Author's Note: Thanks, everyone, esp. cms, Harmony, wade wells, Xia and Mertz, Rocky, and Philip Gipson, whose feedback is appreciated. Heart, I promise, big guy action happening soon. And I'm sorry if I'm leaving anyone out. Hard chapter to write. A very long one, but I may not be able to post for a few days. Remodeling a bedroom. Allegedly. Will make it up to you. Warnings: Violence, suggestive adult situation at the end, but I think that's it. Really.
Playlist: Supertramp, "Give a Little Bit," and Cowboy Junkies, "To Live is to Fly," a Townes Van Zandt cover, and "Southern Rain." I've got new speakers, so I bet this list is going to get even stranger soon...
And all the usual disclaimers apply: I don't own Voltron, etc. etc.
Chapter Seven:
A Changing of the Guard
She stood in the corridor right outside his bedroom, unsure of what to do with herself. What she really longed to do, what she had longed to do nearly every night since her arrival, was to slip into his room like she used to when they were children, when they had both been frightened and alone in the universe, it seemed, except for each other. Holding herself perfectly still, she noticed absently that she was making circles on the floor with her toe again. Nervous habit, she chided herself. She was used to holding herself perfectly still, had done it for as long as she could remember. It was the best way to see danger coming, the best way to gauge people, their true intentions. But part of her body would not obey her mind. It was as if she had some kind of nervousness in her, some disquiet, which would come out, in some fashion, whether she wished it to or not.
She sighed, still staring at his door, her toe still moving in slow circles. She liked the long dresses here on Arus, and had been quick to adopt them. She could tap away under her long skirts. She could hide many things, under long skirts, including the blaster Lance had insisted she carry, strapped to her thigh. "All the cool girls here are doing it," he had teased her. But he had warned her to keep it secret. Another reminder that we're still at war, she thought, no matter how peaceful it felt lately.
She was also grateful for the long sleeves of her gown as she rubbed lightly at the long, deep gouges up and down her shoulders and arms. The blue gown that matched her eyes would not hide the bruise across her cheek, though. Nanny had supplied her with a few dresses suitable for a girl her age and "station" here on Arus, most of them some shade of blue. Nanny, apparently, was fond of choosing signature colors for young ladies. It could be worse. It could have been pink... She shook herself, realizing she was wool gathering, that she was scared. I have to tell him. He has to help me. There is no one else....
Her ever present personal guards stood behind her. They'll have to stay out here, in the hall... if my brother can't protect me, no one can. She felt a swell of pride at the thought. He had always been tough. He had to be, his entire life. But here on Arus, he had changed into almost another kind of human being entirely. My brother is a complete and total badass, she grinned, wondering how much the Lion he piloted, and the giant robot defender it formed, had to do with it, and how much of it had been there all the time, lurking inside him.
The door to his quarters slid open and closed as she stood there indecisively, and the fierce, beautiful red-haired woman who had formed an attachment with her brother slipped out into the hall. Charlotte found her demeanor suddenly interesting; she had never seen this woman, who seemed so confident, even deadly, "slip" anywhere. She knew, then, that this woman and her brother had become something more than friends and colleagues, even though there was nothing to betray that fact on Kiari's face. The two women faced each other, almost challengingly at first, as if in some kind of stand-off. I won't tell, Charlotte wanted to say, recognizing a secret when she saw one, but she was frozen, as she so often was, by the unexpected. Her guards shifted slightly behind her.
"Hello there," Kiari said gently, smiling at Lance's little sister. The guards relaxed at the greeting. Kiari thought about Lance's childhood, and could only imagine what such an environment would have been like for a girl who seemed as delicate as the one who stood before her. Of all the Voltron Force, of all their close friends and allies, with the sole exception of Hunk, she alone had grown up surrounded by a huge, loving family; Saran had seen to it that she never felt like an outsider in his home. She had scars, of course; everyone did, these days. But she wanted to be friends with this fragile young contradiction of a woman, who was so quiet and contained in person, but an absolute tigress in the air, so she smiled again. Then she noticed the bruise.
"You are injured," she stated simply, knowing better than to touch or embrace the young woman. "Your brother will not be pleased. Nor am I."
"It's nothing," she said automatically, trained as she was in years of denial.
Kiari crossed her arms in front of her in an effort not to touch a weapon, as was her own nervous habit. "Very well," she sighed. She looked at the guards behind the young woman disapprovingly. "A woman should always know how to defend herself, especially in the times in which we live. There are many here who would teach you. Our own princess, in fact, has been learning such lessons, and would find the time to show you, were you so inclined, as would I, and as your brother certainly would." She smiled again, to soften her words. "Perhaps then you would neither need, nor want, so many layers of protection." She performed a curious kind of bow from her waist. "I wish you a peaceful evening, Charlotte McClain, and remember that you may call upon me anytime." She was gone in a whirl of gold and red, walking with a directness and confidence Charlotte could only stare at.
"She's rather intimidating at first," Lance said, leaning against the door to his quarters. "But once you get used to her..." He grinned before he remembered who he was talking to, and stopped himself. "Hey there, little sis..." Suddenly he was at her side before she saw him move, holding her face. "Dear god," he said as he examined her bruise, and then swore softly under his breath. "Wait in the hall," he told the guards, who waited for a nod from Charlotte before obeying. I don't like them, Lance thought, but then wondered if he was simply irked because they ignored him.
"Show me the rest of it," he ordered gently, once she was seated on his bed, the door sealed shut behind them. He was sickly sure there was more, and he was right.
"Help me with this dress," she said, in a whisper. Wordlessly he unfastened the back of it and helped her slip out of the bodice and sleeves. He hissed.
"Holy hells, Charlotte," he breathed. This was bad, even for their family. Deep gouges, crusted with blood, ran up and down both arms. Her shoulders had what looked like puncture wounds, where someone with long nails and an unnatural strength had gripped her and perhaps shaken her. "Have you seen Dr. Gorma?" he asked, although he already knew the answer. She shook her head mutely and he swore again. He disappeared into his bathroom and emerged with a tube of ointment. He sat down beside her and gently dabbed it on her wounds. "Anywhere else?" he asked tensely. She shook her head again. He knew that many thought her weak, that many wondered how she could be so fierce in the air, safe in her fighter, yet be so fragile elsewhere, but he knew how strong she was. He knew how much strength it took to exist in a situation like hers, even if her intentions were misguided and informed by a life of knowing no other way to live. "I don't have any bandages," he told her when he was done, holding her in his arms, her chin under his head, blood crusted on the long white undershirt she wore. "But let's get you out of that dress and into something that breathes, like cotton. I've got a long sleeved t-shirt that will do." He was strangely reluctant to let her go, even to do this one small thing. What if it had been worse? What if their mother, locked in her own private insanity, had done something worse? He shuddered. What if he lost her entirely again?
He pulled a shirt from the clean basket of laundry he had yet to fold and put away, along with a pair of sweatpants, much too big. "That's it, sister mine. She's got to go. You've done your best, more than you should have, and you can't help her anymore. Her addictions are not your fault. She needs more help than you can give her, and I can't lose you again, not after I just found you." His voice cracked. "She's too dangerous. She has to go to Med Center full time, or we'll send her someplace more long term, someplace off-planet, until she detoxes and can control herself again." He felt her silent sobs, then, as she leaned against him. He rocked her. "I know, I know. Baby girl. We need to get you some help, too. You should talk to someone about this, someone you can really talk to, about all of it, about our mother and our father..." He felt her stiffen instantly. He'd said the forbidden word. Father. Damn. He ran his hands through his wild hair.
"You think I need a therapist," she accused.
"I just want you to be ok," he whispered. She stared back at him, before rising silently to change in his bathroom. And down she shuts, yet again, Lance thought, slamming his fist into his bed. "I love you, baby sister, no matter what," he called to her. She said nothing in reply. He could only sit there, frustrated, hoping she had heard him.
The castle alarms began shrieking full blast.
We're in trouble now, he thought. We should never, ever, have split the Force...hopefully, Keith and Allura can be back here soon enough...maybe it's not that serious... but in his heart, he knew it was. He was up in seconds, heading out the door, when he remembered Charlotte. "Can you fight?" he asked, halfway out the door already.
Her face was haunted and accusatory as she reappeared in his bathroom door, dwarfed by his clothes. "I don't know how to do anything else," she half hissed, half whispered. "I'll see you in the air, brother mine."
Heart in his throat for more reasons than he could count, he ran for Castle Control. He didn't wait for her.
VVVVV
"This is really, really not good, " Allura swore as she tried to power up her Lion, monitor the monster only feet from them, settle an injured passenger and an infant, for the goddess's sake, behind her pilot's seat, and reach Keith all at the same time.
Keith? she thought at him, her fingers tightening the straps around Nyle in the single jump seat Blue Lion had waiting for them. Obviously, Nyle was meant to hold onto his daughter, strapped to his chest in her carrier still, for awhile longer. As long as this takes, she thought grimly, watching on the monitor as Black Lion struggled to get some kind of firm hold on the creature, tried to wrestle it on the beach beneath it, but the creature was strong, and Black Lion's claws had a hard time digging into its skin, or scales, or whatever was covering it... Keith was pinned now, Black Lion roaring and clawing, letting loose with a barrage of what seemed like every bit of weaponry in its arsenal, including some weapons Allura had never seen him use before, hadn't even known existed, and still, he kept winding up being pinned beneath the monster, as they grappled on the beach. Keith! she screamed, full of panic and unsure of her next move.
A little...busy, Allura... he thought back, and she could hear the strain in his voice as he fought to control Black Lion, to strike back at this abomination of nature that had been unleashed upon them. His thoughts were as tight, as breathless, even, as if he were wrestling with the thing hand to hand. Can't...get a grip on it...
I'm coming, Keith, she thought frantically, her hands practically flying over Nyle and the baby. Just hold on... She hissed as she brought the harness across Nyle's injured shoulder. Already blood-soaked from the jagged shard of glass, which she assumed he had somehow pulled out himself while the castle came crashing down around them and managed to protect an infant, his clothing hung from his bare shoulder in blood-soaked tatters. Dark lines snaked their way away from the deep punctures and tears of the creature's teeth where it had begun to bite his shoulder. The dark lines looked like veins, snaking outward from the red and already festering wounds, their poison already moving their way towards his heart...
"Nyle," she said, horrified. "That looks like..."
"Blood poisoning," he finished, smiling weakly. He cradled his daughter closer to him with his one good arm, absently checking the straps for tightness.
"But it's much too soon to be so advanced," she said, dazed. Not possible, it's not possible, none of this is possible... her mind sang at her.
"That's a pretty nasty beastie out there, Allura Blue," he said mildly. He was pallid and sweaty, his eyes already going a bit unfocused. "You can't worry about me, you know. He needs your help." She snapped back into focus, back to the creature on the beach between herself and the man she loved, the man she was going to marry, and felt a blind rage overcome her, deadly in its intensity, but one that left her coldly focused and determined.
"Right," she snapped, switching the comm. system on so that communication could be verbal as well as mental, if needed. "Keith, I'm coming up behind it," she said. "I'm going to go for the back of its neck and head, whatever I can hit. It can't fight us both off. At least, I hope not."
"Negative, Allura," he said over the comm. system through clenched teeth. "You're carrying passengers, an infant, and I can't let you..." His words were interrupted by the sound of metal crunching. Allura could see that the thing had him pinned completely now and was wrapping its body around him, just as it had done with the Castle of Mists.
"Keith, it's crushing you!"
No response except the sound of twisting metal.
"Keith! Keith!" she screamed, charging the creature with claws extended. She latched onto the back of its neck, Blue Lion clinging with all four claws and its massive jaws. Even so, it was all she could do to get even a slippery purchase on the creature. Scales, she thought. Its hide was covered with thousands of thick scales so dark they seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. "It's scaled," she cried out. "It's hard to get a grip."
"Not everywhere," Keith's voice said, flooding the cockpit. Allura wanted to collapse in relief, but she had her hands full merely trying to cling to the creature's back. "It's covered with a thick kind of hide over some of its more vulnerable areas, like its throat and belly. I've been trying to tear out its throat, but it keeps pinning me every time I get close."
Allura thought furiously. Blue Lion released the creature, and it roared in surprise.
"Allura! Report! Are you alright?"
"Yes! Fine! I just had an idea," she said, eyes narrowed in concentration as she studied the beast beneath her. Once, long ago, she had seen her father break one of the wild horses Kiari's father, Clan Leader Aran, had brought to him specifically for that purpose. Her father loved horses. She remembered watching, full of equal parts horror and pride, as he grabbed its wild mane and held on for dear life, until it had run itself out of strength and finally, sides heaving and lathered, quieted itself. She remembered helping brush the same horse, long after it had been tamed, her father showing her which direction to pull the brush, telling her that pulling it in the wrong direction could hurt the animal, because its hair grew only one way... "I'm going to ride it," she said, to no one in particular, studying its scales.
"Allura, no! I'm trying to raise the castle, we can have the other Lions here soon, and we can form Voltron..." Keith's comm. system cut out entirely as she heard him cry out, heard the shriek of metal and glass, and then there was nothing from her beloved Black Lion pilot, and she charged the creature crushing him beneath it.
Blue Lion landed on the back of the creature's neck again, but in the opposite direction this time, digging its claws underneath the scales, against the grain of their growth. This time, she got a good grip on the thing, grabbing flesh, and not impossibly thick, hard scales. She knew she had it when it roared and thrashed even harder, rolling off Keith in an effort to crush her underneath it instead. She saw the ground coming at her and let loose with lasers and torpedoes, blades forming in her Lion's mouth, slashing down and up, underneath its scales, connecting with flesh, drawing forth an oozing green substance that she could only hope was blood. As the creature roared and rolled, she let go just inches before she would have been crushed beneath it, Blue Lion airborne once again.
She could not get enough clearance to avoid a blow from one of its jointed appendages. She grappled with the controls, Blue Lion spinning, and saw, to her utter horror, what the creature had done. Black Lion lay in a twisted heap on the beach, its head twisted in an unnatural position, exactly like a real animal that had been terminally injured. Don't think like that, she told herself, blinking back tears. Black Lion's sides were crushed inward, and she could see puncture marks through its hull where the beast had bitten through. But she had only a second to take in the horrifying image before the creature was charging at her again. She pulled back on the control bar, banking sharply upward, trying to escape its reach, but was knocked to the ground anyway by one of its flailing arms...legs... whatever they were...
"Castle Control!" she screamed, practically banging on the touch screen. "Castle Control, this is Blue Lion, why won't you respond?" Lance, she thought as furiously as she ever had. Lance, we're in trouble. Keith's hurt, there's a Leviathan... "Koran? Anyone!"
Blue Lion tumbled backward from the blow, head over tail, but landed on all fours in a fierce roar, facing the creature dragging itself across the beach toward it, the ocean at the Lion's back.
"What do you know, cats really do always land on their feet," Nyle laughed softly, drunkenly. The poison must be spreading then. He did not sound entirely lucid. If she was going to get any help from him, from the last Water Mage on Planet Arus, she was going to have to do it soon, she realized grimly. She keyed in the command for an automatic distress signal, not just to Castle Control, but also to any ship that might be in the area.
"Let's hope they have nine lives, too," Allura said grimly, looking at Nyle over her shoulder. "Nyle? Nyle! I need your help."
"Mmmm. Not much good to you, I' afraid. A bit of a fuzzy head, you see."
"I need you to use your magic, somehow. Do something. Anything! But do it now, Nyle, or never at all." The Leviathan crawled its way towards them, ancient hate and rage boiling deep within its eyes. She readied herself to spring, to try for its throat this time, as Keith had done, trying to lure it away from the mangled form of Black Lion, away from the man she loved...
"Not that, Allura, it will crush you," Nyle said. His tongue sounded swollen. "Bait it into the water. Blue Lion was made for water. Not like Black Lion, or the others...It will not be able to crush you, as water does nothing but flow. Lure it out, into the deep... its throat will be bare to you, in the deep, with nothing to crush you against."
Of course, she thought, firing her thrusters and flying backwards, low, on level with the pounding waves, Blue Lion looking for all the world as if it were walking on water. "Can't you do anything? Call up a storm? Some sharks, or something, to help us fight it?"
"All have fled...everything, gone... including me, soon...Cat..." And when he started talking to his dead wife, she knew she was close to losing him. The baby, amazingly, stayed quiet throughout.
"Castle Control here," Koran's welcome voice said over the comm. system.
"Where the hell have you been?" she screamed, tensing herself as the monster slid into the ocean, rearing up halfway to try and grab her. She thrust backwards, moving further out. Like fishing...come on, beastie, take the nice Blue bait... "We need the Lions! We've got a Leviathan, and Keith... Black Lion's not responding...we need Voltron..."
"I'm afraid that's going to be a bit of a problem," Koran said, sounding as strained as she had ever heard him.
"Why?" she demanded. The Leviathan was more than halfway in the water now, and even reared up, its appendages flailing for her, it was still neck deep in the ocean. She inched backwards, and the creature followed, wild to get at her.
Allura? Lance said in her mind. She felt fear and rage in his thoughts.
Lance! I've been calling and calling! We need you...Keith's not moving...we're under attack...
I'm afraid that's going to be a bit of a problem, sweetheart, he thought.
Why? What are you talking about?
"Actually, Princess, we were hoping you and the commander could be back here in time to form Voltron as quickly as possible. You see, the castle is under attack," Koran said frantically.
"How bad?" she asked. The creature, nearly immersed completely now, actually jumped up at her, smacking her with one of its arms. For one horrible instant she was afraid it could fly, but then it sank back down, still only partially emerged.
"Robeast," Koran said, and Allura swore.
"I can't get any kind of response from Black Lion," Allura said. "The creature...crushed him, or something...he was trying to get us out...I'm alone, fighting this thing, and I don't think Black Lion can fly, the way it looks now." It was almost, almost, in the water all the way. Allura prepared herself to dive. She flipped her outside lights on, all of them. She could dive without them, but she wanted to make sure the creature could see her under the water. She hoped she could out-swim it. Under water battles weren't something she had trained for...yet.
"So...no Voltron?" Koran said flatly.
"I don't see how, at least, not for the next little while," she said, cutting all non-essential operations, hoping it would give her added power for her dive, for her frantic swim...
Take care, angel, Lance thought at her, and she was frightened by the sudden blankness of his thoughts. We'll be fine until you get here. Everything's going to be fine. We'll just hold this thing off until you get back, Black Lion in tow, and we'll have a great big old fish fry...
Lance!
Just take out that thing. Take care of yourself. Come back to us. His thoughts were fiery again, but something about them made her want to weep... I love you angel, you and him, both.
Lance!
Two things happened at once.
Lance's presence in her mind vanished.
And, choking back her fear, she dove, deep and hard, flying Blue Lion under the water in a diagonal direction, out into the deepest waters, and she was torn between sheer terror and exultation that it worked. The Leviathan was following her as Blue Lion headed into the depths like a drowning shooting star.
VVVVV
"We've never fought one of these without Voltron," Pidge said.
"We took out that squid thing during that last battle," Lance objected, ducking an oncoming Robeast swipe. Red Lion roared, blasting it with flames.
"What's wrong with Keith and the princess? What's the hold up?" Hunk asked.
They were staring directly at the largest, most powerful Robeast they had yet to see unleashed on Planet Arus. It was easily as broad across as the last three they had fought, put together, and its multiple arms had already sent each one of them spinning crazily towards the ground, bare inches from crashing. It was smarter than the other ones, as well. It refused to be baited out into the wasted lands surrounding the castle, heading, instead, directly for the structure itself, and for the fledgling town growing up beside it. Lance was worried. Very worried. And, knowing, now, about the situation Allura and Keith were in, that worry had been multiplied a thousand fold.
"They would be here if they could, you know that. We're just going to have to try. To either hold this one off for as long as it takes them to get here, or we're going to have to destroy this Robeast without the big guy."
"We should never have split the Force," Pidge said darkly, after a long silence. He was blasting the creature's midsection with lasers and torpedoes.
"We had Charlotte's L-22s that last time, and all five Lions were there, even if we hadn't formed Voltron yet," Hunk reminded him. As if he needed reminding. His stomach twisted at the mention of his sister, remembering how they had parted on less than ideal terms, then twisted again at the thought of her leading the charge of fighters out of the castle any minute now. Lance fired directly into the Robeast's eyes, and then swiped at its throat with his claws for good measure.
"I'm just pointing out that we've got some help, this time, and all we have to do is hold it off, keep it away from the castle..." Lance said, his heart sinking as he realized the massive Robeast was not heading away from the castle. Despite the three Lions throwing everything they had it, it moved steadily towards the shining titanium structure. "Where are those fighters? Command One, status report!" he barked. Enough was enough. His sister's fighters should have been here by now.
There was no answer.
"I said, Command One, report! Now, please! We haven't got all day..."
The Robeast was growing wilder, stomping as it approached the castle. Statues and newly restored fountains crushed into dust beneath its feet.
"Lieutenant McClain, this is Command Two, your sister's second in command..." said a strained and panicked voice over the comm. system.
"I know who you are," Lance said guardedly, his stomach sinking. He landed Red Lion on the Robeast's massive back, slashing at it while he burned it with his favorite weapons of all time, his Lion Torches. "Where in the hell is my sister, and why aren't you guys in the air?"
"We're having trouble with the L-22s, sir." The voice sounded even more panicked, if such a thing was possible. "None of them seem to be working."
"What?" all three Lion pilots exclaimed at once.
"That's not possible," Hunk asserted. "We just ran a systems check this morning..."
"And I ran another one right before that conference..." Pidge added, worry deeply etched in the young Green Lion pilot's voice.
That makes sense, Lance thought, caught between a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach and a growing sense of horror. That's where she is. There's some trouble with her fighters, so she's checking it out...
"All of them save one, sir," Charlotte's second-in-command added. "One of them is missing."
Lance felt as if had been punched in the gut. Focus, he told himself fiercely, trying to focus on the Robeast lumbering towards the castle, but he found it nearly impossible to process this news in the calm manner his commander seemed to possess, even in the worst battles. He hung onto the Robeast, clawing at it frantically, firing everything he had at the back of its head while it roared and tried to throw him off. He hung on grimly, not wanting to ask the questions he knew he had to.
Pidge beat him to it. "Where is your commander?" he asked, his voice a kind of flat calm rage Lance had never heard before. "Where is Charlotte?"
"We don't know," was the hesitant, even frightened, admission. "She never arrived, and then we found the L-22s inoperative, and she is not responding to her comm. unit."
Lance let loose a string of curses that surprised even him. "Find her, damn you! Or are you just going to stand there and gape at your damned useless hunks of scrap all day?" he raged.
"We've got people on it," was the cold reply. "We'll let you know as soon as we know something."
Lance wanted to let the Robeast step on the hangars and crush the idiot. He tried to focus through his haze of rage. "Kiari? Did you hear all that?"
"Yes, Lance, I am in Castle Control, monitoring the situation with Koran. You may not have L-22s, but you have other operative fighters, and they should be..."
Roughly one squadron of fighters, not the sleekly beautiful and classified L-22s, but advanced nonetheless, launched out of the hangars and flew straight for the oncoming Robeast. "Permission to engage directly," Saran's voice said calmly.
"In light of recent...events...I took the liberty of relieving your sister's staff of any kind of command position, and replaced them with someone I trust implicitly," Koran said smoothly as Saran's squadron of V-18s flew in tight groupings between the Robeast and the castle.
"Good," Lance said, relieved. "Pidge, Hunk, let's slice and dice this Robeast, as much as possible, concentrating on its lower half. Try to disable it, keep it from walking. Saran, you and your fighters blow the hell out of its upper half. Tear it apart."
"Yes, Lieutenant. My pleasure," the grizzled old warrior replied, before he began barking out a series of orders that had his fighters dividing into separate wings, each one aiming for a specific area of the Robeast's head. It roared and swatted the fighters like flies.
As he and Pidge and Hunk concentrated on its legs, trying to stop its steady march towards the castle, he addressed Castle Control once again. "Kiari? If you can... find my sister?"
Her voice, when she answered, was soft and deadly. She sounded as if she was running. "I am already doing so, fire of my heart," she said.
VVVVV
Allura drove Blue Lion harder than she had ever done before. Behind her, the Leviathan, in its natural element, followed her just as swiftly. Soon, she told herself, blades extending from Blue's mouth as she prepared to turn herself and grapple with the nightmare creature behind her. Not so close to the ocean floor that it can pin me, not so close to the shore that it can go back for Keith, she thought, breathing a silent prayer as she checked over Blue Lion's sensors. Almost, she thought. They were almost midway between the bottom of the Northern Sea's ocean floor and its surface.
"It's male," Nyle said suddenly, softly, the poison gathering ever closer to his heart. Still his daughter had not screamed. Allura wondered briefly if the man had drugged her, but knew Nyle would never do such a thing. The baby had been unnaturally quiet during the entire thing, for which Allura was grateful. She could not imagine trying to do what she was about to do, had been doing, with a screaming baby in her ear. I should have left them on the beach... but there was no time...
"Like me," he giggled. Allura cut her lights. "So like me... lost his wife..."
She looked up sharply. "Nyle? What are you talking about? Stay with me. Try to."
"I'm floating a bit, Allura Blue. Can pick up some thoughts. It thinks it's looking for its mate." Nyle laughed, as if at a great joke. "Aren't we all? Me, you, the Leviathan..."
Allura brought Blue Lion around sharply, counting on the Leviathan's confusion at her sudden disappearance to buy her a few precious seconds. "It has no mate, it's the last of its kind. Tell it, Nyle, if you can. If it can hear you...tell it the witch tricked it." She pulled Blue sharply to the left, making a tight circle around the creature, coming up underneath it, where, this time, there was nothing below them but water. No way to crush me now, you bastard, she thought. Unlike Keith...my Keith...
"So alike...the last Leviathan...last Water Mage..." Nyle rasped out.
Allura took no chances that Nyle would reach it, if that was what he was doing, if he wasn't just succumbing to the poison in his system. She shot up under the creature, surprising it, perhaps, and latched on to the thick hide of its throat, exactly where Keith had told her it was. Blue Lion thrust powerfully at the creature, and she slashed and slashed, the water around them darkening with a cloud of the creature's blood, as if they wrestled in a swirl of ink in the dark, deep waters. The creature's segmented arms came up around her, trying to crush her, but she only used that to her advantage, letting the crushing force push her blades even deeper into the creature's neck. Then it tried to shake her off, and she switched to using Blue Lion's claws and heavy metal jaws, biting and digging its way through the creature's neck. Allura, knowing the ocean floor was approaching, told herself she would not stop until she tore through the creature's throat entirely and came out the other side.
"Die," Nyle whispered. "Wants to..."
Blue Lion roared as it bit through the Leviathan's neck, its throat completely torn out. If she had not clawed her way completely through, the creature's lifeless body would have crushed her as they crashed against the bottom of the Northern Sea. For one stunned second, Allura took a deep breath, hardly daring to believe. Then she pulled back on Blue Lion's controls, headed back to the surface, back to the man she loved and the wreckage of his Lion.
VVVVV
"We have full power to the castle's shields," Koran told him as the Robeast, assaulted from all sides, continued lumbering onward despite its massive injuries. Its legs were cut to shreds, and Lance had succeeded in burning one of its feet completely off. Pidge and Hunk had cut off its other foot, but the thing dragged itself forward, despite missing an arm, now, and most of its face, courtesy of Saran's fighters. The Robeast tottered onward on bloody stumps, destroying everything in its path, everything he and his friends had worked so hard to build...
And that, to Lance, was not even the worst thing. Statues could be remade. Trees could grow again. But lives were irreplaceable.
"Have you evacuated the castle?" Lance asked.
"Already done. Everyone is safe in the old cave systems, even Med Center," Koran told him. Then he asked the question he did not want to ask, the question he was afraid he already knew the answer to. "Kiari? Anything to report?" The Robeast had reached the castle now, and was pounding against its walls like a child throwing a tantrum. The castle's gun turrets were unmanned; they could not fire, anyway. The Robeast hit nothing but the castle's shields, which stood strong against the impact of its fists. That's the thing about force fields, Lance thought bitterly, thinking of his sister, her walls and her secrets, the pain she held inside, her ever present guards. Nothing gets in, but nothing gets out, either.
"Fireheart," she said, trying to remind him of his bravery before she told him. He was going to need it. "Your sister is gone. She is nowhere in the castle. Four of her guards have been shot dead in the corridor outside your quarters. One of them is missing. One of the stealth fighters is missing, as well. One that could carry two people. There were signs of a struggle, including scraps of your clothing, and a blaster, small enough for the hands of a girl, that had blood across the bottom of the handle." Her words fell into the gulf of a shocked silence, even as the Robeast beat against the castle's shields and they continued to hit it with all that they could.
It's literally falling to pieces, now, and still, nothing's stopping it, Lance thought absently. Oh, and Charlotte's missing. My clothes. She was wearing my clothes. And blood, on her blaster...
"No," Pidge whispered, horrified.
"It is my fear that she has been taken. This has all the marks of Doom upon it," Kiari said, determined to spell out the situation completely. "I am so sorry, love. We will find her, and get her back, I swear it with my life..."
Lance noticed that the Robeast had stepped on Allura's garden. Sudden, illogical rage bloomed within him. "No Doom scum steps on Allura's garden," he said, and he found, to his surprise, that he was actually weeping. "Not that, and Charlotte too," he whispered.
"Shields are failing," Koran said desperately.
Allura. Keith. We need you. I need you...
The Robeast, with a roar of triumph, watched as its stump of a right arm crashed into the eastern tower of the castle. The tower that housed Saran's family, that housed his mother, and his sis... he couldn't finish the thought. The tower that crumbled and crashed beneath the onslaught of the mangled thing that refused to quit.
Lance? He heard Allura's voice in his mind. We're coming, we're flying fast, but it's not good, I'm afraid...Keith's not conscious, and he's pretty banged up, and Black Lion is going to need repairs...
"So no Voltron?" he asked, tears streaming down his face. Saran's team took desperate dives at the thing with their fighters, but still it swung, the eastern tower almost nothing but a pile of rubble now.
"No, I don't see how," Allura's voice flooded the cockpit, flooded everyone's comm. system. "And we're going to need Med Center up here as well, with a full trauma evac team, maybe two..." He noticed the edge of hysteria to her voice, then.
"That's going to be a problem, princess," Koran said. "We haven't been able to stop this Robeast, and it's not safe to land."
"No," Lance said, his mind suddenly latching onto a solution, maybe the only one. "Allura wants Med Center, she gets Med Center," he insisted, pulling Red Lion around the castle in a fast, sharp circle. He pulled up an infrared scan of the Robeast's body, looking for its heart, a pulsing mass of flesh, blood, and circuitry. I love you, angel, he thought to Allura. "I love you too, Firecat," he said to Kiari. He cut off his comm. system entirely to the sound of Kiari's cry of alarm. That'll teach her to give me stupid nicknames, he thought, suddenly in a strangely good mood, determined to save the people and the planet he had come to love as best he could. Even though he had failed her...He increased his speed until he was flying Red as fast as he ever had, thinking about the nickname he had picked up here, the one he hated. Fireheart. He smiled bitterly, realizing, now, how much it fit him. Or was about to... And then he drove Red Lion, claws extended, jaws open, straight into the Robeast's electric heart at a speed that would have made Pidge's instrument panels explode. As its pulsing mass of flesh and metal exploded around him, he felt fire, real fire, all around him, all through him, and he felt himself falling down and backward, and he knew the creature had fallen with him, away from the castle, and then, after a pain so intense he could not even think it, he knew nothing but darkness.
VVVVV
"She's so good," Kiari marveled, holding the baby in the crook of her arm. "She's going to look just like him. Blue eyes and everything."
"I know," Allura agreed, peeking into her friend's arms. "She stayed so quiet when we fought the Leviathan that I thought she was drugged, or even dead, or something." She dangled a bit of ribbon in front of the child, who gurgled happily and reached for it.
"No," Kiari laughed, amused that her friend knew so little about little ones. "She's just very, very good. It stands to reason, too. Have you ever known anyone as easy-going as Nyle?"
Allura had to admit she hadn't. "He was even making cat jokes, in the middle if the fighting."
"Do you want to hold her?" Kiari offered.
"No," Allura said, a little regretfully. "Visiting to do."
Her friend nodded. "As do I. Let me give this little one over to the chaotic loving care of Saran's household, and I will join you." The red haired woman walked up the corridor, away from Med Center, holding the infant close and singing a low, tuneless lullaby. Allura's heart ached, watching her. She wished Dr. Gorma would allow infants in Med Center beyond certain hours. It did Nyle so much good to see Kate.
He was sitting up in bed, his shoulder wrapped in layers of gauze, a book in his hand that failed to absorb his attention. She always stopped in to see him first, because he was the least injured. They had leached the poison from his body with a combination of transfusions and omnibiotics, and his color was almost completely back to normal. He missed his daughter, and insisted she be with him whenever possible, caring for her mostly by himself. As Allura had suspected, he had the nurses all aflutter, this beautiful, injured, brooding man who so clearly loved and cared for his adorable baby daughter by himself. "It's kind of sickening, really," he told her. He liked peace and quiet, and couldn't understand what everyone found so fascinating about watching him hold a bottle for Kate.
"You're going to start a trend," she told him, laughing. "All the single guys around here are going to start carrying around babies. They're better than puppies for getting the girls." He frowned at her, clearly not wanting to 'get the girls,' or to think of his daughter on the same level as a puppy. But she knew, with his violet-blue eyes, long, sun-streaked hair, and aura of tragic romance, that he was going to have a hard time fighting them off. He truly had no idea how attractive he was. And what was even more amazing was that he didn't care.
He was easier to see because he was awake, and smiling, and she didn't love him like she did the other two. But she didn't stay long, tonight. Tonight, her heart pulled her onward.
Keith lay hooked up to a number of machines and monitors, swathed in bandages around his head, chest, and arms. He remained unconscious, his system pumped full of pain killing drugs. She knew he would hate that, but there was no help for it. With a concussion, an arm broken in two places, numerous cracked and broken ribs, a broken collarbone, and a myriad of internal injuries, which had been mostly fixed by now, thank goodness, there was simply no way to avoid pain meds.
She smiled at her big, tough soldier. It was easiest in here, because she loved him the most, and because she knew he was going to recover as soon as his bones mended, and be back to his old self. She had already had several confusing conversations with him, due to his head injury, but they were conversations nonetheless. She smiled, brushing his black hair out of his eyes. She kissed him gently on the lips, one of the few places he wasn't bandaged or bruised, before she left to face the most difficult part of her visits.
The room was always dark, no matter the time of day. A nurse was on guard at all times outside the door. She had a very short list of people who were allowed to visit on that list, and the nurse stuck to it strictly. No more than two people were allowed in the room at the same time, and this included Dr. Gorma. Allura nodded at the pretty young nurse before walking over to the large sink outside the room, scrubbing her hands for the required ten minutes, using a brush on her nails until her hands and arms felt raw. She slipped into a long sleeved coat that fell well past her knees and pushed into the small room where she waited for the computer to scan her for infectious microbes and the oxygen level in the chamber increased sharply. When the light in the room bathed her with a soft green glow, the door clicked open and she slipped inside. She did this several times a day, every day, and it was still hard not to cry when she saw him.
A rectangular tank sat in the exact middle of the room, filled with a cloudy fluid that Dr. Gorma told her was a mixture of omnibiotics, pain killers, and flesh reconstructing micro-organisms. Immersed completely in the fluid, tubes attached to his mouth and nose so that he could breathe, floated Lance, her knight in the battered leather jacket, who had flown his Lion into the heart of a Robeast to keep it from destroying their castle and their loved ones. It had worked, almost destroying him instead, covering over three quarters of his body with third degree burns and sending Red Lion to the repair bay for a very long time. Longer, even, than Black Lion. She wanted so badly to touch him, to hold him, but Dr. Gorma told her it could be days, maybe weeks, before he could leave the tank, and then there would be the reconstructive surgeries. Her hands formed into fists. Damn Doom to hell and back.
Hey there, came his gently fuzzy voice in her mind. She thought sometimes that it was more painful that he could talk to her, that he was awake in there somewhere throughout this whole painful process.
Hey there back, she thought, her eyes suddenly bright with tears.
How is everybody?
Much the same, she told him. Keith is mending, but not really lucid. Nyle can't wait to get out of this place and find some romantic spot to brood...
She felt his laughter in her mind. Thanks for coming, Allura. I know it can't be easy.
That made her cry even harder. You're worried that it's hard for me to visit, while you have to live here? For something I should have prevented? I should never have split the Force like that...
It wasn't just you, you know. I practically threw you two out the door...
She was silent, caught between blushing and tears.
I miss you, Lance. And I'm sorry.
Don't be sorry, angel. I'd do it again, if I had to. They sat for a while, thinking separate thoughts, before he asked the inevitable question. Have they found her?
No, sweetheart, not yet. But they will. We will. We have every available resource on it, and so do many other planets, including Galaxy Garrison. Anyone with any ties to your family business is looking for her, and that's a lot of powerful people. We'll find her, and when we do, gods above help the poor bastards.
No, he thought coldly. He's mine. That bastard is mine, and this time, I'm going to finish it.
She shivered. Well, you'd better hurry up and get better then. Besides, things are way too dull, without you around...I'm tired of winning at poker...
VVVVV
She awoke to find her clothing gone, replaced by something thin, and a terrible knot throbbing at the base of her skull. She was flat on her back between silken sheets and some kind of heavy coverlet.
Why is it so hard to move my arms? I feel like I'm crawling through honey...is it my head? Did I hit it? But she didn't think she was in Med Center. She had been there, many times, with her mother. It was bright there, and you wore hospital gowns, and people brought you juice.
She tried to move, to sit up, and couldn't. She moaned in frustration. She was so thirsty. She wanted to call out, to ask for something to drink, but it was hard, so hard...
Suddenly she felt the bed dip on one side as someone sat down beside her. Someone large. "How are you, my dear? Waking up at last?" the person asked. The words were polite, but there was something wrong with them. With the voice.
"Thirsty," she managed to whisper.
"Of course," said her companion. "How rude of me." Suddenly a smaller person was on the bed with her, on the other side, lifting her head gently, mindful of the injury, holding a large cup full of something that tasted like wine to her lips. She wanted water, but whatever it was, it was wet, so she drank greedily, almost sloppily. "Better?" her companion asked.
"Yes, thank you," she said.
"We'll have you dressed in something more...suitable...very soon, my lady. The rags in which you arrived...well, they simply won't do."
"I see," she said, although she didn't. She realized, suddenly, that she was laying in a bed with a total stranger perched beside her. She froze, as she always did when she was afraid or vulnerable.
"I'm afraid I must ask you something, something personal and perhaps uncomfortable," he said smoothly, for she had realized, to her mounting terror, that it was a he. Hands that were pale in the darkness with manicured nails reached up and folded back the top of her coverlet and sheet, exposing the top part of her arms and her shoulders to the air. "Can you tell me who did this to you, my lady? Who gave you these injuries?" He reached under the coverlet and pulled out her arms so that they lay exposed as well, her wounds laid bare to his eyes, the rest of her carefully covered. She shook her head mutely no. "Ah, I see. You are ashamed to speak of it. Rest assured that I had the guard who abducted you killed for the crime. It was not his to commit. I had hoped your first such experience would be different, and certainly not involve a common criminal..."
She shook her head with difficulty, completely confused. "Abducted? Killed?" she whispered. "Who?" She took a deep breath. Something very strange and wrong was going on. "My mother did this to me," she whispered.
"Oh," he said, surprised. "Are you quite sure? The doctor did a very thorough examination of you, my dear, and found evidence that such an...incident...had once occurred."
She was tired of being confused, so she struggled to sit up, only to fall back on the pillow immediately. "Where am I?" she demanded. "And what are you talking about? What crime? Besides kidnapping me and drugging me?"
Her companion turned yellow slitted eyes on her, and she froze again. "My lady, you are on Planet Doom, and I am Crown Prince Lotor. The crime to which I am referring is the violation of your body, which I had hoped to reserve for my own exclusive use. Perhaps I had the wrong person killed..." he mused.
She laughed, short and bitter, surprising him. Doom. Prince Lotor. There is nothing you can do to me, she thought, that hasn't already been done. "Yes, you did have the wrong person killed."
"I see," he said, yellow eyes gleaming in the darkness. She felt his hands on her neck, squeezing suddenly. "It does little to lower your value, considering who you are, the ties you have, the ransom you will fetch, the revenge you will bring, but tell me, my lady, who was it?" He squeezed harder, and she found it hard to breathe.
She choked, and he released her throat slightly. When she told him, Lotor, Crown Prince of Doom, destroyer of planets and scourge of the Denubian Galaxy, almost felt sorry for her.
