CHAPTER SEVEN: Shadow's Liberated In The Past

It is dimly lit in the room where Iris sits in pain of the energy distorting his young figure. When the pain subsides away he realizes that he is no longer on the vessel the Minbari gave to Nanette to get the crew home, instead he is in bed with tubes and wires inserted in an assortment of machines. He thinks to himself "am I dying?" As he looks around the small room it is indeed a hospital, but what day is it? Iris checks his watch the date is June 13th, 2010, the day when the Liberators took him away from Vorlon control. That's it I am on Vorlon, it would explain the reason why the machine felt—well living. He remembered this day his transformation was complete and he was ready to be sent back to Earth in 1910 to finish whatever life was ahead of him, but this never happened, the Liberators attacked this Vorlon outpost and stole him and many other to use as possible servants to the Eye. Iris tries to break away, to hide, to prevent the future, but the organic matter holds harder and injects a sedative to make the muscle tissue not respond to brainwaves commands, sort of like an artificial dystrophy. As Iris lay there, he heard the sounds of the terrifying screams in his skull and then everything went black.

On Minbar the sun rose slowly and calmly as usual as every morning. Rama was thinking to himself: What a beautiful sunrise…am I forgetting something? Oh yes my breakfast—latter. Rama sat quietly listening to the wind blow calmly from the west—the same direction he was watching the sun rise. West to east unlike Earth's east to west, but this did not matter—he was forgetting something? As Rama thought deeply memory flashes of the painful exit off the Minbari vessel Armada. He remembered, what happened to the Armada? As Rama thinks about it the more he wants to investigate so he gets up from the chair and walks from the porch to the dining room, when he arrived into his bedroom it is not what he expects to find, he sees clothing that appears to be female dress entire, that makes him look at his clothing and notices that he is wearing female clothes of a highly ranked person, about ambassador level, as he looks into a mirror he does not see his complexion, it's a females complexion—and hybrided. With seeing this she faints from over exposure to stress. Two aides run in and help Rama to her feet, but she is not responding so they take her to the Med Lab.

When Casthmatic turned her head, an pinkish purple beam slices through a ship and 12 more beams slice alien ships to incinerated ambers, when Casthmatic focuses her eyes in deep space she sees two type of spidery vessel with one strange looking vessel. One blue spidery vessel, one gigantic deep black spidery vessel and the other is a medium size transparent vessel, it's the Shadow's, the Liberators, and the Hand. "No they were all destroyed, Thirdspace crumbled!"

Sound comes into her head set. "Casthmatic deflect off course now!"

Casthmatic pushed downward on the navigation console and the vessel near misses a Liberator vessel, but now the new problem is the planet that her ship is plummeting towards. As the vessel enters the atmosphere Casthmatic knows that pulling upward is suicidal and tries to decrease speed. As the planets surface is in view she moves the navigation console upward extremely slowly so not to plow into the planets surface. As she begins climbing out of the planets atmosphere she emerges into space and is nicked by a Shadow vessel. With the near miss the Shadow vessel fires again at Casthmatic's vessel. The vessel misses and the little vessel under controlled by Casthmatic enters hyper space on retreat, as Casthmatic watches the battle from her console her fleet is being destroyed, hundreds of thousand of spidery vessels keep foiling out of Shadowspace splitting the allied vessels to burning cinders. As Casthmatic views the fall of the allies she cries, but the ship is heading somewhere and she does not have control of it. As the vessel jumps out of hyperspace there is a dead planet in front of her, the ship is taking her to Sigma 957—the home world of the Eye. The vessel enters the atmosphere and heads straight down at the ground. The vessel is out of control a then hits the ground and goes right through. When Casthmatic notices that she is alive she looks out her window to view an ancient city about two to three billion years old. Could it be the Eye's city, and if so, why is she here? When the landing gears settle the ship lands and Casthmatic feels herself being released from the ship. As Casthmatic pushes herself off the seat she is forced down again to the leathery seat. It is wires; she has been wired to the seat with tubes and wires—for what? Life support? No, she'd be dead! As Casthmatic unwires the wires from her flesh with the tubes she gets up and walks outside. The air supply is stagnant, only a few light remain on, but it is lit enough to see the giant black gates. It was true, and of the horror stories of massive armies of darkness serving the Eye. As Casthmatic glared at the titanic gates she hears a faint whisper in her head, it is a maculate voice talking to her in some type of alien language. When there are flashes within the cave there is a low rumble as the greenish black gates quake as if a wave of water had hit the wall. When the rumbling increased the towers lit up and a whitish blue tornado forms. The tornado cuts through the roof of the cave and emerges out of the planet. The beam hits Trinus 7 and then the tornado shifts to a planet 90 light years away called Arithmetic 101 where the planet implodes and forms a white hole right dead smacked within the younger races planets like Earth, Narn, Minbar, Centauri, Vorlon, Beta 7, and other non-aligned worlds. The enemy is moving! As the once planet shifts the white hole takes shape in a giant Shadow's Eye. As Casthmatic was watching the tornado like spire of light, Casthmatic figures to watch from a different spot. When Casthmatic hid, the gate opened and out emerged a army of spiders marching outward towards the vessel, when Casthmatic saw her vessel she knew they would search the cave. When she looks at the ship it disappears—gone like that. The army did not even see the ship. As Casthmatic became bored she looked down a second only to raise her head in a sharp manner. There was a sharp scream of a creature that looked like a snake with thorns protruding on its sides of its heads. Its wings, shifting with black plasma much like the body had a span of at least 100 feet with six-foot spikes on every skeleton bone, but most alarming was its navigator, scarier then its creature it had a humanoid structure, but well armored. It had five fingers each six inches long with a spear at the ends. Its chest was an arrangement of plates with spikes on the sides. Its head was like a Shadow's head with 24 eyes glowing yellow, no nose, no mouth. Its grip on the creature was not needed; it is part of the creature—like a parasitic Shadow host. As the dragon like creature screamed out the pitch was head aching. Then the creature took off flying above the spider army. As the cavern filled with spiders Casthmatic felt hopelessness set in. when the tower finally closed and the tornado ended—leaving this place was the first thing on Casthmatic's mind.

When Iris finally woke up he noticed that he was lying on the warm floor, the smell of sulfur stung his senses and burned his eyes. It reminded him of the time he was on X'ha'dum and became victim of the Shadow's parents—the Liberators, but he left that place almost a year ago. When he looked out the window he saw a fiery landscape of massive monoliths and the Eye's tower. He was back on X'ha'dum, as he looked around he saw himself in a mirror as his old self before the Liberators "cleansed" him. As Iris looked around he wanted to find a way out—but always came up negative. When he turned a corner he had never seen before a bright light flashed in his eyes and he passed out.

Back on Minbar, Rama was awaking since she passed out. The voice she heard calling a name she did not recognize woke her up. "Deltalenn, wake up!"

Deltalenn looked confused at the healers staring at her. "Who is Deltalenn?"

One of the healers looked at the other and said. "Can passing out cause forgetfulness?"

The other healer looks at the other and shrugs her shoulders. "I am not certain, Ambassador Deltalenn are you all right?"

Rama looks at them confused. "Who are you?"

The healer also appears confused at Ambassador Deltalenn's forgetfulness. "I am your aide ambassador."

Rama looks at his aide. "Who is this Deltalenn person you speak of, does this person have importance to me?"

The aide nods slowly it seems. "Yes I hope so she is you."

Rama shakes his head violently. "I am Rama, you must be mistaken, and I need to get back to the Armada I have to warn them of the possible Shadow and Liberator joining!"

The aide's whisper. "You said your name was what?"

Rama looks at his aide. "My name is—is I can't remember." Rama is losing his memory to Deltalenn's memory, not his, but her own.

The aide continues. "You also speak of Shadow's? Deltalenn, do these Shadow's cast their shadow on a planet?"

Deltalenn actually now answers under that name without resistance. "Yes once Z'ha'dum, but its been destroyed."

The aide gets up, leaving Deltalenn on the floor. "Ah—no Deltalenn, Z'ha'dum is still around."

Deltalenn is confused. "What is the year?"

The aide is horribly surprised at the amnesia Deltalenn has developed. "It is 1289 ambassador." Deltalenn is now horrible confused. "Do you want anything to eat?"

"No!" Deltalenn gets up and begins slowly for the door as she reaches the door a painful shock rattles throughout her body. As she looks at the hall it turns white and it fades away.

As the blackness fades into light, the light blinds Iris. As Iris is looking around he saw himself, it was to late, and he was "cleansed". He was dressed in white, blonde to grey hair that used to be dark, eye color pigment altered from greenish grey to deep blue. The majority of his scars on his face were gone—replaced by pure white skin. His complexion appeared young, about nine years from twenty years. It was just as Iris remembered, but one question still burned deep down inside, why did the Liberators not infect him? He did not know why, he only knew he was alive. As Iris moves the environment is cooler, not hot from the volcanic activity, as he looks out the window he is in the Liberators youngest city. Most of their servants live here. As Iris hears a noise he turns to confront one of the servants who is to bring him to the Shadow Council. As Iris walks to the Shadow Council he felt he was walking on his own grave. As he entered the black chamber the smell of must fills the air, the only smell the Liberators expire. As Iris faces the creepy Shadow Council the oldest one begins the meeting. "Name?"

Iris looks at the Shadow council."Iris."

"You were an Earthier?"

Iris nods, "Yes, until the Vorlon's abducted me."

"Yes we know. The Eye senses your fear."

"I am only confused of the past and future, I've been touched by the future to see what will happen."

The Shadow's look at one another."Explain"

"A ship called the CX Valdi will be destroyed and the Invincible will be here to look for help to fight against the Hand."

"Hand?"

Iris nods, "I've seen that you've known them; they were your once feared enemy until there defeat sent them to Thirdspace. The Invincible contains the nine needed to stop the Hand in Thirdspace. You must not destroy this ship, bring it to the city, and see what I say then you will know I only speak of the truth because I am one of the nine"

"Do you have a question?"

Iris ponders for a second. "Well—yes I do, last time I was here I did not ask a question that I have wanted to ask deeply! With respect can you tell me why you left my personality intact? You would have inserted me into one of your war ships."

The Shadow Council ponders for a second."Yes."

Iris double-speaks the Shadow's to make them reconsider. "So why did you not with regards!"

The Shadow Council speaks softly to one another. "We have rendered our decision Iris."

Deltalenn laid on a stone floor shivering with cold sweat running down her forehead. As she rubs off the fluid she noticed that she was still a hybrid, and a female, but as she looks around pillars surround her with information written in old text. As she walks through an arch holding up the low roof she emerges into the second chamber and it is all lit up. The chamber is twice the size of the first chamber and there are monoliths and far off in the distance is a pyramid with a glowing light going down its front, as Deltalenn stares at the light she feels her body changing and then finds herself in front of the pyramid as she walks in the pyramid it is thrust into history that seems irrelevant until she sees herself in the year 1289. "Deltalenn?"

Deltalenn turns around to see her mother Delteine. "Mom? How did you get here?"

The figure shakes her head gently. "No, I am not your mom, you see me this way because it is pleasing to your eye."

Deltalenn looks at the ancient city. "What is this place?"

The apparition walks up to Deltalenn. "I can tell you what, but not where."

Deltalenn nods, "Fine with me."

The apparition looks at the walls. "We brought you 20 miles underground in a sector unexplored by your younger races. Your race and many call us the Race of Light."

Deltalenn has heard of this Race of Light in myths. "The Race of Light?"

The apparition nods. "Yes!"

Deltalenn looks at the apparition with bewilderment. "But then you are the oldest race?"

The apparition shakes her head again. "No, darkness always comes before light we are the third oldest race, the oldest race is a race you call the Liberator's, or the Race of Darkness, they once were called to be servants to our developing races, but they wanted us to be just like them, when we refused they hid and somehow impregnate their race to birth the race called Shadow's, then we formed, followed by the Soldiers of Darkness, Vorlon's, Hand, Zog and so on."

Deltalenn looks at the glowing text on the walls. "I see, not to digress off the subject, but where do I fit within the time line; heck I even lost my true form!" The one who is representing the Race of Light is laughing. "What's so funny?"

The apparition looks at Deltalenn. "This is your true form, the other form is just makeup to protect you during childhood, but it is time to reassemble the Children of Valen, and Children of Light."

Deltalenn whispers, "The ancient Minbari prophesized."

The apparition nods, "Yes, I know. During the time of Valen the Shadow's and Liberators cast their shadows over every planet, star, and ship." Babylon 4 appears. "When Valen came the tides of battle were equal and the Shadow's were defeated to their homeworld Z'ha'dum." Z'ha'dum replaces Babylon 4. the planet is dark green with only two oceans.

Deltalenn looks at Z'ha'dum, a lush, green planet. "This is not Z'ha'dum!"

"Yes it was before this happened. It's been about 30 years and one of the Children of Light became in charge of a fleet of old Minbari war cruisers. They molten the surface and supposed that all life was dead, but the Shadow's were 10 miles underground 30 years ago shortly after the war."

Deltalenn hoping it was not her, "And who was it?"

The apparition looks at Deltalenn, "The one you call Iris, he was taken as servant in 101AD, and once again in 2010 where they froze him after they learned the truth of what he did. He was relieved when he prophesized the coming of the research vessel Invincible. Only if they knew he would lead to their genocide of their entire race."

Deltalenn looks at the molten Z'ha'dum in front of her. "So who are the other children?"

"Well the Children of Valen are Delenn, and under her was two children who were David Sheridan, and Delenn 2nd Sheridan, both Children of Light. Delenn's third child was born in the past, but went through transformation in 3261 this would be Iris. They are all Religious Caste. Valen's second child was Casthmatic who was a Warrior Caste member and she gave creation to the Prosperity of Light named Ananette. And the last Child of Valen is you Deltalenn, but of the Worker Caste, you gave creation to the Children of Time called Deliris."

Deltalenn looks at herself in this messed up futurepast visionthing. "So I am a Child of Valen, and I have a child?"

The apparition nods, "Yes, and you will have a child Deltalenn."

Deltalenn looks at her physical self. "But how?"

"This confirmation has broken the Vorlon makeup, but you will someday be married." The apparition ushers away the visions. "That is why it was important to get you here so you can learn this."

Deltalenn wonders about the others of the Armada. "What about the other?"

The apparition knows that the connection is ending, the transformation complete. "They are learning on their own. As for you, your need is needed on the Armada." Deltalenn feels her body becoming heavy and as she awakens she is back in her room, but she knows that she is going to have a problem explaining her transformation from Rama to Deltalenn, for she no long her former self, not even the same gender and is strangely already one week pregnant.

As Iris sits calmly rendering the Shadow Councils decision, the talk begins. "Iris hear us out. We render that you speak the truth. The Eye renders that you are a carrier of an honorable Minbari soul thus that renders you as a Child of Light, created by Delenn Sheridan—our enemy. Do you render a second?"

Iris shakes his head, there is no will to argue against the council."No council, I am as charged, and as guilty!"

"Then hear us out; you will be frozen in time till 3261." As Iris was placed in the cryonic tube he falls asleep. Only seconds latter he awakens to a force thrust—jump engines. He is back on the Armada.

With the Eye's army ready to move, Casthmatic is ready to rum. The terrine is hospitable. The Eye's army had to be stopped, if only if she could get a word out to the others, but how it is 3999 and the others are in the year 3261. As Casthmatic turns she slips on a rock and falls about 20 feet down the rocky crag. As she tries to stand the Eye sees her and turns its dragon towards her. As she tries to run for the gate she staggers over rocks as she nears the greenish black gate. As she nears the gate the Eye is near to capturing her, but she gets inside the gate. As she looks around the complex, the Eye walks in—without its dragon body. "So you must be Casthmatic?"

Casthmatic looks at the Eye. "Yes, and you must be the Eye?"

"The Eye—ha—no, master of all, servant of the Eye."

Casthmatic holds her ground. As the Eye slowly approaches, Casthmatic speaks again. "That's what the Liberators call themselves."

Coldly. "Yes, and you know this because?"

Casthmatic looks at the Eye with a new found anger for the Eye, it help destroy the Invincible. "I was on the Invincible; I went to X'ha'dum, the mirror of Z'ha'dum."

"So you destroyed the Liberators?"

Casthmatic shakes her head, "No, they were hunting us!"

The Eye gets closer to Casthmatic, then the Eye stabs Casthmatic in the chest. As Casthmatic looks with a shocked expression, the Eye's spiky hand is crystallizing as if the veins are exploding. "You are a Child of Valen; you are responsible for our defeat!"

Casthmatic is more traumatized by the Eyes arm cracking up as the wound heals up on Casthmatic's chest. As the body liquefied 24 glowing eyes appear in front of Casthmatic. As Casthmatic remembers what the Eye spoke it dawned on her that she is one of the three Children of Valen. When Casthmatic went to kill the glowing eyes there is a bright flash and she is running in the docking bay of the Armada. The time travel was over—or was it?.