A/N: Ever since I've been binge watching 'Voltron: Legendary Defender' on Netflix, and looking through the fan fiction category for this I thought to myself "How is there not a 'Power Rangers' AU of this!?". So I decided it was time for the Paladins of Voltron to become the Power Rangers: Astro Force. Allura and Coran will be in this story, but the one who will assemble the rangers will be a former ranger from a previous Power Rangers season. So, without further ado... let's dive right into the story! Enjoy!
A long time ago, there were five robotic lions, they represented the elements that made up the universes around us. These elements were fire, water, earth, nature, and sky, and each one possessed great elemental powers used to defend the innocent. All five lions served a master, these masters were known as Paladins, and it was their sole duty to protect and serve the galaxy using their lions to preserve order and peace.
But soon, one Paladin wanted nothing more than to use his lion to enforce order and forge his own empire. His name was Zarkon, a member of the Galra race, and once he realized that the lions could be use to cause grievous harm to the universe, he slaughtered his fellow Paladins in cold blood. But King Alfor, the ruler of the Alteans, and protector of the planet Arus, fought Zarkon and rose victorious. When Zarkon was defeated, Alfor forbade Zarkon from ever being a Paladin again, and denied him the powers of the lion he once fought beside. But for Zarkon, it was not over, for he swore revenge on Alfor and the Alteans.
The banished Zarkon had later on met a witch named Haggar, and she taught him dark magics, and how to create mighty monsters and beasts to fight his battles for him. With Haggar's magic and teachings, he assembled an army of his fellow Galra, and told him of a plan he had to make an empire and rule over every living creature and planet in the galaxy. All Galra followed him in his cause, and thus Zarkon had crowned himself Emperor of the Galra.
Zarkon had then launched an attack on the Altean world and had Alfor and his forces heavily outnumbered. Several have lost their lives protecting their home world. Zarkon demanded that all the lions would be handed over to him, and he would cease his attacks, but Alfor refused. Just as many more were killed, Alfor took action and had his daughter Allura and her royal adviser Coran sealed in hyper-sleep in their castle.
When hope seemed lost, and Alfor considered handing the lions over to Zarkon in order to save his people, out of a blinding light came forth a warrior dressed in white and wore a mask over his head. He told Alfor his name was Sam, and that he was from the future. Sam told Alfor of a plan to protect the lions, and defeating Zarkon for good. Alfor looked to Sam as a last hope, and listened to his plan. Sam then sealed the lions and their powers away inside five power cards. He then told Alfor that he would hide the cards away and keep them safe with someone special, until the cards chose five new warriors who they would deem worthy of their powers. After the two exchanged their goodbyes, Sam left for the future and Alfor died in battle at Zarkon's hands. But in his dying moments, Alfor felt peace, knowing that the lions and their powers were safe and hidden away somewhere safe.
Sam then arrived in the future and approached a firefighter named Carter Grayson. Sam had told Carter all about Zarkon and the Galra, and what was stored inside the power cards that he had locked away inside a metal box that he had handed to him. Carter then knew of how important it was that these cards remained hidden, and to trust the cards to find new masters to harness their incredible powers. When Carter realized the importance of his mission, Sam had left leaving the cards with him.
Carter had then traveled out to the desert, a place where he knew nobody would ever come looking for him. He took refuge inside a cave and began fitting it with accommodations to make it his own home. He had build several bedrooms, bathrooms, a massive computer, and a kitchen as well. Once living arrangements for Carter were all taken care of, he began building powerful devices to help control the powers of the cards and the warriors they would choose as worthy. All Carter could do now was wait, wait for five beings to be chosen by the cards and the lions inside them to become their new masters, five who would become... Power Rangers.
-Ten Years Later-
Three cadets at the Galaxy Garrison flight school had just failed their simulator test. Pidge Gunderson, Lance McClain, and Hunk Garett were those cadets who failed, mostly due to Lance's carelessness behind the controls, causing them to lose their ships tail-fin, and Hunk vomiting in the main gear box. Their major had scolded them for what had happened as well, and had scolded Lance, reminding him that he wouldn't wanna follow in the footsteps of their last student who was expelled from the academy due to him having an attitude problem. Later that night, Lance was sneaking out late at night, and he was making Hunk follow him.
"Uh, Lance. Are you sure we should be doing this? I don't wanna get in trouble" Hunk said, a little uneasy about sneaking out of the dorms past their academy curfew.
"You know, for someone in the space exploration program, you don't have much a sense of adventure, Hunk. Now come with me to get Pidge and we'll sneak out for a night on the town" Lance told him. Hunk just groaned and followed Lance, but before they could reach Pidge's room, they saw him sneaking out of his room carrying a heavy looking backpack.
"What's he doing?" Lance thought aloud to himself. The two them had then decided to follow Pidge, without being noticed and saw that he was now on the roof in front of several tiny computers and headphones on his head. Lance then tiptoed behind him and lifted one of the headphones off his ear and spoke.
"You come here to rock out?" Lance asked, causing Pidge to jump where he stood startled and look behind him with wide eyes. He calmed down once he saw Hunk and Lance.
"Oh, hey Lance. Didn't expect to see you guys up here" Pidge told them. Just as Lance was about to extend an invitation to his classmate, he noticed the computers all around him.
"What's with all this stuff? Where did you get it?" Lance asked. Hunk was about to touch it but Pidge smacked his hand away from the main module and answered his question.
"I built it, and stop touching my stuff, Hunk!" he reprimanded.
"So, what are you doing with it anyways?" Lance said after Pidge spotted Hunk trying to touch the computers again.
"Third warning, Hunk!" he scolded.
"So anyways, I've been picking up alien radio chatter for the past few days and I've been trying to make some sense out of what it could mean. The major words I've been able to translate are 'Power Cards', 'Lions', and 'Grayson'. Not sure what all these words have to do with one another though" Pidge explained. Lance and Hunk looked at him like he was acting crazy or something, but just as soon as they were about to brush everything off, Hunk shouted 'Look!' and pointed to the night sky to see something. Lance then swiped Pidge's electric binoculars and looked to see it had the structure of a ship, more than likely to be an escape pod based on how it was designed and that it was covered in fire.
"Guys, it's a ship! It's entering the atmosphere" Lance told them. Just as the ship crashed in the middle of the desert, the alarms went off and a voice echoed inside and outside of the Garrison saying the entire facility was on lock-down and that everyone was to stay inside. Pidge then spotted several vehicles heading towards the crash site.
"Come on, let's go see what it is!" Lance said. Hunk and Pidge then packed up all of Pidge's equipment and followed him. By the time they got to the crash site they saw a large dome had been set up.
"What's going on in there?" Lance asked while staring down at the dome.
"Hold on, I'm hacking into the security cameras" Pidge said. With just a few clicks and clacks of the keys, he opened up some security feed of a human being strapped to a table wearing tattered up purple clothes with pasty white skin, black hair with a patch of white in the front, a scar on his nose, and a robotic right arm.
"Please, calm down, Shiro" one of the workers wearing a bio-hazard suit calmly ordered him.
"You don't understand! Something is coming and we need to stop it! We need to find the power cards!" he shouted. This caught their attention.
"Wait, did he just say 'Shiro'?" Lance asked.
"Yeah, you know him?" Hunk responded.
"That guy's my hero" Lance told them.
"Did anyone hear him say 'Power Cards'? Because I swear I heard him mention those" Pidge piped in.
"Nobody cares about your stupid alien talk and co-called cards, Pidge! We gotta save him" Lance said.
"Yeah, but how? It's surrounded by guards" Hunk added.
"Easy, we just need to create a distraction to draw the guards away" Lance told him. Just after those words were spoken, an explosion in a large rock formation caught their attention as well as the guards' attention as well. Before they knew it, several Garrison vehicles began moving towards the explosion's source.
"That can work" said Pidge.
"But where did it come from?" Hunk asked. Lance then noticed something below and picked up the electric binoculars again to see a red vehicle being piloted by a male in his late teens with black hair and wearing mostly red.
"That's where it came from! And he's heading for Shiro!" Lance said before running towards him.
"Wait! Who is that!?" Hunk asked.
"Keith is not getting to Shiro before I do!" Lance swore.
"Who's Keith!?" both Hunk and Pidge asked, but he didn't answer them and just entered the containment dome to see that Keith had just taken down the guards and carrying Shiro out. Lance then walked up to him and picked up Shiro on his right side.
"Hey! We're rescuing Shiro here! Not you!" Lance told him. Keith raised an eyebrow in confusion.
"Who are you?" Keith asked.
"Lance! From the Academy? Ringing any bells?" Lance answered, but Keith didn't respond and kept on carrying him out the dome.
"Everybody hop on" Keith told them. All of them got on board Keith's speeder and began driving away from the Garrison vehicles who had spotted them. Keith had then gotten a bright idea and drove further into the depths of a canyon and making dangerous curves and turns.
"Woooooooaaaaaaahhhhhh!" they all screamed. A few of the vehicles had been destroyed or swerved of the road, but one still followed them. Keith then noticed that they were heading towards the edge of a cliff and got an idea and began going faster and faster towards the cliff's edge.
"What are you doing!?" Hunk asked.
"You are going to kill us!" Pidge told him.
"Just trust me!" Keith told them as he began going faster and faster towards the cliff. When they drove off the edge of the cliff, everyone but Keith and the unconscious Shiro was screaming, fearing they were going to die. Halfway through the fall, Keith revved the handlebars and the speeder's engines and propellers were now going faster and they landed safely on the ground.
"You're crazy!" Lance shouted. Keith didn't listen and kept on driving away further into the desert until they reached a small shack in the middle of nowhere. Once Shiro woke up, Keith gave him some spare clothes to put on, which was a long sleeve black shirt, dark gray cargo pants, and a black vest.
"Thanks for saving me back there, really appreciate it" Shiro thanked them.
"No problem, my name's Keith" he said, holding his hand out to shake with his, but Lance pushed Keith away and shook it instead.
"Lance, big fan. That's Hunk and Pidge" Lance told him, they just waved their hands to him to give a friendly 'Hello' without having to speak.
"Well, I think you got saving me, but I have to find the cards" Shiro said, about to leave but Pidge stood in the way.
"Yeah, about that... what are these 'Cards' exactly? I've been trying to make sense of a few words I picked up from some radio chatter from space, it mentioned something about 'Power Cards', some 'Lions' and someone named 'Grayson'" he asked.
"No idea. But what I do remember was my crew and I were held captive aboard some kind of warship and we were held there for quite some time. I managed to escape but I was separated from the rest of my crew. During my time as a prisoner I did hear them say something about cards that possessed some kind of magic powers and that they needed to find them to complete their conquest and expand the empire" Shiro explained.
"Wow, that's a lot to take in" Hunk piped in.
"Did they say anything about what these cards were capable of?" Pidge added.
"No, only that they possessed the powers of some kind of ancient creatures built ten thousand years ago" Shiro answered.
"I think I may know where to look for answers" Keith piped in and all eyes were on him. He pulled down a curtain and revealed a wall with several photos and notes written on yellow note paper.
"I was listening on some of that radio chatter too. I haven't been able to make out what the words meant until Shiro explained what these 'Power Cards' were. And as for 'Grayson' and 'Lions' I still don't know what they mean either. But while I was out walking in the afternoon one day, I came across this cave, It was sealed by a large metal door, and right in front of it was a large lion's head. I tried getting into it but it requires some kind of handprint scanner to get inside" Keith explained.
"You think whatever these cards are could be inside that cave?" Shiro asked.
"Possibly, I went back the next day with a scanner, and it picked up something behind the door. It was unlike anything I've ever seen, it was more stronger than any form of radiation, but I don't think it's something radioactive" Keith told them before picking up a piece of paper and handed it to Pidge.
"What's this?" he asked.
"It's the readings I got from my scanner. It goes way above any form of radiation anyone's ever seen" Keith told him. Pidge closely analyzed the readings and his eyes went wide.
"Woah, he's right. This isn't like anything I've ever seen. I don't think any kind of scientist has ever discovered anything like this either" Pidge said before showing Lance, Hunk, and Shiro the readings.
"All I see is a bunch of big zig-zags on a chart" Lance said, causing everyone to groan and face-palm themselves.
"Look, I think whatever Shiro's captor's were looking for could be in that cave. I just need someone to bypass the hand-print scanner so we can go inside" Keith told them. Pidge then raised his hand with a smile.
"I'll do it!" he cheered.
"You can?" Shiro and Keith asked in unison.
"Sure can. I'm a master when it comes to technology. I've also hacked several high-security guarded networks as well" Pidge answered.
"It's true, when it comes to computers, phones, and tablets, he can hack pretty much anything" Lance told them.
"Alright, we'll go right now. Hop on my speeder and I'll take you guys there. It's only a ten minute trip there" Keith told them. They all followed him and got onto his speeder, their journey to the cave began.
A/N: There's chapter one for you! They may not be rangers yet, but they will be soon. For those of you who are new to the Power Ranger fandom, Sam is from 'Power Rangers S.P.D', and he does actually come from the future, I thought it would only make sense for him to travel through time to obtain the lions and place them in the cards. And Carter Grayson is the Red 'Lightspeed Rescue' Ranger, my favorite red ranger out of Bridge Carson and Connor McKnight. Part 2 of the beginning of this story will continue in the next update. Please review, thanks!
