"Elle Evan, you are called to us"
Elle sighed as she stood from the rough patch of grass where she had been napping.
"What now, creator?"
"You have served your purpose for this planet well. Now, we offer you a reward, and an offer."
Elle had to admit her interest was peaked. "Reward? For doing what you designed me to do?"
Elle could feel the fire surge through her veins, the pain being intense at first, but fading quickly to nothing more than a dull pulse. She glanced around as she opened her eyes, finding she was now in a room of mirrors. She looked at herself, waving her hands to verify what she was seeing.
"Thank you. This is better than I ever dreamed of. And this offer?" For what had just happened, she couldn't imagine herself rejecting the offer if she wanted to. For 11 long years, she had been restoring the Earth to its former glory, never seen by anyone, her body black and inhuman. Now, she looked as she would have 22 years ago, before the earthquake. Her skin was pale, as her mother's had been from living life underground, never seeing the sun. Her hair was cut short around her face and now a faded black, a single green streak remaining in her bangs. And her eyes...her eyes were almost human. The black eyeball gave her away, but the green eyes and black pupils looked almost normal.
"We need you to fix more things, Elle. Not only your Earth has suffered."
"And what would I be fixing?"
"Mistakes." Elle was annoyed when Creator left it at that.
"I will accept your offer, as I am not needed here any longer. My existence was becoming boring, if I dare say so."
"Good. I thought you might. May I just warn you that the powers I have given you will take different forms where you visit?"
Before Elle could reply, she felt her form being energized with the same energy she had once used to mend the Earth. She closed her eyes, letting Creator carry her to where her next mission was. Wherever they might take her.
She felt the energy fade, and was suddenly stumbling on a hard metal floor. She looked around, surprised at the scene she took in.
Zack noticed the green light materialize in front of him almost as soon as he walked into the security office for the night, as he had been stuck with night shift again. He hesitated momentarily to pull his PPG gun from his holster, but did so anyway. The green light soon took on a humanoid form, which stumbled as it solidified. Zack, seeing no immediate threat, holstered his PPG and approached the figure with caution.
He ran a quick weapons scan on the figure using his comm link, and finding no weapons, relaxed slightly. The figure looked to be a girl of no more than twenty, with cropped hair and a green streak running down the side of her bangs. She was dressed oddly, with white jeans from the 21st century, a green cotton shirt, and a black jacket. What really creeped him out were her eyes. The black eyes staring at him seemed to stare into his soul, the way he always felt around Kosh. The figure looked at him, and in what he guessed was a heavy french accent, spoke to him.
"Hello. Can you see me? If so, can you tell me exactly where I might be?"
"Erm, Hello. Why wouldn't I be able to see you? You are on Babylon Five, intergalactic space station." Zack wondered if Garibaldi would scold him for not taking her into custody before answering questions. He decided it was better to just bring the chief down to handle the situation in the first place.
The girl spoke again. "I have spent the past eleven years being invisible to my people, working to restore my planet. It is nice to know I was finally allowed to be seen again. Although, I have never heard of a space station. Could you fill me in on the details?"
Zack was taken aback "Never heard of a space station? Where is it you are from?" He shook his head at the prospect of 11 years alone. He would have gone insane by that type of prison. Wait...Prison? Could he be holding an escaped prisoner? He shook that notion from his head as quickly as it came. She said she was repairing the planet, not destroying it. And she was far too polite to be a prisoner escapee. And a little too relaxed for his comfort.
He thumbed his comm. "Zack to Garibaldi."
"Garibaldi here. What is it Zack?" His tone sounded annoyed at being woken.
"Sorry to wake you, chief, but we have an arrival down here in security. I think you better come down here."
"Roger that. It better be important though."
Zack turned back to the girl, who looked confused.
"What was that?"
He sighed. "A communication device to call my boss."
"Your boss is Garibaldi?"
"Yes."
She seemed to consider this. "Who are you?"
"Zack. You can call me Zack. May I ask your name?"
"Elle. Elle Even. I should really introduce myself first, shouldn't I? I'm sure as Creator moves me on, I will get better at this."
Zack was looking for any records of an 'Elle Even'. Her name sounded suspiciously like the number… He didn't even notice her mention of Creator or Garibaldi coming in.
"Zack! What is this arrival you mentioned?" He didn't have to wait for the answer, as Elle had tapped him on the shoulder lightly.
Elle was slightly offended as Garibaldi drew his weapon on her. She focused her energy, not liking weapons at all, and crumbled the weapon into its raw components. This took under a second, as it had only recently been put together. She would have done the same to Zack, but Zack had holstered his weapon almost as soon as he drew it. She cocked her head and looked at him, unsure of what to do now.
"I see. You are the arrival? Where are you from, why are you being detained, and how the holy hell did you do that?"
"I am from Earth, to the best of my knowledge, though some instinct informs me that it is not the Earth you know. I do not think I am being detained, being able to leave when I please. As to how I did that to you gun, I merely reversed the effect of time on it at a rate of one month per second until it was in its component pieces."
"You really believe you can leave here as you wish? I will have you know that in all my years, no man has ever escaped while I am in charge of security."
"I think I will leave now. My impulse now tells me I must find a Santiago person. If you could tell me where he is, that would be most helpful."
Elle could see the looks of wide-eyed terror and interest the two men in the room exchanged.
"I'm sorry to say we cannot help you at this time. We can, but would first need a telepath to verify you are not under some mind control trick."
"I don't think I have time for that." With that, she turned and walked through the wall, almost forgetting her physical body and switching energy forms at the last minute.
Zack was first on his feet, grabbing his PPG. "Wait! What are you going to do to the president?"
He tried to hide his smirk as she turned back, exposing her torso. He fired, trying to knock her out. Instead of hitting her, the shot rebounded off a momentary green shield at a twenty degree angle. It was enough to miss him, but had anyone been coming out of the hallway to CNC, they would have been beaned.
She looked at him, deadpan, very seriously, and told him "It's not what I am going to do. It's what Clark is."
Zack swore, looking between Garibaldi and Elle. Garibaldi nodded at him, and he quickly gave chase. He managed to catch up with her, and walked beside her as she showed no sign of slowing down.
"What's going to happen?" Zack was not particularly well versed in handling situations like this.
"Clark is going to blow up IO." Her voice showed no hint of laughter, no hint of terror. Zack took this seriously.
"Why don't we go talk to Captain Sheridan? I'm sure he is best suited to do something about this."
"You can. I need to find someone before he tries to kill Garibaldi back there."
"Someone is going to try and kill Garibaldi?!"
She nodded, walking through another wall and into a cargo landing. Zack quickly unlocked the door and followed. He found she already had the lid off of one of the containers, revealing an assortment of explosives, channel blockers, and guns. She raised her hand, and Zack watched in fascination as a beam of black light shot out from her hand and turned the items into nothing more than raw metals and explosive elements. She then released a wave of green light at the explosive elements, which soon became too decayed to be explosive. She looked over at him, then behind him, and shot another beam of black light so that it arced around him. He turned to see what it had hit, and was startled to see Jack holding the remains of a loaded PPG.
"Jack? You were in on this?" To Zack's surprise, Jack merely started laughing.
"I was gonna kill the chief! Why'd it have to be you?"
"Why, Jack? Why are you doing this?"
"For Earth! For the President! For freedom!"
Zack shook his head before taking Jack into custody. He motioned for Elle to come with, but she shook her head.
"I think I'll go talk to the Captain now."
"I'd feel better if you would walk with me."
Jack laughed like a maniac. "You need a girl to protect you?"
"Can you shut up?" Zack retorted
Elle fell into step beside him, breaking off from the small party as they neared the CNC hallway.
"Perhaps we should have Garibaldi escort you in? The command crew doesn't take lightly to intruders."
He was pleased when Elle nodded her agreement and wandered back into security with him.
"Zack? What is this?"
"Well, I was trying to figure out why Elle was so intent on finding the president, and she wandered into a cargo landing. After she opened one of the crates to reveal a metric ton of weapons and explosives, not to mention various jammers, she destroyed the crate. This must have angered Jack, as he was poised and ready to shoot me. I would have been dead if not for her. Chief, I think that YOU would have been dead if she hadn't come here. Jack said he was aiming for you."
"I see. Secure Jack in the brigg. Is there anything else?"
"Elle says Clark is going to blow up Earth Force One to kill the president. I think this was the first step in preventing it."
"And you trust Elle now?"
"Her information has been right so far. And she did save my life."
"How do you know this isn't a set up to make us trust her?"
"I...I don't, chief. But my gut says this is real."
"I'd like to question her more, before she sees the most important man on the station."
Elle shook her head. "'Her' is right here. 'Her' is going to see the Captain, or things are going to get real ugly, real fast."
Elle turned to leave, and Zack watched Garibaldi pull a PPG from the security rack and point it at her.
"Turn around. You are going to stay here until I say otherwise." He motioned for Zack to get Jack out of there. Zack complied.
Elle shook her head in annoyance, turning to face Garibaldi.
"Don't you ever learn? But fine, I will stay here. You can't make my mind stay here though." She sat herself down in a chair, then with a green glow, removed her conscious form she had come to know so well in the past 11 years from the physical body. She looked back at a shocked Garibaldi, and decided to make herself visible to him for a minute.
"Don't move my body. I've never done this while having a physical form before, and don't want to find out what happens if it moves." She turned herself back to the energy dimension, effectively hiding her from view of people. She slid out into the hall, letting herself drift effortlessly into CNC, through the door. Only one being noticed her, and she was surprised to see this.
"The circle has been distorted by your presence."
Elle was shocked that the being with a single red eye and brown coat could see her. She also noticed that everyone was looking at the being in confusion, trying to see who or what he was talking to. She released her form into the regular dimension, ignoring the astonished gasps from the command staff as she drifted to the ground and settled on her feet.
"I hope this circle has been distorted for the better?"
"The circle is distorted. I do not know the outcome."
The being stepped past her and left the room. Elle drew herself up, letting her feet take her to the upper deck of CNC.
"Where may I find Captain Sheridan?" She addressed the people that now had guns drawn and trained on her.
A man motioned for everyone to drop their weapons. In her energy form, he could hear him mumble to one of them "If Kosh didn't take offence to her presence, I don't think she's too big a threat."
He turned to face her. "I am Captain Sheridan. Who are you?"
"My name is Elle Evan. May we speak in your office?"
The captain nodded, inviting another woman to come with them.
"What do you want to speak about?"
"I have reason to believe that Earth Force One is going to explode, killing Santiago and giving Clark the power he wants, which subsequently leads to a full scale war."
"And why do you believe this?"
"Something is just...telling me. Like an impulse."
"Alright. I'll call the president. Better safe than sorry. Susan, take our guest to quarters so we can contact her again if necessary."
"I don't think it will be. I can already feel things aligning."
"What do you mean?"
"Creator will move me again as soon as I reconnect with my physical form."
"Who is Creator and where is your physical form?" The captain looked skeptical.
"Creator is...I don't know how to describe them. My physical form is in security, with Garibaldi. Now, so I don't have to stay around much longer, will you please make that call? The longer we stay here, the more things break from the circle."
"Now you sound like Kosh." He opened a frequency to the president, gold channel. "Susan, take our guest to security to retrieve her physical form."
"Thank you, Captain. I will be going now."
Elle allowed herself to slip back into the energy dimension to recharge, walking back into security. She was a bit disappointed to find that Garibaldi hadn't moved her body. She was also relieved. She slipped back into her body, re-aligning herself with the worldly bonds. As she finished, she felt the same energy that had brought her here take her away.
"So long, Garibaldi. You don't have to watch for me any longer."
If she had been able to see anything, she would have noticed the man smile and shrug at her comment. If she had stayed a little longer, she would have seen Kosh sigh as the circle was mended. And if she ever came back, she would find that the president was still alive, though Earth Force One was not so lucky.