that. They
grew up in the confines of the palace. They never really understood what was
going on outside those walls. This is where the bad guys come in, the villains.
Yes, we have to have a villain. See, there were other planets nearby. Since
traveling through space was not as much of a problem anymore, another planet
could be compared to another country to us Earthlings. Traveling to the
neighbor planet was like traveling across the country border to the neighbor
country. Quite simple.
But there was a war going on. There was a lot of politics
in it too, but I'm not going to go into that. Notice how in every story there's
an arch-villain. Take for instance, another alien: Clark Kent, also known as
Superman. Sure, he had a lot of enemies. Many wanted that guy killed, but the
person who hated him the most was Lex Luther. Tumtada dum!! The arch-villain.
Well, in this story there is also an arch-villain, by the name of Khivar. He
wanted power. He wanted wealth. He wanted control. And he wanted Antar. He
actually already had his own planet, but I guess that wasn't good enough for
him. He wanted more. Greed is an ugly trait, and it's one not only possessed by
humans. So he started to form a plan. He gathered men. He trained them. He made
their hearts as cold as stone. He made their minds as sharp as a needle. While
his men were being trained for battle, he was preparing for the ultimate goal:
to bring down the king of Antar and his successors.
One day he actually succeeded. He killed the king.
Remember the quiet and shy little boy? Well, he was now about eighteen in Earth
years, so when his father was assassinated, that boy was in line to be the next
king of Antar. But a king can't rule alone; he needs a wife. On another planet
close by there was a young girl who had just turned sixteen. The boy's father,
the king who was assassinated, had planned with his wife to have his son marry
this young woman. It politically advantageous to unite the two planets through
marriage; the girl was of royal blood, so through marriage the couple could
rule both planets and would have more resources. The king died before he could
see his son marry, but his wife wasn't going to let the opportunity slip out of
her hands.
At that moment in time, there was an even larger reason
for the son and woman to join in marriage, as they were on a brink of war. They
would have more men to fight on their side if they were to join the two
planets. The boy was called Zan. The young woman was called Ava. Their marriage
was to bring peace to not only their planets, but to the whole solar system.
They were to make decisions side by side to stop the advance of the enemy.
However, they were still children in many ways. They had never directly
experienced the world outside the walls of the palace. What they knew they had
acquired through learning programs, emotionless machines. They knew almost nothing
of the world they were about to rule. The story takes a bad turn from here on
out, but it isn't over yet...
I also mentioned Zan's sister. Her name was Vilandra, and
she was very beautiful. Stunning. The men took one look at her and she captured
them forever. She was everything you would expect from a princess. She had the
beauty, she had the intelligence; she even had her white stallion. But this
princess wasn't like the princesses we love from our precious fairy-tales. She
wasn't a Cinderella, or a Snow-White. She didn't find pleasure in helping
children, or talking to animals. She watched her brother grow up, and the
jealousy inside of her grew along with it. She wanted fame. She wanted
attention. She wanted everyone to look at her, to admire her. She wanted them
to want to be her, and to envy her. But most of all, she wanted power, because
that was what was going to make her famous.
She had no greater interest in making boring decisions
about the welfare of the planet. No. She was going to marry and let her husband
rule, so that she could stand by his side and be envied. She could dress up for
all the parties, and could feel the admiration from the women and men around
her. She was going to marry Khivar. Yes. That was her plan. They both wanted the
same thing. They wanted Zan out of the picture. Vilandra wasn't aware of the
fact that Khivar had actually murdered her father. Being the cunning villain
that he was, Khivar had hidden his tracks well - making the assassination
appear as if it was at the hands of the rebels. Yes, a form of separatists.
Vilandra wasn't completely evil. She was too blinded by jealousy and greed. She
didn't really wish her brother's death but, sadly, she didn't realize that
until it was too late.
With those ominous words we move on to a happier
occasion. At least that's what it looks like on the outside. It was the day of
Zan and Ava's wedding. Let me tell you something about Zan. He never really
wanted to be a leader. He wasn't interested in power or wealth. He felt as if
he were meant to do something else with his life. He wanted to go out among the
people. He wanted to see the world, to experience the world, to drink in the
world. Ironically, this was what made him a true leader. He was born a leader,
not only by title, but also by his essence. He wanted a better world, and what
better place to do that from than from the throne? But there was a void inside
of him. He never truly felt alive. He missed something in his life - something
he knew he was going to recognize as soon as he saw it. He was certain of one
thing. The sixteen-year-old girl that was to be his wife wasn't it.
You see, as in most stories where there are kings and
queens, princes and princesses - we also have arranged marriages. Zan didn't
really have a choice. He had been secretly betrothed to Ava as a young man. You
might think that now that he was the king he would be able to take that rule
away and not marry Ava. But he also needed support. He needed someone to stand
by him. He couldn't rule by himself. He felt that his sister was turning away
from him, and his mother was so persistent that he marry Ava. He didn't have
the will or strength to fight. He didn't have anything to fight for. The
wedding was beautiful. It was truly spectacular. Several Antarians were there
to see their new royal couple because they had doubt in the capacity of these
young people, but they were willing to let the new rulers prove them wrong.
I want to tell you that everything turned out all right.
That perhaps Zan and Ava did learn to love each other, and that Zan
found a purpose in his life. But I can't. Vilandra was sneaking off in the
middle of the night to have secret meetings with Khivar. They whispered plans
in each other's ears under the covers. They made plans for Zan's destruction.
The only support Zan could find was in his best friend Rath. He was the only
one Zan trusted. Zan ruled well. He did everything by the book, as his father
had told him, as the machines had taught him. But there was no feeling, and the
planet was falling apart.
In one last attempt to bring his kingdom together, Zan
suggested that Rath would take Vilandra as his wife. Rath accepted the request
out of loyalty to his king. Vilandra protested - loudly. I guess you could say
that the marriage was the final drop that made it all spill over. The plan was
to kill Zan and Ava at a party. Everything turned into a big mess, ending with
far more casualties than just the two planned. Vilandra, realizing what was
going to happen to her brother, rushed straight into the line of fire. She
died. Zan was hit by the next blast and was instantly killed. Rath died trying
to protect Ava, after having failed to reach his king in time. Ava was killed
shortly thereafter. Now, I know that in fairy-tales the good guys always win
and the bad guys always lose. Well, this time the bad guys won. But just for
then.
See, researchers had found that there was a planet
similar enough to Antar in both atmosphere and in the appearance of its
inhabitants. Guess which planet? I give you a clue. You're on it. Yes, that's
right. Planet Earth. So an advanced plan was being formed. Actually, this plan
had been under construction so to speak, since the older king had been
assassinated. Because Zan was the last living heir to the throne, he was very
important. As long as he lived, Khivar couldn't take over the planet. Khivar
knew that, so he had Zan murdered. However, Zan's men also knew that. Without
their king's knowledge they started to experiment on humans.
Oh, right. I guess I should tell you about that one as
well. You know all those people that we have thought were a bit crazy because
they were talking about alien spaceships coming in the middle of the night and
taking them away and doing experiments on them? Well, those aliens were
Antarians doing research. But the researchers weren't bad guys. They actually
put the humans back. What? Wasn't that nice enough? Well, they did have a
planet to save. After acquiring enough information they found donors to provide
genetic material to mix with the royals' essences. They were going to create
hybrids. And get this. They were going to look exactly like humans, so that
they could grow up among humans. Hiding in plain sight, right? Well, that was
the plan…
So, the royal four - as they were now called - were sent
to Earth in their new forms, growing in pods. There were actually eight
pods....hmmm.... Well, that was the safety plan. One set was made to look
exactly like the original one, but it was made more alien on the inside. They
were hidden away in New York, in the United States, on Earth. The other part
stayed in Roswell. Oh, I forgot to tell you about that one. I pretty much suck
at telling stories... Have you ever heard of an alien crash in Roswell, New
Mexico? There was supposedly a crash in 1947 that was covered up by the
military. They claimed it to be a weather balloon that fell. Yeah right! Guess
what?! It was our aliens arriving. Something went wrong on the craft, and they
hit ground with tragic repercussions. Several of the passengers were killed at
impact, but some survived and were able to hide the pods. Now, they sent one
set to New York, as I blurted out earlier, and the other one was hidden in a
cave in Roswell.
Are you still with me? Remember that thing Zan was
searching for? That he felt that he was missing? He found it. One regular day
in 1991 he stepped off a yellow school bus - in his nine-year-old body - and
saw her. Now we are coming to the princess part of the story. Where the prince
falls head over heels in love with the princess. Okay, there actually weren't
any princesses or princes any longer. They were just normal school kids. Zan
didn't remember anything from the life he had lived on another planet. His name
was now Max. Max Evans. And the greatest joy of his life was to sit in a
restaurant and watch a dark-haired waitress in Star-Trek uniform all day long.
Her name was Liz. Liz Parker. The girl he had loved ever since he first saw her
that day. So...did Max get his Liz? Let me just say that there was some complications.
Some very big complications. But this story is far from over yet...
TBC…