Uphold

"'Upholding the Law of the Universe'?" Lance read skeptically. "That makes Voltron sound like a common police officer."

"Well, since someone already bought the rights to 'Defender of the Universe,' we had to get something," Chief Editor Ray said, his feet propped up on the sound mixing board. Lance looked back at the list of possible phrases. "The scripted version was 'Defender of Arus,' but a few of the people on the producing board wanted something about the universe instead of Arus. They said it was too exclusivist."

"Exclusivist? Well, Voltron is from, based on, and mainly does missions to protect Arus. Keith just said Defender of the Universe after a few missions, and it kind of caught on."

"Well, if there's anything else the team wants said, it would help to get it in soon, since they're still in production. Sound editing different lines is a real pain with live action. I can stretch a few frames of a certain mouth shape and move things around some, but I can't do everything."

"Can't you just use CGI to cover things? Just to make the mouth do what we need?" Lance asked.

"You would think so, but we insulted a few of the wrong people, and our CGI is stuck in the twenty-first century. It's enough to gloss over our mechanical prop lions, but I don't even want to go near people with it." Ray stood and stretched. Lance wondered, not for the first time, why Hawaiian print shirts still existed, or why it was legal to sell, own, or wear one. He suspected Ray of the first and wished there wasn't evidence of the last two.

A knock came at the door and an intern poked his head in. "Sir, the Voltron Force want to know how long this is going to take."

"Translation, they want to make sure I'm doing anything they wouldn't approve of," Lance said. Hunk and Pidge pushed past the intern, followed by Allura and Keith. "Hey! Y-you can't be here! It's res—" He stopped when Allura gave him a sweet, inquisitive smile.

"What did you say?"

"Intern! I haven't had my seventh cup of coffee," said Ray. The intern, now an interesting green-tinged shade of red, ducked out. "We were just going over Commander Keith's catch-phrase since the rights to Defender of the Universe were already taken."

"Catch phrase?" Keith asked, obviously mystified by the concept.

"Let me see," Allura said, taking the list. Pidge pulled it lower and he and Hunk read through around Allura.

"Catch phrase? That's stupid. Why does Keith have to have a catch phrase?" Keith asked.

"These are all right," Allura said. "Why do all the ones with 'savior' have red marks next to them?"

"People would get mad, saying we were deifying Voltron. It's just easier to avoid the argument," Ray said. "The 'upholding' ones get green lights across the board, if you could pick from those."

"Catch phrase? Really?"

"Yes, Keith, your catch phrase," Lance answered.

Word count minus notes: 500

A/N: Yes, Keith, your catch phrase.

In Christ,

ZN