"On no!" Pidge yelled.
"Please tell me there's not a giant monster in there. Please tell me it's empty!" Hunk begged. "Or full of space candy. One of those two, either one is fine!"
"I don't think it's a piñata, Hunk." Lance said.
"If it's the same kind of monster that attacked us on Arus, we already know how to beat it." Keith said confidently.
"I don't think Zarkon would be dumb enough to use the same kind of monster as before." Sakura stated, just as she said that the machine opened to reveal an even nastier looking monster. The face looked like an anglerfish, arms that resembled flat tentacles and covered in red armor. The eyes lit in green when it looked right at Voltron. The beasts chest circle also glowed in green, and it shot a green beam at Voltron.
Pidge defended them with the shield, but the beam was more powerful and Voltron is shoved back.
"THAT'S NOT CANDY!" Hunk screamed with panic in his voice.
"AND IT'S NOT THE SAME MONSTER!" Lance screamed with panic.
Another beam tried to hit them, but Voltron dodges. Instead it hit the Balmera.
"We need to draw its fire away from the Balmera's surface!" Shiro commanded.
The monster hit again, another powerful laser hit Voltron's shield head on. It repeated firing at Voltron, getting more tougher to avoid the shots. The sword was summoned and tried to slice, but the armor was too hard and it kept shooting.
"We can't hold out!" Lance cried out.
"My Lion's weakening! if the shield sustains structural damage, we're done for!" Pidge stated.
"Pidge is right!" Sakura said.
"Oh Pidge's right? I'm the one who said, we can't hold out!" Lance complained.
"Lance! Watch your footing!" Before Lance could hear Keith, Blue Lion tripped over a rock, and Voltron falls over, losing its shield.
The Paladins groan from the fall. Sakura rubbed her right arm, biting her lower lip hard.
"Ok ... Team Voltron, disband." Shiro commands. "Everyone evasive maneuvers. It can't shoot us all at once."
They seperate, letting Lions fly around. But the monster spread its arms, which are covered in laser cannons, and some shoot out into the air, aiming at the Lions.
"Holy shit!" Sakura gasped, her face covered in sweat.
"Ok ... it can do that too." Shiro muttered as the Lions tried to evade all the lasers. Just like before, the monster gave them a lot of trouble. Suddenly, a blue beam of light shot from the sky, nailing the monster in its back. The clouds parted to reveal the Castle Of Lions descending with its barrier up. The monster turned, fixing its gaze onto the castle and firing its chest laser.
"Keith, try to draw its fire! I'm coming in from above!" Shiro said.
"Roger!"
Red Lion flew down low, firing it's heat ray to draw the monster's attention, while Black Lion sneaks in from behind, prepared to fire its mouth cannon. The monster is able to rotate an eye cannon around and blast Black Lion, Black Lion pulls away at the last second to avoid the hit.
"That thing has an eye on the back of it's head!" Sakura complained as she flew Purple Lion in a zigzag to avoid lasers that were coming at her.
"We need to find its blind spot!" Lance called out as he did the same with Blue Lion.
"Blind spot!? This thing has a thousand eyes!" Pidge retorted.
"Laser eyes! Laser eyes!" Hunk cried as Yellow Lion frantically swerved between beams as it flew past the monster.
"I think we've got to aim for those laser eyes and take them out." Keith suggested, with Red Lion doing multiple twists and turns, trying to avoid the lasers.
"We'll cover you from up here!" Allura promised. The castle began firing several attacks on the monster. It stumbled, turning to face the castle, and opened it's arms out to shoot several beams from its chest, then its arms.
"Princess, pull back! Get out of its range, now!" Shiro ordered.
"We will not abandon you!" Allura yelled, defying the order.
"You're not abandoning us. We're about to pull back anyway." Shiro informed.
"We are?" Hunk asked.
"Lions, to the mine shafts! It's the only place the monster can't get us." Shiro commands.
"Copy!" Sakura nods.
"Roger that!" Pidge replied.
"Heading into orbit!" Allura informs, the castle begins to pull away from the monster's range as the Lions enter the mines. Shiro, Keith, Hunk, and Sakura went down into the shaft to meet up with Shay's family as they exit their Lions.
"What is happening?" Rax anxiously asked, looking at the four.
"There's a monster up there that Zarkon sent to destroy us." Keith explained.
"A monster? Will Zarkon's savagery never abate? Perhaps our people were never meant to be free." Shay said defeated, as she cried in her father's arms.
"There is always hope, Shay." Sakura told her gently, with Hunk bobbing his head.
"Yeah! Don't give up. Zarkon's power grows with every planet he conquers, but he's weakened by every being that fights back." He said.
"Fight back? Against a monster like that? How?" Shay asked in a desperate tone, her father letting her go and her eyes growing wide.
"I don't know, but we can beat it. Tell her Keith." Hunk looked to Keith, asking for reassurance, but he just gave an unsure gaze back.
"Can we?" Keith muttered, raising an eyebrow.
"Yes, we can! This is our first mission and we're not going to fail. We just need some time to come up with plan." Shiro replied.
"See? Told you can." Hunk said confidence. "Thanks Shiro."
Suddenly the Balmera groans in pain and the ground starts to shake. Shay's grandmother places her hand on the cracked ground, and the Balmera stills.
"That great noise comes from the Balmera itself. Our home crumbles beneath our feet. The Balmera is dying." Rax gravely said.
"Coran, Allura. Are you there?" Shiro asks through the linkcom.
"Shiro, we're here." Allura answered.
"The Balmera."- Shiro started.
"We already know. Our scanners are showing the life energy draining from the Balmera." Coran informs. "Removing crystals from a Balmera is like removing a vital part of the mighty beast. The Balmera needs time to regenerate itself to stay healthy, but the Galra's greed may have cost this noble Balmera its life."
"So, what's gonna happen?" Hunk asked, uncertain.
"Its core will collapse, destabilizing the entire skeletal structure. Anything or anyone remaining on the Balmera at that point will be crushed into dust." Coran informs, and everyone freezes and eyes wide.
"How long before its core collapses?" Sakura asks.
"Probably a matter of hours. The mighty organism willingly gives itself to all, but not all return its kindness." Coran answered.
"Then our time is short. We'll evacuate the planet. We need to get all the Balmerans to the Castle Of Lions before the planet implodes." Allura said firmly.
"Ok, that sounds like a good plan." Hunk replies. "But how on Earth do you plan on landing the castle with that monster- thingy on the surface?"
"You'll need a distraction." Pidge informs.
"We'll engage the beast in our Lions. With it distracted, Allura and Coran will land the Castle and load all of its citizens." Shiro said.
"Or we could load Balmerans into our Lions a few at a time and shuttle them to the ship." Lance suggested. "No engaging ferocious laser-eye guy. How long would that take?"
"Days? Weeks?" Coran's answer shot down Lance's suggestion.
"We only have hours." Keith said.
"Look, we don't need to beat this thing. We just need to bait it away from the ship. Provoke and evade." Shiro said.
"Okay, here's the thing. I'm worried that we're going to be really, really good at the provoking part, and then like really bad at the evading part. But if—if this is what it takes to save Shay and everyone on the planet, then I'm in." Hunk said with a serious expression.
Sakura turns to Shay. "Can you contact the other Balmerans, Shay?"
"I can ... but I know not what they'll say. Leave the planet? Our home?" Shay answered sadly.
"It's the only option." Allura said. "I'm coming down!"
"You're what?" Sakura's eyes grew. "That's not a good idea!"
"Sakura's right. That thing will spot your pod and blow it to pieces." Pidge warns.
"Let me worry about that. You just focus on keeping the creature distracted." Allura ordered.
XxXxXx
The Lions soared out of the mining shaft. Immediately the monster spotted all of them. An started shooting, trying to lead it away from the mines for room for Allura. The monster used it's boosters to catch up towards the Lions, shooting more beams.
"Ok, we're provoked. Time to evade!" Hunk yelled, his Lion flying at a high pace with the monster chasing him.
"Princess, we're lured the monster away. It's time!" Shiro calmly informed.
"I'll contact you all when I'm on the ground." Allura said.
Soon, the Lions turned their heads the pod. "Is that Allura?" Lance questioned, just before the monster turned it's robotic eye on her.
"It spotted her!" Sakura cried.
"We gotta protect the Princess!" Hunk yells. Yellow, and Purple Lions fly down but get hit by a laser, Black Lion jumped on the monster's head, Lance shot an ice bean at it's head when Black Lion jumped off, but the monster easily shot the ice away. The monster shot a laser at Red Lion, who dodged.
"I'm on the ground!" Allura told her friends. A few seconds the castle started coming down near the shafts.
"Hurry! I don't know how long we can hold this thing off!" Shiro called.
Purple Lion flew towards the monster, grabbing the left arm in it's mouth. The monster looked at Purple Lion before swing hard and shooting at the Lion.
"Ahhh!" Sakura cried, eyes closed tightly as Purple Lion summersaulted through the air, at the same time getting hit with lasers.
"Sakura!" Keith yelled, flying his Lion towards her. Purple Lion finally got back to it's feet just as Red and Blue Lions stood side-side to protect her as they shot back at the monster.
Sakura rubbed the side of her helmet, both Lance and Keith appeared on her screen.
"Sakura, are you ok?" Lance asked.
"Peachy king." She nodded.
"Your Lion ok?" Keith asked.
"She's fine." Sakura smiled with a nod.
"Castle Of Lions, coming in! Paladins, how are you holding up?" Coran suddenly asks through the comlink.
"I think we've got him pretty distracted." Keith said. "Are the Balmerans in position?"
"They're making their way to the top." Allura answered.
The castle landed near a mine. The monster's lasers hit the Balmera and it let out a loud moan.
"Every hit weakens the Balmera. Have you evacuated yet? What's happening?" Hunk asked.
"The Balmerans are trapped. Just keep distracting that beast." Coran said.
"Uh, do you want us to distract it by getting ourselves killed? Because that's what's gonna happen!" Hunk cried out.
"Guys, remember when I said we didn't have to beat it?" Shiro asked.
"Yes, I remember that." Hunk said.
"Well, we have to beat it." Shiro replied with no panic at all in his voice.
XxXxXx
"Guys, this isn't working. We'll never take this beast down in our Lions." Keith stated.
"Well, forming Voltron didn't work, either." Pidge reminded him.
"Not without a way to shoot all those laser eyes at once." Lance replied.
"You wanna share with the class, Lance?" Sakura asked him.
"Guys! Guys, something's happening here! I-I think there is a way to take down all those laser eyes at once!" Hunk explained, sounding a little unsure and confused at the same time.
"Well, what is it?" Pidge asked.
"Do you remember how Voltron formed that sword with Keith's Bayard? I think my Lion's telling me I can do the same thing with my Bayard." Hunk explained.
"Are you sure?" Keith asked.
"Let's find out." Hunk cried out, then there was silence. "It didn't work!"
Sakura slumped her head, with a sweatdrop on the side of her head.
"Because we didn't form Voltron yet!" Shiro reminded.
"Oh, right. Yeah, I know." Hunk weajky tried to cover his mistake.
"Guys, whatever we're planning, let's hurry up and do it!" Pidge said.
"We've got to defend the castle! Everyone, follow me. Form Voltron!" Shiro commanded, their lions flew together and became Voltron. A yellow cannon is summoned onto Voltron's shoulder and fires, the beams hits the monster's beam, the two beams clashed against each other, but the monster's beam slowly makes it way towards Voltron.
"We need more power!" Sakura cried. "It's not enough!"
"We'll have to try something else!" Hunk yelled.
Voltron moved as the beam missed the castle and hit the atmosphire. The cannon vanished and Voltron started avoiding the lasers from the monster.
"Are you guys seeing this?" Hunk asked.
"Roger that." Keith said.
"Still working on believing." Sakura said.
"Let's see what this thing can do. Engage!" Shiro ordered as the cannon appeared on Voltron's shoulder, and this time the beam divided into two lasers and directed it's hits all on the monster's arms holes. The monster was pushed back by the impact and fell to its knees. Suddenly the ground started to glow a light blue, the monster stood up again not looking happy as it started powering up a laser.
"Whoa!" Sakura cried before evading the laser. Red Lion hit the creature hard, the monster was pushed back, falling to the ground. Voltron landed in front of the monster as it got back up. The monster fired a blast but Voltron evaded it. Voltron flew at the monster and punched it in the face, sending it flying across the surface of the Balmera. The creature landed with a heavy thud and its green light went out.
"Good work team!" Shiro smiled.
Voltron then disbanded, the Lions staring down at Allura, Coran, and the Balmerans. The Lions land on the ground, the Paladins quickly ran out of their lions and towards Allura who was in Shay's arms.
"Allura, are you alright?" Lance asked with worry.
"Don't trouble yourself, I'm fine. But did it work?" Allura weakly asked.
"Yes. The Balmera lives. It thanks you." Rax smiled.
Suddenly the ground shook and everyone stared with wide eyes when they saw the monster rise up once more.
"What!?" Lance gasped. They couldn't believe it, how could it still function with all that damage they did to it? And their was no way to get to the lions in time.
Suddenly the Balmera courses its crystals through the monster, destroying it and encasing its body.
"No. Way." Hunk gasped amazed.
"The Balmera just saved us." Coran smiled as the crystals began to grow across the planet, creating a beautiful scenery like a garden of crystals.
"Look, the crystals!" Allura said with a wide smile, and everyone sees the crystals growing on the ground.
"Oh who's a good Balmera? You are. Who are the big monster? You did." Hunk began petting the planet's surface as Shiro, Keith, Sakura, Lance, and Pidge watch.
"Dud, what are you doing?" Keith asked, raising an eyebrow.
"What? It's alive, and it wuvs my scwatches." Hunk continued his actions, and Keith facepalms.
"Hunk, it's a planet! Not a Pomeranian!" Sakura put her right hand on her hip.
XxXxXx
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