A/N SCHOOL IS OUT! AND I'VE DONE MY PIANO EXAM! WOOOOO!

But yeah I've just been watching creepy mystery videos how did I get to them? It's like the time I found Secrets of Wysteria OH GOD NO-

I changed the story's pic to one I did of the Lionesses, but it's kinda small? I might post it somewhere else later. Anyway, here's more of Red's storytime!


Another Mess

Set back when keef still piloted Red *sighs* ah, the good old days…

Red squealed as she eagerly hopped over to her massive collection of weapons and placed a royal purple, stylish dagger onto one of the shelves.

She sighed, a tear forming in her eye, "We got it, Keith. We… WE GOT ZARKON'S ASCENSION DAGGER! WAHOOOOOO!"

As she bounded about the room (too) excitedly, Keith couldn't help but stare in awe at the beautiful murder weapon.

He sighed too, violet eyes gazing longingly into the reflection its blade gave off, "Damn, who even gave this to that evil bastard?"

Red had run out of fuel by now and had rolled daintily over onto her bed, gazing at the dagger just as her Paladin was doing. She whispered nostalgically, "Ah, it was actually a gift from the rest of the Paladins of the time." There was a pause until she finally continued. "Y'know, Zarkon wasn't always such a bad guy. And fuck did he give the bloody best head pats…! He could make Alfor feel like a lil loli."

Keith pondered the idea of an evil emperor such as Zarkon sitting and smiling, petting Kuro as she purred softer than anyone could think possible for such a stern soul. He frowned; it didn't seem possible. Then his thoughts returned to when he had to teach Shiro how to pet Kuro – he picked it up easily, and yet Kuro barely blinked in appreciation.

He shook his head, "Damn, that cat is a pampered princess and a half, ain't she?"

"Eh, I'd say the princess is Azul. But the pompous, bigoted queen? Yeh that's Kuro. I'd still take her over the princess any day though."

Keith raised a brow, asking with a chuckle, "Which princess?"

"Oh, all of 'em apart from Lance. He's adorable."

They both giggled at that; Lance was definitely a princess.

But speaking of the queen, she stepped into the room just at that moment. She looked around before asking, "Has anyone seen Shiro's eyeliner? Apparently it's the last one so he doesn't want to waste it."

Keith answered, "Well, I doubt it would be in the Lions' room…"

At this, Kuro looked Red dead in the eye, who just shrugged innocently. Fortunately for the latter, she avoided interrogation as Kuro's eyes glided over to the dagger that had just been added to the collection on the wall. Her eyes widened and glistened as she gasped.

"Alright, what mess did you two make this time?"

Red replied sharply, "Oh and what makes you instantly think we've done something bad?"

"Because that's Zarkon's royal ascension dagger; you must've had hell to go through before you got it." And you'll have more hell to go through if you don't explain right now, Kuro's piercing glare seemed to say.

The Red pair sweat-dropped; an angry Kuro was not what they needed at this very moment, after a long hard day of destroying Galra ships to retrieve that dagger – okay, so they did make a mess. But oh well! This is the hot-headed loner and the weapon-crazed Galra-killer, that's literally the mathematical formula that creates 'mess' – and Pidge would agree. Very much.

Red held up her arms in defence, "Whoa okay, let me explain?"

Keith nodded, "Yeah, Red's better at explaining than me."

Kuro didn't seem to care, she simply nodded as if for them to get it over with – and so they did. Admittedly, they did so quite cautiously and Red did try to omit a few events, which Keith awkwardly corrected, earning yet more death glares from Kuro.

-o-O-o-

"Soooo… why are we attacking a full Galra fleet again?"

"Well, you were training in hard mode and kicking a hellluva lotta robot arse, so I thought we could put those muscles of yours to good use!"

Keith sighed in his seat as he navigated the cosmos, enemy ships popping up all over his radar ahead. He repeated his question, this time more bluntly, "Yes, but why?"

Red giggled manically (never a good sign) and simply answered: "Oh, you will soon see."

Keith deliberately scraped past an asteroid, at which Red yelped and Keith smirked, "You'd better have a damn good reason for all of this…" and he pounced at the fleet, lasers blasting full power.

It was surprisingly easy to take them by surprise – Keith suspected Red had known they'd be an easy target despite their size. She confirmed this as she let out yowls of victory.

"PISS OFF, Y' PURPLE LITTLE BUGGERS!" She paused, correcting herself. "Err, well, you're not all pruple little buggers, of course, but these guys are! Fools thought they could lower security on the smaller stuff in order to prioritise the search for the lions, but noooo here I am! More ships means more scattered security, so let's get to work on devouring these motherfuckers!"

Keith was both impressed and frightened by his lion's choice of speech and mannerism, but eh. To be completely honest, he couldn't have said it better himself.

Red let out a roar as they charged the ships, the Lioness only leaving one in piece. Apparently, that was 'the one' and they had to retrieve a special item from it that the Galra were meant to be guarding.

"Quintessence?"

Red scoffed at her pilot, "Mate, it's way better."

He didn't have time for more questions as Red lunged forward by herself and broke into the ship.

The suction threatened to pull them back out into space as Red informed her Paladin, "Keith, I'm gonna spit you out in three… two…"

Keith blinked, "Wait, you're gonna what?!"

But his shouts were lost in the vacuum of space. He'd managed to scramble into the next compartment as one of the Galra sentries slammed the gate shut.

No time to dick around; Keith summoned his Bayard's sword and began slicing the enemies like fruit, like a Fruit Ninja. These sentries weren't half as badass as the castle's hard mode – and not even a fraction of the extreme mode. Or maybe Keith was just exceptionally talented at kicking Robot ArseTM (I'm trademarking that aww yea)

As this went on, Red had a mission of her own. No way was she gonna let reinforcements arrive or let the bastards wormhole away – not on her watch! She broke into another place on the ship and transformed into her humanoid form as she forward-rolled through the closing gate.

Et voila! The control room.

One of the pilots sounded the alarm as the lights dimmed, leaving only the fewer red lights to shine light on their surroundings. This only served to make Red's appearance more ominous.

Markings that usually weren't there – light blue and luminescent – glowed across her arms, face and tail. Her bright yellow eyes shone gold in the dark like those of the Galra themselves. She grinned, revealing white fangs, protruding more than usual, and spread her claw-like fingers.

"I'm afraid you can't run and you can't hide, fellas."

-o-O-o-

As it turns out, Keith was only super-effective against Robot ArseTM and, at best, he was ~eh~ against actual Galra soldiers. Usually this was the part where Shiro would charge in and beat the shit out of 'em with his epic glowing arm and make the fangirls go wild, but no. Keith was the one who needed to make the fangirls go wild this time (about four seasons too early) and he couldn't afford to disappoint (not that anyone was actually disappointed though, Keith was still pretty hot not gonna lie).

The soldier (yes, singular) was a snake-like woman, with purple scales and white patterns, who hissed at Keith's every move. She was relentless and showed no mercy, sacrificing plenty of sentries to distract Keith as she bounded off the walls in a zigzag attack pattern. Of course, it didn't take Keith long to catch on and interrupt her mid-air; he slashed her leg and she collapsed to the floor. She tried to get up several times, each time failing – her other leg had a twisted ankle. She then tried to scramble for one of the destroyed sentry's blasters. Keith halted her by stepping on her hand. She held back a yelp of pain, instead shooting Keith a glare dead in the eyes.

The glare almost spoke: "Victory or death."

Keith's eyes widened in realisation. This was a war.

People died.

People killed.

Just how many soldiers had died in those other ships? In all the ships Voltron had previously destroyed? What was so different killing face-to-face and not? Keith was not a coward. He nodded, reluctantly, and with one swift strike ended her fight.

He was no monster and he gave her a moment of silence.

Red's voice abruptly broke the air, "Keith, I'm all sorted here. Have you retrieved the item yet?"

Keith's thoughts suddenly snapped back to the present situation. "Shit, no? Where the hell's it supposed to be?"

"Ah, too many questions, my good Paladin! But yeah, it's basically the next door across from where you are."

He barged into the next room, bracing himself for another onslaught of sentries or soldiers. Nothing came at him. He blinked, his eyes adjusting to the dim, red-tinted lighting. He gazed around and found artefacts of all sorts, all appearing to be of different cultures – different planets, even.

He furrowed his brows, confused as to why such a ship would exist and why the Galra would even keep so much of this… stuff. "What is this, a trophy room or something?"

"OH GOD ENOUGH WITH THE QUESTIONS! But yeah."

Now Keith was starting to get a little irritated with his lion's bad attitude, "Don't snap at me Red, I just fucking murdered someone for this. It better be worth it."

Red took a breath as if to make a point that they've killed before, but realised it'd be wiser to keep her mouth shut. Her master hadn't had to murder someone up close before.

She asked if he could see a bright light ahead, not very far-reaching but bright and green. As he walked ahead, he could see another light. It was a crystal, similar to those of the Balmera, but this time green, glowing and rounded off – it didn't jut out like most crystals, the ends were rounded like opals. It was like a bunch of green, luminous opals had merged together in a huge crystal formation, and it was truly stunning.

"Whoa." Keith let out a small sigh.

Red replied almost smugly, "I told you it was better than Quintessence. That there is an Aetherite, one of the only three left in the universe. It was a unique crystal power source only found deep into the crust of Daibazaal. The other two are powering Galra Central Command, so I thought we could manage to snag this – think of the ship we could build outta that, huh?! Bloody hell, it'd be amazing."

It had been worth it. That is, until Red added, "And, uh, could you grab a violet dagger if you come across it?"

Keith had seen a purple dagger and had the nagging feeling that Red just wanted to complete her collection, but even so, a haul this big? It was worth the risk.

-o-O-o-

Red had managed to meet up with Keith and fortunately the room was big enough for her to transform into her lion form (not that she was the biggest of the lions – Kuro nor Melyn would've been able to fit in that room). Keith had prioritised the crystal, tying it to one of Red's legs so she could take most of the weight and pull it in. It was an awkward job, but with a wiggle and a jump Red managed to get it in. Keith then took the dagger and, as there was plenty of room still left in the lion, they ended up taking back a whole pile of… stuff.

Keith looked back at the pile uncertainly, "Are you sure we can just take all this, Red?"

Red sensed the doubt and lingering guilt on her Paladin's mind, but it couldn't be helped. This was a war and things like this, much worse than this, were inevitable. She sighed, "Keith. It's hard, but… You attack, you succeed, you plunder. Those are the three rules of warfare. Even Alfor, who was undoubtedly a man of peace, took part in his fair share of wars. He killed people, we killed people."

He sighed, nodding in understanding. "I know, it's just… like it hasn't sunk in yet, you know?"

She purred in return; her master acted all tough and emo, but really he was just a big softie. "Aww, get in so we can get back to the Castle where I can give you the biggest hug in the universe!"

-o-O-o-

"…And that's that!"

Kuro seemed unconvinced, "Really? Show me the crystal."

Red rolled her eyes, but did as she was told. She strolled over to the pile of… stuff in the corner. With a great tug, she pulled a silk cloth off one of the objects, revealing the object to be the crystal, shining bright as ever.

She commented wistfully, "Shame they don't use these much anymore – the other two are basically crumbling away at Central Command. They're all about Quintessence this and Quintessence that nowadays."

Kuro chuckled at Red's unusually serious attitude, "You sound like a groggy old man."

Keith replied to Red's rant, "Well, I guess lime green is trademark Disney villains, so they had to settle on purple?"

The Lionesses blinked at him, absolutely no clue what he was going on about. The boy blushed slightly, shrugging at them, "What? It's just a thought!"

Kuro sighed, "Well, at least none of you had to fight in the Astral Plane… and Red, please just give Shiro his eyeliner."

Red grumbled, letting out a tight 'fiiiiine' through her teeth. Keith had wondered why she looked scarier today – her bright yellow eyes had been outlined, making them stand even more.

Damn did it feel good to be on this side.


A/N idk it started innocently but then killing happened so I panicked and thought 'oh shit it wasn't meant to be this deep asdjskljfskjfh' so I added some weird inspirational stuff. But honestly, S6 made death seem commonplace (I mean now that Allura is Miss Plot Armour who revived not one but TWO PEOPLE) and excuse my shitty fight scenes I can't write them. And the blue markings are like those on the actual lion, but they only appear when the Lionesses get super pissed, and not the drunken kind.

Also, I just realised that S7 PREMIERES IN A WEEK! WHAT?!

I should do some Lance stuff for JuLance… but really I should make these shorter…