Dark Days Home
By Yoshi, Secret Space Mouse
Author's Note:
The Christmas season has always been bittersweet for me. Joy and happiness are tempered by sadness when loved ones are missing from the holiday table, particularly when the pain of separation is still fresh and sharp.
It didn't help that the prompt I was given was to write something inspired by the song Wave by Beck. While I actually had most of another story written, after reading Patton Oswalt's Year of Magical Parenting essay in GQ, my muse took me down a very different path.
And so I would like to warn you that having a fresh box of Kleenex may be a good idea.
Continuity note:
This story takes place in the Voltron Force Universe after Epilogue, the comic printed in the Voltron: From Days of Long Ago Thirtieth Anniversary Celebration book.
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Chapter 1: Vince
Two hundred fifty one Arusian orbits.
That's how long it's been since we took the Den Ship — the Force's mobile base of operations off into space to look for Voltronix, a planet on the edge of the Far Universe so far away it wasn't on any of our maps.
I rub my finger over my cybernetic eyeball. It's been almost a year since I lost my eye but I'm still not used to the way my augmentation feels. My eye, like much of Arus, is a casualty of Haggar's last attack. The damned witch sneaked into the Castle and kidnapped Daniel from Sick Bay. And of course, just to remind us who she was and what we were up against, she conjured up a legion of robeasts.
Luckily, Allura knew how to get the old witch talking. Haggar used to love to gloat and apparently old habits die hard. Knowing how Lotor figures heavily in Allura's nightmares, the old witch wasted no time in letting the Queen know that King Lotor was still alive. She didn't realize that she had given us enough information to form a coherent action plan.
Betting that the reincarnated Lotor was motivated more by revenge than lust, Keith and Allura pushed up their plans and released the news about their marriage to all the news and social media outlets they could reach.
Voltron, Defender of the Universe went on the offensive. We needed to upgrade Voltron ASAP and the only way we could think of going about that was to get to Voltronix and understand its secrets.
The Veterans decided that Arus needed a Queen to rule and direct the reconstruction efforts more than the Force needed a backup pilot. Keith… well, he might be King now, but he's still the commander of the Voltron Force. He's also Batman to Lotor's Joker. Spider-Man to the Green Goblin. Arch-enemies. Mortal-enemies. Whatever's got more enmity. That's what Keith and King Lotor are.
In Lotor's head, Keith committed a heinous crime — he touched Allura — ruining the pure thing left in the universe. Lotor swore that Keith would pay. We took advantage of his desire for revenge and dangled Black Lion in front of him. Lotor took our bait and we managed to lure him away from Arus.
New threats emerged as we headed farther and farther from home. Lotor recruited an army of Drule pirates and bolstered their strength with the Haggar's robeast creations. Daniel — at least the Haggarium infused thing that he had become — was Haggar's obra maestra. The old witch thought that she had warped his mind so completely that he no longer saw us as his friends and allies.
Major miscalculation on her part. She didn't know my best friend at all. When push came to shove, Daniel told Haggar and Lotor what they could do with their plans to conquer the universe and then made sure of it.
So now, we're on our way back home, engines full ahead. We didn't end up finding Voltronix but because of Daniel's sacrifice, we don't need the upgrades immediately. Hopefully though, if the space drones Pidge and I designed work as they should, we'll have better intelligence the next time we need to head out.
God, I hope there won't be a need for a next time.