Disclaimers: Disclaimer: I do not own Call of Duty or Voltron: Legendary Defender and the only characters that I have any say in the usage of are the few OCs included in the story. Please support each of the two products official releases.
Hi": Speaking
'Hi': Thinking
"Hi": Yelling
"Hi": Flashback/ Messages
Ringing, that's the first thing that Shiro hears. A loud, piercing ringing sound which manages to go through his eardrums and penetrate every square inch of his skull to the point where he has to clench his clenched jaw shut and tightly close his eyes to counter the pain. But, for some reason, he doesn't cry out into the darkness.
'Why?' some back recess of his mind asks.
'There's no one here, you're all alone,' and he is, or at least was, until another, familiar voice calls to him.
"Shiro! Shiro can you hear me?" the voice asks, causing the former Black Paladin of Voltron to wearily open his eyes to see the blurred outline of a figure.
"K-Keith?" he croaks, his vision not improving to answer his question as the figure looks back in forth before adding.
"Shiro, it's me" clearly not having heard the name Shiro had croaked out.
'No, not Keith, his voice is similar, a little higher is the loose train of thoughts that runs through Shiro's mind as his vision slowly clears in time for him to creak out.
"Matt?".
"Yeah Shiro, Matt, it's Matt" the now visible lightly brown-haired, brown eyes, and lightly scarred figure answers as he leans down to Shiro's level; seeming to be totally focused on him. It's something that Shiro is mystified by, especially when he notices the many purple bolts of light that are flying past the young man; some flying high into the trees, others flying wide by anywhere from a few feet to mere inches, but all missing Matt. However, none of them seemed to gain the young boy's attention; as his gaze never seemed to waver from Shiro's side, with his next question being.
"Can you walk?". It was an important question, or at least it seemed to be based on the urgency in Matt's voice, an urgency that prompts Shiro to disregard the mixed signals coming from his still foggy brain and moved to rise from where he lays; keeping in mind the bolts coming at him. Right Arm? Good. Left Arm? Good. Right Leg? Good. Let Leg?
"Ah!" he cries as pain shoots up the aforementioned leg and causes him to falter, his brain apparently being alert enough to register the shock of pain that grips his side.
"Woah! Stop" Matt cries, reaching out to grab Shiro and stop him from rising so that he doesn't put himself through any more pain, and to prevent him from making himself an easy target for their attackers.
"Okay, left leg's busted, time to improvise" Is all Shiro hears his friend mutter before Matt shoves his weapon, a sizable blaster pistol, into his right hand and moves next to Shiro's left side; his body position lowly in such a way as to offer a smaller target while supporting Shiro's weight, while asking.
"You good?"
"Yes" is all Shiro can grunt out, as Matt isn't able to support his weight as well as he probably thinks, causing him to turn his head backward to hide his pain from Matt. An action that allows him to see one of their pursuers, an individual clad in purple armor, beginning to move out from the trees behind him. The sight prompting Shiro to instinctively raise Matt's pistol and fire, his shot hitting the individual in his left side; a wound that sends him stumbling several steps before finally collapsing on the ground.
"Okay, let's get moving" Matt calls before beginning to move Shiro forwards, the Black Paladin only being able to hop in a limp along in a weird manner that put him half a step behind Matt. Allowing him to get a descent, but not entirely perfect view behind them, as they go; giving him time to fire off a few shots at any pursuers who are foolish enough to pop out from behind cover for too long. Forcing them to reduce their fire and allowing him and Matt time to limp back to safety.
'Back to safety? Where's safety?' he asks himself, just as he catches sight of another pursuer sprinting out from behind cover; prompting him to fire several shots from Matt's pistol as their pursuers moved along. His line of fire eventually striking the figure when he tries to duck behind a rock, preventing him from being able to rise from his position to begin firing at him.
'Where are we going?'.
"Are you sure this operation is necessary" Hunk had asked when they'd initially been pitched the mission, his question summing up the concerns of the many people in the room.
"Yeah, I mean no offense, but we just got off repulsing Sendak's attack on the Balmerans " Lance had added, standing by Hunk as he continued.
"We're at what? Half strength at best? We need time to rest". His question causing the gaze of everyone in the room, including Shiro, to fall on a single, tall, white-haired, young man who stood at the center of the room.
"I reassure you this mission would be more important than any Galran base that we've gone after in many quintets" the young man, the deposed Prince Lotor, answered; a look of confidence on his face.
"Then would you at least tell us what we're going to be risking our lives over?" Keith had also chimed in; his question, like that of Hunk and Lance, seeming to summarize the many concerns that were floating around the room in a single question.
"This base is a central tracking station for this whole sector of the empire-" Lotor began, only to be cut off by the question of.
"So it's where the Galra follow us from?" from Pidge, causing the deposed Prince to clench his jaw before continuing.
"Close my diminutive friend, but no, it's not where the Galra tracks us from; it's where all the military chiefs in this sector keep the recent reports and orders from Galran high command".
"So we'll know where they've been?" Hunk asked, earning himself a shake of Lotor's head.
"No, if we capture this main chip from the station's computer, not the whole station itself, we'll have access to the whole network it connects to; we'll be informed not only about their current movements but also the ones they plan in the future the moment they begin laying the plans to make them" Lotor clarified, his answer causing the whole room to fall silent from the possible ramifications of what he was saying. Ramifications made Shiro's mind begin to move at a million miles per hour as he began to consider what he assumed was even a fraction of the possibilities.
'All their future movements? All their current plans?'. For once they'd be a step ahead of the Galra, or at least the ones who had elected to remain loyal to Haggar or Sendak until they managed to set up a different communications network, and if they ended the war soon enough that might never happen. Giving them a luxury they hadn't had since they'd first capture Lotor from Haggar and before the "Shiro clone" had returned him back to the old druid's clutches. No more probing in the dark, no more feeling one step behind the Galra, no more over committing on attacks against Galran bases that turned out to be better defended than Lotor had remembered, no more stretching themselves so thin that when any Galran attacks came they were too weak to properly protect any of the attack points.
For once they would actually have a genuine chance to win.
"So what's the plan then?" Shiro had asked, his unofficial permission for the mission to go ahead earning him a smile from Lotor.
"On the surface, it would be simple" the Prince began as he strolled over to the room's main computer and placed a ginormous 3D blueprint display of the station's interior.
"All that would be needed is to get in, destroy the station's communications, get the chip, and get out" he continued, several dots that represented a clear path of entry and operation demonstrating the specifics of his plan.
"That's quite the task, how many people would be needed?" Allura had cut in.
"Oh it would be simple, a single team of the Paladins, Kolivan, and four of his best Blades should be able to do the trick" Lotor has simply suggested, earning him a round of shocked looks.
"Ten people, there's no way that's possible!" one of the Resistance members had cried.
"Nonsense, it's far from impossible" Lotor has answered, his dismissive response is completed with a single wave of his hand. The Prince was right, the mission wasn't impossible; however, as Shiro examined the full size of the station's blueprints he wasn't sure that one team of ten people could be enough. Perhaps one group of fifteen or twenty people would be better.
'No, with twenty people we might as well send in-' he internally thought, only for his reservations to be summed up with a statement of.
"There's no way that 10 people could take out all the defenses on those four floors, perform the other tasks, and get off the planet before a cry for help was sent out" from Keith.
"Then what would you suggest my good man?" was the equally dismissive question that Lotor threw Keith, a question that Keith wouldn't have to answer.
"I think there should be two teams" Matt had piped up, earning him the attention of the whole room, minus Lotor and Keith.
"The Paladins can go with Kolivan and five Blades to take out the communications while Shiro and I go with eight of our best Resistance members to grab the chip and leave; two teams for two objectives, one as a distraction and the other as the main operator". Matt's suggestion was good, it was well thought out, and it was reasonable; but at the end of the day, it was just that, a suggestion. A suggestion which Lotor could always refuse, was if he was able to find anything wrong with the plan. But as the former heir to the Galran throne stood in the planning room of the Castle of Lions, the attention of every person within it focused squarely on him, he could only wrinkle his nose a few times. Before a smile came over his face, the flash of what looked like anger only being there for a few tenths of a second.
"That would be divine" Lotor has answered, relenting to Matt's plan before tactfully adding.
"Though we must strike quickly, otherwise things might become compromised".
"Shiro, Shiro are you still with me?" Matt called, pulling Shiro from his thoughts and prompting him to turn his head to the left; just as a bolt of light flew past where his jaw would have been had Matt not called his name, its passing causing a loud humming sound to echo in his ear for a quarter of a second.
"Yes" he mutter, glancing over his left shoulder and Matt's back in time to see another armor-clad sentry pop up from the side of the field they were on. The sentry only managing to get off one badly aimed shot before Shiro nailed it right between the eyes with one of his own. Something about the sentry, Shiro didn't know what caused the following words to bumble out of his mouth as he returned his gaze back to his right shoulder before firing off a couple more shots in the general direction of their pursuers.
"The team, what happened to them?". A question that caused Matt to initially grit his teeth as the look of frustration covered his face while his breath became tense and ragged, possibly due to the combination of having to aid Shiro and the weight of the question his injured friend had posed him.
"Gone, they're all gone" was all Matt said at first before he shifted Shiro and then added.
"Lotor's intel was wrong, very wrong the distraction team had barely any resistance, but we were outnumbered". Causing Shiro to turn his attention back to Matt as he vaguely began to remember more of what had happened, the memories bubbling back to the surface of his mind like gas bubbles on a tar lake. Being not only just as potent, but also just as pleasant to go through.
"Are you sure this is the right way?" one of the hand-picked resistance members of the infiltration squad had asked as he'd throw several glances around the hallway they were in. His point of concern being that on the map this was supposed to be a proper hallway with multiple doors, but they'd instead had run into a short dead-end hallway with only a single door on its right, its door as dark and cold as the walls that surrounded them on either side.
"The map says-" Matt began, pulling up a small diagram of the station from a device on his wrist, only to be cut off by an individual behind him.
"Screw the map! We've made two wrong turns already, as far as I'm concerned it's compromised!".
"Yeah, who knows where we could actually be!" a third one had added as she took an aggressive step towards Matt, prompting Shiro to place an arm in between his two squadmates. Before trying to lower the growing tension that had been brewing amongst the group since they'd first entered the facility with a consolatory suggestion of.
"Look now isn't the time to argue unless one of you has a better plan or greater knowledge of this base than our map, we have to stick to the plan".
"Why am I not surprised that the former leader of Voltron is sucking up to another-" the second speaker had begun, only to fall silent as one of his comrades firmly grabbed his shoulder and asked.
"Did you hear that?" prompting the whole squad of ten people to fall silent and strain to listen for a sound, any sound. Their only warning was a few soft clinks before the supposedly dead-end wall behind them suddenly retracted, revealing a defense team of no fewer than 12 sentries and 3 Galran soldiers that were armed to the teeth. Leaving with the small squad no warning before they began to open fire, killing two of the three speakers who'd raised their concerns to the soundness of their operation instantly.
"Hey! Over Here" was the call from Matt that Shiro heard this time, the desperation of his friend's tone being reinforced by the tightening of his grip on Shiro's right shoulder. The tightening of Matt's grip coming as Shiro looked up to see one of the Resistance's small transport shuttles moving into view before slowly touching down in front of them, its rear entry door opening to reveal four figures to Matt and Shiro as they approached it. However, once the four figures came closer into view both Matt and Shiro instinctively stopped out of hesitation as they realized that the four figures weren't the Resistance crew that had dropped them off; but rather Lotor and his three remaining generals. Their halting of progress prompting Lotor and the largest of his generals, Zethrid, to walk up towards them; with Lotor grabbing hold of Shiro to shift his weight off of Matt while Zethrid stood off to the side.
"How badly is he hurt?" being the first words that came from the former Galran prince.
"I think his left leg is broken and it looks like he might have a concussion" was Matt's answer as he thankfully left Shiro's weight shift away from him, allowing Shiro to release a long-held cry of pain as Lotor stabilized him. His gaze going down slightly to see that while Lotor's left hand was around Shiro's side propping up his weight, his right hand was still at his waist reaching for something.
'Something's not-' Shiro began, only to be cut off by Lotor asking a second, and by the sound of his voice, far more important question.
"Did you get the chip?"
"Yeah" Matt began, reaching under his glove and handing it to Zethrid before turning to Lotor and adding.
"But you've got a lot of explaining to do! We were ambushed in the base, our squad was wiped out, Shiro and I are all that's left". His declaration earning him a look of surprise on Lotor's face; surprise not one of sympathy or sadness.
"Well then, I guess that's eight less loose ends" being the only warning to Shiro before he felt something impact him in the side, sending him backward; where he faltered on his injured left leg before collapsing to the ground.
"Shiro!" was all Matt had time to cry, taking a step backward from Lotor as he stared in shock at his downed friend, before the blast of a gun could be heard and something purple slammed into the left side of his head. The blow causing him to instantly go limp before collapsing to the ground, it was then that Shiro began to regain some sense of feeling. The combination of his broken leg, pungent headache, and new wound to his side causing a wave of pain to come cascading over his body; allowing to only see Lotor snap his fingers before he blacked out.
It wasn't until a few seconds, though it could have been minutes, later that Shiro felt himself impact the ground a second time; the impact sending a shock through his body seconds before he felt something impact his legs. It was the second impact, not the first, that compelled him to open his eyes so that he found himself face to face with Matt; a pair of empty eyes being the chief feature Shiro saw on his friend's blank face.
'Matt, Matt' were the only things that crossed his mind as he weekly extended his arm to poke his friend; receiving no reply. The cold feeling of his friend's normally warm skin hammering home to him the point which should have already been obvious. Matt was dead; his friend who had survived being abducted by aliens, put in a forced labor camp, survived an escape attempt, his friend who had yet to find his father, was dead. A fact that personally crushed Shiro even before he heard the sound of a liquid being sloshed around and his nose was assaulted by the faint, foul, oily smell which came seconds before he felt something splash his face. The reality of what was happening, and what was about to happen, becoming even clearer when Shiro heard one of Lotor's generals, Acxa he thinks, ask.
"Are you sure the Blades will hold up their end of the bargain?".
"I am more than confident that they will" was Lotor's curt answer before he gave a dark addition of.
"That is assuming that the future of their families is as dear to them as they previously claimed", being the revelation that motivated Shiro to not resist when Zethrid rolled his body over onto his helmet and think.
'I need to warn the other, I'm their leader, I need to keep them safe' as he pressed the communications button on the inside of his helmet. However, given his weaken sate and the amount of effort needed to do this small act; the only words that came out from Shiro's mouth were.
"Keith, be careful-" in the faintest of whispers; luckily, however, he didn't have to finish his message as Keith's response left him silent.
"Shiro, something's gone wrong, the blades have turned on us and trapped us in the station's communications room" the call began, tipping Shiro into the depth of the betrayal he and his friends had been made privy to. The anger from this revelation causing him to find the strength, from where he did not know, to roll himself away from his helmet and onto his stomach before trying to rise from the shallow ditch that he found himself in.
'You monster' being his sole thought before he slowly began to rise, swallowing a would-be cry of pain, as he put weight on his led.
"Kolivan's dead and Lance is down" the call continued, somehow still audible to Shiro as he slowly, painstakingly climbing out of the ditch and inching towards a distracted Lotor. His right hand beginning to glow purple as it transformed from a human hand into a long, black, knife; Shiro taking the opportunity to rear it back so that he wouldn't have to when he reached his traitorous ally, only vaguely hearing Keith's cry of.
"I don't know what's going on, but until we figure things out we cannot trust Lotor".
'Almost there, just stay like that'.
"I repeat, we cannot trust Lotor" being the last call from Keith that Shiro heard before Lotor turned around, raised his side arm up to Shiro's face, and pulled the trigger. His vision being filled with purple before his world was consumed by a single white light, and his head suddenly jerked back. His spirit most likely had left his body before it impacted the ground and had most definitely departed by the time and Matt's bodies were lit on fire by a shot from Lotor; being nowhere to be seen as Lot