Chapter 8: New Lessons
The flight back to Galra was, for once, uneventful, and Yurak, Haggar and Sakura got back in good time, quickly heading to the throne room to report to Zarkon. Once there, they found the evil King waiting on his throne, a less than cheerful look upon his face. They quickly bowed to their knees once more.
"Well?" he queried. "What news, witch? Did you and your apprentice succeed in slaying the humans and eliminating Voltron?"
"Well," Sakura surprised herself in that she actually spoke up first. "Bad news, we lost the robeast to a volcano; pretty clever of them, really." Zarkon growled, and she hastily continued. "But good news, the blue lion's pilot is dead, so they had to do it without him or that lion." At this, Zarkon's eye's lit up happily, a twisted, evil grin on his lips.
"Ah, that is good news, little witch, you may live to see adulthood yet," he chuckled.
"Thank you, my King," she replied, bowing her head, then rose her head back up and blinked her eyes as his comment fully sank in. "Wait, what?"
"It is true, sire," Haggar commented calmly. "They can no longer form Voltron without all five lions, and Arus is now easy prey."
"Good, Haggar, just what I wanted to hear!" Zarkon rose to his feet. "Now, prepare a final attack, and crush that miserable planet once and for all! They won't have the "mighty Voltron" to save them this time!"
"Yes, sire," Yurak nodded his head. "I'll begin making plans immediately. This time we'll smash that new castle to the ground!" With that, Zarkon dismissed them as he needed to go to his personal office to tend to the tedious paperwork of Empire running.
Haggar took Sakura back to their private quarters, the two ready to relax a little. Along the way, Sakura briefly found herself thinking of the lion pilot they had killed, the uncertainty in her mind rising once more, but quickly shook it off; he was the enemy and she was doing her duty, there was nothing to regret! Upon arriving at their quarters, Spinner flitted over to the recliner to collect his current book, and resumed reading from where he left off. Cova found his way to the end table, curled up, and promptly went off to sleep. Haggar walked over to her desk, sighed, and began leafing through her own neglected paperwork. Sakura watched all this, and found herself secretly glad the only paperwork she had to contend with was lesson assignments and tests; as such, she went to her personal table, or so she thought of it as she did most of her learning there, and began leafing through her notebook.
She'd been keeping the book since she was seven, and had first started thinking up silly little ideas for spells and enchantments and devices for her own personal use and interest not long after. Usually what she came up with could never work, or was simply too wild and zany to ever be made real outside her imagination, even with magic, but occasionally she came up with an idea that could work, at least on paper. Then she'd try an experiment to see what would actually happen.
Sometimes, the experiment would have a result far from what she expected, but Haggar would simply encourage her, saying, "Any result at all from an experiment, even a bad one, is better than no result at all!" Other times the experiment would end in horrid failure; Sakura recalled how one time her eyebrows had been accidentally melted to her skin and required Haggar to speedily mix a restorative potion to counter the effects. And, not unexpectedly, there were times when the experiment would end with nothing happening at all.
Today, though, she flipped through the pages unsure of what she wanted to look at until she came near the end of what she had thus far wrote, stopping on the page where she'd scribbled down an idea for a potion meant to turn metal into mush.
'Hum, there's an idea,' she thought to herself. 'If we can mushify the castle a little bit, that'd make bringing it down a lot easier, especially if we start by spraying where we know there to be defensive weapons.' Sakura carefully glanced over what she'd written, taking note of the fact that she had apparently dropped the idea after deriving only a few varied formula concepts. Thinking back, she remembered how at the time she'd decided that such a thing might never be needed by the Empire, and that she had ultimately decided to shelve it until later notice.
Well, "later notice" had arrived sooner than anticipated, and so she picked up her pencil and started going over her original base calculations and ingredient ideas, tweaking them a little as she spotted errors in her sums she had previously overlooked. She became engrossed in the work, which could surely score her points with Zarkon and atone for the less than stellar track record she'd had for the last week, and didn't even notice when Naoko came in with her broom to sweep up, the slave girl choosing to stay quiet and thus not draw any attention to herself. The only one who seemed to notice was Spinner, who only glanced at her once, then returned to his book.
As Sakura worked feverishly to figure out the ideal formula for her new potion, her mind found itself wandering away to the small human named Pidge. Her mind conjured up that first site of him, eyes and expression defiant as he marched resolutely to the arena and what at the time could have been his certain death. Thinking of the arena made her think of his performance there, bravely distracting the blue robeast to allow his comrades to wound and hinder it. Then her mind went back to planet Arus, and how Pidge had singlehandedly taken on practically the entire Galra infantry. She was so lost in her own thoughts, she didn't even notice her own dreamy sigh.
"Who's that? Someone you mean to enslave?" Naoko asked from behind her, causing Sakura to jump in startlement and turn on her slave.
"Excuse me? Just what are you talking about?" Sakura desperately tried to cover her surprise at the sudden jar from her daydreaming, Haggar and Spinner just glancing up curiously. In response, Naoko just pointed to Sakura's notebook, drawing the young witch's attention back to it. Sakura blanched. When had she started to draw pictures of Pidge, in both his normal outfit and his Voltron flight uniform?! Her face went crimson as she realized just how far her mind had wandered off.
"None of your business, get back to work!" she snapped at Naoko, who quickly returned to her sweeping. Haggar just gave a knowing smirk before returning to her paperwork, while Spinner just rolled his eyes and returned to his book. Sakura went back to her notebook, and for a few minutes tried desperately to get her head going on the potential formula again before realizing it was pointless, her train of thought hopelessly derailed.
Deciding she needed a breather, she got up and wandered over to the book-laden bookshelves, and glanced over the many titles while deciding what to peruse for a while. Finally her eyes landed on one book in particular, and she pulled it out, looking it over critically.
"'Legends of the Omega Comet'," she read the title, then opened it and began glancing through it as she returned to her seat.
"What do you mean, you can't send a new pilot? We need someone to fly blue lion!" Keith snapped, still feeling a little hostile. The new Castle of Lions had come pre-equipped with an interstellar transmission array and receiver antenna, and now that they had a relatively free and quiet non-combat moment, they were finally reconnecting with Galaxy Garrison, and reporting their current situation and activities, as well as the now somewhat desperate need for a replacement for Sven. Unfortunately, Colonel Mustang was starting to come off to them as the GG equivalent to Catbert in his reluctance to send someone. The remaining team members were in the Castle's Control Room at the main console. Keith was at the sole chair, and Hunk, Lance, and Pidge watched from behind him.
"I mean, we can't," Mustang replied calmly. "Simply put, Captain, we have no way of getting someone to Arus safely at this time; Doom's forces have gotten far too hot in that sector." The man then smirked in amusement. "In other words, you boys have poked a hornet's nest with a really, really sharp stick and pissed off the hornets something fierce. Frankly, it's pure luck we were able to get this encrypted transmission through without those planet Doom assholes listening in. There's nothing we can do for you at the moment. Although, there is something you can do for Garrison and the Alliance."
"And that would be?" Keith slumped into the chair, an air of defeat around him.
"Well, since this is an encrypted transmission, why don't you send us Voltron's schematics so we can see about building a few more of him, and really put the fear of god into Zarkon and his armies?" Mustang was still smirking, but Keith's eyes widened at the thought, as did his team's – an army of Voltrons? They'd almost pity the suckers on the other side! Pidge stepped forward and began working feverishly at the computer interface in the console.
"Just one sec, Colonel," he chimed, working away. "Double checking security of transmission; adding extra double encryption to schematic files; and transmitting...now!" There was a few moments while the computer beeped as it transferred a copy of all the Voltron schematic and blueprint files across space to Galaxy Garrison, Mustang getting a serious look on his face again, then a small chime indicated that the file transfer had been completed. Mustang tapped on the keys to his computer on his end, and then smiled again, indicating success.
"Well done, Ensign," he said to Pidge. "File transfer is complete, and everything looks good on this end. Well, I'm afraid I have to go now, Captain, but I wish you luck in finding a replacement pilot, and someone here will attempt to make contact again for another update within the next week or two. Colonel Roy Mustang, out!" With that, the transmission ended, and the team slumped.
"Do you think they'll really be able to duplicate Voltron?" Hunk asked.
"Who knows, Hunk," Keith replied. "Who knows."
"We still need a pilot for blue lion," Pidge commented, a note of sadness in his voice.
"I suppose we could go through the newly appointed castle staff, see if any of them is flight trainable," Lance suggested.
"Isn't Garrison sending someone?" a female voice asked, and they turned to see Princess Allura, ruler of planet Arus, the woman having just entered the room and walked up to them.
"No, they say they can't get anyone past Doom's forces to join us," Keith admitted, his voice a little depressed at the thought. "We could only send them Voltron's schematics and blueprints in the hopes they can make another one." Suddenly the air in the Control Room turned very chilly to the three men and one boy as an aura of heat suddenly surrounded the Princess.
"You...did...WHAT?!" she roared, and the boys couldn't help but notice how she now resembled a fierce, blood thirsty lioness about to pounce on her prey.
"And thus the Comet was pushed into the far depths of space, never to be found again," Sakura read the last line aloud to herself. "Oh, please, like that would even work! That spell would have so blown up in their faces!"
"Hm? What are you reading there, dearie?" Haggar asked, rising from her seat. Sakura turned to her mentor and showed her the book's cover. "Ah, the Omega Comet," Haggar smiled slightly. "Like Voltron, something that many strongly believe existed, but none have been able to relocate."
"Did you ever try to find it?" Sakura asked.
"I've researched it extensively, dearie, but unlike Voltron where I had clues to feed my personal thoughts and conjectures, for the Comet I was left thoroughly unsure where to begin - it vanished that completely. Although I do hear the odd rumor now and then," Haggar replied.
"I dunno, seems a little far fetched to me," Sakura commented.
"Never said it wasn't," Haggar agreed. "But it would be nice to have a solid answer one way or the other, wouldn't it?"
"Yeah, I guess," Sakura said, closing the book and taking it back to the shelf. "Oh, well, back to work, then."
"Mm? Yes, and I think it's high time I taught you a new spell, one you can make great use of in the near future if, as I suspect, this conflict with Arus drags out," Haggar stated, and moved to stand by her apprentice's side.
"A new spell?" Sakura's eyes lit up in excitement and joy. "What kind?"
"The kind that will allow you to gather information on an enemy or ally alike with complete safety," Haggar told her. "Well, for you at any rate. For Spinner, not so much."
"WHA?!" Spinner's head snapped up from his book and he stared in their direction in panic. "What's that supposed to mean?!" Cova yowled and growled in short bursts in his direction, and he turned his attention to his fellow familiar. "She's gonna teach her to do what through me?" Spinner asked incredulously. Haggar ignored the whole exchange, resting a hand over Sakura's eyes.
"I want you to focus your mind on your familiar," Haggar instructed. "Focus on his aura, his essence, and his exact position."
"Okay," Sakura said, focusing her mind as told.
"Now, reach out with your energy, and connect to his mind, and through it, his eyes," Haggar told her. "Make what he sees what you see."
"I really don't like how that sounded at all," Spinner replied.
"Hmm, hmm, okay, I think I'm there...no, wait..." Sakura attempted to do as she was told, but couldn't quite find the spot.
"Just relax, dearie, don't force it, let it come to you," Haggar instructed. "It'll feel a little odd the first time, it usually does, but once you get used to it, it'll feel as natural as putting on your dress first thing in the morning." Sakura was quiet for a moment longer, then let out a small gasp of joy.
"I did it!" she cried. "I found his eyes, I'm seeing through them...it's kind of blurry." Her face had fallen back into a slight frown.
"Now, think the incantation 'metsuki no ichi, mestuki no bekko, miru saa'," Haggar told her, and a moment later Sakura's frown again became a smile.
"It cleared up! I can see us through Spinner!" she said excitedly.
"Excellent!" Haggar removed her hand, and Sakura instantly got dizzy. Haggar chuckled, then said, "You don't want to be doing that while trying to look at something else with your own eyes, dear. Now, why don't you go sit down and practice it a few times, to get used to it?"
"Okay," Sakura replied, breaking her connection to Spinner for the moment to regain her equilibrium. She then moved herself to her seat and sat down, resting a moment before trying the new spell again. Meanwhile, Spinner looked nonplussed.
"And Haggar does this with you?" he asked Cova, who meowed in reply. "Well, at least I didn't really feel anything..."
Lance, Hunk, and Pidge sifted through the piles of files, attempting to narrow down their potential list of "candidates" for blue lion pilot duty. So far everyone they'd looked at was definitely combat trained, but no one came off as the type who could be trained for flight. Most had attitude issues in regards to flying, and a few had full blown psychological issues, including one guy who had acrophobia. And then there was the guard who preferred outside patrol or balcony duty due to acute claustrophobia. Neither of which were things for a Voltron lion pilot to have. It was honestly starting to look hopeless.
The group sat at a conference table in a still-being-shaped-up conference hall that had been briefly used for a feast hall the night before Sven's loss. The files lay in multiple piles upon the table as they sorted through them. Keith had sent them on ahead to work on their "Plan B" while he attempted to sooth the savage Allura, and they had yet to see him, and Lance was starting to wonder if they were going to need to replace black lion's pilot, too.
The real regret, they all had to admit, was that the long ago pounding of Arus by Doom had made a point of wiping out the entire Arus Naval and Air Forces, and of the few and far between survivors, some had been left physically disabled and others left mentally unhinged, or were simply in no shape after all this time to help. The current castle staff was primarily composed of ground soldiers, hardened veterans who had managed to endure the original invasion and decimation, as well as younger men and women who had grown up afterward, resentment and a desire for vengeance against Doom burning in their hearts and fueling their drives. And as they had previously noted, none of them looked like a good choice for a replacement pilot.
"I am sorry for not consulting you, Princess, I really mean it," Keith's voice cut into their thoughts as he walked in, a still simmering, but visibly far less upset than when they left her, Allura at his side.
"Alright, alright, apology accepted, Captain," Allura replied, stressing his rank to show she was not yet completely mollified, then turned to the others. "Any luck choosing a new pilot for the blue lion?"
"Not really, Princess," Lance admitted. "The available selection kind of leaves much to be...desired."
"Not that we're saying none of your people could do it!" Hunk quickly put in as Allura's eyes narrowed slightly. "It's just that, uh, well..."
"It would help if someone in this pile actually already had some idea of how to fly a ship, lion shaped or otherwise," Pidge covered for his friend.
"I see," Allura closed her eyes in thought.
"Thanks, little buddy," Hunk whispered behind one hand.
"Anytime," Pidge quietly replied.
"That bad, huh?" Keith asked as he walked over to the table to pick up some of the files and have a look for himself.
"I don't suppose you have any other ideas about this?" Lance queried. "Cause otherwise it looks like we'll most likely have to train a pilot literally from scratch, and I don't think planet Doom's gonna give us that kind of time."
"Re-wire blue lion to run on remote from another lion?" Hunk commented. "From mine would be the best option on that one."
"True," Lance agreed. "Blue and yellow lions both being Voltron's legs, and all."
"But is it really a good idea to try and have one person attempting to pilot two lions at once?" Pidge asked. "Especially in a full blown battle?"
"Nn, yeah, good point," Hunk crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair.
"Maybe set it up so someone could remote pilot it from the castle control room?" Lance suggested, and then immediately frowned. "Nah, that wouldn't work, either; response time needs to be to the second during a fight."
"We could build a robot to fly the lion," Pidge suggested. "Would that work?"
"Possibly," Keith answered as he continued going through the files he'd picked up, and seeing the problem at hand that had left his team stumped. "But how good are your AI programming skills?" This left the guys feeling downcast again. "That's what I thought," Keith said. "There's just no replacing a true, human pilot. At least, not for us. Not now." Allura's eyes reopened at that moment, a thoughtful look on her face.
"Hmm," the contemplative sound emerged from her lips, and she turned and left the room.
"Princess Allura?" Keith glanced after her, but she simply continued onward to wherever she was headed.
Sakura took a deep breath as she relaxed and released her connection to Spinner for the latest time. She'd been practicing for a couple of hours now, and was really starting to get the hang of seeing through Spinner's eyes. At Haggar's suggestion, she'd even tried it a few times with her own eyes open, which she had to admit felt a little weird, but somehow she'd managed. Haggar had then shown her how to perform the spell via a crystal ball, so as to let others see what she did through Spinner, a touch Spinner liked even less than the idea of Sakura seeing through him at all. Fortunately for him, but unfortunately for Sakura, she'd had little luck with this one. Haggar had simply comforted her, telling her there was no rush, it had taken her weeks to master that aspect of the spell, and, after all, Sakura was still mastering the basic form of it, so miracles were hardly expected.
"Everything all right, dearie?" Haggar looked up from her paperwork, the pile much improved from when she'd started.
"Yeah," Sakura replied. "Just a little tired."
"Hm, yes, to be expected," Haggar mused. "Well, that's fine, go ahead and take a break if you like."
"Okay," Sakura said, getting up from her seat to stretch. Truth be told, she felt like she'd accomplished something today learning the new spell, and was actually eager to put it to actual field use. As fate would have it, she soon would. A knock came at the door just then, the two witches turning to see Yurak at the door.
"Yes?" Haggar asked. "Need something, Yurak?"
"I was just finalizing my plan of attack, and have selected a robeast named Mogyula for the job," Yurak stated. "I just need some more inside information on what's happening on Arus before implementing it. I was thinking your cat."
"Ah, yes, a fine idea, I'll send Cova straight away to acquire intel on the enemy," Haggar agreed, standing up. "And then I'll do some quick work on this Mogyula to make him all the more formidable."
"That'll be just fine, old witch," Yurak grinned.
"Shall I send Spinner with Cova, mama Haggar?" Sakura asked, and Spinner, who'd been quietly ignoring the conversation while trying to read again, suddenly looked up, his expression a mix of shock and displeasure.
"What?!" he piped, unable to get anything else out due to temporary brain freeze.
"Hm, to gather intelligence on the enemy for the Empire?" Yurak asked. "Or to peep on the small human you've taken a liking to for your own kicks?" Sakura jerked slightly as her face flushed a very pretty scarlet red. Haggar just chuckled in amusement.
"Well, they're hardly mutually exclusive at the moment, are they?" Haggar said, still chuckling. "Come along Cova, Spinner, let's get you two off to Arus!" With that, she collected her staff and headed out the door, Cova on her heels.
"Yeah, Spinner, get going," Sakura directed her familiar, and he begrudgingly obeyed, flittering through the air to the door and beyond. Yurak gave her a nod, and left after Haggar and the two familiars. Sakura took a deep breath and returned to her seat at her table, glancing once again at her notebook, pondering whether or not to try again on her idea of a metal mushifying potion. She glanced up when she realized someone was watching her, and she turned to see the slave girl, Naoko, still in the room, having finished her sweeping and now mopping.
"What?" Sakura asked the girl with a glare.
"Aren't you going to go with them?" Naoko asked carefully, then quickly added, "Ma'am?"
"No, I'm not," Sakura replied, still glaring. "What's it matter to you, anyway?"
"Um, well, uh..." Naoko stammered, then when Sakura's glare got nastier, quickly spat out, "It's just more peaceful in here when all of you are gone, that's all." Sakura's face showed she was getting more and more angry at the slave's responses, so in desperation, Naoko said, "You always seem to go wherever Mistress Haggar or Lord Yurak go..."
"No, I don't always go everywhere one or the other of them goes," Sakura stated, magical energy starting to crackle around her hand. "And you are about two steps from becoming a robeast's lunch!" And with that she rose her hand and released the magical energy at Naoko, launching the helpless girl across the room and into a wall, the slave then slumping to the ground.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." Naoko chanted, terrified of further unprovoked punishment. But Sakura was mollified for the moment, pleased at how well she had reminded the slave of her proper place.
She entered her new room quietly, only the four little Arusian mice joining her. Allura moved to her desk and sifted through the third drawer, locating the documents she sought. They were copies printed from the castle's main computer, a new set as the originals she'd printed years ago when she was young had been destroyed with the original castle. They were documents on the workings of the five lions, and she sifted through them to find the ones for blue lion.
Once upon a very long time ago, an eight year old Allura had dreamed of putting Voltron back together all by herself, but her attempt to learn how from these documents had lead her to two major walls – a.) she couldn't figure out how to do it alone, and b.) she had understood less than half of what the documents said then, most of the words simply being too far over the then eight-year-old's head. But that was then.
This was now.
And now she was a full grown woman, her education and understanding much advanced from that young dreaming child's. Now she more fully understood the words before her, and harbored no illusions of forming Voltron alone; but flying a single lion...
"What do you think, Platt?" she asked the alpha male mouse, who had scrambled up to her shoulder to see what she was looking at. He simple squeaked in response.
It was peaceful that night on Arus, so much so that no one even noticed the small rowboat coming across the lake to the castle, or the solitary person aboard it.
And so we transit to episode 7. I'd initially thought to just go straight into said episode, but when I took notice of the fact that it's also the first to show Haggar/Honerva spying via her familiar, it occurred to me I'd made no comment as to whether or not Sakura had been taught to do that, and rather than go back and figure a way to squeeze in such a comment, I figured I'd actually show her being taught how to, and it sort of snowballed into a full on "intermission" chapter of sorts. Unfortunately I hit more than a few writer's blocks getting this one out. I swear, it was like trying to pull teeth, or muscle through a particularly long and annoying root canal!
It also allowed me to give myself a little out in other ways, including covering why Garrison never simply sent a replacement for Sven. Of course, in the original Japanese, that was sort of self explanatory due to there being no Galaxy Alliance/Garrison in Golion.
You'll also note I've laid the groundwork, as it were, for Vehicle Voltron, just in case I actually take this all the way to "Fleet Of Doom". Other references will be coming in future. Roy Mustang is technically a cameo from Fullmetal Alchemist, and most likely won't be making another.
And yes, I'm going to be using all the Robeasts' original Japanese names, it's easier than just calling them "robeast" all the time, and less confusing(for me, at least...). And as you may have noticed, yes, I'm using the space mice original names, too, easier than having to choose from all the various names slapped on them by WEP, who apparently couldn't make up their minds on that one.
As to the spell, the rough translation would be "Eye of one, eye of another, look now!" Please note, when I came up with it, I didn't write the translation down, and the texts I used do date back to the 1990s, so sadly that may not be very accurate.(I actually couldn't translate "bekko" to save my life, so I went with the flow...)
And now a brief additional diatribe on why this took so long. Well, the short version is, I'm an idiot. The long version is, when I started this fic, I decided to try the method of writing several chapters ahead. The only problem: I was writing til I had three chapters, then had the earliest betad, then posted it, then started on writing another chapter. It was only when asked about this by my beta(a.k.a. my sister) that it finally sank in that "writing ahead" really only works if I'm releasing on a specific schedule, meaning that what I was doing was kinda dumb. So I decided to write until I reached Lotor's birthday ep., then start posting one a week. But then I got hit with multiple bouts of writer's block as mentioned above, got distracted by various games, including Starcraft II:Legacy of the Void and, as of this writing, Fallout 3 GOTY edition, and most recently the chaos of suddenly having to move from California to Arizona... So, yeah, it was taking way longer than I thought it would. It also didn't help that one of my main sources of inspiration, LotornoMiko's Voltron fics, suddenly stopped updating due to her switching fandoms on me.
At this point, I'm currently working on the introduction of Romelle and Bandor, and with various new fans favoriting and commenting on me, I decided to start posting some of what I've already finished on a weekly basis rather than wait any longer, cause this is getting ridiculous even to me. Thus, here we are.
Okay, enough chatter from me. On to the next episode!
Scorpinac
