Chapter 25: Prisoner of War


"That's our target, the moon of Trahoch." Shiro announces as he and the other Paladins approach said moon. Suddenly Allura appeared on screen.

"According to our latest intelligence, that's where the Galra are building their upgraded sentries." Allura said.

"Taking out this base will mean the Galra won't be able to resupply their bases and ships for months." Shiro states.

"Affirmative. Good luck Paladins." Allura says and signs out.

"And how do we know this isn't a trap?" Lance asked over the comms.

"Lance has a point, Shiro." Keith agreed.

"All the intel has checked out so far. Everything's exactly how we were told it'd be. Including preparing for those!" The Black Paladin exclaimed. He was scanning the base and Galran drones, different models then Rover, came out at them.

"Pidge?!" Lance yelled.

"I'm sending you the signals to interfere with the drones." The Green Paladin says.

"Signal received, and… Broadcasting!" Lance announced as he activates the Blue Lion's sonic cannon and blasts the drones, deactivating them.

"Now, let's take them out before they recalibrate and report our approach." Shiro said and they proceed to destroy the drones. "Follow me, let's go in." The Black Paladin said and lead the others into the base. "We only have five minutes before they realize the drones aren't responding." He says as they enter through a pipe. "Be careful to stay in formation and don't touch the sides." He warns.

The Paladins zig zag through the pipe, trying not touch the sides, aka walls of the pipe. However it was a pretty tight squeeze, and the Lions weren't exactly small, understatement, particularly Yellow. Despite trying, Hunk found himself in a tight turn, and accidently bumps one of the walls. Which cracks and hot lava began pouring out. Hunk panics and knocks into Pidge, who yells at him in return.

"I think I may have nicked the side, a little bit." He nervously admits.

"Allow me!" Lance said and turns back, swerving past Hunk and Pidge. He activates his ice cannon and, adding his powers, creates a thick wall of ice, blocking the lava. "That should slow it down, but it won't hold it forever." He informs and goes to rejoin the others. Unfortunately, the "nick", also had the unwanted effect of alerting the Galra that Voltron was infiltrating their base.

The lava managed to melt away the ice, and was heading for the Voltron lions.

"The lava's gaining on us! We can't out run it!" Hunk says as the lava is almost right on their tails, literately.

"Shiro, we should be directly under the base now." Keith informs.

"There's an opening up ahead. Follow me!" The Black Paladin informed the orders. When they reach the opening, they fly up to another, higher pipe, as the lava spills out, flowing down, barely missing the Paladins. However, the pipe they flew in was blocked.

"Oh, no! We're trapped!" Lance exclaimed. The lava began filling, rising to them.

"No! There's another way out!" Shiro said. "Form Voltron!" He commanded. With that, they all combined into the mighty defender. They bust through the wall, into the main part of the facility. "Take down the factory machines!" Shiro commands and they proceed to destroy the base and the sentries it was making.


Voltron flies out and away as the base explodes. The Paladins fly back to Naxzela, where the Castle of Lions was temporarily stationed, and met up in the lounge after changing out of their armor.

"Oh, man! Going on missions I a lot easier when somebody gives you all the information you need before you get there." Hunk comments.

"And yet, you still managed to run your lion into a wall." Lance says.

"Yeah, information is one thing. Ability is something completely different." Hunk defends.

"There's no doubt about it, we haven't encountered a single problem." Shiro says.

"I must admit, you've taken down a vital target today." Allura agrees.

"And we made it look pretty easy, except for the buried in lava part." Pidge says.

"Maybe so, but I don't trust our "source of income", any more than I can throw him. We shouldn't trust him." Keith grunts in response.

"As much as I agree with you Mullet, it kind of sounds like you want the missions to be as hard as they can be." Lance says. Keith goes to rebuff, but suddenly remembers Lady Selifae, and promptly shuts up.

"As much I also hate to say it, it might be time to plan our next step, and that means more information." Kuro says and looks to Allura, who nods.

The clone and Princess leave the room and go to the elevator and take it down very low, until they stop in a mostly empty space, with only a single platform and bridge connecting it to the elevator. The two exit it and walk across the bridge, to the platform, which was actually a cell, that held a single poisoner. Lotor.

"Your intel checkout out." Kuro said.

"You still feign surprise." The Galra Prince states. "All the information I've given, proven correct. Every target I've provided, easily dispatched. And yet, you still look at me-"

"As if you were the leader of the most bloodthirsty race of murderers this universe has ever known." Allura cut him off.

"Can people not change?" He asked.

"You're Galra. Aside from the Blade, it's hard to trust the royal royalty of such a race." Kuro states.

"What's the difference between us. As I picture, technically you are part of the Empire as well." Lotor says and Kuro seethes.

"I'm not like you! I'm not the son of biggest tyrant in the universe!" He says.

"But you are Haggar's creation right? So what's makes us different?" Lotor says and Kuro goes to punch the cell, but is quickly stopped by Allura.

"Besides, being the son of that, monster, isn't as pleasant as you may believe, and I am nothing like him." He states. "Is it so hard to believe that I wish to return the Empire to a bygone era of peace?" He asks. "Were our fathers not once, long ago, friends? There might still be hope for us." He says.

"Maybe, as you've said, they were, but it lead to betrayal and the destruction of my people." She replies.

"So yeah, we still need convincing." Kuro spat.

"The facts speak for themselves. The Galra Empire is completely reliant on quintessence. Serve that need peacefully, and you have a complete paradigm shift, a new dawn for an old empire." The purple man says.

"And you're the one to make this happen?" Allura asks.

"Me, and the Paladins." The Prince replies. "My plan from the beginning has been to find a way to harvest quintessence without resorting to the barbarism of the Komar. Extracting quintessence from entire planets at the cost of every living thing? I think not." He reasoned.

"And your solution was to send Voltron to do your dirty work." Allura retorted.

"Only Voltron could retrieve the trans-reality comet. So, yes, I'm afraid I had to be a bit duplicitous in effecting it's retrieval." He admits.

"But if the paladins were killed, that would be fine for you, too." Kuro says.

"It was a calculated risk, I admit that. But I knew they'd come through without a scratch. And since recovering the comet, I haven't been the least bit aggressive." The Galran Prince states.

"What about your generals?" Allura asked.

"A simple misunderstanding. I had no idea our paths would cross in the Ulippa system. What would a I gain by fighting you?" Lotor replies. "Besides, Narti has been here, and has she done anything to harm another?" He asks.

The two look at each other. True, when Lotor came aboard, one of his generals was him. She was locked away in a different cell all together. And as Lotor said, neither her, or her weird cat has been the least bit aggressive or openly attacked or injured anyone. Allura turns back to Lotor as he speaks again.

"My sole focus has been to finding a way to enter the place between realties." He continues.

"Sounds like you are your father's son." The princess says.

"And I am ashamed for it." Lotor admits as he looks away.

"Are you even aware of what lies in the in-between you so desperately wish to go?" She asks and Lotor looks at her. "Monstrous creatures that feed on greed and ambition, the same that lead, your father, Zarkon, into the rift once, and he was consumed by them as a result." She states.

"It was your father who led the scientific exploration of the rift that discovered quintessence in the first place. An exploration, I might add, that resulted in the creation of Voltron." He retorts. "This isn't a zero-sum game. Meeting the needs of the Galra Empire means bringing peace to the universe. That is the future enlightenment will bring us, one of prosperity for all." He continues.

"Besides, how would know what lies in the in between?" He asked.

"Someone, who knows the rift better than any, told us exactly what lies between worlds." Allura answered.

"And it was something that lead me to you. I saved your lives and the lives of your comrades. I have given you target after target in the Empire, and all of them have been dismantled or destroyed at no cost of life to you. All I ask is to be judge by my actions here, rather than your preconceptions of my race." He requests.

"If that is beyond you, then perhaps you should finish me off and get it over with. But I ask you spare Narti, she has suffered enough." He says. "But, Princess, are you not ready to end this war?" He asks. Allura looks down complementing his words, and remembering something.

When Lotor had contacted them, she was ready to fire open on him, when a voice suddenly spoke in her mind, a familiar yet unidentifiable one. Its words;

"The greatest of enemies, at times, can make the most useful of allies. One can't judge a book by its cover. And one so lost, can be steered in the right direction."

While Allura did now know who it was, she had a feeling she could trust it. Still, she wasn't sure if Lotor, himself could be trusted. After that, she and Kuro left the cell and went back up the elevator. Allura taking one last look at Lotor, who she could have sworn he seemed, paler. The two separated, with Kuro going to find Shiro, and Allura going up to the Castle Bridge. Later on, Lance came to get her.

"Princess? The meeting is about to start." He informed as he walks up to her.

"I'm almost ready." She replies, looking over images of their past experiences. "If I'm expected to lead this, I need to know what I'm about." She says.

"Yeah, but no one expects you to memorize everything." Lance says. "We can just have a script screen for you to read off, or you can just jot down some notes on the inside of your hand." He suggested. "I mean, I do it all the… uh, time." He admitted nervously and Allura stares at him. "I'm kidding!" He said, luckily Pidge chose that time to message Allura.

"Princess, everyone's ready." She informed.


With that, the Altean Princess and Blue Paladin made their way out of the bridge and to the meeting room, where the leaders of the Coalition were, on holoscreen.

"As of today, our rebel forces have taken control of 1/3 of the former Galra Empire." Allura began. "But we cannot grow complacent. The Empire is still the dominant force in the universe. However, the tide is changing." She continues.

"The rebel coalition is winning because of you, Princess Allura. You and Voltron." One of the rebel leaders said. "Mere cycles ago, I felt that my race would breathe its last in Galra chains, but then Voltron appeared on the horizon and our lives changed forever!" He added.

"This bid for liability is only possible because of all our sacrifices. And we have a long way to go before the rest of the universe is free." She says back.

"We'll be behind you every step of the way." The same leader spoke.

"Thank you. We will reconvene soon. Until then." She said and ended the meeting. The leaders screens were disabled, but a new, bigger one, took their place, Kolivan's.

"Did you complete your raids on the targets we sent on our last communication?" Shiro asked.

"Yes. The information we've gotten from Lotor has consistently checked out." Kolivan reports.

"With all these successful missions taking place in such a short period of time, it won't be long before the Galra realize we have insider information." Pidge says.

"That's true. We should expect the enemy to change protocol soon." Kolivan says.

"Then we need to act fast and strike as many targets as possible." Lance says.

"I guess, we'll go talk to Lotor and see if there's anything else he can give us." Shiro suggests. Kuro seems to flinch at that. No one could really blame him.

"I can't stop thinking that we might be an unwitting part or much bigger ulterior motive." Allura voices her thoughts.

"I hear you Princess. I don't like this anymore than you do, but the information has checked out before, and we don't have much time." Shiro replies. With that, he and the Princess proceed to visit their royal prisoner.


"Every lead I've provided you so far has unerring, exact, and relatively easy to accomplish." The Galra Prince said as he turns to them. "Anything I would give you now would be somewhat more, perilous in nature." He tells them.

"We're listening." Allura told him.

"I do have some information I believe you would consider important on a more, personal level." He began. "There is a prison, formally under my control. It houses a special inmate." He says, having their full, undefined attention.


Meanwhile, Pidge was helping her brother and the rebels with fixing their ships.

"Thank you for helping us get the fleet back in order. They were pretty banged up after the invasion." Nyma, an old enemy turned friend, thanked the siblings.

"No problem." Pidge replied.

"We re-booted the entire targeting system in this one." Matt says, directing the alien's attention to said ship. "Pidge and Rover wrote a patch that will increase accuracy by a power if three." He said.

"Yeah, well, Matt overhauled the thrusters on this one." Pidge said, directing their attention to another ship. "It can pull out of a six-g dive and not lose thrust." She says.

"That's Newton's gravitational constant, or course." Matt says.

"Duh! What would she think, 9.8 meters per second squared?" Pidge asks and the two siblings laugh. Nyma watches, feeling like an outsider to their science talk.

"But, we saved our best work for last." Matt said as he steps aside, revealing Nyma and her friend, Rolo, robot pal Beezer, who looked shiny. The alien girl gasps and goes over to the bot.

"He looks brand-new! I can see myself in his chest plate." She compliments. Just then, one of the ships' doors open, revealing Rolo himself.

"Pidge, you got a message incoming." He says. The three head into the ship and Rolo proceeds to open a holoscreen, showing Allura, Shiro and Kuro, in armor.

"Hey, guys." Pidge greeted.

"Pidge. Matt." Shiro greeted back with a heavy tone.

"Is something wrong?" The Green Paladin asked, able to tell something was up.

"We have a lead, on Commander Holt. Your Father." Kuro replied.

"Our father?" Pidge asked shocked, while Matt was stunned silent.

"Lotor gave us information on his whereabouts." Shiro said.

"Where is he?" Pidge asks.

"Because your father was considered a valuable scientific asset, he was sent to a remote prison along with others like him. Where they are being forced to work for the Galra Empire." Allura explained, with a sympathetic look.

"According to Lotor, he's still held in the prison, but he could be transferred at any moment. As soon as the teludav is repaired, we can all head over there." Shiro informs them. The two siblings look at each other, knowing immediately what the other was thinking and what they had to do. Matt runs off, while Pidge turns to the screen.

"Send us the coordinates!" She says and runs after her brother, Rover as always, right behind her.

"Wait!" Shiro calls.

"Pidge, Matt! If you wait for us, we'll be able to provide you with backup." Allura tries, but they were already gone.

"Hey, don't worry. We'll make sure they got all the backup they need." Rolo promises them. Beezer hums in agreement.

"Bring them back safe. Good luck." Allura says and cuts communication. The three rebels then board the Green Lion along with the Holt siblings and take off heading to the coordinates to the prison. Along the way, Pidge began to worry.

"What if something happened to him, Matt? What… What if-?" She trailed off.

"We're going to find and bring Dad back, I promise." Matt reassures his sister, with a hand on her shoulder. Rover hovers over to his master and beeps at her encouragingly. Pidge manages a smile for both of them, then goes back to flying. They arrive at their destination, an asteroid terraformed by Galra technology.

"Approaching the prison." Pidge announced as they descended.

"This place is gonna have security. We're gonna go headfirst into that?" Rolo asks.

"That's why we have cloaking." Pidge says as she activate her Lion's cloaking ability. The ship flies through the force filed, only to set off the alarms and the cloak to be deactivated. "How did it detect us?" Pidge asks.

"That doesn't sound good." Rolo said, referring to the alarms.

"We've hit some sort of barrier! We've lost cloaking!" Pidge reports. Rover and Beezer both started beeping in alarm. "Galra fighter on intercept course!" She said. The fighters began attacking, shooting lasers at the Green Lion. Pidge expertly moved to doge the lasers and shot some of her own. She managed to blast a few fighters, then flies past the rest. Heading for the facility.

"Change of plans! I'm going to have to drop you off!" She said as she moves towards the prison building. "Hold on!" She says as positions them above, then open the Lion's hatch allowing the four rebels to drop down. "Got get him Matt." She says to her brother and continues to out maneuver the fighters.

The rebels make it to the ground, not without a problem. On the way down, Matt's jetpack malfunctioned and he nearly went splat, luckily Beezer managed to catch him and fly him safely to the ground unharmed. They make their way to the prison, only to find all the guards destroyed. Something was up.

Back with Pidge, she was having trouble avoiding all the Galra fighters attacks.

"Come on, girl!" She grunts as she's hit. The Green Paladin activates her lion's cannon and shoots one of the fighters, causing vines to sprout from it and disable the ship. "Stay with me, Green!" Pidge shouts as she avoids another barrage of attacks. She shoots them both with her cannon and they both fall. However, it wasn't over yet. More fighters suddenly appeared and began attacking.

"Oh, man." Pidge says and dodges their attacks. She suddenly gets an idea, she stops and closes her eyes, concentrating. She visualizes the fighters, and pinpoints their exact locations. She then shoots the Lion's cannon, hitting each and every one of the fighters. All of them, bursting vines and disabling them.

After receiving a transmission, Pidge headed for where the rebels had taken an escape pod, with the captured scientists, and grabs them, then leaves the atmosphere. As they flew away, Matt came into the cockpit.

"Matt! Matt, did you find him?" Pidge asks excitedly.

"I'm sorry, Pidge." He answered. Translation, no, he didn't find their father.

"No! Dad! Dad, where are you?" She says as she tries to move past her brother.

"He wasn't there." Matt said as he held back his sister. "He was already gone." He said melancholic and held Pidge in his arms as they both cry. "We can't give up, Pidge. We know Dad's alive. We'll find him." He encourages.


They make it back to the Castle of Lions, the rest of the Paladins helping the former prisoners. While Pidge goes to talk to a certain Prince, the rest soon following after her.

"You lied! He wasn't there!" She accuses.

"I believe I told you that he could be moved at any point, you were simply too late." Lotor replied.

"Where is he then?!" Pidge asks angrily.

"I, do not know." The Prince said, his speech was slightly off, but Pidge was too angry to notice.

"Pidge, I understand, but you have to calm down. There's no point in yelling at him." Lance tries to sooth.

"I… assure you, I was, telling the truth." The purple prince said as he stood, but suddenly started swaying and fell to the floor of the cell floor with a hard "thud!".

"Oh my god!" Lance exclaimed, Allura immediately opened the cell and the Blue, Black and Red Paladin look over the galra prince. He look awful, his lavender skin was paler than normal, though his cheeks were strangely flushed with darker purple, he was breathing heavily and sweat was pouring down his face. Lance reached up a hand and touches his forehead.

"Guys! Something's wrong! He's burning up!" He exclaims.

"We need to get him to the Medical bay!" Allura exclaims. Shiro and Kuro each take one of the Prince's shoulders and carry him to the elevator and up to the medical bay.


AN: Hey everybody! I'm back with a whole new chapter! I can't believe we are now in season 5, and guess what else, we've hit over 1000 Readers! Woo-hoo! So yeah, this series is surprisingly going amazingly. I wasn't expecting so many to read it at first. With that, let's continue this story and see what happens next.