"DIE PALADINS!"
"KEITH, DO IT NOW!"
With the shouts of Pidge encouraging him, and Lotor's threat highlighting the urgency of the situation, the sword of Voltron jammed itself into the asteroid when a bright light emanated from it. The asteroid, the Crimson Dawn, and even the Earth and the stars, all vanished, leaving Voltron and the paladins in an endless void.
"It worked!" Pidge said.
"What did?" Lance asked.
"Zeppo's story…he read all our minds, blended ideas together into a fiction. But it was a fiction. An illusion. He made the mistake of using things I recognized from a show on HBO I liked to watch."
"So no matter how complex his story was…"
"It was only as good as the weakest link."
Unlike the others, Keith was nowhere near as impressed with the shattering of Zeppo's illusion.
"Show yourself Zeppo! You can read our minds, but you can't trick us!"
A sinister laugh echoed throughout the nothingness that Voltron occupied. Looking up and down though, they found no trace of whom it belonged to.
"Yes, I could show myself to you, engage you in some grand dramatic battle, and leave you crumpled at my feet, or I could simply leave you floating there until you die of old age. Both options are appealing."
"You're a coward, Zeppo!" Keith said. "Come out and fight!"
"This is a battle you can't win Keith. You know you're no match for me because you can't be a real leader! If Shiro was there, he would find a way to stop me, but now Shiro is in my thrall!"
"You…"
"No," Zeppo continued. "We will not meet again. You can't escape here since you have no idea where 'here' begins and ends. I need not risk myself when I can just wait for the frailty of your bodies to take their toll…and expire."
"This won't work!" Keith shouted, pushing Voltron forward through the void. But there was nothing to meet him but more endless void.
"You will be given one gift from me, Keith," Zeppo said. "You will be allowed to view the destruction of the Galra you craved so, and watch as Shiro executes my will."
Before Voltron was an image of the form of Devilscourge fighting its way through the Galra fleet, single-handedly doing what the Drule fleet could not. As he looked on, Keith clenched his fists.
"This is it? This is all I can do?"
"W…what happened?"
Coran rose to his feet, feeling as if someone had dropped a huge rock on his midsection. He had no idea what happened since the last thing he remembered was being chained next to Shiro in Merla's torture chamber. Instead, he stood outside in the bright sun, with nothing in the immediate vicinity save the nearby town, and a massive mirror.
"By the cosmos…Voltron?!"
Within the mirror was the image of Voltron, floating helplessly in a black void. Coran had no idea what had happened; just that whatever this thing was, Voltron was imprisoned inside.
"Hold on Paladins!" Coran said as he ran towards the Castle. "I'll save you!"
Despite the tremendous pain in his midsection, Coran ran to the Castle of Lions, sitting on the bridge and waiting to power on the engines and weapons. As the monitors activated, several squeaking noises took Coran's attention.
"Well hello to you too," Coran said. "Look, I know it seems odd, but we must get going now!"
The five mice squeaked continuously, causing Coran to nod in acknowledgment. "Brainwashed! Me? That does explain why I didn't remember anything after being imprisoned. And yes, I know about Merla."
More squeaking hit Coran's ears when his eyes turned wide at the giant mirror.
"Is this wise?"
The continued squeaks indicated that yes, it was. Breathing heavily, Coran began to press buttons on the controls before him.
"Castle, LAUNCH!"
The thundering of the engines echoed throughout the area as the Castle of Lions lifted into the air, heading directly for the mirror.
"Never fear, Paladins! Coran is coming to save you, and he's bringing the thunder and lightning along with him!"
Explosions rattled the Galra fleet as ships flew to and fro in multiple directions. Despite the best efforts of the fleet, they found themselves unable to contend with the machine dancing and darting its way through the Galra ships, making complete mincemeat of fighter squadrons.
"It's no good!" a helmsman yelled to Taizon. "We're shooting down anything from the surface before it makes it up here, but that singular unit is too fast and too powerful for our cruisers!"
"Where are the Bladeknights? Surely they can help!"
RIGHT HERE!
From the debris of a destroyed Drule cruiser, several of the armored machines drew their blades and struck Devilscourge, which sent them all fleeing with a swipe of its own massive sword. With brute force a questionable option, Dorma stood before Merla.
"Merla! You're being controlled!"
"How dare you? Who are you to tell me what I'm doing?"
"I am from the same Drule blood as you! Please, working with Zeppo is worse than the Galra! Your fleet is routed! This can still be resolved peacefully!"
"If you truly are Drule blood," Merla said, "then you're a traitor to your people!"
"Dorma, look out!"
"HAZAR!"
A clean swipe of the massive sword of Devilscourge split Hazar's Bladeknight in two, destroying it, but not before Dorma was pushed out of the way.
"He was a fool, Your Highness," Shiro reassured Merla. "Let's take them…AAHHHH!"
The "AAAAHHH!" came as a result of a powerful cannon blast from Taizon's battlecruiser striking Devilscourge directly. Back on the bridge of the battlecruiser, Taizon and his crew looked on intently at the incident.
"Direct hit with our main volley!"
"Do we have confirmed destruction of the target?"
"Sir?"
"Do we have confirmed destruction?" In response to the questions, two crewmembers began to zoom in on the blast and gasped.
Even as it flew back due to the immense power of the cannon, the robot known as Devilscourge remained intact. Taizon noticed the deep scorching of the metal already beginning to repair itself, with the machine slowly returning to normal.
"A normal machine would have been atomized into dust! And yet this…the thing still stands! Hurry Paladins! We can't win on our own!"
"We can't do anything out here!" Allura said.
The movement seemed to show nothing but more of the same empty void. Communications were equally fruitless, with every channel revealing nothing but static.
"It's no use Hunk," Pidge said. "There's no way our communications can cross dimensional barriers. We're stuck."
"And we have enough food and water for a week," Allura said. "The Lions can only hold so many emergency supplies."
"So we're floating in the endless void of space," Lance said, "watching Shiro destroy the Galra. For Zeppo."
"Waiting to die," Keith said.
"Really know how to bring the team together, huh Keith?"
"You think I want to be here?! That coward won't show his face!"
"This is all quite pointless," Allura said. "All we can do is continue broadcasting a distress signal, and hope that someone finds us."
"Quit your whining," said the voice of Zeppo, resonating through the minds of the Paladins. "I was sealed here for millennia. You will have a week before starvation causes you to expire. Deal with it."
Keith growled, but the voice was gone as quickly as it came. All he could do was sit in the cockpit of the Black Lion as the distress call went out, watching as the fleet did their best against Devilscourge, but ultimately were unable to destroy it.
"If only we could get back out there," Hunk said.
"We know," Pidge replied. "No need to repeat ourselves."
Tense silence gripped the Paladins for several minutes, the five out of options for how to escape the prison that held Zeppo for so long. They were unsure of what to do next except close their eyes, and perhaps wait it out. Maybe once they awoke some plan would form, or at least close the chasm between the present and their inevitable expiration.
Paladins, this is the Castle of Lions, do you read? Paladins, this is the Castle of Lions, do you read?
"CORAN!"
Allura's cry of joy rattled the Paladins from their daze as the voice of Coran came through their speakers. "But how?"
The mice had noticed Voltron vanish into this hole, so I ignored this tremendous pain in my ribcage and gave pursuit in the Castle! Come to think of it, I don't remember anything after being put in that witch Merla's dungeon! Surely she must have done that to me as part of her torture!
"Right," Hunk said. "Merla."
"Coran, can you get us out of here? We don't know where this place begins and where it ends!"
I left a beacon by the entrance of this pocket dimension. I'll hone in on your signal and we'll escape together! Sure enough, as soon as Coran finished speaking, a warp gate opened with the Castle of Lions entering through it.
"That's a sight for sore eyes," Lance said.
"Team," Keith said, "Let's get out of here!"
The trip through the tunnel was brief, revealing a shining rectangle amidst the endless darkness.
"The door!"
"NO!"
Standing before the door was a being clad in black armor with red eyes, wielding a massive black sword, equal in scale to Voltron. The armor was thick with points and sharp edges, accented by red lines on the arms and legs. Seeing the sight before him, Keith smiled.
"So much for waiting for us to expire, huh? And what's with that look?"
"Did you really think that my true form would be an old man with a mustache? My true form is without boundary or limit! This is just…easier to destroy you with!"
"That's why you have more edges than an angry teenager!"
"You're one to talk Keith!"
"Lance, shut up and focus!"
"Your arrogance is only matched by the difference in power between you and I, Keith. I have seen countless heroes like you, in other stories, other realities. The difference between you and them is that you are not a hero! The hero of your story is in my thrall, and against me, you cannot win!"
"Shiro may be under your control," Keith said, "but that just means I need to fight even harder to free him!"
"If you fight just to have someone take your place, Paladin, then you will fail!"
CLANG!
The swords of the demonic being and the Defender of the Universe clashed, sending Voltron flying through the nothingness. The sheer force of the blow was beyond anything that the five had ever faced.
"I don't think we've ever hit something that tough!" Hunk said. "What do we do?
"NOTHING! AND YOU WILL LIKE IT!"
Without warning, the form of Zeppo appeared before Voltron, swinging its sword again. A mighty CLANG! echoed through the darkness, a surprise to Pidge and Hunk, unsure of how the sound traveled in this featureless void.
"We need a better plan than 'get knocked around until our weapons break!'"
"Hunk!"
"RIGHT!"
Voltron's sword was replaced with its shoulder-mounted cannon, which fired a massive beam at Zeppo. Before it could connect, however, the being vanished, before reappearing in front of Voltron.
"FIRE!"
Another blast at point-blank range missed Zeppo, but when he didn't immediately reappear, the group tensed, eschewing the cannon for the sword.
"We can't hit him!" Lance said. "What's our move?"
I have a suggestion!
"Go ahead Coran," Allura said.
Our stated goal is to trap Zeppo here and cut him off from his power, correct?
"Yes, but what does…"
What we need to do is attack him with an energy frequency similar to that of the gate. If my calculations are correct, the Castle of Lions can temporarily energize Voltron with enough energy to seal Zeppo off from the Quintessence allowing him to infect our native dimension!
"Yeah," Hunk said, "but what about us?"
There's a 50/50 chance that the reaction either kicks us back to our own dimension, sealing the door behind us or leaves us stranded here, with no way back.
"You're the reason they tried to escape!"
Zeppo's form lunged for the Castle of Lions, only to be repelled by a barrage of laser fire, which it deflected effortlessly with a wave of its hand.
"My power is endless Paladins! Yours is a thimble in comparison to mine!"
"We'll see about that!" Keith said, dashing towards Zeppo before it could attack the Castle of Lions, only for it to vanish again.
As it appeared again, Voltron swung its sword, met by the sword of Zeppo. The force sent Voltron flying, with their opponent vanishing as a blast from the robot was fired at the self-proclaimed god.
"None of our regular attacks are working! We don't have any other way to stop him!"
"Well, we know what we signed up for!"
"This is getting ridiculous!" Shiro said. "Merla! Let's use it!"
"Right! DIMENSIONAL SPLITTER!"
Within the hand of Devilscourge formed a massive blade of pure white energy, extending an impossible distance. A battlecruiser saw the machine and attempted to fire, only for the blade to strike it, splitting the starship in half with a massive explosion soon following.
"Sir!" a helmsman yelled to Taizon. "We don't have anything capable of taking that thing down!"
"Where are the Druids?"
We are here. This thing…is an extension of Zeppo, but we can bind it while we perform our task.
"Do it! Conventional weapons are proving ineffective!"
The circular craft that was the Druid ship flew before the wreckage of the battlecruiser in front of Devilscourge. Then, without warning, a powerful bolt of lightning struck the enemy machine, holding it in place.
"AHH!"
They are frozen. Begin the ritual.
"Your magic can't hold me Galra!" Merla yelled. "Devilscourge shares the same power as Zeppo! Your power is nothing compared to his!"
Without warning, the electricity that seemed to bond Devilscourge in place was sent away, the white sword it held slamming into the ship of the druids before they could do anything else.
"Sir, the druids! Our entire plan hinged on them!"
"Remaining ships hailing us sir! They're all requesting orders!"
Taizon stood frozen on the bridge of his ship, unsure of how to reply. Looking on at the unstoppable machine and the futile attempts of the Bladeknights to attack it, he clenched his fists.
"We still have Voltron on our side! We can still win!"
"What?"
"Attention all ships!" Taizon began. "Voltron is fighting Zeppo, same as us! We still have a chance at victory, but only if we can distract this abomination long enough for Voltron to sever the link between Zeppo and Drule! Continue fighting! If we die, we die for the glory of the Galra Empire against this evil!"
"We're only going to get one shot at this," Keith said. "Be prepared."
"Keith!" Lance said. "You're really going to go through with it?"
"Defenders of the Universe, remember? The alternative is letting Zeppo snuff out trillions of lives."
"I'm with you Keith," Hunk said.
"Same here," Pidge added.
"And I as well," Allura said. "Perhaps fortune will shine on us today."
A bolt of energy that struck Voltron, sending it flying into the Castle of Lions, answered Allura's wish. In front of the castle appeared Zeppo, sword drawn and prepared to strike.
"No one leaves here without my permission!"
"Everyone, now!"
All five Paladins placed their bayards into their respective slots, forming a sword of fire in Voltron's hand. As the blade was raised, the Castle of Lions moved in front of Voltron.
"Main cannon, FIRE!"
"Your weapons are useless against me, Paladins!"
To Zeppo's shock, the blast did not strike him, but rather the blazing sword of Voltron, charging it with a blinding glow.
"LET'S TAKE HIM DOWN!"
"RIGHT!"
The blinding light stunned Zeppo as the blade connected with his blade, drowning the entire void in an endless white light.
"Shiro! Something's happening! The…the Dimensional Splitter!"
Without warning, the glowing blade vanished as the monitors in Devilscourge shut off, the lights going with it. The sight was not unnoticed by the Galra.
"Sir, look! The enemy! It's…crumbling! Literally!"
Like rocks turning to dust, the seemingly invulnerable metal of Devilscourge began to crumble and collapse into nothing, causing Shiro and Merla to scream. Once their vessel crumbled to dust, nothing would protect them from the endless void of space.