Re: The Rebel *Sequel* (CC ALL, YTEEN) Ch. 1 - pg. 1 - 1/4
Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2013 8:42 pm
Thanks for coming back to read!
xilaj, hey! Welcome to the next story! It's sort of a relief to have Van coming to play after so many years of being in the shadows XD As I said once, I spent an entire book getting them together, just to have them running in different directions right at the beginning of this one... ::sighs::
Now, the present takes 12 hours and a little more, I guess... The past, on the other hand, is eight years
Michelle in LA, ah! the mistress of name-inventing
Seriously though, the story wouldn't be as good nor would I push myself as hard as when those corrections come. You keep my pen in shape, girl! The fact that they come so fast back is like being in a candy store: so much to do, so little time!keepsmiling7 the story has changed a lot since the first draft, but it's sooooo good to see it's working its magic on you
cjeb, hope the story is as good as you remember the others
mary mary wow! she convinced you?! More reason for me to write faster
Though I once did hook her on a fic... a very long fic that she couldn't stop reading for four days straight 
Let's get a look at how things began, back when our Roswellians were dodging bullets one cold Graduation night eight years ago...
Part 2 : Deal
June, 2002 – Somewhere in New Mexico
1 : Dave
The night was cold, and the hour was late. Few times had Dave found himself in the middle of nowhere without having the upper hand. He didn’t like the feeling. Jake would have told him it served him right.
Beside him, Kal Langley was looking straight ahead, saying nothing. Dave was not a chatty guy by nature, but the silence was starting to get on even his nerves. No one knew where he was, he hardly knew that himself, and if things went wrong tonight, he would die alone. He’d never given much thought to that, never much importance. But for this moment in time, he really wished he had told Jake what was going on.
I found a bunch of aliens running around. I found one in LA, cornered him in a long flight to Japan. It totally backfired on me. Can you imagine that, Jake?
Kal Langley had been quite hard to find, and then only because Max had led them to him in his trip to LA. He had not been intimidated in the slightest when Dave had casually remarked on his talent to pass as a human being. If anything, Langley had been amused.
We are 30,000 feet over nothing but ocean, Langley had said with a deadly smile.
Do you honestly believe this is the right place to get cornered?
Dave had believed it was the safest place to find out what was going on. He was right, but he hadn’t counted on Langley’s disregard for human life. Kal would have killed him that day had he not been preoccupied with other affairs. Mainly the fact that the Rebellion had contacted him. That Dave had been the answer to his problems had been just a happy coincidence.
“I don’t know this Van character,” the shapeshifter said, uneasy, “but if Khivar is losing ground on Antar, it can mean disaster for us here.”
For an exile and a former member of the Royal Guard, Kal oddly had no wish to go back home.
“You’ll get to go back, and the Earth would be forgotten. I don’t think that’s disaster for you.”
“By all means, you explain to the Rebellion leader how it is that Max is being hunted down and has already been tortured once,” Kal said in a flat tone. “These people have been fighting for the past sixty years out of loyalty to a king who is long dead. They’ll have no love for this planet when they find out about Max’s life. And trust me, they will find out.”
For all Kal had said, Max Evans was supposed to be the clone of Zan, last true ruler of the planet Antar. But Max had no desire to return, and no memory of Zan. So here were two unlikely allies: the Protector who had given up and thought there really was no king lurking behind that kid’s eyes; and the Wanderer, whose curiosity had entangled him in a desperate struggle he had never even known existed.
Kal’s main problem now was how to protect Max to the Rebels’ satisfaction. Dave’s main problem was how to convince this kid from Roswell, New Mexico, that he had to become Earth’s Ambassador. Max was the only one with the political power to stop the rebels from seeking retribution—but only if their leader believed he was, indeed, their true king.
“Max is no king. He doesn’t want it, he doesn’t remember a thing,” Kal had said, once they had sat down to discuss business.
Antar’s king had a peculiar trait: his word was a command. At least to the shapeshifters, and that was a very good reason for Kal here to not want Max close by. The thing was, Kal had not really neglected his duties. He had kept tabs on Antar’s former ruler, and he was convinced that Max was no Zan, and that Antar was better left with the belief that Zan might be alive, at least until Khivar died or the Rebellion won.
Something shimmered in the night air, a few feet above the ground. Langley tensed beside him, and Dave’s stomach did a very interesting somersault. Kal knew how to be human. The people who were coming through that portal did not.
A shape formed in front of them. Tall and slim. Humanoid. A second later, he took human form. He was disoriented for a second, and very, very alert the next. He looked at Langley first, a cold look of disappointment; and then at Dave, a cold look of disgust. They were clearly not welcome, and yet here they were. In his hand, the newcomer held a small, black device. A moment later, a blue wave of light shot outward in a circular motion. Dave didn’t feel a thing, but Langley gasped.
Nodding once to himself, the man raised his hand and a red light pulsed back through the shimmering air. He moved three steps back. The all-clear, Dave thought.
A whole minute went by without anything happening. A whole minute of that man’s piercing eyes boring into them. So much like human eyes, with the same readable emotions, a face hardened by war. Dave had met many rebels in his life, so he knew the look—the weariness, and the mistrust. Antarians, it seemed, were no different than humans when it came to war. They just had more toys to play with.
Langley had told him Antarians didn’t look all that different from humans, at least on the outside. That had been the reason to choose Earth, so primitive, and so far away. That they weren’t all shapeshifters was a relief, but the fact that their king could command Kal’s race at will sounded more like slavery than anything else.
Had Zan been a good king? Or were shapeshifters a larger threat? That Dave could be aiding a monster tyrant was an uncomfortable thought, to say the least.
The portal shimmered again, and slowly, another shape started to form. This one wasn’t as tall as the scout, but about as tall as Dave himself. Wind swirled, and for a second, Dave thought it was a woman coming in, long hair fluttering behind the shape’s back.
He was wrong. The shape finally formed, and a slender man was standing in front of him. His dark eyes looked into Dave’s hazel ones without a word. This man was the leader, and unlike Max, he had no reluctance about taking that role.
“I should kill you on the spot,” he said in perfect English, turning to look at Kal. “And the only reason that’s not happening is because I need someone who knows the land.”
You already know the language but don’t already know the place? Dave silently noted. That was a question for another day, and probably for another alien.
“Van,” Kal said without skipping a beat. “I had only heard rumors of you. I take it the Rebellion is doing well.”
“Where is Zan?” Van asked, his eyes glancing around. This was a man used to expecting ambushes.
“Not ready,” Langley answered. “He barely knows he’s Zan at all. He needs time for that to happen.”
Van’s eyes settled once more on Langley’s face. He nodded twice to himself, “We were warned it might not have been… a success. But the seal is with him, so Zan is in there, sleeping.”
The last word was not said with the same conviction. The truth was, as Langley had told Dave, that no one was sure if Zan’s memories had survived. What a dilemma, Dave thought, for this young Max. A person’s self was made by experiences, memories. To have two sets of memories, two sets of personalities, could not be an easy thing to live with.
“He needs to be watched,” Van said at length.
“He needs to be guided,” Langley added.
“He needs to be protected,” Dave spoke for the first time. Van’s eyes now centered on him.
“He’s hunted by your kind like an animal. He almost died at the hands of humans already. Why should I trust you?”
“Because you need someone who knows the land,” Dave simply answered.
2 : Ray
June, 2002 – The outskirts of Roswell
“They did what?” Ray said over the phone, his plans for the night forgotten.
“We don’t know where they are,” the man on the other side of the phone said in a rush.
It was supposed to be a calm night. They were supposed to be graduating, for crying out loud! The most dangerous thing those kids could do was get drunk. Only last week, last week, they had been involved in blowing up a US Army base. What did these kids do for fun on the weekends?
“Find them!” Ray roared. He hung up, and stared at the phone. Dave was unreachable, and Ray still had time to find six kids in a town the size of Roswell.
So does the Unit… The thought was an unwelcome one. He could not believe the Special Unit had mounted an attack on civilians. A deadly attack, according to his men in the field. If the Unit found them before Ray’s team did, they were going to be killed.
The irony of the situation was not lost on him: he had to let them escape for them to be safe. It meant it was up to Ray to clear the road for them. The Unit would regroup, roadblocks would be ordered. For six teens on the run, there were few places they could hide, and after the search and destroy mission of last week, they wouldn’t attempt to meet at any of their houses. Or at least Ray hoped not.
He quickly took the map of Roswell from the wall, and spread it over his desk. Somewhere, those kids were plotting. And somewhere, probably close by, the Unit was getting ready to ambush them. What would they do? Who would help them out?
Valenti. He was the only adult in the know, plus he knew the area. He might no longer have authority in the police department, but Jim Valenti’s knowledge of how things worked would be perfect right now. They were going to ask for his help. All Ray had to do was keep an eye on Jim, and redirect the Unit in the opposite direction.
Tomorrow, he would find them on the road somewhere. And once he did, he would call Dave, tell him the scare the kids had given him, and they would laugh. Imagine that, Ray muttered to himself, they are half my age and have double my wits.
Unknown to him at that moment, it would take more than seven months to find them.
Admire him, even. Have sympathy -- the whole nine yards. 