Arusian Crusade: Esprit de Corps
Prologue: Ebb
Arusian Crusade part 5. This is where the series stops being a straight-up DotU reboot... and for those interested, I have a little story about that.
About a year and a half ago, I wrote a little one-shot fic called Shadow Bound to get my brain back into the Voltron fandom. It was fun, it wasn't totally horrible, I started writing a sequel. But as the sequel progressed, I kept wanting to make up backstory to include, and it built up enough that I finally decided it would be just as simple to write a prequel too. A rather long prequel. Maybe more than one. Maybe four. And maybe just rewrite it totally because it was way too rushed, fold the sequel in, and keep going...
And now you know why AC is a thing... it started with this.
It was amazing how quickly the world could fall apart... Kylos was a sanahar, he'd trained in psychology for years. He knew closing his eyes and hoping it was all a dream never solved anything.
It didn't stop him from wanting to.
The sound had been unlike anything he'd ever heard. A whistling shriek, descending upon the earth like some nightmarish bird of prey. It was Sven who'd reacted first, leaping to his feet with a hiss of pain, warrior reflexes seeming to override the remaining damage to his body... he'd shoved both surgeon and sanahar aside as the window blew in from the sheer force of the sound.
The doctor had rushed from the room, muttering about checking on the other patients. But Kylos couldn't make himself flee. And since then he'd pretty much just been following the human quietly, trying to comprehend.
An attack. An attack on Ebb. It was absurd, incomprehensible. And it was also absolutely what was happening... the hospital was being evacuated, because that horrible whistling scream was coming closer, shattering what few windows were left and rattling the walls. But Sven was not following the proper fire drill procedures like the rest of the building, and right now, Sven seemed like the best chance of survival.
So he followed.
Rounding a corner they came face to face with two hulking, gray-skinned creatures, which immediately leveled their weapons at the pair. "Halt! This world and its inhabitants are hereby claimed by the Ninth—"
"—Oh, shut up," Sven hissed, dropping his shoulder and slamming the speaker into a wall, knocking his rifle from his hands. Kylos felt the flicker, that surge of icy rage, saw the other Drule briefly freeze up in confusion and indecision. He didn't see the next move, exactly; Sven's body was blocking it. But from the scream, the wet snap, and the sudden silence, he was pretty sure he didn't want to have seen.
"That was a big mistake, vermin."
"On whose part?" As the Drule he'd hit first produced a knife, Sven snapped his wrist cleanly, wrestled the blade away, and drove it into the attacker's throat. "Kylos, we're leaving. There will be more of them."
The sanahar managed a noise that at least vaguely indicated agreement, though it really mostly came out as a squeak.
If Sven was bothered by that reaction he didn't show it, because he was busy looting the bodies, tucking the knife away and retrieving the two rifles. He handed one over and Kylos studied it curiously. He'd never seen such an implement so close, let alone handled one himself. He thought he knew what to do with it, at least—aim at the enemy, pull the trigger. Simple enough. Hopefully.
"Stay behind me and shoot any Drule that so much as looks at us funny," his patient-turned-guardian ordered.
As it happened they encountered no more Drules at all, so funny looks didn't really play into it. It seemed the building had merited very few soldiers. Which made sense; who would expect much in the way of fighting back inside of a hospital?
At the door to the outside Sven halted. "Okay, where do we go from here?"
"I was just going to follow you."
Sigh. It wasn't a patient sigh. "Where can we go that would be safe, Kylos? Ebb must have some sort of invasion plan."
Why in the world would he think that? "None that I'm aware of. Why would we prepare for such a thing? Ebb has no enemies."
The dark eyes fixed on him with a mix of contempt and utter disbelief. "You put a Drule kingdom under interdiction and you don't even have bomb shelters?" He turned away, muttering something under his breath that sounded like Darwin was right. Kylos wasn't sure who Darwin was or what he was right about, but felt certain it wasn't a compliment. "Fine. Storm shelters? Don't tell me you don't have storms either."
"We... er."
The human growled. "Subways? Underground storage? Anything of that sort?"
Okay, now they were getting somewhere. "Of course. All of the major cities of Ebb are linked by a series of underground supply tunnels; Sanela's nearest entrance to the complex is about ten minutes away."
"Better. Which way?"
Normally Kylos would've told him to follow. Under these circumstances he couldn't. It wasn't that he was terrified beyond all reason, but... well... yes it was. "At the main gate go left, we take that street for quite a ways."
"Got it. Let's go."
The streets were sheer chaos. Flame had erupted from several shops, choking the air with thick, reeking smoke that at least had the decency to rise quickly. Panicked Ebbians were running in every direction, the screams of the crowds drowning out even the terrible shrieking from above. He could see where that was coming from now—a few small ships were strafing overhead, taking potshots at structures. But the loudest sound came from an enormous chunk of dark steel that was hovering over Sanela's main spaceport in the distance, raining flame upon it. The facility's huge control spires, which usually dominated the city skyline, were gone.
"Come on!" Sven hissed, tugging his arm. "Faster. If you stand around to watch you're only going to end up dead."
That was plenty motivating. Truthfully the sanahar was startled by the pace his companion was keeping. Sven's body should not be tolerating this speed, let alone the abuse it had taken from his dispatching the Drule soldiers. And yet... he was a warrior.
But even warriors had their limits, and when a new set of shadows loomed before them, even Sven hesitated for an instant.
"Halt!" The voice was different, the face was different, yet the fierce, glowing eyes were the same. This one was flanked by half a dozen companions, armored and bristling with weapons, without the close quarters of the hospital to give them a fighting chance. And his words were the same. "This world and its inhabitants are hereby claimed by the Ninth Kingdom of the Drule Supremacy. Surrender or be slaughtered as the animals you are."
Surrender or die... not so very long ago at all, the response would have been immediate, instinctive. Perhaps it was still instinctive; it was just the absolute opposite instinct that Kylos would have expected to take over.
Surrender? No. Not like this.
He fumbled for the trigger, his body moving on a strange sort of autopilot. He went to shoot because that was what he'd been told to do, even though he had no idea how, even though it couldn't hope to save them. But the alternative was to not follow Sven's orders, to try to defy the unyielding ice... he could sense that ice flaring, ready to consume them all in one final blaze of frozen glory, because Sven would never surrender to this. Which meant he surely couldn't either, couldn't show such weakness...
And suddenly it all stopped. The human clamped down on the initial surge—it couldn't have lasted more than half a second, though to Kylos it had felt like an eternity. He looked back at the sanahar, eyes deeper than endless space. "No... I won't get you killed here, Kylos."
With that he dropped his weapons and stepped forward.
Out of sheer shock, Kylos failed to actually lower his own rifle; one of the Drules moved forward and yanked it roughly from his grasp, chaining the prisoners together with brutal efficiency. He looked up at Sven, not sure what to say. Such a warrior ceding the field, to save such an unwelcome ally's life?
"...Thank you," he said quietly.
The human did not meet his eyes. "Don't thank me, Kylos. Not until you see where we're going."