The writhing mass of bodies let out shouts and yells at the two figure circling each other in the dug out hole. The larger form slowed its movements, readying itself for its next attack. He swung his enormous right fist, aiming for his opponent only to miss as the small, lithe figure quickly ducked under his arm and proceeded to jab him in the side. Grunting from obvious pain, he hurled his 300 pound body across their ring toward the small figure, only to be side stepped and shoved into the wall. Roars from the crowd mixed with the roar of blood flowing in his head filled his ears.

The small figure waited for its opponent to shake off his dizziness before it quickly attacked, head on, and proceeded to kick him twice in the abdomen and punch him once in the face. The giant lumbering figure crashed onto the floor, completely unconscious.

The crowd above let out roars and whistles of their approval and screams of support at the end of the match. All matches in the Tomb were spectacular, and this one was no exception.

"Alright. Good ol' Lance loves his cash. Pay up.", a tall, brown haired, six foot one young man called to the crowd. He moved through them collecting coins, bottles of wine and kisses from the crowd. The standing figure in the pit shook its head and went over to the fallen man to check if he hadn't gotten seriously injured. Ensuring he was alright, she signaled to a few men to have him taken out of the hole before she followed them out.

"Great fight, Princess. He didn't stand a chance against you.", a huge dark haired guy said, helping her out.

"You should have seen his face when hit the wall…", a slim spectacled teenage laughed. "I recorded it and I'm gonna play it in the mess hall tonight."

"Don't come running to me when he comes after you, Pidge.", the Princess said, taking her jacket from one of them and a towel from the other.

"Please. What do you think I have Hunk for? Ultimate defense.", the teen said, pushing his glasses up his nose.

The Princess chuckled at her friend's audacity. No one went after Pidge. Small as he was, he could drop a squadron of men by himself and come back to play with his inventions right after. Besides, she could protect him along with the big guy Hunk and their resident Casanova slash Don Juan slash lothario and resident womanizer, Lance.

"Spectacular, Princess. I'm a few coins richer because of you, annnnnnd," Lance said, lifting up three bottles of wine, "we've got enough booze to get us wasted! Take that, Nanny!"

"She's right behind you."

Lance screamed running to hide behind the princess.

His three friends all laughed at his spontaneous boast against the Princess's Nanny and Lady in Waiting, Lady Hys, who had given the young man an embargo on her cellar, maids and kitchen. It had become a common occurrence to see the serious faced woman chase Lance with a rolling pin around the bunker.

The Chosen four left the cavern and went back to the residential area of the bunker and back to duty and responsibility. As they passed through the doors of the sanctum, their carefree attitudes remained in those caves as they morphed into the soldiers they were. For the Princess, into a sovereign.

"Your highness, sirs, his Majesty needs you to be in the Command Centre in half an hour. And Nanny needed to see you about your missed appointment with Lord Demarche, your Highness."

"The joys of Love." Lance says sarcastically after the messenger had left.

"Tell me about it." The Princess said, making her way to her suite to take a brisk shower before she meets her father. As the warm water soothed her sore muscles, her mind slipped back to the time when such a feat as fighting someone was an impossibility for her. In her 18 years of life she had changed in so many ways from the innocent little girl she was into a thinker, a fighter, a warrior. When the Blue lion first appeared to her at 10, she hadn't taken all the whispers of war and death seriously. She knew her mother had gone to heaven but what was this death they were talking about. Her father spent more and more time with Coran and the military and engineering advisors than with her but she never understood why. That was until the day she'd slipped out of the castle with Fluffy, her stuffed penguin, to follow the maids who had gone berry picking.

And two weeks later when the survivors of the desert province arrived with what was left of the mangled bodies of her three brothers. Her world shattered in the space of a few weeks, from rose filled gardens to mountains of corpses. What remained of the beauty she'd once known were ashes, toppled buildings and bones. She felt the ache of her people, her planet, her lion so deep within her heart, pounding with bruising ferocity at all the atrocities the Drules had brought on her people, that one day it drove her to the secret fighting hole known as the Tomb.

Princess Allura smiled a little as she tilted her head toward the spray. Her first time at the Tomb had been met with ridicule as seasoned fighters laughed at the sheltered little girl that had challenged one Hunter Mclain.

"Princess, this isn't funny anymore. You don't belong here. Go back to Nanny before you get into trouble." the Lord General of her father's forces said.

"No. I said I want to fight you. You're the best soldier I know and beating you means I can beat anything. I want to fight." she told him.

The Lord General looked the Princess over. Her hands were in little fists, at her side, so small he could crush them both in her in one hand with very little effort. Her little feet were spread apart in defiance, standing her ground. She was being stubborn, as streak she'd inherited from her father.

"No. I will not fight you, neither will I ever allow you to fight in this place. You are the Princes…"

"I am not just a Princess!" she screamed. The crowd was now tense as they watched their General narrow his eyes at the little girl, their monarch. No one disobeyed his orders, but this little girl was standing up to the man.

"Then what are you? One of the Chosen? So is my son and he isn't in this pit. Tell me then." He shouted.

The entire room was completely silent, everyone waiting to hear what the little girl would say. They didn't notice their King standing a few feet behind the crowd. The little girl tensed some more before she took a deep breath and said:
"I don't know. I'm the crown Princess because my brothers are gone and I didn't want them to leave me. I'm my daddy's daughter and the princess, but that's only half of who I am. That's all I know. I just want to know the other me."

That day had been the day she had buried something that had been holding her back, and unearthed a new part of her. A stronger her. And since then she had buried more and more in that fight pit. The Tomb was a righteous name for that place.

Quickly getting ready for the meeting with her father, the princess put on a white vest and matching dark blue jacket and pants before shoving her feet into brown boots. Tying her long golden hair back into a bun, she checked her appearance over in her mirror before leaving her room. Moving through the fluorescent lit corridors, she made her way to the command center and made it just in time to see Hunk and Pidge entering. The Command Center, the hub of their planetary defense, intelligence and the communication center with all the provinces, was her father's base of operations. Gone were her father's royal robes, and in their place, a dark blue military uniform. To a daddy's girl like her, they could have been rags.

"Now that we are all here" the King said from his seat at the head of the long rectangular table, "let's begin." The King said, turning to Admiral Garrison.

….

The rhythm of a steady booted walk could be heard echoing the near empty hallways of the now overrun castle. Soldiers overturned pillars, statues and stonework, ripping potraits and setting aflame the famed history of the second strongest stronghold of their enemy. At the sight of their liege, the blue skinned, dark uniformed soldiers let out shouts of praise. The figure continued on his way to the dimly lit throne room and sat on the bloody vacated gold seat. The grotesque smoking head of the former occupant of that seat his footstool. The black acrid smoke of burning velvet, wood and leather, spiced with the almost choking stench of fire blackened flesh was the sweetest scent he'd ever smelt. Intoxicating. Virile. Bewitching. Flaring his nostrils as he inhaled the thick air, he could only describe it in one word:

"Beautiful."

Sitting alone inside the massive stone hall, the white haired, yellow eyed Prince felt a shiver of absolute pleasure pass right through him.

"You seem unusually happy, my Prince. Most unlike you indeed." a voice cackled from the mass of brown rags that had just appeared from the shadows a few steps behind him, almost melting into them.

Haggar, the cursed dark witch was an awful sight to behold, an achingly real nightmare that the Prince had been saddled with by his father. He always found it difficult to believe that she had once been one of the most beautiful women of their race. Lust for supremacy and the forbidden had ensnared her deeper and deeper into dark magic, ravaging her beauty and leaving only this dry husk, almost charcoal like woman. But at this moment, even her ugliness couldn't spoil the prince's triumphant mood.

"And why shouldn't I be, witch? I have accomplished in a day what my stupid father and the emperor couldn't achieve in their lifetimes. The fall of the second kingdom.", he said, stretching his immaculate hands out toward the burning bodies. He looked to the heavens and laughed at his cunning. He was brilliant and no one in the empire could doubt that. Starting to walk across the hall, he continues:

"Every Drule will shout my name in awe and bow before the most powerful man in the Empire. Countless more kingdoms will fall under this very foot, and when I am done, I will make the current empire look like a pebble in the mountain I'm going to build. Yes" he said, gleaming reptilian eyes flashing with confidence.

"But you went against his Majesty's orders. Your punishment will be severe..."but she was cut off.

"They won't do anything to me, the fools. Do you think that anyone could have destroyed Pollux? Hmm? Cossack? Thrack? Or maybe the traitorous human scum they all listen to?" he asked the witch, stopping and turning to look at her with all the flair of the crown prince of the 13th Drule kingdom of Doom, billowing red cape and all. He truly was a handsome man. A man who could wine and dine you before he flayed the vey flesh of your back while he sipped the finest of wines. She had witnessed the darkness in the young Prince's heart. His half human heritage seemed to intensify that darkness. Stunningly handsome, fiercely vile.

"The fall of Pollux will destroy these little animals' belief in hope, and by the time I'm done, I will have every drule and human at my feet, begging to lick my boots. Nothing can stop me."

"Voltron, my Prince." Haggar said, tearing off a bit of burnt flesh from a butchered soldier on the ground with her long claws, and feeding it to the blue cat in her arms.

"An old fable not worth mentioning, witch. It has been centuries since we were entrapped. We have outlived countless generations of these humans, bidding our time. If the robot still existed, wouldn't it have made an appearance by now?" he asked her.

"You might not believe in the story of Voltron, but remember this: magic runs through the very veins of this planet. Your father, the emperor and the other old generals know that if Voltron were to be brought back to life, our Freedom will be as fleeting as a candle in a typhoon. They faced the robot before, and it was your grandfather's flaws that resulted in our imprisonment. Your father executed him for the throne, but Voltron was too strong. The same pride that led to his downfall may lead you as well, my prince. That is why I serve you at his majesty's orders."

"'IF' your giant pest appears I will destroy it. The problem with my father is that he's senile. He relies on the words of the defectors that as long as he controls Voltron he will be the most powerful drule King, strong enough to overthrow the emperor. But he's wrong."

"You mean he will not be able to control it?" the witch inquired. Unlike his father who held on to the traditional style patterns of warfare, the Prince was something else. Something much more sinister.

"Yes," he answered as he stopped. "It will never allow him to. That is the strength of the beasts that form it. They are wild, untamed creatures and they will destroy themselves to protect that freedom. The captor included. But I don't intend to capture them. I will hunt them down and destroy them before they destroy me. That is the nature of the hunt. The nature of us beasts."

The old witch looked at the Prince and realized that he was more dangerous than anyone in the whole empire. But how would he do it?

"Bring the women to me. I intend to enjoy a bit of polluxian entertainment and the princess didn't give me a warm welcome." The man said, unfazed by their current discussion, effectively ending their talk.

"As you wish my prince." the old witch said, bowing and leaving the Prince, gesturing to the soldiers to lead the women, a blond haired 18 year old in front.

...,...