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Phoenix Ascendant ~*~ "Arise the Flames" Part Three
"What is she doing, again?""Scanning the station."
"The entire place and everyone in it?"
"I don't know."
"Can she do that?"
"I don't know."
"Does she, ya know," he asked, glancing across the room with a nod, "Do this-"
"Zack! Give it a rest already! I don't know how she's doing it, how often she does it or how much she can pick up," Susan said, looking up from a book in her hands. She hadn't really been reading, but it was the words that her mind glossed over to take the edge off of waiting, and they had been waiting a while already. Against his expression of surprise, and then mask of normality that sprung up and she shook her head and said, "I know just about as much as you do."
The waiting was definitely not her favorite part. Not in war, peace talks, debates, capture or even sometimes for the next morning. She wasn't fond of waiting. Not one bit.
"If you really want to know," she said after a deep, exaggerated sigh, closing the book, with only her middle finger as a bookmarker for the moment, she looked over at Lyta again, for probably the hundredth time. Lyta was stock still in the chair at the table, that was titled toward them in direction, so she was still facing them. She was completely still, her body rigid, fingers curled against the ends of the arms of the chair, her eyes, wide and black. She hadn't moved or made a sound in a long time. "Ask her."
"I'm sure that'll go over well," he muttered and standing up. He pressed his hands to his back and stretched, thinking it was probably stupid to even have said that. He sounded like a child whining to himself. It wasn't proper course of action for his placement in this situation.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Zack cast a sideways glance at the frozen form across the room, feeling it wasn't really right to say what he was thinking in front of her, though she didn't seem like she was listening. Not that it made it any easier at all. "It's obvious she doesn't want me here. She just puts up with me because Lockley demanded she have an escort who would report back about her keeping her word."
She was growing a look that crossed her earlier annoyance with sudden amusement all at once. "Take a simple piece of advice that adheres to Lyta. If she didn't want you here, you wouldn't be. End of story."
Yes, but at least she's your friend, he thought miserably. At least there was something there between the two women. Trust, loyalty, jokes, fondness, past occurrences, love, want, friendships! Something!
He heard her make a sound suddenly and he glanced back to her face, she was watching him quizzically. Something odd about her expression, like she'd-. Had she? Could she have heard? He tried to decided if she was faking away from a smile, since it seemed one sat in her eyes, but never made it to her lips, which were still firm from her last words.
He asked, feeling foolish even as he did, "Did you just?"
"You can tend to be rather loud," Susan said reaching out and putting the book on the table. Her movements were concise, and her voice wary. She hadn't really thought about how she felt about Zack knowing, Lyta had simply let it be a byline in that phone call. No warning to prepare her and it made her feel uneasy. "I wasn't trying, but sometime it's hard to ignore someone who sounds like they're yelling at the top of their lungs."
"I didn't mean-"
"Yes. You did," Susan said, firmly, standing up from her spot on the couch. She rubbed her palms together for a moment feeling antsy. She'd had time to prepare for the fact he'd probably ask about, after all he'd served under her years ago, but there really was no way to be ready. Even if the subject wasn't specifically her. "I'm thirsty, do you want anything?"
"Thanks, but no," Zack said after a moment, still not positive about this telepath thing once again. Privacy in his head was sometimes all he ever thought he really had, especially with his job, and with telepath's around - supposed that's what always made him so jumpy around them. That idea that they could know everything and anything jumping into his head at the moment it did.
She walked across the room and opened the frigerator. She pursed her lips and shook her head, a wisp of an annoyed expression sat at the edges of her expression. The refrigerator was almost completely empty. There were some bottled drinks, a bowl of fruit, a loaf of bread, a chunk of cheese and a bottle of pills in the side door, probably vitamins. The drinks were water and fruit juices. The fruit looked slightly old, ignored, and like it might be bruised. The loaf of bread looked half hardened. The cheese looked to be the only thing that had been touched, a large portion of it missing from one corner. She hadn't the foggiest idea why the pills were in there though.
"It's not really as hard as you think it is," Susan called out from the kitchen as she pulled one of the juices, a Minbari blend, out. Closing the door behind her, she grabbed a cup from the closest cabinet and started to pour the contents of the first into the second. "Just be there for her, regardless of whether she needs it. Especially, when she says it out loud."
Throwing the bottle in a recycle can she carried the cup back out the living area, where Zack was staring at her slightly confused and overwhelmed, but obviously, ready to listen to what she was saying.
"Let her rant and rave all she wants, especially if she directs it at you, even if she starts breaking things and talking in completely different languages at you. Expect that she probably will. She's got an explosive temper, but once she's sure, completely sure she's your friend," she said slowly, remembering that day in the mines. The guns firing and them arguing about it owing each other, and how if they were just friends there wouldn't be any owing anymore. "She's got the kind of loyalty that people would pay millions for, that would fade only after all the stars have died. She'll take care of you to the point it'll make you hurt for her. The worst I've seen her do to anyone close was throw them across an area."
When he raised his eyebrow astonished and curios, she continued. "It wasn't that serious even. It's really simple, Zack. To be her friend, all you have to do is be her friend. Well, and then, there's that one last thing, too."
He watched her, silent still, waiting for her to finish her sentence. He really didn't want to streamline the only conversation that seems to not be completely strained in this room already. Besides she was telling him what he longed to hear. So many years ago, she'd considered him a friend, but it had been so many years, so many different paths and people. Neither of them was the same person they'd been the night they'd shared that first pizza on the floor.
"What's that?" He asked, anxiously a few seconds later when she still hadn't responded.
"You get to that point where you know she won't kill you, even when she darkens up her entire face, like the wrath of god warmed over, because she knows you're talking about her. Like she is right now."
Zack did a double take at her words and looked at Lyta sitting in the chair. She was glowering at both of them, her eyes watery, hand still clenched at the ends of the chair arms and she seemed to be narrowing her eyes on Susan at the last comment. All of which made him flush shades of pink and red. He didn't even have any words; it felt like the air had been stamped out through his entire chest, so he missed the amused smirk that tilted across Ivanova's face in response to the red haired telepath's glare.
"Find what you were looking for?"
Reaching up and running her fingers through her long red hair, Lyta slumped back in the chair, grateful for the back support. Looking at her fingers, almost pale as snow most of her life away from a normal planet bound sun, running through long fire-claimed locks, not cut in so many years it hung to beyond the small of her back, she thought that it wasn't as easy as that question. It echoed on into her thoughts, even as she lost her glower, and continued to stare at her fingernails in her hair.
"No," Lyta said, after a pause, unpleasantness tinting her voice, pulling her fingers out, and letting that stray strand of hair lay across one side of her chest, falling to her lap and pooling there just enough. She had found much, much that could be useful even, but not specifically what she was looking for. Which made it just not enough. Flexing her neck, she put her arms back on the armrests, curling her fingers slightly at the ends. She had closed her eyes for only half of a second before it came.
"Stop that right now!"
Lyta blinked and it seemed like if you placed it in slow motion you could have seen the blackness fade from inside her eyes, not completely overwhelming them yet. She raised an eyebrow at Russian woman in front of her, and said with slightly exaggerated tone, "What now?"
"You've been doing this all morning since we left Down Below," Susan said, waving her cup at the other woman. Part of it was her logical knowledge about Lyta, the rest of it was her own stomach rumbling deep within. "I know you didn't have breakfast in all that and I've seen the state of your kitchen, when was the last you had a meal?"
"A little while ago," the red headed telepath said after a long second, even though her voice was unsure and peeved.
"Do you know what that means in Lyta-speak, Zack?" she said, waving her cup toward his direction, but stampeding on without even giving him a chance to respond. "It means she probably hasn't eaten in a day, maybe two. Since the moment her room was robbed. Probably even before that knowing her."
Paying no attention to the fact Zack looked half clueless to what was going on subtext wise and Lyta was glaring her heart away, General Ivanova stated to the room, "We're going out for lunch."
"Susan," Lyta's voice drove a nail in irately the way she spoke. "We don't have time for this."
"Sure we do. Zack's guys are on it. You can't do everything yourself or you'll work yourself into the ground," she said, knowing she had no proof that could happen though. It was rare to see Lyta winded, no less ground down by any amount of work she took upon herself. "Fresh Air Restaurant in thirty minutes."
Her eyes landed on Lyta and stayed there, clarifying her point. "Take a shower. Change your clothes. Don't make me have it made into an order."
~*~*~
( Fifty Minutes Later )
He looked up from his watch to the woman walking up to him at a hurried, impatient pace. "I though you said thirty minutes?
"She decided to tell me, only after I forced her into a shower, that she didn't have any other clothes with her," Susan said, shaking her head and sitting down opposite him at the table. She was dressed now in loose fitting black slacks and a long sleeve white shirt, with a lighter grey vest over it. Her Earth Force pin sat right over her heart and her com was still on the back of her left hand, but everything from uniform to rank bars were missing. Her hair was even down.
"Where is she now?"
"Changing. At least she supposed to be. I made her stop by one of the good market place seamstresses. Sometimes I think it might take a destroyer class war ship running into her before the point gets across," she said tearing at a corner of her napkin irritably.
~*~*~
( About the same time )
The figure in the mirror turned around a few times, looking over it's shoulder at almost every inch of itself, with this half dazed, half skittish look. It was wearing a long, close fitting blue gown made to accentuate the wearer without seeming too formal or too provocative. It seemed to dance on every line, fitting snuggly where it should, flaring out to be willowy where it should.
"Ma'am? Ma'am, are you almost done in there?"
"Just another minute." Taking a step back, and placing her hands to her stomach, she still couldn't believe the figure in the mirror was really she. It looked like a cross between herself and someone else, someone who looked soft and beautiful, not harsh and deadly.
She walked out and stood at the counter behind a blonde woman arguing furiously with the seamstresses about when her outfit should be ready. Standing nonchalantly and not listening, as well as it worked to not listen. She just waited until the woman turned around in a huff and walked straight into her. Everything that was in her arms went flying in all directions landing in misshapen piles on the floor. The blonde woman swore and frowned.
"That's just my luck today. Sorry about that," she said getting down to help pick everything back up. She looked over at the woman after a second while picking up a blouse. Then she did a double take while still grabbing more. "Hey, wait a minute- aren't you Lyta Alexander? I heard you caused a ruckus yesterday morning."
She almost laughed when the thought that followed the last question implied to her having been much more. She was folding a skirt in her hands, as she nodded. "It's Mrs. Halloran, right?"
"I surprised you remember," she replied, starting to stand; arms loaded with clothing that she sat on the counter. "Shopping?"
"Apparently," Lyta replied, but without venom. She was blaming this waste of time on Susan still. It had all started with a dress, and if a dress wasn't enough she said pick a few other things out. It was almost like having G'Kar there to mother her. Standing finally, with the few things left, she placed them on the counter, not looking over at woman but still talking to her. "Do you still hear from Dr. Franklin?"
"Stephen? Yes, often." Tessa said with a wry smile creeping out. She held out her left hand, shaking her head. "We're engaged. Two years now. Maybe one day, when we both give up our twenty four hours job, we'll actually consider getting to the getting married part."
"Congratulations," Lyta said, giving the woman a momentary glowing smile, while she handed over a ticket to the seamstress and asked her to do some alternating on certain clothes. She got a date for when to pick everything up and turned around to meet the eyes of the still waiting, Miss Tessa Halloran, Babylon 5's resident head of security for the Interstellar Alliance and the woman who'd taken over Michael's job.
"So..." the blond said leading into discussion, very unsubtle, "Where are you off to next?"
"Lunch with," she paused a second, and uncomfortably finished with, "Some friends."
"You don't sound very sure," Tessa said following her out. She really didn't want to lead up to her question, so she really didn't. She just decided to bite. It was her normal tactic and it kept most people off foot with her. "The scene you caused yesterday morning wouldn't have anything to do with the sudden influx of telepaths on the station, would it?"
"I'm running quite late at the moment, Miss Halloran. Perhaps we could discuss this another time?"
"Fine by me," she said, her walking pace matching Lyta's no matter how fast or slow she walked. "How about tomorrow morning? I don't have anything planned till 1100 hours. We could catch breakfast and talk about your soiree in Down Below."
Lyta only nodded, seeming to be lost in her thoughts, so Tessa stopped, wondering just how much was going on with her that she didn't know about so far. Tapping her badge, she put a call into Lockley, and scheduled a meeting for two hours from then. She had a few questions for the Captain about the woman, before she started doing the real digging.
~*~*~
( One Hour Later )
The screaming ended.
It was almost worse then.
The utter silence seemed to fill their ears more deafening than the sound that had been issuing from the mans mouth. The blood was still running from his eyes, or what was left of them, as the jelly from those ripped apart eyes mingled in the rivulets of blood. His entire body felt like it was an ice block. His arms were hanging lifeless off the bed, the blood and eye jelly still wet under the nails of his hands.
Jeffery shook himself and started going about an all out check on the two men. He hadn't the foggiest clue what had happened. Both men had been in a coma for almost a day and a half, no responses to anything, suddenly one was clawing his eyes out, then screamed himself to death and the other just died on the spot, without even a single murmur. Two deaths, sudden, and unexplainable, at least so far as he knew.
It had creeped out two main stay patients so much that he had to remove them to med. lab 3 for the time being. So the lab was empty, save two other nurses and one doctor. All of which were standing there like he was, slowly starting to record, wondering what in gods name had just happened in the medical lab.
Dr. Hobbs was going to love this.
~*~*~
( About The Same Time )
"Bitch!" He raged.
"I swear I'm going to tear her tongue out, then all of her hair off her body, hair by hair, then all of her nails! Then, then, I will break every bone in her body. Slowly, one by one, until they're all broken, starting with her toes, fingers, arms, until everything is completely broken. All of her broken, bleeding, begging for mercy."
{Never going to happen.}
He glared when the pert, but weak, voice hit his head even as he watched her loll in the pain at the effort made through the obvious static. Because of her thought that her opinion even mattered, he hit her, hard, with a glove that had spikes on it. So it hurt, a lot. So did her head inside. More blood fell down her cheek, running across her lips, so she tasted it on her tongue she tried to rub them together around the gag. Then she asked herself if it actually hurt. It really didn't separate from all the pain that she was feeling all over.
"Shut up, you insolent prat. No one asked for your opinion."
She tried to shift her hands again, and felt electric stabs of pain. Cords of some type of material drove nails of pain into her everytime she tried to free her hands even slightly. Originally she guessed the wetness was sweat, but after a dozen hours, extra wetness coming now and then, dry, crackly, stuff trying to flake off if she shifted her arms without moving her hands, she knew it was blood.
And hey, why not, blood was coming out of a dozen different places on her body at this point, wasn't it?
Debating whether the pain was still present, really was a moot point beside that huge crashing panic she had just barely a handle on. Actually, in physical terms, she'd locked it to one side of her brain, in a far back room. The knowledge that she might be dying was a very odd thought once you locked away your panic and fear, and only survived on the knowledge you might start hyperventilating if you were actually feeling it.
"She just a stupid I-want-a-revolution-telepath, like all the rest of Byron's flunkeys. She's in over her head and she just caused the death of one of my best Leapers."
It made her think of many things. Her first home. Snowflakes on the tip of her nose. Her parents faces. Her first memories. The running away. All the faces of all the people who'd ever helped her. All those faces she might never see again. Tears welled up in her eyes even as she couldn't find a reason for why it was happening. She swallowed down a completely dry throat and worked her lips over the gag. Her jaw was sore, and so was her back from the constant up right position, tied to the chair so that she couldn't move at all. She had to do something, the longer she waited, the less blood.
{LYYYYYTT-}
She choked back a sound when a slam of pain washed across her entire abdomen and chest. It turned into a crash of red all across her vision. She had been trying to do something, something important..but she couldn't remember now. It hurt so much. It hurt so much everywhere. The tears started falling down her cheeks, mingling into blood on her skin, as everything went black again. But right before it did, it all faded into a woman's smile and these brown, calm eyes, even though she couldn't remember whom they belonged to.
~*~*~
( About The Same Time )
"Are you okay?" Susan said as she and Zack maneuvered Lyta to a bench on one side of the path. "Who's screaming?"
"What?"
"You said they were screaming and almost fell down? Who, Lyta? Who's screaming?" Zack said, kneeled at one side looking up into her troubled expression. If he didn't know any better, he would have thought she looked half-asleep. She barely seemed to be aware of them, of what they were saying to her.
"Lennier." she said after a second, very slowly, like it was an after thought.
**Security. This Allan. I need a location on Minbari liaison Lennier.**
"I need." Lyta rolled on after a second. It seemed like it was exceedingly hard for her to concentrate, her eyes seemed to darken and brighten like little waves. "Lennier. Tell Lennier."
"Tell Lennier, what, Lyta?" Susan said, holding her friends' hand. It was all a wash at the onset of Lyta's thoughts. Everything was jumbled. It was almost like there was two of everything. It felt...strange and very wrong. Nothing like the Lyta she'd felt before. Almost like it was someone else.
**The liaison to Minbar is in a meeting right now. His office chambers with the Drazi Ambassador.**
"Tell him?" She asked looking up for a second, like she wasn't sure what they were talking about. And then she nodded and it seemed to all fall back in place again. "Oh, I think I know where Melissa- Hey. Wait a minute. That's not nice."
Both Zack and Susan watched, ignoring those who turned and looked at her like she was crazy and then with fear as her eyes began to glow white. Warmth radiated out from her, like she was a sun and the white became blinding. Then it was gone, like a switch had been flipped.
"Ow. I think," Lyta said blinking, and adjusting her eyes to the scenery around her, letting everything come back into focus. She stood up, carelessly letting go of Susan's hand and not even looking at Zack. She just stood there, the soft blue dress rippling across her as she moved. Her lips formed a minimized frown as she said. "That wasn't very nice."
"Lyta? What's happening?" Susan said, standing up. She definitely didn't seem to be enjoying the question game, especially since she wasn't getting any answers at present. It actually seemed to be winding her tighter and tighter.
"They were being stupid." She said, airily, even though her expression was dark as sin.
"They thought that they could solve all their problems by taking me as their next mark. They just got a whole new world of them. I know where they are now. Tell Lennier meet us here, and tell your security team to stay out of my way," Lyta said, giving the location, and she refusing to explain anymore as started walking at a very hurried pace back in the direction of Down Below.
~*~*~
They were all moving pretty fast.
Lennier was still on the way to join them, as were at least two security teams, when they were finally in place. Lyta was taking them there at almost a run once she got down there, saying something was wrong, but she didn't know what yet. It just seemed to be getting more wrong the further they went downward to where they were keeping Melissa and TEEP. She hadn't said anything since telling them that and that had been a while back now.
Silence was something they were all comfortable with on the job, so it startled everyone when Ivanova suddenly yelled and almost curled up into a ball. Waves of pain and confusion radiated off of her. She was clutching her arm to her, and had start leaning on the wall.
"What's wrong?" Zack asked as Lyta helped her friend stand.
"It-everything-hurts-in my," Susan looked wildly at Lyta suddenly. "Can't you hear it?"
"The static," Lyta said after a second, nodding vaguely. "It's like someone's blaring something too loudly just off of a channel. I locked it away earlier when I first noticed it. I hadn't thought it would do anything."
{There. I think that should work. Can you hear me?} Susan nodded slowly, as her mind silenced, like a thick blanket had been laid across all. {We need to figure out what's causing this. I'm betting it's what was interfering with my scans earlier.}
Susan nodded and they continued down along the corridor. Lyta pointed in directions, and though beset by Zack's disapproval for her being in front and unprotected, she obstinately led the way. She waved a hand to halt them, at a sound round the corner and pressed her back to the wall. A large object jumped out from the other direction, was caught by a force of over three gravities in mid air and then released immediately, where it staggered to a standing position.
"That was not quite the reception I had been expecting," Lennier said, in a hushed voice, his right hand holding the Ranger Staff in compact form still. "I feel pity for those about to meet you."
A small explosion down the corridor silenced them again. Zack went forward a head of them, gun ready, slinking along one wall. They were in sections of down below that spread out like spider fingers. There were no doors, just rooms after rooms. They went through, jumping out and securing areas, trying not to split up too thinly in, while still checking to make sure they couldn't be ambushed. Which worked well, till they arrived into the room with Melissa and the heavyset man. The exact moment they did another person went running out one side.
"Drop the gun!" Zack shouted. At the same time as, Ivanova targeted the man and said, "Don't make this any harder than it has to be. I'm looking at a damn good reason to split you into a million pieces already."
Lyta nodded only slightly, and Lennier started to move in the direction of the door, the second man had run out of.
"Make another move, and I'll blow her brains all over the wall," he said to Lennier and all of them, emphasizing his words with the gun pointed right to Melissa's temple, making her head loll.
He was dressed in a red outfit that looked very much like a Psi-Corps uniform, only missing a pin, shabby by days of wear without recycling or cleaning, of the clothes or of himself. Melissa, though, looked so worse for the wear it almost hurt to look at her.
Tied to a four-legged chair, her arms behind her, her stomach tied across, her legs each tied to one leg of the chair. She barely seemed conscious except when her eyes would roll to look at them, and it seemed to be an awesome effort for her to do just that. She had dried blood all over her, so much so it was hard to tell what was old and what might be new. In the places where her clothes were torn, or where skin showed freely, such on her face and arms, angry red welts surrounded bruises deepened into purple already and gashes both open and closed.
"You can't do anything," Lyta said, crisply. Ignoring his harder push of the gun to the girl's temple, she nodded toward the door. "Go, Lennier. Before we loose the other one for good."
The Minbari hesitated only a second longer and went running. The man pulled the trigger and a shot was fired. It shot out of the gun at Melissa and then bounced back at the gun in his hands remarkably, like it had hit a reflecting wall of some kind. At the same moment though, both Zack and Susan had shot him by reaction to his shooting the girl. His body fell back, the first shot finally connecting with a pipe above him, as the room wasn't too big. Steam suddenly filled the room all around them. No, not steam- smoke.
"Is everyone-" Lyta started, but with a cough and a grunt of surprise, never finished as a sharp stab of pain slammed into the back of her head and she shoved her forward toward the ground. She reached the ground at an alarming speed, the impact of the fall skinning the side of one of her hands as she rolled over to look back. Zack was standing over her with a evil gleam in his eyes.
"Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be made to kill one of your dearest friends for self preservation?"
Zack's voice and Zack's face baited her, with eyes that didn't shine right now, as Susan was calling through the smoke to ask what was going on and where was she. "I don't know how you made it through the screen, but I can't let you leave here alive. I will do whatever it takes to stop you and your insipid spread of Byron's emotional plague of freedom. I'll become each of them one by one by one."
Far in the back corner of her mind, while the front part remained concentrated on the man in front of her, she was focused on Melissa. It took groping with space and finding her through the bonds of whatever screen he referred to. There was no sight contact, which made releasing the bonds around the girl that much harder, even if that much harder only meant she had to squint to get it.
"Can you do it, pretty, pedantic, pathetic Lyta? Can you kill this body that loves you so much that it would willingly die to protect you? Can you kill the others, too? A best friend? A little sister? A warrior in arms? Because I have nothing left to loose now. I've already destroyed your precious TEEP and mortally wounded your young friend. She'll die soon enough, too. Either way, I win."
"You bastard," she said pulling herself up and sending him flying across the room, her entire resolve broken on his words. Her entire life's word. Her entire reason for this. She was screaming now when she spoke. Her voice boomed in his head, in everyone's. "You're an abomination of the Psi-Corps and you have the right to call me messed up?"
Zack crashed against the wall, but it wasn't the man inside his head that cried out, but him. From both the brunt impact to his mind and his body. The other had vanished into thin air again. It made her incredibly uneasy. The smoking was finally thinning and she was grateful to realize Susan was helping Melissa at this point. She got up to walk over and was surprised when another gun shot out from Susan hand at her, holding Melissa's arm so tight it was turning white around where her fingers clenched.
"Around and around and around, we go," Lyta said, breathing harder, as she slammed herself at the presence in Susan's mind. She felt the defensive reactions of both people, the man who fought for his life against an onslaught her deserved now, and those of Susan, who desperately hated the idea of anyone inside her head still. "You're more afraid of me, than I am of you. Back. Now."
The presence left Susan's mind and the body on the ground started to rise. It was sputtering blood, and giving off waves of pain, though they seemed quite small in comparison coming off those of the young girl tied to the chair. He struggled to sit upright and glared into her eyes. His mouth moved to speak. His eyes spun in confusion and she simply continued to stare at him.
"You wanted to know why I'm not effected by your telepathic inhibitor field, wherever you got it," Lyta said sneering at him, as she scrunched down at his level. "I'll let you in on a little secret, I'm more than you'll ever know, become or conceive of. Something you'll spend the rest of your life thinking about. I hope these people let you rot forever, unfed until you die of starvation, for what you've done."
"Nnnnn," he grunted, blood starting to trail out of the corner of his lips. "Never."
"No, you-"
A moment later his body slumped lifeless, leaving Lyta staring at an empty husk feeling greatly unsatisfied.
"Is he-"
"Yes," Lyta said before the question even ended from Zack behind her, curling slightly. She wanted to break his body into a dozen pieces. She wanted to make all of his organs explode and his skin cut off his body. She wanted to watch him burn until there was nothing left.
Nothing.
Nothing left.
Just like she had nothing left now.
**Med. lab asap to Down Below. We have wounded.**
Susan had just barely finished when a clang rang out, echoing across the room, the chair tipped and Melissa was trying to crawl away, her voice muffling through the gag as Susan started to yell at her. "What do you think your doing? You could be causing more damage to yourself!"
Lyta turned her head to see Melissa trying to crawl in a direction, her movements weak and slippery on the hard floor, while Susan tried to stop her. Blood wet the floor from the girl and both seemed to be having a hard time staying stationary then. Lyta got up, not even realizing she did much, because everything was numb and walked toward them, watching Susan stopping Melissa's movements.
She felt the alarm that surfaced through the girl, as she helped with gag and hand ties by removing them just looking at them. Dried blood on cracked lips, opened and bled again with the gag removed. Keeling down by girl she looked at her, being held by Susan. Her face was bruised and bloodied, but even as her eyes moved uncontrolled, they had a fire in them. Lyta almost didn't see it first, but the next second her eyes squeezed shut and she pushed outward, not with her body, but with her mind.
Susan fell backwards caught by her hands, and Lyta stopped her mid movement, holding her in the air. She lowered Melissa down into her own arms, walking the pathways of Melissa's very injury obsessed mind.
{Melissa. Stop. We're here now.} Lyta projected quietly, but what she hit was huge repetitive thought process. It cycled around and around on top of itself, in a loop. It seemed to be the only thing left standing against the pain and shock running through her. It was like a voice shouting in the center of a vortex, getting smaller and smaller.
{Gotta get it. I stole it. Can't forget it. Must get to it. I stole it. It's mine. It's not yours. Fixed it. Mine. Must get it. Can't forget it. They'll take it again. Must hide it. Must get it.}
{ The medical staff's on the way. What do you have to get ?}
{Get? Oohh... TEEP.}
{Melissa, TEEP's gone.}
The moment she thought those words thought Melissa began to struggle hard again her holding her even, her voice cracking, as she had a hard time making her tonuge and lips move. "N..ot..go.ne. Hav.to."
"Melissa. Stop it. You'll hurt yourself. It's gone. It's alright. You'll be alright," Lyta said, as completely oblivious to third person who joined the two watching her as she was to the tears that had started rolling down her cheeks. Nothing was going to be alright, but that could wait till later, too. Devastation always came in waves with time.
"Nnnnoo.t..gon.nne," she shuddered out, and her entire body went still as an object ran into Lyta's leg, too fast and bounced back. Susan picked up the colorful ball that ran into Lyta. It was one of the color changing juggling balls though. ".se.e?"
"That's a juggling ball," she said smoothing the young red haired woman's short hair. "Try to lie still. They're coming. I promise."
"Lo..ok!" Melissa rasped, as she felt her hold slipping. It was like all of her footing was on water, and she was plunging straight down. "Y.u..haf.to.se..ee..i..t!!!"
Her last words became more emphasized as she passed out completely. Susan looking completely worried, but at a loss of being able to do anything, offered Lyta the ball. "Do you have any idea what she's talking about?"
"No..no," Lyta whispered, holding it in one hand, finally catching on. The colors all faded from it as Melissa consciousness faded. It was dingy silver with strange and foreign writing all across it. It only had two small holes in it on opposite ends. It was safe. It had been safe. TEEP was preserved for them. So safe, but for what? At the cost of a child. It rolled off her fingers, the way the tears rolled out of her eyes, and she didn't even hear it hit the ground when she hugged Melissa, rocking her back and forth.
"Stupid girl, you silly, stupid, girl," she said, even as she cried into Melissa's hair. Tears and blood mingled on the fabric of her blue dress and on pale skin, as her small frame began to shake. The entire room was still aside from the sound of Lyta's voice and the sound of soft sobs that went through the room.
Slowly and yet suddenly, all at once, the room began to warm up and the crying stopped completely, the only sound a soft humming noise, seemed to fill everything. The two in the center of the room sat completely still, and from her vantage point only Susan could actually see Lyta. Susan called out her name, wanting to know if she was alright, as her face was blank and her eyes glowing white, but for some reason she couldn't get her voice to be louder than the humming.
~*~*~
( Later On )
"Then it is all over now?"
"Well, I suppose that's one way of looking at it," Lyta said, as she ran a bare finger down a water glass, feeling the chill race through her finger, up her arm and down her spine. "In others, it's still just beginning."
"You could've left it back on Haven," Susan offered, after she finished the bite of food in her mouth.
"Haven?" Zack asked curiously.
"No. I couldn't. I wish I could've. I thought I'd be able to keep it safe after everything I've been through. They aren't gone either, so the problems not solved, it's just not localized here anymore." Lyta shook her head, with a vague frown at the edges of her lips but not actually forming. The man that Lennier had caught had killed himself also, leaving them no proof, no case, and only a long, line of dead bodies.
"Haven," Susan said slowly, after a questioning look at Lyta who just shrugged. "Is one of the telepathic homeworlds."
"One of?" He asked, startled, almost loosing the grip on his fork. "I hadn't heard anything about-"
"That's why you call it a secret, Zack," Lyta said, with a half smile. "Because no one else knows."
"Whew. When did all this happen?"
"Years ago, during my travels with G'Kar," Lyta said, going back to the contemplation of the water drops on her glass of lemonade, and completely missing Susan's smile at her. "I couldn't leave TEEP on Haven. Especially not now, I don't know how they found out about it. I can only hope they haven't found out about Haven. I can't risk either, by linking it to the other."
"And just," Zack said, maneuvering with his fork in the air, "What is it?"
"TEEP," Lyta said softly, her voice barely audible. A smile was curling the edges of her lips completely unconsciously. It seemed the smile was all there was, like she might say no more, as the silence went on and she tilted her head her smile getting a bit wider still. "It all started when I ran into planet."
"You crashed into a planet?" Zack asked, sounding surprised and concerned.
"No," Susan said, shaking her head with a slight laugh. "She ran into it. Dead on."
"How do you run into a planet?"
Lyta ran her hands against her cheek, shivering a little at the coldness of her fingers now, still unable to stop smiling, even more so in her eyes than on her lips. "You don't see it."
"Wait a minute," Zack said, putting his fork down and shaking his head, his face full of disbelief. "You want me to believe you couldn't see the planet right in front of you?"
"Well," Susan added. "It was rather invisible at the time."
"No way," Zack remarked. "That's-that's not possible. You have to be pulling my leg."
Lyta shook her head, laughing for a second, and then settling back into a smile. She crossed her legs and leaned back in her chair, reaching out only once to grab her drink and take a sip. "No, no joke. I ran straight into it and only after that did it start to really get interesting. The three of us spent a long time with the people of the planet, too, once our little misunderstanding was cleared away."
"They were fascinating people, Zack," Susan said between bites of her dinner. "They tended only to a mark that stated, if someone could dream it, it could happen. A travel worthy, invisible planet, wasn't even the most extensive dream they'd proved they could make come true. It was amazing."
"Woah- you mean, you're serious?" He asked, folding his napkin and placing it half on his plate.
Lyta picked up the woven bag sitting on her lap, undoing the laces. She pulled from inside the dingy silver ball and offered it to him her eyes clear and trusting. "Does it look like anything you've ever seen before?"
Zack took it in his hand, noticing first it seemed both cold like steel, and warm like it had a pulse when you placed both hands on it. It was about six inches wide in circumference, forming a perfect circle. Weighing it didn't feel any heavier than about four or five pounds at best. Its color was dingy grey. It looked like a metal, but not one he'd ever seen before. The writing all over it was of an origin he'd never seen either.
"I've never - and you still haven't explained. This is?" he asked.
"No, it's not a planet", Lyta said, shaking her head. "That is the purest example of the future and the dreams of millions. As they say, Rome was not built in a day. It is the core of what will be TEEP."
"Will be?"
She nodded, just catching the slightest movement of Susan's to touch a spot on her shirt and then lower her hand. She mimicked it, even though Zack didn't catch either as an important movement, with the time spacing, especially since Susan had appeared to almost be picking at her uniform really.
"After settling out a few differences and a few months worth of studying each other, we decided to leave. In return for our stay and exchange of knowledge they asked if we wanted anything, we dreamed of anything truly, not even as a group, but as individuals," Lyta said, reaching out and gently taking the object back into her hands.
"We already had Haven. We had for almost a year then, so it took me a while to even come up with a logical answer to this question. I asked for one thing only, and with only one condition, should they accept my answer."
When neither of them moved after he looked back and forth between them, Zack raised his hands curiously. "Well, what was it?"
Lyta stared at the ball of metal in her hands still not speaking for a few seconds. She tilted it looking at the holes and reading across the words it had engraved all across it. Nodding, as if to it or herself, she then put it away, talking as she did. "I had found out during our stay there that their traveling planet was really a prototype. The first and only they'd ever made."
"You didn't-"
"She did," Susan said, nodding. "Funny enough they were happy to comply, especially with her terms."
Zack's face was a garden of shock and disbelief as he looked between them. "And the terms?"
"Only one," Lyta said her face gathering back into a smile. "That they ally themselves with us, as our first official ally. That we share our knowledge's and history's, our plights and joys, our every days and years from then until forever. Even so, they only had one condition in complying beyond that."
"Which was?" he asked, feeling like he was adrift in a world of whimsy at this point.
"That they got to name it. They have this just slightly skewed humor and they managed to keep it coming, even with this," the red headed woman smiled. "They decided it should be called the Telepathic External Exploration Planet. TEEP for short. See the humor?"
"Wow." Zack said, sitting back in his chair. "Just, well, wow."
"Yeah, I agree," Lyta said with a laugh. "Speaking of unexpected miracles, I think Melissa is about to wake up. I had wanted to grab her a new set of juggling balls as a surprise. Will you two wait here a few minutes?"
"Of course we will," Susan said. "Hey, Lyta?"
"Yes," she said, turning as she stood, amidst looping the pouch across her shoulder and under one arm.
"Speaking of annoying, but wonderful things, isn't your birthday coming up soon?"
The red headed telepath smiled over her shoulder, as she turned, the long cream white and black dress she was wearing now, rippling through the air around her. "Tomorrow."
~*~*~
( About Two Minutes Later )
"How long will you make her wait?"
"I don't understand what you're asking."
"Neither does she. Though, who knows how she misses it, being the strongest telepath I know alive, and it staring her in the face daily," Susan said, as she crumpled her napkin, watching her friend move slowly and unnoticeably, to the rest of the people, into the crowd. "What do you see when you look at her, Zack?"
He watched Lyta as she sailed through a cloud of people like a small ship in untroubled waters. Everyone seemed to part around her, and she seemed more at ease than she had so far. Another new outfit on, she was wearing a soft dress of cream white, accented by a ribbon of black around the collar, going all the way down the front of the gown at an angel. The inner dress reached her ankles slimly, and at the sleeves belled out slightly behind her hands, those edges also done in black. A long vest shell in a coloured of dark maroon, off set it slightly, making it stand out more.
"Someone I knew a long time ago. Someone whom I want to help," he started unsure of himself, or how he was supposed to respond. "Someone who, despite all of the works of the fates that be, seems to be getting better by leaps and bounds."
"Not completely right there," Susan said as they both lost sight of Lyta completely now.
"She's not better, Zack. She's at square one most every morning. Learning something new about herself she's never known. Having to make the hardest decisions without feeling there will be anyone there to stand beside her once she does. She feels proud of having taken up a crusade and made it all work out for the better, feels proud to be apart of it, feels proud of going out into the world, doing amazing things and surviving. But she would without fight somedays completely remain in the shadows were someone to come take over above her even."
Zack wanted to say he would be, that he'd said so long ago, but only grimaced slightly. He remembered all too well the conversation so many years ago in the lift. That idea that she'd been so mad she hadn't even respond, ever. Not that day or ever after it. Shortly after it, staking her claim to a relationship and crusade with Byron.
Somewhere inside, buried under a million changes to her psyche, herself, and all she's been through, there' still just a little girl who wants to be cared for," Susan said with a bit of disgust. "So much that she'd probably just at the chance to be cared for, same as she did with Byron. I'd hate to see that happen to her again. She devotes so completely to someone willing to help her, regardless of whether it's love or friendship, in an almost intoxicating way."
"The funny thing about it really, though," she said with just enough acidic sarcasm in her voice. "Is that the Vorlon's weren't the ones who completely removed her humanity. It was us. We used her like a tool, put away and uncared for until we needed to pull it out again. We lied to her. We used her. We pushed her away. We hid things from her. We demanded she do things for us without reward. We sent her here and there and kicked her in the teeth for doing what we asked. We denied her anything she requested. We never made time for her. We never even remembered her."
Susan sighed, as she got ready to stand up, "Lyta has a million reasons to hate and hurt us, when is someone going to give her a reason to love?"
The End...
...For Now.
Expect an epilogue.
*laughs* Expect a few more arcs.
feedback to: wanderlustlover@satx.rr.com
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