A/N: Well, here's my new one. I know that there's like, a few different comics out there that have done a redo of Voltron, but very biasedly, I just think my idea's better. I mixed it up a little by using both Voltron and GoLion elements.

Prologue

Nostradamus said the world would end in 2012. So did the Mayans. How was Earth to know that they would be right?

Or that they were aliens.

Should have known. All those reports of 'alien abductions' that went unsubstantiated because there was no proof save for the word of some drunken bumbling idiots and kids who wanted to prove that 'the truth was out there.' And it was. Earth just didn't want to know it. Not really. So earthlings dismissed substantiated reports looked over the unclear details and went on with their days.

But the Drule Empire was nothing if not clever.

The Drule Empire, who had a long history of using technology to awe less civilized planets into submission, came to Earth before time was officially recorded and gathered its most famous followers in South America. The native Mayans, primitive in both mind and traditions, welcomed the visitors eagerly and soon flourished with their gifts. Together, the alien visitors and Mayans combined to become one of the most advanced races of beings the Earth had ever seen.

And then completely disappeared.

That should have been the first hint. The second was the calendar ending. No one guessed that the original purpose of the calendar ending was to calculate when the Drule invasion would begin. Hence, the end of the world. The Mayans had gained the knowledge of the Drule Empire and were whisked away before they could accidentally reveal the existence of aliens to the rest of the planet.

Nostradamus had been an accident in the Drule Empire's plans. He'd escaped from planet Drule's penal system to Earth and became fascinated with the planet's culture, as well as the concept of popularity. Using his own planet's history of preparations for hostile take-overs as reference, he made key predictions that brought him to the heights of recognition. He became known world-wide.

And outer worldly, too, much to his chagrin.

He was noticed by the Drule Empire and immediately executed. The Empire had concerns that Nostradamus had revealed too much, but found after some 'inquiries,' later classified as abductions, that his predictions had been too vague to rouse much suspicion.

Still, the Empire kept checking over the next half millennia to be sure that no one knew what was to come. They found that with a few covert personnel in key places, they could disarm Earth's defenses even further.

The prohibition of nuclear weapons. The end of space travel programs. Instability, unrest, and volatility in key countries. Terrorism made in the name of largely feared groups. That, coupled with being further advanced in technology than the planet Earth made its day of destruction effortless.

By the time Earth's remaining citizens realized they had been manipulated by the Drule Empire, its population had dropped from over seven billion to less than one hundred million due to nuclear war. The Empire took the remaining inhabitants in as slaves and sent them to planet Doom to live out the last of their meaningless lives.

Meaningless.

Akira refused to believe that his life was meaningless. That any life was meaningless. Every life had a meaning and a purpose; it was up to a being to figure out what those things were. He knew his. He'd known since he was a child, watching endless lines of helpless people being sent to their deaths. He was going to overturn the Drule Empire. And he'd start with Planet Doom.

Chapter One: Escape

"You there!"

Akira ignored the guttural call of the beast that was his work detail's guard-in-charge. Not being able to speak Drule usually helped a person to get away with things they weren't supposed to be doing, and Akira was slowly drifting away from his group as he worked.

"You! Slave!"

Akira went on pretending to work as his eyes secretly watched the skyline. He spoke near perfect Drule, but faked not knowing in front of any native inhabitants. The Drule guards tended to drop useful tidbits of information when they assumed that their prisoners didn't know what they were saying.

A large, cold, hand-like limb with too few fingers grabbed him roughly by the shoulder and spun him around. Akira looked up dumbly in the eyes of the Drulite that had been calling to him.

"I was talking to you, you unintelligent, soft-skinned bottom feeder."

Drulites had thicker skin than humans and enjoyed demonstrating that fact at every opportunity. Akira cocked his head to the side, imitating confusion. He pointed down at the ground, where he had been gathering rubble into a wagon.

"Working," Akira stated, speaking in Drule and deliberately mispronouncing the word.

His guard rolled his faintly glowing eyes and let loose a sigh of disgust.

"Work there," the guard commanded, pointing to the rest of the prison detail. For good measure, he shoved Akira in that direction. "Parasitic sapien species."

Akira obediently towed his wagon along, returning to the detail of other prisoners he was assigned to. Too bad the guard hadn't given him another minute. He'd gotten almost all the reconnaissance he needed.

Work was grueling. They were clearing the battlefield of the fighting arena. Nightly, battles between unlucky slaves and giant, mutated beasts occurred for the sport of Doom's inhabitants. Depending on the severity of the fight, parts of the arena needed to be repaired almost daily. Being young and in fairly good health, Akira was put on the work detail to repair it. It was difficult and it was tiring, but it also had its benefits.

Akira was learning things. He was learning the corridors and chambers of Doom's castle. He was memorizing the guards' details and when they patrolled what areas. He knew what control panels worked for which areas, and best of all, he knew which codes unlocked them.

Today, he'd been watching the slave transport ships enter and leave the atmosphere. That's why he'd strayed away from his detail. He didn't want to miss the minute details of how often they landed and what flight paths they took to leave.

He was going to steal one and escape this shitty planet.

"Good?" asked a tall man a few years Akira's senior. He had black hair and brown eyes that slanted in the corners hinting at Earthling asian descent. His name was Takashi.

"Ninety percent," Akira confirmed, speaking in Earth's most common tongue: english.

That was all that was said. They wouldn't talk to one another outside of their cells for the concern of punishment. The Drulites looked for reasons to whip the frail-skinned humans.

There was no end of work day for them. They simply worked until the job was finished, whether it take two hours or two days. There would be no food or break until it was done. It was a regular occurrence for men and women to drop dead from exhaustion from the work. The threat of being the evening's entertainment and fighting against one of Doom's beasts kept the prisoners working until their hearts stopped.

Finally, with the last stones paved into place, their work detail was done. Exhausted, Akira stumbled along next to Takashi as they were led back to the prison cells. Some days, his mind was too tired even process what he'd seen and learned. But today, he was good. No amount of work was going to stop his mind from analyzing what he'd seen today.

Silently, he ate his 'dinner.' It was a chunky, milky substance of proteins and fats that were specifically designed for his species in order to keep him strong. The Drulites didn't want to waste a good worker.

The taste of it was nothing compared to the texture. It reminded him of snot and vomit and other unpleasant things, but he'd eat as much of it as they'd give him. He needed to be strong. The others thought he was crazy for slurping down that slop.

There was no lights-out per se. It was always dark in the cells. There was just a point at which the guards didn't come around as much because most of the prisoners were sleeping. Key word: most.

"Please tell me you have all the information you need now," whined a lanky caucasian. "I don't wanna go back to work detail tomorrow."

"Whiner," teased a bulky latino. Everything about the man said muscle. He was on a special detail that was constructing a new wing to Doom's castle which was a more rigorous detail than any other.

"Close enough," Akira confirmed quietly. "If an opportunity presents itself, we're gonna take it."

"What about short stack?" asked the large man.

"Pidge should be in the mess hall," Takashi answered. "We'll pick him up on the way."

"All right big fella," the lanky one chuckled. "Do your magic."

"Slow down, Lance," Akira scolded. "The timing has to be perfect."

"Sorry," Lance shrugged. "A little eager to go, I guess."

"You and me both," Takashi agreed. "What's the matter, Hunk?"

The tall latino paced the cell in frustration. "I still think we should take the others with us."

"We can't," Akira told him gently, and not for the first time. "I want to take them with us too, but we have a better chance of escape when it's just the five of us. And when we get to Galaxy Garrison with our information, we'll be able to come back and free everyone. Not just the people in our cell block."

Hunk huffed as though he didn't agree, but didn't argue either.

"Incoming," Lance whispered. The four in the cell took on positions of resting as footsteps of a guard approached their cell. The steps paused briefly in front of their area before shuffling along to the next cell block.

"Rotten piece of shit," Hunk grumbled.

Akira shushed him, walking over to the tiny window that served for providing them with 'fresh' air. Not that any air on the planet could be considered fresh. It was just less pungent than the air already in the cell.

"The games have begun," he spoke gravely. The others shared a look of remorse with him. "It's time, Hunk."

Hunk stood and walked over to their barred door. With ease, he bent the bars out of place enough for them to slide through. As silently as they could, the four of them snuck out of the cell while Hunk rebent the bars after his exit. Using hand signals, they motioned to each other as they crept down the hall of the cell block.

In a way, it was the most treacherous path they would take. Not because of the guards; they were most likely occupied with watching the games on a transmitter screen, but for the prisoners themselves. One word from any of them could cause a riot that would spoil their intended escape.

It was a long walk to get away from that place.

Once outside the cell block, they picked up speed and deftly avoided the surveillance equipment as they jogged the corridors of the castle's detention area on their way to the launch pad. On the way, they stopped near the kitchens to collect Pidge.

Being small, even for a human, he found it easy to get away from his captors without notice. With the five of them together again, they broke out in a run towards the shuttle bay. The bay doors slid open for them with the last entered code, and the guys could literally taste the freedom before them.

"You're up, shorty," Hunk said, lifting Pidge up to the ventilation system of one of the slave transports.

Pidge crawled through the small shaft and let himself into the body of the ship, running towards the command center of it. He hot-wired the controls and hacked the authorization codes like a mad man, letting his comrades onto the ship before they could be spotted.

"It takes forty-five seconds for the engines to be flight ready," Akira told them as he typed furiously at the helm. "And it will probably only take twenty for the Drulites to figure out that no ship is supposed to be launching. Lance, Takashi, get on the guns."

The two did as recommended, powering up the lasers.

"Hunk, we'll need shields primarily at the aft of the ship," Akira rattled off. "Pidge, some radio interference would help us get off the ground."

With one last look between the five of them, Akira started the engines of the ship. Alarms went off immediately, but he ignored them, plotting their course based on what he'd seen earlier that day.

"Incoming targets," Lance announced, picking off the Drule soldiers as they entered.

"Fifteen seconds to launch," Akira told them, buckling himself in. They others did the same.

"All transmissions blocked until we exit the bay," Pidge told him. "After that, we're fair game."

"Launching!" Akira yelled, slamming back in his seat. He'd gunned it, knowing every second counted at this point. "We'll clear the atmosphere in sixty seconds."

"Enemy fighters sighted," Takashi told them. "Port and starboard. How's our ass look, Hunk?"

"Heavy," Hunk answered. "Shields are about to take a beating."

It was no sooner said than the ship began trembling with the force of blasts.

"Shields at sixty percent," Hunk announced. "Unless we do some return fire back here, we've got maybe thirty seconds before they give."

"I'm on it," Pidge cried, hopping into a gunner seat.

"Forty seconds to open space," Akira promised. "Just keep us alive, guys."

"Easier said than done," Lance grumbled. "Looks like the whole damn fleet is after us."

"If we make our lightspeed jump," Takashi told him, "we will be the first successful escape from planet Doom. I'd say that they are going to be quite adamant about keeping their reputation untarnished."

"Screw that," Lance chuckled. "Eat this, you blue skinned, yellow eyed, salamander looking pukes!"

"Thirty seconds!"

"Shields at forty percent!"

"I need more help back here! I'm being walloped."

"Kid, we got our own problems on the port and starboard. Make due."

"Shit! That knocked us down to twenty five percent!"

"We're not going to make it!"

"Son of a bitch," Akira muttered, still twenty seconds from open space. He couldn't make a plotted lightspeed jump until they were free from the atmosphere. If he jumped now, he could send them straight through a sun or meteor shower on accident.

'Well, we'll die here for sure,' he thought. 'Might as well die on our own terms.'

"Making the jump!" he yelled, plotting in numbers. "Hold on!"

"But we haven't—"

A/N: And there you go. Anyone interested? Let me know what you think.