Well, this is something I haven’t tried before, so I hope it works out okay. This is a tickle story based in the Babylon 5 universe, and I’ve tried to insert it into the storyline without messing anything else up at the same time. This was written in a mad two hour session so hasn’t had the redrafts my other stories have had before being published. Thanks to Cleopatra2003 and Venus51099 for their generous feedback on “The Memory Remains” that inspired me to get this done.
For those that are interested, this is set in the fourth season episode “The Summoning”, and should (hopefully) tie straight into that episode. I’ve tried to get the dialog right, but if I screwed up I’m sure someone will tell me. Normal disclaimer applies, none of the characters, props etc belong to me and I promise to put everything back where I found it so please don’t sue me.
Background – The Babylon 5 space station is “a self-contained world 5 miles long, located in neutral territory”. At this point in the storyline the universe is about to go straight to hell, two big scary ancient alien cultures (The Vorlons: creatures of energy dedicated to order, discipline and obedience, The Shadows: opposite of The Vorlons) are stomping about all over the place with no regards to the traffic laws and two of the biggest stars of the show are missing, presumed crispy from last seasons cliff hanger. For the purposes of this brief dip into the universe, Kosh is a Vorlon ambassador sent to replace the first Vorlon ambassador to the station, also called Kosh, who got turned into a wall decoration by the Shadows. Lyta is a human telepath who ‘touched’ the original Kosh in the pilot episode and is now an aide to the Vorlons. I think that covers the basics, anyone who knows the show will know what all this is about anyway, everyone else should either go watch it (yes, all of it from the first episode, in order, trust me it’s worth it) or go read this page
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The Summoning – The Missing Scenes.
Lyta Alexander keyed the door to Kosh’s quarters and stepped inside, facing his empty encounter suit. The fact that the suit was empty would have shocked the vast majority of the quarter of a million humans and aliens living on Babylon 5, as it was commonly believed that a Vorlon would never leave the safety of their shell, except in times of dire need. Lyta though knew differently. Ever since she’d approached the Vorlons almost two years ago she’d learnt more and more about their ways, their manipulations of the younger races to react favourably to them, to treat them almost as gods, and in truth it was starting to worry her. Then all thought fled as she felt the mental command from Kosh and she jerked back as a dazzling blue light seemed to shoot from her eyes and mouth, pouring into the encounter suit, seeming to take shape within it.
It was over within seconds, leaving her feeling drained, her throat burning from the energy that had passed through her, watching dazed as the angular ‘head’ of the encounter suit snapped back into place and the single eyepiece resumed it’s normal dull red glow. She waited patiently for her instructions, but Kosh’s only reaction to her was to turn away, ignoring her as he had done so often since he’d arrived on Babylon 5.
“You didn’t have to pull out of me so fast, you hurt me” she complained, still trying to sooth the burning in her throat. Kosh, seemingly surprised that she was talking at all, turned back to her, that glowing lens aimed straight at her once more. Encouraged by his reaction, that he was acknowledging her at last, she pressed on. “While I was carrying you, you felt cold, hard. What are you hiding from me?”
There was a pause then, in the strange, musical way of all Vorlons, Kosh replied, “Your work, for now, is done here. Go. Sleep.”
“I have a right to know!” Lyta insisted, infuriated as Kosh turned away from her again. “I have done everything you’ve asked. I let your people modify me, enhance my telepathic abilities so I’d be more suited to carry a Vorlon around in my head because I believed.” Memories of that belief, the sense of joy she’d gotten from her first contact with this strange race almost overwhelmed her, but she pressed on. “Kosh, the real Kosh, wasn’t like that. I think on some level he cared about us, about me. But with you it’s as if I’m being used and then thrown away when I’m not needed anymore, damn it I have earned some respect! And I have earned some answers.”
The Vorlon turned, and with his next words shattered everything Lyta had been clinging to for so long.
“Respect. From whom?”
Defeated Lyta turned away, reaching for the breather unit sitting on the table, her link back to her own kind, her own people. Darkness seemed to swell over her like a wave, she’d given so much, believed in the mission, no, the vision Kosh had offered and know it had all been ripped away from her. Then, as if from a great distance, she heard Delenn’s words ringing true, a beacon in the blackness that surrounded her “In less than 7 standard days our ships are leaving for Z’ha’dum. We cannot walk into this blindly. If there’s something going on we need to know what it is. Please”. In an instant Lyta made her decision, knowing she’d have only one chance and that even if she succeeded the chances of survival were small.
She swung round to face the Vorlon, focused on her anger, her frustration, and the seeming indifference to her fate that had been made all too clear to her and pushed with her mind. For an instant it worked, Kosh hadn’t been expecting such a move and she managed to slip inside his mind, seeing what he knew, what was closest to the surface of his thoughts. It was like touching a supernova, so much to take in she thought she’d go mad just from the attempt. Then the connection was severed as Kosh’s head swung round towards her, all traces of divinity gone from his attitude and tone, the eyepiece contracting to a narrow point of blazing orange light. A bolt of light shot out and slammed her into the wall at least six feet behind her. She slumped to the floor and looked up at the form towering over her.
“Would you know my thoughts? Would you?” Kosh demanded, his eyepiece ablaze. Another bolt of light shot towards her, this time throwing her upwards, pinning her to the wall, an almost transparent field rippling across her body and preventing any attempt at movement. Kosh glided towards her, and she could feel him pushing into her mind, past her defences. Even at the best of times she couldn’t have kept him out for long, and his first shot had destroyed any chance of that. She felt him enter her thoughts, shut down her reflexes, her ability to move her body, talk or do anything other than maintain her vital functions. Her eyes were wide with terror, she knew just what the Vorlon was capable of, and that if he decided to he could kill her in an instant with no more effort than a human stepping on an ant. Her only hope was that she was still useful enough to him to keep alive, and that he didn’t know exactly what she had found while she was in his mind.
Kosh seemed to study her for a long time, as if weighing the alternatives, then slowly the bright glow in his eyepiece began to fade back towards its normal dull red. For an instant Lyta relaxed, while still controlled by the Vorlon she thought she might have escaped any permanent damage for her efforts, and then froze in horror. The eyepiece had faded all the way down to a dull green, and that brought back a memory she would never forget, as much as she may wish to. When she had gone into Vorlon space they had modified indeed modified her to be a host, but first they’d tested every fibre of her being, mentally and physically, and this test had damn near killed her.
It started with no warning, a sensation like a thousand tiny fingers moving against her body, seeking out every nerve ending, every single point of stimulation. She was still fully clothed, but it didn’t matter, Kosh was generating these sensations directly, attacking her mind, her feelings directly and there was nothing she could do about it. And there was no doubt that this was an attack, this was intended to punish her for her transgression, the feeling sliding rapidly down then up her body once, as if to measure her. Then the torture started in earnest.
The fingers – that’s how her mind interpreted the feeling and it was a good a description as any – started at the top of her head and slowly worked their way down towards her shoulders. Like the hour hand on a clock it moved so slowly that she couldn’t really feel it moving at all, only when she concentrated could she tell it was lower than it had been previously. No two fingers were alike in their movements, the pattern, pressure and motion of each was subtly different, and would change without warning, never giving her body a chance to adapt or become desensitised to the feelings they were creating.
It took nearly 30 minutes for the fingers to work their way down to her collarbone, all the time her gaze was fixed on Kosh, as he manipulated her body, her mind as he wished. What made this torture even worse for her was the complete immobilisation of her body, she couldn’t even laugh, or scream, while Kosh was controlling her like this. In her mind she screamed, begged, pleaded for this to end, but there was simply no reaction from the Vorlon. The fingers split apart, growing in number and area until they covered her arms, hands, fingers, shoulders and neck before resuming their assault.
This time they were definitely co-ordinated, some remaining still while others worked, pulsing the sensations down from her fingertips to her armpits, creating tides and eddies along the curves of her upper body. Sometimes moving with impossible speed so that she felt the tickling almost before she felt the fingers that were doing it, other times moving no faster than a human may do if they were exploring her during foreplay. But there was nothing sensuous about this, and she felt that she would loose her mind if there weren’t some relief from the attack. Whether Kosh heard her mental plea or not she never knew, but suddenly she felt the fingers multiply again. They swept downwards, covering her entire upper body, from her neck to her waist and with not even a pause the tickling extended downwards.
Under normal circumstances, Lyta’s mind would have simply shut down at this point, there was too much to take in, too much stimulation, too many impulses for her brain to deal with. Unfortunately for her, Kosh had no intention of letting that happen and with his mind controlling her, he had the ability to force her to stay conscious and accept her fate. The fingers spiralled down across her body, swirling in what should have been a highly erotic motion across her breasts and nipples, but once again Kosh denied her any form of release from her torture, blocking the pleasure receptors in her brain and leaving only the pain. The fingers continued their motion, swirling around and across her belly, stimulating parts of her that no physical being could ever have reached.
Once more the fingers split and multiplied, until they were covering her entire body. She presumed that this was intended as the grand finale of her punishment, and she wasn’t disappointed. Every single finger started attacking her at once, From the tips of her fingers, across her arms and neck, down her back and sides, across her breasts and ribs, around her waist and thighs, down her legs and across the her feet they wriggles and pulsed, a thousand times more stimulation than the human body was ever designed to handle. Even with Kosh manipulating her mind, she couldn’t stand this for long, something had to give and the Vorlon had no intention of killing her. After barely five minutes the fingers slowed and stopped, then faded away like the morning mist. She hung from the wall, the transparent field that surrounded her flickering slightly.
With an almost inaudible pop, the field lifted her away from the wall. As Kosh had completely suppressed her reactions, there was no sweat anywhere on her body, no sign of the hell she had just been subjected to. She found herself lifted closer to the Vorlon, until she was barely an inch from that threatening eyepiece. It glowed briefly, a pure white that seemed to penetrate her mind and speak to her in the voice of an angel. The field lowered her to the ground and faded away, but she still had no control over her own body. Kosh turned away from her, dismissing her to her own thoughts on what she’d gone through and why, and her body moved of its own accord, swinging around and out of Kosh’s quarters into the alien sector and back to her quarters. The corridors were quiet, although the Babcom system was broadcasting images of someone that looked like Captain Sheridan and an announcement of how the war could be ended “not just for now, not just for the next thousand years, but forever”. All this passed over her as her body moved along on its route, despite the best efforts of her mind to stop, to rest, to collapse, something, anything.
Finally she reached her quarters and stood in the middle of the almost empty space. The only item was her bed, a concession from the Vorlon to the human need for sleep, possessions being a distraction from her work. Then, in her mind, she heard Kosh’s voice.
“Reflect on what has happened. Understand there is no choice, only obedience or death. Obey.”
At the last word, Lyta found her mind free, her ability to speak and move her own body restored to her. Her relief lasted only for an instant though, as she realised she could only move her head, the rest of her body was still a stranger to her. She watched in confusion as her arms moved and her hands started to remove her jacket before continuing to take off the rest of her clothing. Naked, she stood still in the middle of her quarters for a moment, then her arms started to move on their own. She watched horrified as her own hands started to knead her ribs and waist, tickling as badly as if they were another persons. The knowledge of that last instruction from Kosh flooded through her mind, in order to keep the station’s medical staff from working out what he had done to her, Kosh would use her own body to simulate an appropriate attack on her. Coupled with a mental command to block and memory of his attack from her conscious mind there would be no need for anyone to investigate too closely. All she could do was laugh and scream as she tickled herself back into hell for the next two hours, no inch of flesh was spared and despite all her abilities she was unable to do a thing to stop it.
After it was over, her hands dressed her once more, although in a different outfit than she’d worn to the ambassadors quarters, and finally she was free. She sank to her knees, cradling her stomach with one arm, feeling the aching muscles and probing with her mind to try to calculate the damage. Her Babcom unit was repeating the same message it had for the last hour as she heard the door slide open behind her. Lyta sensed the presence of Commander Ivanova without needing to turn round, and knew immediately why she had come.
“You know don’t you? It’s started.”
For those that are interested, this is set in the fourth season episode “The Summoning”, and should (hopefully) tie straight into that episode. I’ve tried to get the dialog right, but if I screwed up I’m sure someone will tell me. Normal disclaimer applies, none of the characters, props etc belong to me and I promise to put everything back where I found it so please don’t sue me.
Background – The Babylon 5 space station is “a self-contained world 5 miles long, located in neutral territory”. At this point in the storyline the universe is about to go straight to hell, two big scary ancient alien cultures (The Vorlons: creatures of energy dedicated to order, discipline and obedience, The Shadows: opposite of The Vorlons) are stomping about all over the place with no regards to the traffic laws and two of the biggest stars of the show are missing, presumed crispy from last seasons cliff hanger. For the purposes of this brief dip into the universe, Kosh is a Vorlon ambassador sent to replace the first Vorlon ambassador to the station, also called Kosh, who got turned into a wall decoration by the Shadows. Lyta is a human telepath who ‘touched’ the original Kosh in the pilot episode and is now an aide to the Vorlons. I think that covers the basics, anyone who knows the show will know what all this is about anyway, everyone else should either go watch it (yes, all of it from the first episode, in order, trust me it’s worth it) or go read this page
______________________
The Summoning – The Missing Scenes.
Lyta Alexander keyed the door to Kosh’s quarters and stepped inside, facing his empty encounter suit. The fact that the suit was empty would have shocked the vast majority of the quarter of a million humans and aliens living on Babylon 5, as it was commonly believed that a Vorlon would never leave the safety of their shell, except in times of dire need. Lyta though knew differently. Ever since she’d approached the Vorlons almost two years ago she’d learnt more and more about their ways, their manipulations of the younger races to react favourably to them, to treat them almost as gods, and in truth it was starting to worry her. Then all thought fled as she felt the mental command from Kosh and she jerked back as a dazzling blue light seemed to shoot from her eyes and mouth, pouring into the encounter suit, seeming to take shape within it.
It was over within seconds, leaving her feeling drained, her throat burning from the energy that had passed through her, watching dazed as the angular ‘head’ of the encounter suit snapped back into place and the single eyepiece resumed it’s normal dull red glow. She waited patiently for her instructions, but Kosh’s only reaction to her was to turn away, ignoring her as he had done so often since he’d arrived on Babylon 5.
“You didn’t have to pull out of me so fast, you hurt me” she complained, still trying to sooth the burning in her throat. Kosh, seemingly surprised that she was talking at all, turned back to her, that glowing lens aimed straight at her once more. Encouraged by his reaction, that he was acknowledging her at last, she pressed on. “While I was carrying you, you felt cold, hard. What are you hiding from me?”
There was a pause then, in the strange, musical way of all Vorlons, Kosh replied, “Your work, for now, is done here. Go. Sleep.”
“I have a right to know!” Lyta insisted, infuriated as Kosh turned away from her again. “I have done everything you’ve asked. I let your people modify me, enhance my telepathic abilities so I’d be more suited to carry a Vorlon around in my head because I believed.” Memories of that belief, the sense of joy she’d gotten from her first contact with this strange race almost overwhelmed her, but she pressed on. “Kosh, the real Kosh, wasn’t like that. I think on some level he cared about us, about me. But with you it’s as if I’m being used and then thrown away when I’m not needed anymore, damn it I have earned some respect! And I have earned some answers.”
The Vorlon turned, and with his next words shattered everything Lyta had been clinging to for so long.
“Respect. From whom?”
Defeated Lyta turned away, reaching for the breather unit sitting on the table, her link back to her own kind, her own people. Darkness seemed to swell over her like a wave, she’d given so much, believed in the mission, no, the vision Kosh had offered and know it had all been ripped away from her. Then, as if from a great distance, she heard Delenn’s words ringing true, a beacon in the blackness that surrounded her “In less than 7 standard days our ships are leaving for Z’ha’dum. We cannot walk into this blindly. If there’s something going on we need to know what it is. Please”. In an instant Lyta made her decision, knowing she’d have only one chance and that even if she succeeded the chances of survival were small.
She swung round to face the Vorlon, focused on her anger, her frustration, and the seeming indifference to her fate that had been made all too clear to her and pushed with her mind. For an instant it worked, Kosh hadn’t been expecting such a move and she managed to slip inside his mind, seeing what he knew, what was closest to the surface of his thoughts. It was like touching a supernova, so much to take in she thought she’d go mad just from the attempt. Then the connection was severed as Kosh’s head swung round towards her, all traces of divinity gone from his attitude and tone, the eyepiece contracting to a narrow point of blazing orange light. A bolt of light shot out and slammed her into the wall at least six feet behind her. She slumped to the floor and looked up at the form towering over her.
“Would you know my thoughts? Would you?” Kosh demanded, his eyepiece ablaze. Another bolt of light shot towards her, this time throwing her upwards, pinning her to the wall, an almost transparent field rippling across her body and preventing any attempt at movement. Kosh glided towards her, and she could feel him pushing into her mind, past her defences. Even at the best of times she couldn’t have kept him out for long, and his first shot had destroyed any chance of that. She felt him enter her thoughts, shut down her reflexes, her ability to move her body, talk or do anything other than maintain her vital functions. Her eyes were wide with terror, she knew just what the Vorlon was capable of, and that if he decided to he could kill her in an instant with no more effort than a human stepping on an ant. Her only hope was that she was still useful enough to him to keep alive, and that he didn’t know exactly what she had found while she was in his mind.
Kosh seemed to study her for a long time, as if weighing the alternatives, then slowly the bright glow in his eyepiece began to fade back towards its normal dull red. For an instant Lyta relaxed, while still controlled by the Vorlon she thought she might have escaped any permanent damage for her efforts, and then froze in horror. The eyepiece had faded all the way down to a dull green, and that brought back a memory she would never forget, as much as she may wish to. When she had gone into Vorlon space they had modified indeed modified her to be a host, but first they’d tested every fibre of her being, mentally and physically, and this test had damn near killed her.
It started with no warning, a sensation like a thousand tiny fingers moving against her body, seeking out every nerve ending, every single point of stimulation. She was still fully clothed, but it didn’t matter, Kosh was generating these sensations directly, attacking her mind, her feelings directly and there was nothing she could do about it. And there was no doubt that this was an attack, this was intended to punish her for her transgression, the feeling sliding rapidly down then up her body once, as if to measure her. Then the torture started in earnest.
The fingers – that’s how her mind interpreted the feeling and it was a good a description as any – started at the top of her head and slowly worked their way down towards her shoulders. Like the hour hand on a clock it moved so slowly that she couldn’t really feel it moving at all, only when she concentrated could she tell it was lower than it had been previously. No two fingers were alike in their movements, the pattern, pressure and motion of each was subtly different, and would change without warning, never giving her body a chance to adapt or become desensitised to the feelings they were creating.
It took nearly 30 minutes for the fingers to work their way down to her collarbone, all the time her gaze was fixed on Kosh, as he manipulated her body, her mind as he wished. What made this torture even worse for her was the complete immobilisation of her body, she couldn’t even laugh, or scream, while Kosh was controlling her like this. In her mind she screamed, begged, pleaded for this to end, but there was simply no reaction from the Vorlon. The fingers split apart, growing in number and area until they covered her arms, hands, fingers, shoulders and neck before resuming their assault.
This time they were definitely co-ordinated, some remaining still while others worked, pulsing the sensations down from her fingertips to her armpits, creating tides and eddies along the curves of her upper body. Sometimes moving with impossible speed so that she felt the tickling almost before she felt the fingers that were doing it, other times moving no faster than a human may do if they were exploring her during foreplay. But there was nothing sensuous about this, and she felt that she would loose her mind if there weren’t some relief from the attack. Whether Kosh heard her mental plea or not she never knew, but suddenly she felt the fingers multiply again. They swept downwards, covering her entire upper body, from her neck to her waist and with not even a pause the tickling extended downwards.
Under normal circumstances, Lyta’s mind would have simply shut down at this point, there was too much to take in, too much stimulation, too many impulses for her brain to deal with. Unfortunately for her, Kosh had no intention of letting that happen and with his mind controlling her, he had the ability to force her to stay conscious and accept her fate. The fingers spiralled down across her body, swirling in what should have been a highly erotic motion across her breasts and nipples, but once again Kosh denied her any form of release from her torture, blocking the pleasure receptors in her brain and leaving only the pain. The fingers continued their motion, swirling around and across her belly, stimulating parts of her that no physical being could ever have reached.
Once more the fingers split and multiplied, until they were covering her entire body. She presumed that this was intended as the grand finale of her punishment, and she wasn’t disappointed. Every single finger started attacking her at once, From the tips of her fingers, across her arms and neck, down her back and sides, across her breasts and ribs, around her waist and thighs, down her legs and across the her feet they wriggles and pulsed, a thousand times more stimulation than the human body was ever designed to handle. Even with Kosh manipulating her mind, she couldn’t stand this for long, something had to give and the Vorlon had no intention of killing her. After barely five minutes the fingers slowed and stopped, then faded away like the morning mist. She hung from the wall, the transparent field that surrounded her flickering slightly.
With an almost inaudible pop, the field lifted her away from the wall. As Kosh had completely suppressed her reactions, there was no sweat anywhere on her body, no sign of the hell she had just been subjected to. She found herself lifted closer to the Vorlon, until she was barely an inch from that threatening eyepiece. It glowed briefly, a pure white that seemed to penetrate her mind and speak to her in the voice of an angel. The field lowered her to the ground and faded away, but she still had no control over her own body. Kosh turned away from her, dismissing her to her own thoughts on what she’d gone through and why, and her body moved of its own accord, swinging around and out of Kosh’s quarters into the alien sector and back to her quarters. The corridors were quiet, although the Babcom system was broadcasting images of someone that looked like Captain Sheridan and an announcement of how the war could be ended “not just for now, not just for the next thousand years, but forever”. All this passed over her as her body moved along on its route, despite the best efforts of her mind to stop, to rest, to collapse, something, anything.
Finally she reached her quarters and stood in the middle of the almost empty space. The only item was her bed, a concession from the Vorlon to the human need for sleep, possessions being a distraction from her work. Then, in her mind, she heard Kosh’s voice.
“Reflect on what has happened. Understand there is no choice, only obedience or death. Obey.”
At the last word, Lyta found her mind free, her ability to speak and move her own body restored to her. Her relief lasted only for an instant though, as she realised she could only move her head, the rest of her body was still a stranger to her. She watched in confusion as her arms moved and her hands started to remove her jacket before continuing to take off the rest of her clothing. Naked, she stood still in the middle of her quarters for a moment, then her arms started to move on their own. She watched horrified as her own hands started to knead her ribs and waist, tickling as badly as if they were another persons. The knowledge of that last instruction from Kosh flooded through her mind, in order to keep the station’s medical staff from working out what he had done to her, Kosh would use her own body to simulate an appropriate attack on her. Coupled with a mental command to block and memory of his attack from her conscious mind there would be no need for anyone to investigate too closely. All she could do was laugh and scream as she tickled herself back into hell for the next two hours, no inch of flesh was spared and despite all her abilities she was unable to do a thing to stop it.
After it was over, her hands dressed her once more, although in a different outfit than she’d worn to the ambassadors quarters, and finally she was free. She sank to her knees, cradling her stomach with one arm, feeling the aching muscles and probing with her mind to try to calculate the damage. Her Babcom unit was repeating the same message it had for the last hour as she heard the door slide open behind her. Lyta sensed the presence of Commander Ivanova without needing to turn round, and knew immediately why she had come.
“You know don’t you? It’s started.”
