From: Jonathan Souza Subject: Dragons of the Tear II-Finalie Date: Sun, 17 Oct 1999 03:06:36 -0700 Two notes- Note #1-The events of this story take place, in theory, after "Dust to Dust" in the third season of Babylon 5. Note #2-Each of these stories are episodes. The start theme is the standard B5 theme, the end theme is "Anywhere Is" from the Enya *The Memory of Trees* CD. As always, any comments, compliments, complaints, flames, FAQs, etc, etc, etc, can be sent to me at- souzamail@earthlink.net Now for the disclaimers- "Dragon of the Tears II" is a story based on the PTEN/Warner Brothers show "Babylon 5." All characters not the creation of the author are the property of PTEN/Warner Brothers, Copyright@ 1997 PTEN/Warner Brothers. Places and locations not the creation of the author, related to "Neon Genesis Evangelion" are the propery of Gainax/ADVision, Copyright @1997. All other properties are the sole property of Jonathan Souza, Copyright @1999. This copyright will be transferred upon request to the authorized representatives of Gainax/AD Vision or JMS/PTEN/Warner Brothers. All copyrights extend to electronic forms of this story. And now, to the future- _Dragon of the Tears-II_ _By Jon Souza_ _Episode Six-I am I or The Beast Shouted "I" At The End Of The World_ Susan Ivanova sat in the middle of a dark room. A single spotlight beamed upon her, where she sat without uniform. She only wore a blouse and a pair of pants, deck shoes on her feet. Her face was one of long-steeped boredom. WHO ARE YOU? "Commander Susan Ivanova," Ivanova said, standing up. "Executive Officer of Babylon 5, Initiate of the Dragon...." WHO ARE YOU? "I told you." YOU SAID WHAT ARE YOU. WHO ARE YOU? "Excuse me? I told you who I was. I'm Susan Ivanova...." THOSE ARE TITLES. IDENTIFIERS. WHO ARE YOU? "I don't understand what you're asking. What do you mean?" Ivanova said. WHO ARE YOU? WITHOUT NAME, WITHOUT IDENTIFICATION, WHO ARE YOU? "That's nonsense," Ivanova said, looking out with frustration. "What am I without identity? My name is who I am." THAT IS WHY YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND. YOU STILL DON'T. WHO ARE YOU? "What else do I have to identify myself if I don't have a name or position or status?" THAT IS IRRELEVANT. WHO ARE YOU? "Who the fuck are you to ask me? Where the fuck am I?" YOU ARE NOT TO ASK THE QUESTIONS. WE ARE. WHO ARE YOU? "What happens if I don't answer the questions, you bastards?" NOTHING. "Nothing? No punishment, no penalties?" NOTHING. "Well then," Ivanova said, sitting down and stretching out. Silence. With nothing to measure time, Ivanova looked out, then said, "What do you want?" THAT IS NOT YOUR QUESTION. THAT IS NOT OUR QUESTION. IT BELONGS TO ALL OF US. "I'm sick and tired of this nonsense," Ivanova yelled. "What the fuck is the point of all of this?" YOU WON'T KNOW UNTIL YOU LEARN WHO YOU ARE. UNTIL THEN, EVERYTHING ELSE IS IRRELEVANT. "And I keep telling you...." Ivanova hissed. YOU DON'T KNOW THE MEANING OF THE QUESTION. YOU TAKE YOUR TITLES AND USE THEM TO GIVE YOUR IDENTITY MEANING. PERHAPS.... Ivanova paused, then looked out. PERHAPS WE SHOULD TRY A DIFFERENT TACT. Silently, and without any warning, Bester popped into existence. "Susan Ivanova?" he said, to a question that was asked by someone else, "Damn fine woman. It's a shame her mother was so weak, but anyone who doesn't take what is theirs and uses it is worthless." "What the hell?" Ivanova asked. "What's this about, you...." "What is she?" Bester shrugged, not seeming to hear Ivanova. "Opinionated, arrogant, cold. Closed, true. Her mind is such a mystery to me! I'd love to find out what ticks under that cold Russian heart? A woman? Or some kind of machine?" With that last word, Bester vanished. YOU SEE? "See what, you bastards?" Ivanova asked. "All I saw was that rat say he had a crush on me. What's the point of that?" YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND. "It might help if I understood what you were trying to make me understand...." YOU WILL. "But, you realize," as Marcus' voice came behind her, "for you to do that, you're going to have to open up that hard head of yours." "What do you mean?" Ivanova asked. "Well, you see," Marcus said, walking around her, "you're the worst kind of romantic-a disillusioned romantic. Cynicism and bitchiness are your armor, you see-it keeps those barbs that hit your vulnerable romantic sensitivities. Unless you accept that, you'll never be really happy." "I'm happy," Ivanova said. "Are you?" "And I like who I am." "Do you?" "And your point is," Ivanova hissed, standing up to face Marcus. "That's the problem. You don't want to see someone reaching out to help you-all you see is someone's hand coming to take something away from you," Marcus replied, looking straight at her. "Because that's been your life, hasn't it? Your mother taken away from you by the PsiCorps, your brother taken away by the Earth/Minbari War, your life taken away from you by the conspiracy. You're so afraid of losing something that you won't let anyone in. Especially someone you love." "Go to hell," Ivanova said, trying to stare down Marcus. She failed. Ivanova got back on her chair, and sobbed silently. "You can't see it, can you?" Marcus asked. "What do you mean?" Ivanova said, through her tears. "A chance," Delenn said. Marcus was gone, and Delenn came over to her. "A chance to do whatever you want." "What do you mean?" Ivanova asked. "Why the riddles?" They were no longer in a darkness, but on the stage of some high school auditorium, Ivanova's chair in the middle of four floodlights. "The innumerable chance to become, to believe, to be aware of yourself. Don't underestimate that," Delenn said. "But to become aware of what?" Ivanova said. "What am I if I'm not Susan Ivanova?" "Maybe that's the problem," Delenn shrugged. "You're taking so much of your identiy in Susan Ivanova that if you gave her up, you'd know what you were." "You keep speaking in terms of riddles," Ivanova said, standing up. "What are you getting at?" "There's an old expression, Chinese, I believe," Sheridan said, walking up to stand beside Delenn. "'A fish isn't aware of the water that it swims in.' For you, your identity is your water, your face, your name. Without your identity, you'll suffocate in your own psyche." "But, if you're made aware of your own water," Delenn shrugged, "you'll have innumerable power. Not the power of men, or Gods, but the power of Susan Ivanova. And, in the universe, there is nothing greater than that." "That's the Instrumentality of Man?" Ivanova asked. "Power? Nothing else, nothing more than power?" Delenn looked at Ivanova, then Sheridan, a pained expression on her face, "She still doesn't understand." "And she can't leave here until she does," Sheridan replied. "She's trapped within herself." "I am *NOT* trapped!" Ivanova yelled. "I'm a prisoner!" "On that," Delenn said, "we both agree on." "Yes!" Ivanova yelled at her, "I'm your prisoner!" "No," Sheridan said, "You're your own prisoner. The walls are of your own construction, your wardens are of your own fears and doubts." "Keep up the bullshit," Ivanova said, sarcastically, "I can just about smell it." "Maybe," Delenn said, "maybe all you need is a change of pace." "What do you mean?" Ivanova asked. [Tokyo-3, Outer City] [October 11, 2015. 6:11 AM] A firm hand shook her shoulder. Susan Ivanova, in an act of shock and terror, woke up with a start. And, had the person not know that she woke up that way, would have gotten a fist in her face. By the good fortune of at least ten years of being best friends and roommates, Talia Winters knew that when waking up Ivanova, one remained on the other side of where you shook the person. In that action, one kept from having the aforementioned fist-in-face that usually was caused when Susan Ivanova woke up. "Urg....." Ivanova muttered, the sound a low groan and a low lament of sounds. "What bloody time is it?" "Ten, no, eleven after six," Talia replied. To Ivanova's eternal confusion, it seemed like every time Talia was in Ivanova's room, she was dressed and ready to go. No particular reason, just that was how the world worked. "We have the bus for work in an hour, silly girl. Get up, today's my turn to make breakfast." "Great," Ivanova muttered. "Just shoot me and get it over with." "I can't do that," Talia said, in her calmest voice. "You know that Mister Bester's looking for the perfect excuse to fire you. And, homicide would most certainly get you dismissed. Yours, or mine." "I know, I know," the muttering continued, "Why in hell did we ever move to Tokyo?" "We got double the pay we were making in Moscow," Talia sighed. "And, I didn't have to dress up like a astronaut just to get milk at the corner store." "Ah, but the culture!" Ivanova smiled slyly, as she woke up. "Our glorious literature, our music, our fine art....." "Ivanova, I tried to read Crime and Punishment in Russian. I didn't make it past the third chapter before I fell asleep," Talia shook her head. "At least here, I don't have every man look at me like I was the blue plate special." "True," Ivanova said, with a wicked smile, "that's my job." The joke, of over twelve years, was that Ivanova and Talia were lovers- a fact that, except for one drunken night in college, was never true. Good friends, and confidants yes, but the idea of that with each other was not a case of being nauseating, merely lacking in appeal. With this thought in mind, Ivanova slid her feet out from under the covers and stretched. "Okay, okay. I'll get up." The bus stop was too familiar. Not too familiar in the sense of deja vu, not too familiar in the sense of "having been there before", too familiar in the sense that it was perfectly familiar, perfectly installed as if it were a part of her memories. If that wasn't enough to give a person the willies, what followed most would do so swiftly. Just as Ivanonva boarded the bus, the hollers of a man yelling out, at the top of his lungs, "Hold that bus door! Hold that bus doo...." and that final word was interrupted by the fact that there was a collision between Susan Ivanova and the bearded man, sufficient to knock her out of the door, legs up, and him to be dropped on his rear end, looking..... "What the hell are you doing, pervert!?!?!" Ivanova yelled. "I'm sorry," the bearded man said, shaking his head, trying not to look under Ivanova's skirt. "You see, today's my first day at work and I don't want to be late." He got up and tried to offer Ivanova a hand. "My name is Marcus, Marcus Cole. And you?" "Nobody you should be talking to-why were you running?" Ivanova hissed, trying to get up onto her feet. "Excuse me, I told you-today's my first day and I don't want to be late. And your excuse for being so rude?" Marcus replied, more amused than angry. "Nothing," Ivanova muttered and got onto the bus-and spent the entire trip trying not to look at Marucs. [Fifth Bablyon Project Office, Tokyo-3] [October 11, 2015, 9:12 am] "You're kidding, right?" Steven Franklin replied, answering her question. "He was actually looking up your skirt?" The fifth Babylon Project Office was Tokyo's efforts to, like Denmark, to create new land by relclaiming it from the sea. As such the offices were on one of the "superplatforms" floating in Tokyo Bay- rock solid they said. Ivanova still got sea sick, and the view of the sea didn't help any. A view that she was trying to avoid thinking of, in the sense of tossing Steven into the sea. "Only a little, and why do you think it's so funny?" Ivanova looked at him, wondering what the joke was. "He was a pervert!" "Oh sure, sure," Talia replied, bringing coffee, "and you spent the entire bus trip trying not to look up at him. You like him, don't you?" "Excuse me?" Ivanova gave Talia a glare that, most people knew, was the equivilant of a shot across the bow-one inch above it. "He was late, he ran into me, and he was looking up my skirt! What makes you think I like him?" "Because you can't stop talking about him," Talia sighed. "You couldn't stop when he got off the bus, and you can't stop now." "Well," Franklin said, leaning back in his chair, "I think you'll get along with this guy famously." "If I didn't need your report tomorrow," Ivanova gritted her teeth, "you'd be a pier piling." As the water-cooler banner continued, the shop superintendent, Alfred ("you can call me Mister") Bester walked in and rapped his left hand on the table. "Excuse me, all of you. The head of the department, Mister Sheridan, wants to tell you something." Sheridan walked in, flanked by his secretary of some skill and knowledge, Deva Lynne, and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, I got some great news. And, no, Michael," he said to the man whom prairie-dogged out of his cubicle, "I wasn't able to get the new printer yet-they still claim we're over budget for supplies." "So, what did we get?" Michael asked, looking up over the cubicle walls. "A new employee. All of you, I want to introduce the new employee from England, Marcus Cole," Sheridan said, as he walked aside, and the new guy came in. "You!" Ivanova hissed. "You were looking up my skirt!" "Excuse me?" Marcus asked, "If your legs weren't all over the place, perhaps I wouldn't see you don't wear panties." Franklin sat up with a shot. "You don't wear panties, Susan?" "Well, but....." Ivanova got flustered and regained her concentration. "Wait a minute! You shouldn't have been looking up my skirt!" "It's a nice skirt, by the way," Marcus noted, "and so are you." There, off in a corner, Sherdian and Lynne stood, hearing the fight. "Think we should stop it?" Sheridan asked. At this point, Ivanova got up into Marcus' face and was commenting about his geneology, losing her temper as he was going in. "Are you enjoying it?" Lynne asked, without judgement in her voice. "Aren't you?" Sheridan smiled back. It was here where Marcus made a very good comment, and got backhanded. "Yes," Lynne smiles in that serene way that set bill collectors on edge and friends at ease. "I am." [End of Cycle] "So?" "You can see where you're going now, can't you?" Ivanova picked up the script of her life, and read it, "You mean?" "Yes, you possess freedom. The final, truest kind of freedom." "And?" Ivanova stood up from her chair, and nodded slowly to the unseen voice. "You can do it now-you don't need help anymore, just advice." Ivanova took her chair, stood on it, and took one deep breath. With that breath, she looked out at the room, the auditorium, and her life, and screamed. She screamed only one word, and in that one word, it became a chorus and that chorus became a symphony. [Earth Space, Low Earth Orbit] [December 11, 2260 AD; 11:14 AM GMT] "I think I see something," Delenn said. For the last two days, Washuu, Sheridan, and Delenn had been cutting inth massive frame of the object that had saved Earth. As far as the three knew, it was dead. Probably. What they did know was that they were working to rescue their friend. Washuu could feel Ivanova's Tears and knew they were still fixed in place. Thus, Ivanova was still, in technical terms, "alive". But whatever biomechanical systems formed the core of this thing, Washuu said that it was only like a Shadow in one way-it had to have it's soul "inserted" into it. Thus, Ivanova could be saved. In theory. So, the three of them were steadily cutting away the beast with energy blades, politely but firmly asking for help to stay away, not knowing what could happen if anyone else arrived. And, this was a matter of honor. Washuu's trainee was locked into this thing, and Washuu hadn't lost one in training yet, and wasn't going to get started on that kind of habit now. Ivanova was Delenn and Sheridan's friend. Nothing more was needed. "It's her hand!" Delenn noted. Sure enough-a clenched fist protruded from the flesh of the monster. Bloody, coated in gore-and distinct. Perhaps even salvageable. "Let's work this methodically," Washuu replied, as she floated over. "Cut in narrow strips until we get to her body, then we cut around her body in narrow strips." There was hope here, they all knew it. Waking up to sunlight, Susan Ivanova's fingers twitched slowly. Her eyes fluttered, and in that dim, red-hazed coated appearance, was a form. A face. A name. "Susan, can you hear me. Susan Ivanova, can you hear me?" the voice said, female and familiar. What an odd idea. That she couldn't hear the voice! She could, and her mouth moved. "Yes, I can hear it." The splash of something on her face. A faint rubbing sensation. "Are you able to see?" Why such obvious questions? She was here-fully. "I can, yes." "How many fingers?" As the hand showed two fingers, swiftly without warning. "Two fingers. You have two more of them and a thumb wrapped up against your hand, as well." Ivanova said, smiling. "Well," a second voice said, male, "at least her humor is intact." "Yes," a third voice, female, "but her Tears, look at them." "We'll figure it out," the first voice replied. "She's back with us, and that's all that matters now." She realized who the voices were. Could place them all, in a way that was somewhat akin to, yet not totally unlike seeing the line of fate. The first voice, the one that asked the questions? Washuu Masakata, Oracle of the Dragon, quite infamous for her sexual preferences (movement under sentience required), but a caring and well-developed soul indeed. The second, the only male one there? John Sheridan, "Starkiller" Sheridan, the man whom won the only battle of the Earth/Minbari war for humans. In that, he was totally dedicated to his friends and his allies. And the third female voice, one that was like the mother? Delenn, former head of the Grey Council, a woman she could admire- sacrificing all to discover her own "I". With that knowledge, Ivanova sat up and said, "Why don't you tell me what's going on?" Two cups of tea later, the whole story was out. There was a bit of mourning for Garibaldi, of course. Not as much, but still, some for Bester. Joy that Marcus was still alive. And, the sudden feeling in Susan Ivanova of her need to leave-yet, to finish here, what had been started. "I have to go," Ivanova said. "Not to disparage your hospitality or company, Sensai Wahuu-san, but as the old poem goes, I have many miles more to go before I sleep." "Ivanova," Delenn asked, in her polite way, "don't go, just yet. We have much to learn about what happened to you, what is going on." "I'm sorry," Ivanova said, "but those questions are going to be answered on your own." One arm went up, to reveal the pale white Tear on her wrist. "Except this one-why my Dragon Tears are white now, not red. Very simple, they have a new blood in them." "What?" Washuu looked at it, like it was the carrier of a plague. "What kind of blood?" "Angel blood, of course," Ivanova smiled. "Don't worry- there isn't any sense of 'possession' or 'body snatching' involved in this. When I fused with the Wirblewind, I became a part of it in such a way as there wasn't a separation between us. Now, it's gone-I remain, but it's never truly left me. Nor, in a sense, have I truly left it. Now," Ivanova stood up, and drew her hand across her face, to reveal a Tear in her forehead, where the Hindu claimed the 'eye of the soul' was, "I have to travel. First, to Earth, then....wherever fate draws me. The universe is a vast place." "Seven Tears," Washuu whispered. "You're not an Oracle, are you?" "I am Susan Ivanova-nothing more, nothing less," Susan bowed, a deep one of respect. "One day, Sensai, our paths will cross. In peace, I promise. And now, I have to go." And, with that, Susan Ivanova, a being fused with the Dragon Tears and imbued with the essence of the Angel, lept back..... And thru the hull of the *Nieue Ziele* and into space above Earth. Once clear, Ivanova smiled in respect to the traditions of her faith and streched her back, to let the huge glowing wings of an Angel open up, and wrap around her as she fell, like a stone, into the atmosphere of Earth. Without a trail, without a sign as the glowing wings slowly vanished into the brightness of the Earth, Ivanova was gone. "Now, what?" Delenn asked. "We look," Washuu said. "I've already contacted MAGI. They're going to find her, that you can be assured of. And, we also train. You two," she smiled to them, "have a month to get whatever you're going to get resolved done, and we're all going to Dragonhold. This time, I'm having two new apprentices trained properly. So, go! Shoo! Get back here in a month, or I'll drag you both back by the scruff of your necks." With that, Washuu stalked off into the ship's communcations center, wondering what to do next. "Have you ever been to Earth?" Sheridan asked. "Have you ever been to Minbar?" Delenn replied, smiling. "I would love to see home, if only once more." "As do I. I know a great place in London that makes fish and chips," Sherdian replied. "Fish and what?" Delenn asked. Before Sheridan could explain, "I'll find out, enjoyably, I hope. But, what do we do with Susan. She's your friend, and mine." "Agreed. However...." and with a metered cadence, Sheridan paced the deck of the ship. "However, we can't find her. We'll keep an eye out for her, be assured, but, all we can do is be ready for when she wants us to see her again." "And until then?" "We go to our homes, and do what we must. And do what we want to, because we can." With that statment, Sheridan offered Delenn his hand. "Shall we go?" Delenn took the hand, "To the heights of Heaven or the depths of Hell, I'll follow." Sheridan took the hand to his lips and kissed it. "And, I will not leave your side, ever." [END DRAGONS OF THE TEAR II]