Voltron: Universal Defender
Fanfiction by: Spirit Reader and Serpentdragon
Voltron created by: Toei Animation, World Events Production, and DreamWorks Animation
Chapter 7: Paladin Training
It's morning and the sun is slowly rising on Planet Arus. Only a few hours ago, a massive battle took place as Sendak, one of the Galra Empire's head commanders, attacked. His mission was a simple one; retrieve the Voltron Lions that were currently in the possession of Erina, the last princess of Altea. With his command fleet in tow, Sendak believed that this battle would be easy and victory was inevitable. Unfortunately for him however, things didn't go as simply as he thought.
Sendak greatly underestimated the force that he was fighting against, in particular the 5 humans that were working together with princess Erina. Together Marcus, Sasuke, Tony, Felecia, and Kevin fought hard and managed to retrieve all 5 of the lions. Not only that, but they were also able to come together and form the powerful super robot known as Voltron. With its power, the Paladins managed to easily repel Sendak's command ship and force the Galra commander to retreat.
With the battle won, the Paladins made their way back to the Castle of Lions, where Erina's loyal vizier, Dardarian, gave them each a room to sleep in. Each of the rooms were pretty standard, with just a single bed, a mirror, and a personal sink. Still, compared to what's given to cadets at the Galaxy Garrison, most the Paladins didn't seem to mind. They then wasted no time in getting some sleep as they were completely exhausted after the day's events.
As morning came alone, each of the Paladins was busy doing their own thing as the sun continued to rise. Marcus, who was in full Paladin armor, was doing pushups while inside his room. Sasuke was currently putting on his clothes after he just finished taking a shower. Both Tony and Kevin were still sleeping, the latter of whom was wearing headphones that was playing soothing music. The only who currently wasn't in their one was Felecia, who was in another section of the castle.
Right now, Felecia was in the cyro-chamber, observing all the Galra prisoners as they slept in their pods. After she and Marcus rescued them from Sendak's clutches, Dardarian took the prisoners to the cyro-chamber, which had the ability to heal the various injuries that they received while being held captive. Although she was told that it wouldn't take them long to recover, Felecia still waited for all of them to come out as she had plenty of questions to ask them.
When she and Marcus rescued the prisoners, Felecia remembered that one of them called the latter, Champion. From just that one word alone, Felecia realized that these prisoners knew Marcus back when was also held captive by the Galra. Because of that, then they could also know where Amrita is as she was captured at the same time Marcus was. Even though it was a long shot, these prisoners were the best chance Felecia had in finding some type of clue to Amrita's whereabouts and she had every intention of looking into it.
While all this was going on, both Erina and Dardarian were currently doing some maintenance on the Castle of Lions itself. The battle against Sendak did far more damage than they originally thought and they needed to get things repaired right away. In addition, due to the fact that the castle has been in stasis for the last 10,000 years, a good number of parts were worn out and needed to be replaced as well. There was a lot to be done and so little time to do it.
After several hours of working, Erina managed to get the majority of systems on the bridge back in working order. As she ran a diagnostic check on the remaining system, the princess took notice of the emergency alarm. With just one look, an idea popped into her head. Although Sendak was defeated, the battle against the Galra Empire has only just begun. The Paladins were still wet behind the ears and needed to be ready to fight at any time. This was a perfect opportunity to see just how prepared they can be.
With that thought in mind, Erina activated the alarm and a loud siren erupted throughout the entire castle. As it continued to sound, most of the Paladins immediately jumped up in shocked and wondered what was going on. The only exception was Tony, who was still sleeping peacefully thanks to the headphones that he was wearing. They then listened as Erina started talking over the intercom.
"Everyone up, Zarkon's attacking!" She yelled. "Hurry, the castle is about to be destroyed!"
Upon hearing those words, all of the Paladins made their way towards the bridge as quickly as possible. However, both Kevin and Felecia were falling behind due them both feeling drowsy. As for Marcus and Sasuke, the two of them were making good progress, but the later soon found himself lost due to him being unfamiliar with the castle's interior structure. Meanwhile, Tony was still sleeping peacefully in his bed.
After about 6 minutes of waiting, Erina looked around and saw that none of the Paladins were at the bridge yet. When she noticed that, the princess wondered if they saw through her ploy and decided to simply ignore her. Because she wasn't sure if that was truly the case, Erina decided to call out to them one more time.
"Hurry Paladins! We can't hold out much longer!"
Another 2 minutes had past and the Paladins still haven't arrived. This time Erina was pretty confident that they didn't believe her claims and ignored her because of it. When he noticed this, Dardarian walked over towards the princess and gently took a hold of the speaker that she was using.
"You have to sell it more, princess." He explained. "Here, allow me to demonstrate."
Dardarian went on to take some standard breathing exercises in preparations for his dramatic display. As he did so, Erina turned her head and saw that 4 of the Paladins were busy looking at the two of them with mixed expressions on their faces. Surprised by their sudden appearance, Erina tried to stop Dardarian before he could do what he was about to do. Unfortunately, she was too late.
"Oh no!" He screamed. "Erina's head has been cut off! How could this have happened?! If only Voltron was here!"
As the vizier continued to exaggerate, Erina glanced back over at the Paladins again and saw that they were becoming more and more confused by what they were seeing. This caused the princess to feel pretty ashamed and soon made her way over to Dardarian, who was now acting on his knees. After a failed attempt at talking to him, Erina promptly silenced her vizier with a swift slap to the back of his head. When Dardarian turned around and saw the Paladins looking at him, he started laughing nervously before quickly picking himself up from off the ground.
Once that was settled, an awkward silence occurred as neither side was sure who should start talking first. After about nearly 2 minutes of waiting, Marcus was the first to step up and say something about all of this.
"So…I guess this isn't an actual attack." He said.
"And it's a good thing it wasn't because it took you…" Before she could finish her sentence, Erina realized something and soon turned Dardarian. "How long did it take them, Dardarian?"
Pulling out a device from his pocket, Dardarian examined it for a second before revealing the time it took for the Paladins to arrive since the alarm first sounded.
"It took them 75 degrees!"
Instantly, everyone was confused by the vizier's revelation. Even Dardarian was quite shocked by what he just said and wondered if he got the readings wrong. Upon examining the device that he was holding, Dardarian soon became extremely embarrassed as he realized what was really going on.
"Sorry…I was actually reading a meat thermometer."
Upon hearing that, Erina nearly snapped and had to calm herself down by gently rubbing her dimples. She knew that Dardarian has always been like this and that getting angry with him wasn't going to help. Still, the last thing she needed to deal with right now was his antics as there was simply too much on her plate at the moment. Because of that, Erina took a few deep breaths before turning to face the Paladins again.
"No matter how long it was, it was too long." She said to them. "No matter the situation you must always be ready to face Zarkon. There's too much at stake for you not to be!"
As she walked up towards all of them, Erina examined each of the 4 Paladins very closely. Kevin was still in his pajamas while both Sasuke and Felecia in their casual clothes. The only one who looked prepared was Marcus and although that pleased Erina, she was still quite upset that others didn't follow his lead. Still, despite all of that, there was one Paladin that was upsetting the princess far more than the others.
"Where is Tony?!"
Just as the princess asked the question, the doors to the bridge suddenly opened up. When everyone turned to see who it was, they all looked on as Tony entered the room. He just finished washing up and looked rested and ready to start the day.
"Morning guys…" He said with a cheerful smile. "What's going on?"
As he casual made his way towards his teammates, Erina stared at the Blue Paladin with an annoyed expression on her face. It would be one thing if he came in all tired and exhausted, like Kevin and Felecia were, but that wasn't the case at all. Instead, Tony looked reinvigorated, almost like he didn't even hear the alarm at all. This annoyed Erina greatly as it strongly gave the impression that Tony wasn't taking this seriously at all.
"I've been up for hours trying to get the castle back in working order," She said to the group. "I wanted to run a test on the alarms and decided to test all of you as well. But with the exception of Marcus, the only one who bothered to put on his armor, the rest of you failed!"
"Hey….Hey princess," Kevin said as he yawning. "You've been asleep for the last 10,000 years. Just the other day I was back home on Earth. During that short span of time I've flown a giant alien cat thing, fought an evil warlord named Zarkon, and ate some strange Food-Goo. It's a lot to process."
"…I understand that, Kevin. But you all need to understand what's really at stake here. This isn't a game.'
Pulling out a holographic keyboard, Erina started typing on a select for keys. When she finished, the holographic map that she used the other day completely surrounded the bridge again. She then went on to type on a few more keys. As she did so, the Paladins watched as nearly all the stars that were being displayed on the map changed colors from blue to red.
"During the last 10,000 years, the Castle of Lions has picked thousands upon thousands of distress beacons from the following locations. The red spheres indicate a sector of the universe in which the Galra Empire has taken over. As you can see, Zarkon and his forces have taken over most of the known universe."
Upon hearing her say that, the reality of their predicament once again began to set over the Paladins. However, Erina wasn't done educating them yet and soon started to move the holomap to another section of the universe. Unlike the first one, this section had no red spheres at all, which meant that the Galra haven't reached it yet.
"Earth is here, in Sector 2814," Erina continued. "It's a relatively primitive section of space with barely any intelligent life, so the Galra haven't bothered to invade yet. But…the Blue Lion was located on your planet. So an attack on Earth is inevitable."
"Oh no…"
Just then, as the thought of Earth being attacked entered his mind, Kevin immediately started thinking about his family. The Yellow Paladin didn't truly comprehend what was at stake because a part of him felt that it didn't truly involve him at all. However, he soon realized that wasn't the case at all. If the Galra continued having their way, Earth was done for and everyone that Kevin ever loved would be killed, which frightened him immensely.
When Erina saw the look on Kevin's face, the young princess realized that her message was made clear. Although she didn't mean to scare him, but she wanted to fully convey to everyone what was really on the line. Now that she's done that, Erina waved her hand, causing the holomap to disappear.
"Our mission is to liberate all of those planets! Dardarian and I are getting the castle ready to leave Arus. During that time, you 5 must learn how to reform Voltron…so that we can begin taking the fight to Zarkon!"
"…The princess is right," Marcus said with a determined look on his face. "Let's get to our lions and start training!"
Sometime later, Sasuke, Felecia, and Tony donned their armors and got in their respective lions. Then, after activating them and flying out of the castle's hanger bay, the 3 of them flew out and joined Marcus on the runway, who was already in his lion. The only one left was Kevin. Since he was also pretty slow when it came to things like this, due to teaming with him back at the Galaxy Garrison, both Tony and Felecia opted to give the Yellow Paladin a few more minutes. However, when those minutes came and went, the Paladins were starting to get a bit worried.
"Um…Should I go and get him?" Sasuke suggested.
Another 10 minutes passed and Kevin still hadn't arrived yet. Now losing his patience, Sasuke was about to head back to the castle and retrieve his teammate. Fortunately for Kevin though, he soon arrived with the Yellow Lion and joined the others on the runway.
"Sorry I'm late," He apologized. "Seriously…they need to readjust those zip lines and hover cycles."
The things that Kevin was referring to were the zip lines and hover cycles that allowed the Paladins to reach their lions from the castle. Using them was a lot faster than just running down to the hanger and getting into their lions manually. However, because he was a lot bigger than the rest of his teammates, Kevin's zip line couldn't withstand his weight and slowed him down significantly. Not only that, but upon reaching his hover craft, he also saw that he couldn't entirely fit inside. This made reaching his lion not only very difficult, but uncomfortable as well.
Still, what's done was done and now all 5 lions were together. With that, Marcus turned the Black Lion towards the exit of the runway. He then ran a minor diagnostic check to make sure everything was in working order. Once he saw that the lion's systems were running smoothly, the Black Paladin activated his intercom and started talking to his team.
"Alright guys," He started off. "The princess told me that in order to form Voltron we have to form a stronger bond with not only our lions, but with ourselves as well. So let's just fly in formation until we're totally in sync."
"Yes sir!" The Paladins yelled.
With that said, the Paladins simultaneously pushed down on their control sticks and launched their lions into the air. They then started flying around in tight formation, with Sasuke and Tony to the right of Marcus while Felecia and Kevin flew to the left of him. As they did so, the 5 of them focused themselves, hoping that doing so would help them to form Voltron like they did before. But, as they continued to fly all around Arus, they began to notice something.
For some reason, the lions weren't doing anything but fly around. They weren't coming together and forming Voltron like they did during the battle against Sendak. This was pretty odd as the Paladins were all focusing as hard as they could to form the powerful super robot. At first, Marcus simply believed that the team still wasn't entirely in sync and so he had them perform various drills while flying in their lions. However, even after 2 straight hours of this, no progress was being made.
"Well…Isn't this fun," Felecia sarcastically remarked. "Are we all having fun, guys?"
Everyone knew what Felecia actually meant when she said that, but decided not to say anything about it. Things were going nowhere as just flying around wasn't helping. Because of that, Marcus landed the Black Lion onto the ground and the other lions followed close behind. Once they all landed, the Paladins discussed their next course of action.
"Maybe we should be building Voltron." Sasuke said.
"What do you mean?" Kevin inquired.
"I mean we should be literally building Voltron. Like stacking on top of each other."
"So what…like a cheerleader pyramid?" Tony wondered.
"You got any better ideas?!" Sasuke angrily inquired.
As the Blue and Red Paladins glared at one another through their view screens, Marcus was busy pondering the latter's suggestion. At this stage, nothing that they were trying was working and Sasuke had the only idea that seemed to make sense. Because of that, the Black Paladin decided to go along with his teammate's idea.
"Well…It couldn't hurt to try."
With that said, Marcus ordered each of the Paladins to line up so that they can stand on top of one another. Given how Voltron is formed, the way that they should go about doing this should've been simple. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case at all. For some strange reason, Felecia was on the bottom next to Tony and Kevin found himself at the top, where Marcus was supposed to be. When he noticed this, Marcus immediately pointed this out to the Yellow Paladin.
"Kevin…What are you doing?" He asked. "You're suppose be the leg."
"What?" Kevin replied, slightly confused. "But I'm pretty sure that I was the head...right?"
"You were yelling that you were a leg."
"Yeah…But I was yelling a lot of things."
As the back and forth between them continued on for about another minute, Marcus let out a noticeable sigh. He could tell that Kevin wasn't really pleased about being a leg, even if it was to highly powerful super robot. Still, Marcus knew that it couldn't be helped. Unless there was an alternate way to build Voltron, the Yellow Lion will always be the left leg and the Black Lion will always be the body and head. With that, he convinced Kevin to let them build Voltron his way, to which the Yellow Paladin sadly relented too.
Once everyone was on the same page, the Paladins began to restack the lions again. This time, they were in the correct order with the Blue and Yellow Lions on the bottom and the Red and Green Lions in the middle. All that was left was the Black Lion, which Marcus was slowly getting ready to place on top.
"Okay…First the legs, then the arms…and now the head…"
After making sure that everything was just right, Marcus had the Black Lion gently get on top of the makeshift pyramid. He then closed his eyes closed his eyes and began to focus himself on one thing; Voltron.
"Alright everyone…feel the bond with your lions. Now channel your energies and focus it on forming Voltron."
Nodding their heads, the remaining 4 Paladins closed their eyes and tried to focus on becoming Voltron. They stayed this way for about 5 minutes, but noticed that nothing was happening. Even so, Marcus simply told them to focus even harder. Soon, another 5 minutes passed, but again nothing was happening.
"Is everyone channeling and focusing?" Marcus questioned.
"…Yeah." Felecia answered.
"What's going on here?" Tony asked. "Why was this so much easier before?"
As the Paladins had their lions sit back on the ground, they decided to take a break in order to figure out what was going on. They were able to form Voltron before, but for some reason they're unable to do so now. It caused them to wonder if there was something wrong with themselves or with the lions that was causing this to happen. While trying to determine that, Erina suddenly appeared on each of their respective view screens.
"Sorry to interrupt, but I may be able to help." She told them. "Yesterday you weren't able to form Voltron until you were in the heat of battle."
"Yeah…You're right." Marcus replied.
"Perfect…because I need to run a diagnostic check on the castle's defenses. This should help."
Once that was said, Erina started pressing down a few keys on the castle's holographic touchpad. When she finished, an alarm suddenly sounded off and several lasers shot down from the castle and started firing down on the lions. This caused the Paladins to scramble as they tried their best to avoid being blown to bits.
"Erina, what the hell are you doing?!" Sasuke angrily questioned.
"Running a diagnostic check on the castle's defenses," She answered truthfully. "As well as inspiring all of you. I believe in you, Paladins! Let fear be your guide and form Voltron!"
As the lasers continued to fire down on each of the lions, Tony finally decided that enough was enough and attempted to race back towards the castle. Unfortunately for him, just as he was about to get there, the castle's particle barrier suddenly activated. This caused crash into it, sending the Blue Lion falling backwards. By the time he finally managed to get it back to its feet, Tony found himself being solely targeted by the lasers.
"Oh c'mon!" He yelled. "Can't you show us some mercy?! We're still new at this!"
"Do you think Zarkon is going to show you mercy?" Erina asked the Blue Paladin. "He's probably out there right now, planning to destroy us all!"
After she made her point, the princess cut off communications and went to work. This left the Paladins all alone as they ran all over Arus, trying to avoid the lasers. While this was going on, Marcus was busy trying to come up with an idea to get his team out of this situation. Unfortunately, due to how frantic things were, he wasn't able to come up with anything. This led to him being bombarded by barrage of laser fire.
"Great…This is turning out well…"
Later on in the day, Erina and Dardarian were busy walking down one of the castle's many hallways as they discussed the current state of the Castle of Lions. From what they were able to determine, the combined damage they sustained from the battle against Sendak as well as they natural wear of being in stasis for so long were causing more problems than they initially thought. Because of that, Dardarian informed the princess that it would still take them quite a bit before they could finally leave the planet.
Upon first hearing this, Erina was a bit upset by this news. With every day that passes, the Galra's strangle hold on the universe gets tighter and tighter. If they wanted to stop them they needed to get off Arus as soon as possible and bring the fight to them. To that end, the princess ordered Dardarian to double his efforts when it came to the castle's repairs. Before that however, the two of them decided to check up on the Paladins and see they were finally able to form Voltron.
When the two of them made their way into the break room, they were surprised to see that 4 of the Paladins were already inside. Sasuke, Tony, Felecia, and Kevin were all lying around the room, obviously exhausted from the training that they were forced to endure. As she looked at all of them, a large smile soon appeared on Erina's face as the Paladins being here could only mean one thing.
"You did it!" She said to them. "You were able to form Voltron!"
"…No." Sasuke answered.
Erina's smile quickly disappeared upon hearing the Red Paladin rebuff her previous assumption. She then turned to face Sasuke as he was busy lying on a couch, staring at the ceiling with a blank expression on his face. After about a minute, he sat up and turned his head towards the princess.
"We didn't form Voltron. The particle barrier suddenly deactivated and we flew back in."
"…What?" Erina questioned.
Sasuke's revelation didn't make sense to Erina upon first hearing it. She was present when she first activated the particle barrier so she would have known if it was turned off. After a bit of thinking however, the princess suddenly realized something and soon turned to Dardarian. When he saw her stare at him with angry look on her face, the vizier what went wrong and immediately explained to the princess what really happened.
"My deepest apologies, princess." He started off. "But I had to turn off the castle's defenses in order to test the fire suppressors."
As Dardarian attempted to wave this off as a simple mistake, Erina continued to scowl at him. The whole point of keeping the particle barrier up was to force the Paladins to work together in order to form Voltron. If they can't make it inside on their own then everything was for nothing. She was about to tear into him for his blunder, but stopped when she noticed that someone else had entered the room.
The individual was none other than Marcus, who was busy using a towel to wipe off the sweat that was on his face. While the remaining Paladins were taking a break, he was still outside practicing with the Black Lion. When he finally came back inside the castle, Marcus was hoping to see the rest of his team ready to continue their training. Unfortunately, he quickly realized that wasn't the case at all.
"What are you doing?" He asked them. "Break time is over, guys. It's time to get back to training."
"We've been training." Kevin pointed out. "When are we going back to Earth?"
"They're won't be an Earth to go back to if we don't defeat Zarkon, Kevin. That's why we need to get back to training so that we can learn how to form Voltron."
"And how are we supposed to do that?" Tony questioned. "We don't even know how we formed Voltron the first time."
While the Paladins discussed their current struggles, Dardarian took a moment to look at all of them as he recalled something from his past. During his younger days, back when the original Paladins of Voltron were first formed, he noticed how that team had a strong sense of unity between them. It was because that unity that the original Paladins were able to overcome any crisis they came up against, even when odds were completely against them.
Dardarian knew that one of the keys to forming Voltron was unity, but in comparison to the Paladins of old, this new batch had a lot of problems. That wasn't good and so the vizier decided change that by helping these new Paladins improve their teamwork.
"I think I have an idea," He said. "Come with me everyone."
"…Where are we going?" Felecia asked.
"We're heading to the Training Deck. We're going to have to go back to the basics if you want any chance of learning how to form Voltron."
With that said, Dardarian exited the lounge, prompting all of the Paladins to follow after him. After a while, the vizier led them to a room with a large open space. Once he saw that all of them were inside, Dardarian made his way to the upper deck and looked down at the Paladins from a window. He then started talking to them through a loudspeaker.
"In order to form Voltron, you 5 must become a true team of Paladins." He said to them. "During the last attack your survival instincts forced you to work as a team…but that will only get you so far. You're going to have to learn how to be a real team to have any chance of forming Voltron and beating Zarkon the next time."
"…So that's why we're here." Sasuke replied. "To learn how to act as a team?"
"Precisely…Now all of you form a circle facing outward!"
The Paladins were a bit unsure about all of this, but since they didn't have better ideas they decided to go along with it. As a result, all 5 of them formed a circle and proceeded to turn their backs on one another. Once they were in positioned, the Paladins watched as the shields that came with their armor automatically activated. Then, before they had time to react, the walls opened up around them and set free several floating orbs.
"The Paladin code dictates that you must put your teammate's safety above your own. A swarm of drones is about to attack. It's up to each of you to do everything you can to protect the other members of your team."
As the drones started circling around the Paladins, the 5 of them were bracing themselves for what was about to come. Some of them were nervous while others were excited. In the end, none of them were truly ready, but they had to go for it regardless. Because of that, Marcus said the only thing that he could in this situation.
"Get ready!"
Once that was said, the drones started their attack, randomly firing at the Paladins. In the beginning, the laser fire was very easy to predict and they had no problem deflecting them. However, that soon changed once Dardarian switched the settings to Level 2. In this level, not only were the drones firing at a much faster rate, but they were also starting to change targets. This forced the Paladins to truly focus on protecting their teammates while also trying to protect themselves as well.
After about 2 minutes the first casualty took place. Kevin, to avoid being blasted by one of the drones, nervously ducked out of the way of an oncoming blast. However, this caused that same blast to hit Felecia in the back. Once she was hit, the floor underneath her suddenly opened up and she fell through it. The floor then closed back up, leaving her trapped.
"Felec-"
Before Kevin could even have a chance to finish calling out to her, two drones immediately fired upon him from opposite directions. With Felecia gone and unable to watch his back, Kevin was hit by both blasts. Then, just like with her, the floor underneath him opened up as well and he fell through it too.
"Protect your teammate!" Dardarian yelled. "If you don't they'll be no one there to protect you!"
With 2 members of their team now eliminated, the remaining Paladins were now in a desperate situation. In addition, things were about to become even more challenging as Dardarian changed the setting to Level 3. This not only caused the drones to fire even faster, but also caused them to fly around the Paladins even faster. In fact, they were moving so fast that they were unable to keep track of them at all.
"Tony, Sasuke…form up now!" Marcus ordered. "It's the only way to protect ourselves!"
Without question, the Red and Blue Paladins immediately obeyed their leader's order and formed up together with him. In this position, they no longer had to worry about any gaps in their defense. However, it also meant that they had to put an even greater emphasis on protecting each other as they didn't have much room to maneuver.
"You keeping up, Sasuke?!" Tony arrogantly asked.
"Just focus on keeping me safe, dumbass!" Sasuke angrily replied.
"Oh please, I own this drill. You're the one who needs to"
While Tony was busy bragging, the drones suddenly changed tactics and all started firing upon the Paladins from below. Sasuke and Marcus quickly took notice of this and ducked down to better block their attacks. However, Tony was a little late on the update. When he finally did notice, the Blue Paladin quickly jumped up to avoid getting hit. This caused those laser blasts to hit his teammates, resulting in them falling through the floor as well.
Now with 4 of the Paladins gone, this left Tony as the last man standing. He bragged about his skills earlier so Dardarian decided to see if he cut put his money where his mouth is. To that end, the vizier raised the challenge to Level 4. Now all the drones fired up Tony at the same, but from multiple angles and directions. With no way to protect himself, the Blue Paladin was struck all at once, eliminating him and sending him fall through the floor as well.
After about 20 seconds of falling, Tony found himself in another section of the castle, alongside the rest of the Paladins. The room that they were in strongly resembled the same one that they were just in, causing the Blue Paladin to wonder if they just went around in a circle. Before he could think about it any further however, Tony found himself on the receiving end of a firm punch from Sasuke, which knocked him to the ground.
"Ow…What the hell?!" He angrily questioned as he held his face.
"That's my line!" Sasuke replied. "What's the big idea letting us get hit like that?"
As the Red and Blue Paladins were about to come to blows, Marcus stepped in and tried to separate the two of them. The Black Paladin had the awareness to know that fighting like this wasn't going to solve anything. However, before he could even mediate the situation, Marcus noticed that another argument was about to break out between Felecia and Kevin.
"What were you thinking?!" Felecia furiously asked Kevin. "Are you that much of baby that you would allow your teammate to get hit just to save your own skin?!"
"Well…" Kevin slowly replied. "How would you feel if you were the one being blasted?"
"I was being blasted, stupid!"
With two fights going on at once, Marcus had his hands full trying to quell this situation. Princess Erina named him the leader because she knew had the qualities that allowed those who followed him to do so without question. Unfortunately, based on what's happening right now, it seemed like Erina was wrong in her assessment of him. Eventually, Marcus was about to snap at his team and get them to stop fighting, but stopped when he saw something enter the room.
When the other Paladins took notice as well, all 5 of them saw a robot with white and yellow plating making its way towards them. The robot was roughly the size of average human male and was carrying a long Bo staff in its right hand, similar to the one Felecia can make with her Bayard. As he watched the robot continue making its way towards him and his team, Marcus wondered what was going on here.
"…What is that thing?"
"That thing is the Gladiator." Dardarian answered over the loudspeaker. "In order to defeat it, 5 Paladins must fight as one."
Just as Dardarian finished making that statement, the Gladiator immediately began twirling its Bo staff around with great skill. Once it finished, it then started charging towards the Paladins, making its way over to Kevin first. Frightened by the mere sight of it, the Yellow Paladin immediately tried to back away, but was too slow. The Gladiator knocked him down by swiping at his feet before delivering a powerful blow to his chest, giving Kevin a slight shock.
Once it determined that Kevin was no longer a threat, the Gladiator began making its way towards the remaining Paladins. In order to counter them, Felecia, Sasuke, and Tony each summoned their respective Bayards and transformed them into their weapon forms. They then charged at the robot, but the Gladiator was ready for them.
Felecia made the first move, hoping to swipe at the robot's feet in the same manner it did to Kevin. However, the Gladiator easily intercepted her attack and countered by giving her a blow to the side of her head. Then, while she was off balance, the Gladiator grabbed her by her forearm and tossed Felecia at Sasuke, knocking them both down.
When Tony saw this, the Blue Paladin realized that a frontal assault was ill advised. Because of that, he took a few steps back before firing off a few rounds from his blaster. Unfortunately, the Gladiator was able to use its staff to easily deflect each of the blasts. It then rushed towards Tony, who frantically kept firing at the robot in order to get it to stop. Sadly, this failed to do anything as the Gladiator simply jumped over him before kicking him down from behind.
This left Marcus as the only remaining Paladin standing. Although he was a bit apprehensive about going up against such a powerful opponent, Marcus managed to keep his cool. He then instinctively activated his robotic arm, causing it to glow with a bright purple color. The Black Paladin then clashed with the Gladiator and, as he watched from the upper deck, Dardarian was quite impressed that Marcus was able to hold his own against it.
Thanks to his years of training at the Galaxy Garrison, as well as his ability to keep calm under pressure, Marcus was able to successfully parry all of the Gladiator's move while also managing to get in some attacks of his own. When the other Paladins saw this, all of them were amazed by Marcus's skills. It almost looked like he might even manage to beat it. However, as the battle between the two progressed, something unexpected happened.
As he watched the Gladiator charge at him one more time, Marcus's mind suddenly flashed back to when he was a captive of the Galra Empire. He remembered the trauma he felt during his time there, in particular how the Sentry drones chased after them. These memories caused him to break into a cold sweat as he froze up, leaving him vulnerable as the Gladiator attempted to strike at him from above.
"Marcus, look out!"
Just as the Gladiator's attack was about to hit its mark, Sasuke quickly stepped in and blocked the attack with his sword. He then attempted to counter with a powerful sword swipe, but the Gladiator easily jumped out of the way.
"Marcus…!" Sasuke said as he looked back at him. "Marcus, are you alright?!"
Marcus didn't respond to Sasuke's words. His mind was still out of it and he wasn't able to comprehend anything that was going on around him. When Sasuke noticed the pained blank look on Marcus's face, he immediately realized that something was wrong. Unfortunately, before he could even do anything about this, the Red Paladin was suddenly knocked off his feet by the Gladiator. Then, before he even hit the ground, the Gladiator struck him in the gut, knocking both the Red and Black Paladins down in the process.
Once all the Paladins were down and unable to move, the Gladiator gave them a slight bow before leaving the room triumphant. When Dardarian saw this from the upper deck, all he could down was shake his head in disappointment. He then turned around and saw that Erina was in the room with him. She too looked down at the fallen Paladins and all she could do was let out a small sigh.
"This is going to be more difficult than I thought…"
Chapter Preview
The Paladins continue their training in order to improve their teamwork, but as things go on it's clear that one of them has their mind of other things. What's more important than forming Voltron and fighting the Galra Empire?
Speaking of the Galra, Zarkon is adamant about obtaining the Lions of Voltron and forever securing his place as the supreme ruler of the universe. His top advisor, Witch Haggar, has developed means to achieve this goal. Just what is Haggar's plan and how does it relate to the former Galra Champion…Marcus Robinson?
Next Time, Chapter 8: Priorities