Chapter Text
Silence hung in the air as Keith stared at the cloudy blue energy wall in the small room, illuminated by pale blue light. He knew that just on the other side of the toggleable barrier was a group of at least one Altean —which he thought were extinct— and at least three mark-less, round-eared creatures whose species he didn’t recognize. He was backed into the corner of the room, sat on the thin cot that was sternly fused to the floor— Keith’s first thought had been to launch it at the walls in an attempt to break them, but that was soon proved impossible.
His claws slowly worked over the coarse fabric beneath him as he considered all the ways he could escape from this accursed cell. His long, slim tail whipped about as much as it could without moving where it was sprained near the base; the spikes that trailed down it and the barbed tip ripped apart the scratchy blanket. His tall, fur-covered ears swiveled to the cloudy energy wall, trying to pick up any dialogue he could from outside the cell, and they twitched in annoyance when he couldn’t.
————
Everything had been going to plan. Keith docked his transport vehicle to the Galra cruiser without incident. He’d entered the chip Kolivan had given him into a panel under the ship, forcing every door to unlock suddenly. Supposedly, the chip had a bug that would override any security warnings sent to the main control center, and it seemed to hold true as he entered the ship successfully.
Keith had made his way down the halls, internally grateful for how the Blade suit made his footsteps impossibly quiet, especially for stealth missions like these. He ducked into a hallway as he heard a patrol of sentries’ metal clanking against the hall’s floors, steadily approaching. Pressing his back against the cold black wall, he took a moment to catch his breath and refocus.
Taking out the previous teams of sentries and guards had put Keith on edge, senses sharpening, and that fear would only make his mission more difficult. By the time he managed to relax, a thunderous boom sounded out from the far end of the ship. Keith’s ears perked up at the sudden noises before quickly pinning down against his masked head, just in time to protect from the alarms that began to blare obnoxiously. The sounds echoed down the hallways while the lights shut off. The cacophony of noise was jarring. His heart rate spiked again, and each muscle tensed as he readied himself for another fight. But it doesn’t come.
The emergency lights flashed on, shining a glaring red hue down every few ticks. Some warnings come over the speaker systems, mumbling about a hull breach in an automated voice. The sentries stopped their organized march to turn and sprint down the opposite direction of the hallway, shockingly away from Keith.
What the hell?
Rapid footsteps approach from Keith’s right, alerting him to the arrival of another team of armored sentries. He took the opportunity the temporary darkness provided him and sprinted towards the sentries. They were startled, obviously, and scrambled to aim their weapons at the fast-moving target. Yet they were too slow. Keith unsheathed his dagger and sliced through the flimsy metal of each one until they were left as nothing more than a pile of sparking scrap.
More sentries rushed down the main hallway, forcing Keith further down the hall, where he hid within. He stepped over the artificial bodies without a second of hesitation and continued onward, planning his new route. His mind, sharpened by his nerves, supplied him with an image of the ship’s map he’d memorized last quintant, assisting him through the maze-like ship.
Eventually, Keith reached his original objective and now stood before a tightly shut airlock door. Just beyond it was the hanger containing whatever had sent out enough energy for the Blade of Marmora to take notice. His purple-gray eyes locked onto the keypad, and he pressed a hand on it, knowing he could interface with it and open the doors. Instead, he was met with a minor electric zap. He jerked his hand back and saw the keypad’s screen glitch and flicker before showing what appeared to be a childish sketch of someone sticking their tongue out, with spirals for eyes.
Keith decided on his final resort: violence. He jabbed his sword into the crack between the thick metal plates of the airlock, twisting it until the flat of it was parallel to the floor, prying the doors open enough for him to push them open the rest of the way. It took some effort, but he got the airlock open enough to slip through, only to be, quite literally, sucked inside the hangar. The force sent him skidding across the ground before the vacuum of space equalled out. The lack of gravity then sent him floating away from the floor, now among destroyed sentries and ruined fighter ships.
So that’s what the explosion had been.
Inside the hangar were nearly thirty downed sentries, most of whom had blaster marks, others with slashes that were clearly made from something slightly larger than a knife. The room was otherwise empty, containing nothing that could be causing the energy surge. Most noticeably, there was a giant hole in the cruiser from some kind of energy-based weapon, if the molten metal around the edges was anything to go off. Whatever caused that kind of damage must’ve also set off the alarms earlier.
Keith quickly pulled a coil of rope from a pouch on his belt and firmly tied it around the handle of his blade. Holding the loose end of the rope, he swung the blade forward, letting it stick in what once was the room’s roof. With the makeshift grapple secured, Keith pulled himself closer to the semi-melted opening. He was careful not to grasp the molten metal, but he drew close enough to see outside of the cruiser and into deep space.
Stars twinkled with pale hues among the inky blackness outside, as did the floating bubbles of liquid metal and debris that hovered nearby. Clouds of stardust far in the distance allowed for a few splotches of color to be seen. The only sound was his deep breathing and the faint ringing in his ears. But what was more important than the sights was the looming ship nearby.
It consisted of one central body with four arms extending out from each of its sides. Its hull was a shining white, marked with black details and glowing blue patterns. Keith saw the light from its thrusters slowly growing brighter and brighter as it readied itself to take off.
Someone else got to whatever was causing the energy surge before him, and now that someone was flying off in their intimidatingly large starship.
I will not fail this mission.
Keith forced his weapon out from the metal wall and grappled back over to the door he entered the hangar through. Hastily, he exited the room and returned to the gravitized areas of the ship. He didn’t have the time to deal with the scrambling sentries nearby, so he simply shoved away as many as he could and dodged all the rest.
His footsteps rapidly thudded against the ground before he skidded to a stop where he left his transport vehicle. The airlock hissed as it opened, and Keith leaped into the smaller ship. He took hardly a minute to get his vehicle moving towards the pristine, white spacecraft.
He had to be fast about this or else he’d lose the one chance he had at salvaging this mission. He couldn’t lose sight of his target; he wouldn’t. So he forced his ship to its maximum speed. A holo-screen appeared and blinked a warning about overworking the engines, but he paid it no mind.
Keith was adamant about reaching the ship and retrieving that power source, no matter what. With that much energy, the Blade or Marmora could be fueled for deca-phoebs. Hell, they could even make some more powerful weaponry with that energy, something that could finally make a dent in the Galra Empire.
Another warning came onto his dashboard– A nearby moon’s gravity was pulling his ship off course, straight into the large battleship ahead. He would crash into it. Keith focused himself just in time to see the rapidly closing distance between his ship and the far larger one. He quickly twisted to activate emergency stopping procedures, but his hand slipped from the button right before the crash occurred.
Metal collided with metal, producing resounding screeches as everything bent and warped unnaturally. Sparks shot out at Keith, forcing him to wince and recoil in his seat. His tail curled close to his body, his ears pinning down as he curled into a ball in the few seconds he had to react. The crash jolted Keith out of his seat and snapped his seatbelt. The sudden forward motion sent him violently slamming into his control console.
Keith felt his organs shift unnaturally inside of himself due to the forces acting on him. That, paired with the now pounding wound on his head, made him feel horrible. Once the shaking stopped, he slowly raised his head from the console and peered forward. The entire front of his ship was embedded within the spacecraft he was chasing. Then he felt a thick droplet of blood ooze down his face from the new wound.
He raised a hand to check the damage and found a wide, stinging gash across his forehead. It was jagged around the edges and spread across his face. Pulling his hand back, he found it was leaking deep cerulean blood. More droplets slid down from the wound with each passing dobosh, and he had to wipe them away. Although the pain wasn’t from just the open wound, there was also something coming from what felt like the center of his skull; A dull ache that shot waves of discomfort through his body.
Great.
This mission was going poorly. So poorly, in fact, that the best thing Keith could do right now would be to leave. But he couldn’t even do that since a short-lived glance around the rest of his ship showed that his thrusters had been caved in.
Keith slowly rose from where his body had crumpled over. His vision blurred and his mind swirled the second he fully stood up, making him stumble and have to awkwardly reach out for something stable to grasp onto. He latched a clawed hand onto a shard of metal jutting out from the wall and luckily managed not to cut his hand on its sharp edges.
He took a shaking breath and finally uncoiled his tail to help find his balance faster. He took a step forward, bracing a gloved hand on the wall of the cockpit to aid him as he moved to the roof exit.
Just like the hangar door on the cruiser, he had to pry open the sparking hatch with his sword, wedging it open and firing his Blade suit’s jetpack to propel himself up and into open space. The battleship he’d been trailing seemed to have halted, floating unmoving in space. He hissed at the feeling of zero gravity, the dizziness that came with space only adding to the pulsing pain in his skull.
His ship was wrapped around part of the massive ship, and it was most definitely not flyable.
Keith pulled out his dagger once again, still tied to a length of sturdy rope, and launched the tip of his blade towards the ship, hoping its exterior could be punctured to give him a way to stay attached. Just as he feared, his knife only made the smallest of scratches in the paint, bouncing off uselessly and leaving him to bring it back over to him by wrapping the rope back into a clean bundle. He mumbled a curse to himself and listened to the ringing in his ears and his breathing, which both seemed almost impossibly loud compared to space.
He took in all he could see of the enormous white ship, spotting something far above him. Large hangar doors, which meant he could get into the ship, find the stolen source of the energy surges, and likely steal a transport ship or escape pod, or something of the sort, to return to the Marmoran headquarters. He looked over his shoulder as well as he could, starting his jetpack and hoping to see it spark to life.
Thankfully, it seemed that not everything would go wrong for Keith today, as his suit didn’t seem damaged whatsoever by the crash. He crouched a bit, kicking off the ship and flickering his jets on and off, propelling himself up. Only, he must truly have been doomed to have everything go wrong, and he overshot. He tried to grasp onto something, anything, even with his tail, to no avail. He was sent over the door that he’d tried to get to, and hurled into the main hull, crashing back-first into it, jamming his tail a few inches from the base where it kinked behind him and got bent with too much force. The Galra grunted, his tail curling between his legs to protect itself. He snarled under his Blade mask, baring his teeth to whatever spiritual being decided to make his life hell today.
Keith pushed off the main hull while he was still close enough to it to do so, and this time his hand caught on a lip of metal. He looked at the large, pristine white hangar door lined with glowing blue, trying to figure out how to get in. His pry-it-open-with-his-sword tactic definitely wouldn’t work with how massive this hatch was. Keith looked around and found a small panel. He shifted his dagger into a sword before jacking it into the tiny gap between the rest of the ship’s exoskeleton and the panel’s cover, forcing the panel open. He looked at the unfamiliar technology, which was most definitely not from the Empire or the Blades, stumped. And then he remembered the chip Kolivan had given him for the Galra cruiser. Perhaps it could work here, too.
He reached into a pouch on his belt and pulled out the coded piece of metal. He scanned the inside of the panel, hoping to find something similar enough in shape that he could use, and, by some miracle, found almost the exact type of port.
Keith plugged the chip in, only for nothing to happen.
Then, slowly, the doors began to creak open, painfully slowly, as if the mechanisms were grinding from disuse. It was a miracle this ship was even airborne, if this door was anything to go by. It was like it hadn’t been opened in thousands of deca-phoebs.
Keith grabbed the chip back, slipped through the doors, and began to fall as the door closed and a gravity generator kicked on. He fired his jetpack in small spurts, landing on his feet. There was little to no light in the massive hangar, and Keith could practically feel his yellow eyes begin to glow faintly to adjust. Galra could see better in the dark than in the light anyway, so it was no issue. He turned to take in his surroundings, on high alert, only to freeze as the lights came on, illuminating the room in bright white and blue.
He found himself standing at the paw of a giant, red, mechanical beast, with a massive, glowing particle barrier around it.
The Red Lion. This must be what was letting off those crazy readings.
To confirm his suspicion, Keith raised his left arm, a small holographic screen projecting from his suit. Sure enough, the energy emitted from the Lion was the same as the one that got him sent on a solo mission to the Galra cruiser in the first place.
This could finally change the tide of the war. The Blades finally have a chance against the Galra after ten thousand years–
Keith’s inner celebration was cut off by the lights abruptly turning red, and an alarm —somehow more obnoxious than a Galra cruiser’s alarm— began to blare overhead. He flinched, jumping in place, hissing and flattening his ears to his head under his suit’s hood almost immediately.
God, this does not help with my probable concussion.
Even worse, an abhorrent, insufferable voice began to shriek over the same speaker system as the alarms, “There’s an intruder in the Red Lion’s hangar! Up and at ‘em, paladins! Did I say that right, Lance?”
The Galra’s brain kicked into gear, and he untied the rope from the handle of his sword as quickly as he could, shoving the length of rope unceremoniously back into its designated pouch on his belt before readying himself.
A set of doors in the hangar slid open with a hiss, and Keith raised his sword, deciding not to make the first move for once. This wasn’t a Galran ship; that much was clear, and he wanted to assess the capabilities of the people here to calculate how likely it would be that he could take off with the Red Lion as planned.
He expected some kind of rebels or strange technologically advanced aliens; he even expected robots or sentries. What he didn’t expect to see was a child. A literal tiny, weak-looking creature no taller than five feet, dressed in overly bulky white and green armor with no helmet, holding some kind of white and glowing green weapon.
The child was a girl, Keith could tell. She had a round and soft face with bug-like hazel eyes, and a —quite messy, if Keith was being honest— style of dirty blonde hair. She looked Altean, more than any other species he had seen, only she didn’t have markings, and her ears were strange, dull and stumpy and rounded.
She stared at Keith and Keith stared back, staying there for what felt like a whole dobosh, but was really only a few ticks. Then the child raised her strange weapon, which fired a projectile towards Keith.
He quickly dodged to the side, watching a small, green, glowing arc shape fly past him, attached to a string of energy of the same color that attached the arc to the base of the weapon in the girl’s hand. He lunged forward, slicing his sword at the glowing cord to see if it would sever. When it didn’t, and his sword caught it, he wrapped it around his blade and turned to bolt in the opposite direction of the girl, dragging her extremely light form on the other end of the weapon. He used that momentum to slam her into the particle barrier around the Red Lion, and then dashed for the still-open door and out into a hallway, dragging the girl behind him by the weapon’s energy cord still wrapped around his knife-turned-sword as she screeched like a quiznacking yalmore.
The shrieking voice over the speakers continued its agonizing narration of the events, likely from somewhere with cameras of the grand halls. “He’s dragging Pidge along like a Duplot fetches a Loompa Oompa from the Volaskin Plains!!”
From another hall, footsteps came rapidly approaching. Soon, a larger-built, round-eared, mark-less Altean came into view, dressed in equally overly bulky armor. Only this one wore the colors white and yellow, as well as a helmet. He carried a heavy gun with both hands, struggling to keep its nozzle from scraping against the ground and even more so to aim it at Keith properly.
Keith’s ears flicked over to the new enemy before he turned to see him. He turned down another hallway so quickly that his boots and tail skidded against the smooth floor.
This corridor led into a large, open, dome-shaped room that had windows on almost every side. Four large pillars extended up towards the ceiling, where they all connected to hold an immense light-blue crystal high in the air. Each pillar had a closed doorway on its very bottom that led to who knows where. In other terms, the room was furnished with nothing more than six short platforms placed around it. The largest platform in the center of the room harbored two Altean figures, one with orange hair and an orange moustache, blue markings beneath his eyes, as well as a blue suit that suggested some authority, and another with long, snow white hair, purple earrings, brown skin, pink markings beneath her eyes, and a multicolored suit.
Near one platform, farthest away from the door Keith entered through, there stood a man dressed in black and white armor that lacked a helmet. His hair was short and black, with a singular white streak. It was then that Keith recognized the man to be the one and only—
“Champion?” Keith blurted out without thinking.
Keith and the man both hesitated, each with a look of surprise. This was the man that Ulaz and the other Blades had spoken about so many times before.
A faint click sounded behind Keith, and he whipped around to face whatever caused the distraction, only to be met with a loud bang and a searing pain in his left leg. With a shriek, he was forced down onto one knee, clutching at the new wound he’d gained just on his knee. His tail whipped from side to side violently as best as it could without being further damaged than it already was, his pupils thinned into slits, and his ears pinned down as the pain screamed through him.
Suddenly, Keith felt someone rush against him with a grunt of effort, knocking him down onto the ground. Whoever tackled him quickly moved away, while someone else speedily came over and clicked handcuffs tightly around his wrists. Keith thrashed about violently against the hands that held him in place against the ground in attempts to escape that were proven useless.
He shouted out protests against his captors, sprinkling his words with certain Galran, “sentence enhancers," as Kolivan liked to call them whenever Keith got in trouble for cussing another Blade out.
“What’s he saying?” Someone in blue armor, carrying a long-range rifle in one hand, spoke. Was that the same blue he’d seen right before he was shot?
“Nothing we should worry about. Just some Galran terms, I assume." The man with orange hair replied.
“It doesn’t surprise me that he’s speaking that way. The quiznacking Galra don’t grasp the concept of being civil." The woman in the suit spoke harshly. “They’re nothing but vile, quintessence-hungry beasts who’ll stop at nothing to make others’ lives miserable.” That earned a sharp, aggressive growl from Keith, which turned into a snarl briefly before stopping.
The room fell silent momentarily.
“Damn." Someone murmured, “That’s a bit harsh, Allura…”
“Well, I believe it is harsh for them to be attempting to colonize the known galaxy, but they don’t seem to care about that, so I don’t believe I should care about what they find harsh." The Altean replied, crossing her arms over her chest.
“I- I know that, but still—”
“Are you saying I should forgive the people who slaughtered my entire race?”
“No, but—”
“The Galra are the reason why Alteans are nearly extinct now. Coran, ready a cell for this intruder.”
“Right away, princess." The orange-haired man– Coran, as the woman had said –nodded and quickly walked off.
“Pidge, see if you can get this mask off," Allura spoke as she forcefully pulled Keith upright into a kneeling position. He winced as his wounded knee pressed against the floor. He could’ve sworn the Altean was putting more pressure on his weakened leg just for the hell of it.
The child in green armor, whose name was apparently Pidge, quickly approached but became slightly more hesitant the closer she came to Keith. Reluctantly, Pidge carefully lifted the hood off the helmet before beginning to search for some kind of release mechanism. Just as she spotted a button, she heard a low growl emanate from Keith, and she paused.
“Go ahead. He may try to bite like the animal he is, but I doubt he’s smart enough to cause any real harm." The Altean reassured the child.
That didn’t seem to do much in inspiring Pidge to continue, but the spiteful glares the woman shot so carelessly were threatening enough to pressure her. She leaned over and lightly pressed the button on the suit, internally hoping it would function as intended.
The material begins to glow a light purple hue before soon fading away into thin air. You can always count on Marmoran tech to function in strange and unusual ways. The child seemed astonished by the action, mouth agape and eyes wide.
With the helmet now gone, Keith’s true nature was clear to all in the room. He was Galra, and it was more than obvious.
⋆ · · ─ ·✶· ─ · · ⋆
Lance sat against the chair in the cockpit of his Lion, surrounded by blue lights. He sat with his legs crossed, resting his right ankle on his left knee, staring impatiently at the nearly empty dashboard in front of him. He’d been waiting for an all-clear message for what felt like hours now.
“I can’t believe we’re in space. You know? Like, I feel like we haven’t processed that enough." Hunk began to ramble, which Lance was more than grateful for. The boredom was killing him. “We saved Shiro from getting kidnapped by the Garrison when he crashed back on Earth in some alien ship after being abducted, and then we found a magic, flying, mechanical lion, which we flew to the edge of the solar system in seconds and fought a giant alien ship of the same race that captured Shiro. Then we flew into a magic teleport-y thing that I still haven’t wrapped my head around and ended up impossibly far from the Milky Way. Now we have more magic lions, and are about to blast our way into another giant alien ship to get another! Is that not insane to anyone else?!”
Lance quickly found himself less grateful for the conversation.
Hunk continued, “I mean, it’s crazy to me that all of this has happened in one day— Wait, what if none of this is actually happening? What if I’m just dreaming all this up? Oh no, if I’ve been dreaming for this long, then that means I probably overslept through breakfast!”
“Hunk," Lance spoke out in an attempt to get the other’s attention.
“Aw, man, I probably missed the buffet, too. Everyone must’ve already taken all the good stuff by now. I can’t really blame them for it though. Those scrambled eggs are delicious." Hunk suddenly gasped. “What if I’m not dreaming? Who knows how long we’ll be out here for? This whole Voltron thing—it doesn’t sound like something we can just put on hold or leave. How many Garrison breakfasts will I miss then?!”
“Hunk.” Lance spoke up again, this time louder and more sternly.
“Maybe we can find some other people who can take over for us? I don’t know, Coran and Allura seem like they’ll be able to handle it. I’m sure they’ll be able to find enough people; Who wouldn’t wanna risk their lives in a magic robot lion? …We’re gonna be stuck doing this forever!”
“HUNK!” Lance shouted over his comms. “Stop rambling, we’ve got to focus. This entire mission depends on us, and if we screw it up, then we won’t be able to get the Red Lion, and we especially won’t be able to form Voltron to save the universe from Zarkon!”
“I guess you’re right. I’m just worried about how everything’s going to go…”
“Really? I couldn’t tell." Lance remarked sarcastically.
Then a new voice hopped onto the communication channel Hunk and Lance were on. It was Pidge! He spoke, “Alright, the cruiser’s security systems are temporarily disabled, we’re clear to go for the Red Lion now.”
Lance immediately perked up and straightened his once-relaxed posture. “Finally! It was getting so boring waiting, you have no idea.”
Lance grasps his Lion’s controls with a smirk, and the mechanical beast surged towards the ship eagerly. The familiar purr of the Blue Lion in his mind helped guide him to focus on the goal at hand. He saw out of the corner of his eye Hunk’s Yellow Lion following close beside him.
The two Lions slowed as Lance shifted his communication to announce to the ship, “Attention, Galra ship. Do not fire. We are surrendering our Lions.”
The Green Lion sneakily moved around to the other side of the ship and docked close against its hull.
“Pidge, what’s your ETA?” Lance asked over the now private comms.
“We’re in," Pidge replied with slight pride in his voice.
Meanwhile, the Galra warship activated its tractor beam, a bright pink light that pointed directly at both the Yellow and Blue Lions.
”What’s that?” Hunk asked hesitantly.
“That’s our signal to get out of here!” Lance answered.
The two acted speedily to pilot their Lions out of the beam that was slowly pulling them closer to the ship. Out from the ship’s sides came dozens of small fighter ships moving frantically about in the open space. They didn’t take long to lock onto their large, colorful targets.
Lance commanded, ”Hunk, you dismantle the ion cannon while I take these jerks on a space ride!”
“Ten-four!”
The Blue Lion zipped around at impressively high speeds. It would’ve been a fantastic sight to see if not for how clumsily Lance turned the Lion around now and then.
Despite his lack of experience, Lance still managed to dodge the majority of shots that were fired towards him. He used every maneuver from flips and twists to spirals around the ships, making them crash into one another. Each collision caused an explosion that shot out pieces of shrapnel everywhere, only adding to the number of obstacles that Lance had to avoid.
In the background, Lance heard a dull thud sound from Hunk’s Lion over the comms. The battleship had engaged some kind of shield around itself that blocked Hunk from attacking the ion cannon properly.
“What the hell?” Hunk spoke to himself, “What is that? A force field?”
Lance didn’t have the time to reply as a few more fighters were released from the main ship. They swarmed towards the Blue Lion like hornets around a threat to their hive. They were twice as annoying, too.
The Blue Lion shuddered as it shot out blasts of bright energy towards the small ships, hitting every other mark and destroying them instantly.
Hunk continually struggled against the force field, trying everything he could think of to break through it and get to the ion cannon. However, none of it was helpful.
Lance cheered as he continued making elaborate movements around the ships. Each sudden shift gave him a rush of exhilaration. “This baby can move!”
The Yellow Lion moved about once more as Hunk tried one final attempt. The Lion’s mouth opened wide, metal teeth bared, and fired an immense laser towards the shield. The pressure built against the force field until it finally snapped open and broke, leaving one side of the ship vulnerable and bare.
“Yes!” Hunk whooped and took the advantage to attack. He slammed into the ion cannon with such force that it was dented deeply and rendered entirely unusable.
Pidge spoke over the comms, “Over here! I’ve sent you our coordinates. We need you to make a hole so we can get the Red Lion out.”
Lance decided he was done messing around with the fighter ships the second a single laser hit his Lion. In mere moments, the fleet was reduced to crushed pieces of metal.
The Yellow Lion slammed into the warship once more, creating a large hole nearby where Pidge and Shiro supposedly were.
Lance met up with Hunk and spoke, “Just shoot at it again, we don’t have a lot of time to waste!”
The Yellow Lion opened its maw once more and released another strong laser towards the ship’s hull. It burned a hole through the metal with almost disturbing ease. The Red Lion was finally revealed, and the two outside the ship saw the force field encircling it. Lance sighed in relief when he spotted Pidge and Shiro within the room, looking unharmed.
Shiro spoke, “Pidge and I are heading back to the Green Lion; you two need to get the Red Lion back to the castle.”
“On it!” Lance confirmed the order, and his Lion moved around and kicked the Red Lion out of the hangar forcefully, leaving Hunk to catch it clumsily.
The Yellow Lion’s claws clasped the round shield as tightly as they could, holding the Lion securely. “Got it!”
The Green Lion appeared from the other side of the warship. Shiro spoke, “Then let’s get out of here while we still can.”
With hardly another word, the team returned to the Castle of Lions that hovered in the space nearby the chaos, yet just outside of its reach. The Castle had been floating in space like that ever since the paladins first found it, so they paid its status no mind.
The four Lions gathered together in front of the door that kept the Black Lion hidden away. Shiro stepped forward and waited expectantly for it to open.
A tense moment passed, and the silence was heavy in the room. All four lions remained still, the Red Lion still within its shield.
Everyone waited for something, anything to happen.
Yet nothing did.
The door remained shut, the room stayed quiet, and nothing happened.
————
Lance didn’t have the time to sulk over his disappointment at not seeing the Black Lion since an alarm began screaming over the Castle’s speaker systems.
Lance heard Coran shout out, “There’s an intruder in the Red Lion’s hangar! Up and at ‘em, paladins!”
Lance groaned loudly, “I just got back to my room!”
Despite how much he wanted to complain even further, he forced himself to quickly head down to the Red Lion’s hangar. On his way there, he spotted three figures sprinting down the hallways: Hunk, Pidge, and a mysterious hooded stranger dressed in a black and purple uniform.
Lance’s eyes widened in surprise at the sight of the figure dragging Pidge along the ground while Hunk chased behind them both. He shifted to follow behind the three and lifted his bayard, trying to aim at the intruder. Although with his every footstep shaking his weapon and his fellow paladins in the way, Lance couldn’t get a clear shot. He cursed under his breath and decided to simply follow behind the three until he had a better opportunity to attack.
They had made it into the main bridge when the intruder finally stopped for just long enough. Hunk was doubled over with his hands on his knees, panting for breath in the hallway, and Pidge was still on the ground, still recovering from being dragged about.
Lance raised his rifle-like bayard once again, and it faintly clicked when it locked onto its target. The masked person whipped around to face Lance the second he fired a shot, catching the laser in the front of the knee rather than the back of the leg where he was originally aiming.
They practically crumpled to one knee from the wound they gained before Allura tackled them to the ground. From somewhere, she took out a pair of cuffs and clicked them tightly around their wrists. They cursed and hissed in a language he didn’t understand, though pure and unbridled hatred and anger were pretty obvious, no matter the language.
Curiously, Lance asked as he lowered his weapon, “What’s he saying?”
“Nothing we should worry about. Just some Galran terms, I assume." Coran replied in a surprisingly calm manner.
“It doesn’t surprise me that he’s speaking that way. The quiznacking Galra don’t grasp the concept of being civil." Allura spoke harshly. “They’re nothing but vile, quintessence-hungry beasts who’ll stop at nothing to make others’ lives miserable.” Those words drew an animalistic growly noise from the stranger, which sharpened like he’d opened his mouth to bare his teeth, before it ceased.
The air was thick and silent from tension, everyone mulling over the princess’s words.
“Damn." Hunk murmured, “That’s a bit harsh, Allura…”
“Well, I believe it is harsh for them to be attempting to colonize the known galaxy, but they don’t seem to care about that, so I don’t believe I should care about what they find harsh." The Altean princess replied, crossing her arms over her chest.
He tried to reply, “I- I know that, but still—”
“Are you saying I should forgive the people who slaughtered my entire race?” She glared at the yellow paladin.
“No, but—”
“The Galra are the reason why Alteans are nearly extinct now." She then turned towards Coran. “Coran, ready a cell for this intruder.”
“Right away, princess." Coran quietly nodded and walked off.
“Pidge, see if you can get this mask off," Allura spoke as she forcefully pulled the intruder into a kneeling position. Lance felt a tinge of sympathy for the way they winced when their wound pressed against the smooth, cold floor.
Lance leaned over and helped Pidge off the ground, and he also brushed some dust off his shoulder. Then Pidge approached. Allura and the stranger, but he hesitated visibly as he drew closer to the hooded intruder. Reluctantly, Pidge carefully lifted the hood off the helmet before beginning to search for some kind of release mechanism. Just as he spotted a button, he heard a low growl emanate from behind the mask, and he paused.
“Go ahead. He may try to bite like the animal he is, but I doubt he’s smart enough to cause any real harm." Allura reassured him.
That didn’t seem to do much in inspiring Pidge to continue, but the spiteful expression on the woman’s face was threatening enough to pressure him into doing so. He leaned over and lightly pressed the button on the suit, internally hoping it would function as intended.
The material began to glow a light purple hue before soon fading away into thin air. Pidge was obviously astonished by this, staring at it with a dropped jaw and wide, awe-filled eyes. Lance couldn’t blame him; it was kinda impressive how seamlessly the mask vanished.
And then everyone’s faces fell even further when his face was revealed. The Galra– a male, if their features were anything to go by– was a lavender purple, covered in short fur, with longer tufts where his sideburns would be if he was from Earth. He had black, pointy pupils in the center of dark gray irises. His scleras were yellow and glowing faintly. Long, dark purple tufts of fluffy, thick hair flowed over his face, a tad frizzy from his mask. In the back, it gathered into what looked like a braid wrapped into a bun. It also had beads and trinkets woven into it, which was honestly really cool, though Lance would never admit that.
The Galra squinted a bit when his mask was turned off, and tall, purple, fluffy ears that sat atop his head pinned back, flat against his hair. They reminded Lance of a mix of a bat and a kitten, and he had to keep himself from audibly “aw”ing at the sight. The Galra bared his teeth at Pidge, who was still dangerously close to the fluffy purple man, revealing a mouth of sharp teeth and even sharper canines.
The intruder had what looked like a blunt force wound on his head, near his right temple. It was ugly and damp with dark blue liquid, likely Galran blood. There were streaks of it down the side of his face, halfway dried down.
The intruder seemed to have realized that everyone in the room was briefly caught off guard, and he took the opportunity. Before anyone could react to stop him, the Galra whipped a long tail from behind him, which Lance totally noticed before this point, and whacked Pidge across the front with the appendage, harder than it looked like it would be able to hit. Thankfully, none of the spikes or— what looked like a barb at the end? —cut Pidge, so the impact simply sent him tumbling back onto the ground again.
Allura went rigid, looking like she might kill the intruder right then and there. Instead, she decided on back-handing him on the head, before she bit out, “It’s exactly as I said, Galra are only capable of violence. No more, and no less.”
The stranger flinched at the strike before turning his head back to try and snarl at her too, tail returning to behind him to whip around angrily. Allura raised a booted foot and promptly trapped his tail beneath her heel. She was unimpressed by the displays and simply stared daggers in return.
Eventually, Coran returned. “The cell is ready now, princess.”
Allura seemed ever so slightly relieved at that news. “Good. Paladins, I require you to escort him into his cell. And do ensure that all of his weapons are confiscated; we don’t need him attempting to escape or attack someone.”