The Keepers of the Centauri.

-8-

2264.

Every city on Centauri Prime was full of buildings which spoke of the grandeur of the Centauri Republic.

For centuries, the Centauri had built their civilisation on bloodshed, and decadence; ever since, the time of the Xon's first contact, leading to the War of 20 Million Deaths, to the atomic age when an advanced alien starship crashed on their world, starting off a chain reaction which shaped a large portion of the galaxy.

Oh, sure, while Vir believed the Xon deserved what they'd gotten, even celebrated some of his people's past, he wasn't a slave to it like others.

The establishment of the Centauri's interstellar empire led to more buildings, statues, and temples, all of them showing the decadence of the Centauri people.

Not any more. All of the cities on the planet and on other worlds were bombed until every city was ablaze. The bombardment had finished hours ago, the combined fleets of the shattered Earth Alliance remnants, the Narn resistance, the Drazi, and many others had spent hours bombarding the surface of Centauri Prime in revenge for the last five years of war and conquest.

Standing with Senna and a number of other Centauri who'd survived the insanity that once gripped their civilisation, Vir could hear the sounds of crying behind him, but he barely heard it as the survivors, members of his group of resistance fighters and the civilians and soldiers who'd managed to get out watched on, and they were watching as their world was being destroyed around them.

Vir looked on, furious, but not with the people who'd done this to Centauri Prime.

He was furious with the Shadows, the Drakh and their disgusting, evil Keepers, but most of all Vir was furious with the greed of his own people. The people behind him and the survivors in the cities around the world, including the capital city where the palace of the Emperor stood or was now destroyed, and he hoped it was, could deny it, could say whatever they wanted, he didn't care, he knew it was their own fault and arrogant greed.

It all began back on Babylon 5, during Commander Sinclair's final year as the commander and military governor of the diplomatic station, although nobody knew it at the time, Londo had employed a group to track down and recover the Eye, the oldest symbol of Centauri nobility, but a mysterious and sinister human called Morden had come to the station, even more mysterious were his 'associates,' who were apparently extremely powerful.

Dangerous.

Vir had despised Morden from the moment he saw the human, saw the oily smile, the self-satisfied smirk. But Londo didn't listen to his warnings, but he would later realise it wouldn't have made any difference.

He had continuously asked the question, "What do you want?"

Londo answered, but while Vir didn't have a clue what his friend and mentor had said, Vir could guess; Londo was one of the old school, he yearned for the days where the Republic was seen as the Lion of the Galaxy, lords and masters of hundreds of planets.

The Centauri Republic had been in a decline for decades, and a century ago they had succeeded in annexing Narn, holding onto the world and enslaving the population for that long, even though the resistance was thriving, and each day, more and more Narns fought back against the cruel whip of the Centauri overlords stationed there as the planet was strip mined of its resources, the atmosphere poisoned and reduced to the opposite of what it was, until finally the Centauri let go of Narn, mostly because it wasn't economically viable to maintain; at the same time, the galaxy was full of former conquered planets inhabited by peoples who'd gone on to become the League of Non-Aligned Worlds.

Londo was just one of thousands of Centauri who wanted the Republic to return to the 'good old days' even if Vir was one of a minority who didn't see much use, but Londo had never listened to him.

And after that, Morden returned, time and again. Vir was unsure of the exact sequence of events, but Londo and Lord Kiro apparently lost the Eye, and Morden's associates recovered it, and then later on when the Republic was ceding another system to the Narn government because of Emperor Turhan's desire to make better relations with them, he asked Morden to step in, and 10,000 Narns were wiped out.

And on and on it went, but Londo's actions were picked up upon by a conspiratorial group led by Lord Refa, who wanted to return to the good old days as Londo did, but had the desire to do it regardless of the long-term cost, and Refa hadn't cared who paid the price. Through Morden, Londo and Refa both set up the Narn-Centauri War, just as the ailing Emperor Turhan came to the station and then later died. He was then replaced by Emperor Cartagia, may the Great Maker banish his soul to oblivion, but it would be a while before Cartagia revealed to all how mad he was and how destructive.

The war would last 6 Centauri months, and the Narn would be slowly pushed back despite their meagre victories; on the surface, the Narn armada was impressive, but they had only gone after poorly defended Centauri holdings, they were no match for the Centauri fleet.

Or their new allies.

The Narn were no match for the ancient Shadow vessels with their organic technology, and once those ships got moving, they were vicious and unstoppable.

But something had happened to Londo, something strange, sinister. Londo was summoned back to the homeworld, but then he had come back changed, and while the Narn were being decimated and their homeworld was reduced to dusty rubble by the mass driver assault which lasted days, the Centauri fleet were openly going after targets belonging to other powers, and Vir was stunned and horrified by how erratic and hysterical Londo was now, but what had horrified Vir was Londo's own actions, his cruelty towards other races, promising they would lose their liberty, delighted in how the Centauri slaughtered them, while Cartagia continuously told the galaxy the Centauri Republic owned the galaxy and there was nobody who could stop them, how he threatened them, but what had shaken him the most was how that mess with Urzaa Jaddo went down.

Refa and Cartagia and the Centaurum spent a lot of time silencing anyone who spoke up against them, and Jaddo had and the Royal Court with Cartagia and Refa leading the charge were threatening Jaddo's family, but Londo seemed to be a different person, almost like his old self and yet he would return to his newer, darker self. In one of his darker moments, Londo had railed at his old friend who'd listened in horror and shock as his friend unleashed a poisonous rant, yelling Jaddo should be delighted his entire race was being restored to power.

But, and this was the most painful part which made Vir actually question who Londo Mollari was, Londo actually claimed the Jaddo family might be seen as a warning against those who spoke out against the new regime, and believed Jaddo's family would make excellent slaves.

Vir had done his best to comfort the desperate and despondent Jaddo who realised his own last hopes for his family's safety and security went up in flames….and then Londo burst in, drunk, holding an extremely large bottle of Bravari.

And then the truth came out when he revealed the Keeper attached to his body. In his drunken stupor, which took time to understand, Londo explained what happened.

The Centauri Republic was under the control of Morden's associates, through a race called the Drakh (finding out the legendary fairy tales were true was a shock), who had attached creatures called Keepers which made sure their subjects did as their masters wanted, which was to spread war, chaos, and destruction through the galaxy.

The Shadows and the Vorlons were First Ones, a pantheon of ancient races who had once ruled the galaxy, carving up chunks as their own empires, before the majority left the galaxy to the younger races, but the Shadows and the Vorlons had remained to help the younger races along, with the Vorlons forcing discipline, obedience, and order, while the Shadows saw the only way to truly evolve was to promote widespread chaos through wars, conquest and destruction.

Vir and Jaddo were taken by surprise by this story, but it explained a great deal about what was happening throughout the galaxy, but Londo didn't or he couldn't answer their desperate questions about why the Drakh had told them this, or even why the Keepers had let this story get out.

Londo had one, as did Lord Refa, Emperor Cartagia, members of the Cerntaurum, the Royal Court, and selected admirals and generals of the armed forces, but Londo had somehow discovered if he drank enough, then he would put the Keeper to sleep, without it the creature would kill anyone who went against their masters. Londo fought against Jaddo while drunk, and the House Jaddo became a part of House Mollari, but what Vir didn't get was why it happened, and what the other Keepers and the Drakh themselves thought of the whole mess, but he never found out, but before Jaddo was killed, he begged Vir to find a way of freeing the Centauri from the Drakh and their Keepers, so they would never become slaves.

In his final moments, Jaddo had cursed and damned the First Ones for their actions. But all was not lost. In the brief time Londo was drunk, Vir managed to record some of what his friend said, but he didn't know if it was enough, but it was a start, and from that moment onwards, Vir had made it a point to get Londo as drunk as he possibly could, him and other senior Centauri lords like Refa so then he could gain a bit more information, and much of it he passed on to people like Sheridan, Delenn, and even G'Kar. Thanks to his actions, Vir had saved millions, but so many had died since.

The galaxy was going to hell. The Centauri were going to war against dozens of races, and Vir was concerned for the future of the Centauri, since nobody was safe, especially when the mysterious associates of Morden's revealed themselves.

The Shadows.

Aliens who were ancient, timeless, one of the First Ones and considered to be a myth by many in the galaxy, who spread war and destruction on a massive level, and with the Shadows on their side, nobody could stand against the Centauri war machine.

Even Earth who had foolishly signed a non-aggression treaty with the Republic wasn't spared. Earth had already put itself under martial law, their new president as mad an overzealous as Cartagia, and despotic, in response to some alien incident in their home system, but that was not enough to stop rogue groups of the Minbari warrior caste from attacking humanity when they had seen Shadow technology merged with Earth ships, they had to deal with Centauri from tearing through Earth Alliance territory where the planet's were levelled. Clark had lost dozens of worlds because of his actions, but that didn't matter much in the brief war, which went badly for Earth before the fleets tore through into the solar system.

Earth was flattened by the Centauri's mass drivers before the invasion. Clark and his supporters hadn't even seen the attack; they had been kidnapped already, and ferried here, to Centauri Prime, but while they protested, yelling about the breaches in the Treaty, they were taken to Centauri Prime where they were tortured and then executed, but before the actual invasion, Vir had learnt many in the Centaurum and the Royal Court had actually toyed with conquering Earth, these beliefs had come and gone over the years, but the Centauri had never done it.

But all of that changed when Cartagia, fuelled by his deranged need for power, glory, and Refa with his own ambitions to return to Centauri glory, both amplified by the Drakh following their master's wishes, ordered the conquest of the Earth Alliance.

Earth and its colonies were enslaved, and exploited…but humanity fought back. The fleet was largely smashed, but some had survived, and those who died…Vir was unsure if they were lucky or not, but others would survive, and they had fled to different parts of the galaxy, and try to rebuild and find new ways of striking back.

They would have recovered alien technologies, and weapons, reverse engineering it as quickly as they could, as they prepared for a fight to the death to reclaim their worlds.

But the Shadows were fought, by a beacon of light.

Babylon 5.

Captain John Sheridan had ordered the station to break away from the Alliance, later expelling the Centauri after the invasion, and dealing with many acts of murder and sabotage, but the station became the centre of the resistance for the Narn, the Drazi, the remnants of the Earth Alliance against the Shadows and the Centauri, and they'd fought against them while working to find ways of freeing their worlds.

Vir had spent so long trying to find a way of breaking through the Keepers, and he had struggled to keep his head down while the drunken Londo gave him details and bits of information that helped during the period. Vir discovered that the Keepers were only capable of dying when their Drakh died, and it took time for him to find the Drakh on Centauri Prime, while building his resistance movement.

But Cartagia had discovered a way of overcoming his own Keeper, although he supported the madness of the rampage of conquest. His own madness and psychopathy somehow overwhelmed the alien parasite until he had become increasingly impossible to control. Suddenly drunk on power, Cartagia began ordering campaigns against powerful races, like the Minbari, and Vir had managed to get himself assigned to the same ship, in pursuit of Cartagia and the Drakh, and he'd been forced to kill both when Cartagia ordered the mass extermination of a colony of Minbari, even as the fleet exploded around him.

Vir had managed to call a retreat, just in time, before the Minbari attacked, and he'd returned to Centauri Prime just as word of the Vorlons who'd gone insane and were attacking any and all worlds involved with the Shadows leaving the galaxy with the Shadows with them. Londo appeared to him just as the allied races began fighting the Centauri occupational forces scattered in this part of the galaxy. Londo had been drunk, but he'd given him valuable information, with that Vir and his forces were able to wipe out the Drakh on Centauri Prime…but too late, as the Earth forces, the Narn, and the Drazi, and several others bombed Centauri Prime before they could send out the transmission the Drakh were dead, and proof of what they'd done on Centauri Prime, and to other races in the galaxy.

Somewhere in that holocaust, the remains of Refa, Londo, and so many other poor souls were burning to death, along with the dreams for the 'good old days.'

And the burning remnants of the Drakh with it.

The feel of an arm snapped him out of his thoughts, and Vir turned to Senna, and a soft smile crossed his face; he had lost a lot of his innocence and childhood optimism as time had passed, but he was pleased his smile was still the same. They had become truly close in the last few months, closer than he had been to Lyndisty.

"You've been quiet too long," she told him in her lilting accent, "are you going to contact them, tell them the truth?"

"I will do, soon. Hopefully, Sheridan and Delenn might have made some of them see enough sense to stop the worst of this holocaust," he assured her, but he just turned back and sighed. "What was it all for, Senna, all those schemes, those attacks, those eugenics programs on Narn, Earth, and the Drazi homeworld?"

Senna might have grown up in the care of a family who wanted to return to the old ways of the Republic, but she was a realist and logical. She looked over her shoulder, smiling when she saw Luc, Lyssa, and their remaining family in the background. She had always loved children, and those two had captured her hearts.

"It was evil, Vir, what our people did, but what the Drakh did was even worse."

"Yes. But somewhere in the ruins of the cities on this planet are hundreds of people who need our help to rebuild." Vir bit his lip at the sheer scale of the tasks awaiting them. Not only did they have to help their people, their worlds, but they had to find ways of rebuilding bridges, if they could. He turned towards the others. "Come on, we need to find a transmitter, and the sooner we get started, the quicker we can help our homeworld."

As they left, Vir turned back despite the scale of the tasks now awaiting them all, and he couldn't help but mutter, "What was it all for?"

With that he turned his back on the capital city, and followed after the others.