The roar of mimetic engines reverberated through the void of space as a large elegant but wicked-looking ship passed by, the size of which could be compared to a Galra Dreadnought, hovered near the atmosphere of the planet Arus.

The huge ship had the strange shape of a wicked-looking alien ax with the upper part similar to a curved blade and the lower part like the hilt which in the front part was a huge blade. There were lights inside the ship which gave signs of life.

This ship was one of the many torture class star cruisers of the Drukhari race who are terribly known as the Dark Eldar.

During the fall, this sadistic species has earned a bad reputation throughout the history of the universe. After the famous great crusade and the first era of Voltron, almost the entire universe despises the Drukhari and they do well to do so; because when one of those contaminated Eldar comes to play, rest assured that an agonizing death will fall on that unfortunate race that had the misfortune of being the victim of these disgusting beings.

Inside the piloting center, there was a small group of dark Eldar who were responsible for managing the ship baptized by the Archon of the Gray splinters as: "Specter Marauder". In the center of the cockpit was the captain of the Marauder seated with her gaze perversely frowning at the chunk of rock below them.

"Report". His steely voice was heard and his response came from the operator on his left.

"No problem was reported when exiting the web, we have activated the dispersers and calibrated the ghost launchers as a precaution." the operator responded without pause to the captain. "I am pleased to inform you that we are invisible to that trash Galra, Captain Syakallar."

Syakallar

Captain of the Spectre Marauder.

"Don't be so sure about it." Captain Syakallar narrowed her eyes inside her hull towards the ship's operator. "Our scanners detected the Sendak's purification fire in the atmosphere, I want to know why it was here and what destroyed it."

"At your command, Captain. As soon as we enter the atmosphere unseen we will dispatch a few spy drones." the operator spoke and returned to his post, leaving the captain in her thoughts.

After having returned from a successful raid on planet Utry IX before the Galra appeared. A witch from Archon Neck's personal guard informed him that a flagship of the Galra Empire was heading towards a planet which seemed to emanate a rare kind of Psychic energy whose parameters were above his expectations. He was immediately ordered to follow that ship and discover the reason for his arrival in This World.

Syakallar personally was upset at this sudden order, resources were lost for the Marauder to arrive safely into the world. Many in his crew would have chosen to attack the ship Galra, but it would be a risky bet and even more so with Zarkon's most valued commander as captain.

After being a single system away from reaching them, her operators suddenly and abruptly informed her that the fire of purification was destroyed in such a short time.

The sheer stupidity that this had been possible passed through Captain Drukhari's mind, a sentiment shared by all the staff. If one thing was certain it was: one: an accident occurred when they entered the atmosphere. Or two: there was something on that planet that sent him into oblivion.

And Syakallar would find out what happened.


In the castle of lions: it was daytime when both Steven and Connie got up early with the sole purpose of knowing more about the universe.

Steven still felt bad about the acts he committed while piloting the blue lion as Stevonnie and took out a few Galra pilots while protecting his friends.

Connie felt almost the same way as her jam bud but she understood that being part of a group dedicated to saving the universe was not easy, she felt a discomfort to also consider that it will only get worse from there.

But no matter what kind of scary things were out there they would face him together as one entity.

The door next to her opened to reveal a semi-sleepy Pidge who stretched out her arms wearily. this was undoubtedly a mixture of emotions that the girl has experienced in a single day: of having reunited with your lost brother, going to space in a giant robotic lion, reaching a planet where you meet other aliens in a castle, you travel to another planet to find another robotic lion and drive it together with another alien and to top it all become a huge robot from five other lions!

Yep, what a great trip that was right?

"Good morning guys" Katie greets her friends in a tired voice and continues with her stretching.

"Good morning, Pidge" "Good morning." They both saluted in sync and Steven noticed the exhausted posture of the green paladin. "I guess you didn't have a good dream."

"It was ..." Pidge stopped her stretch and pressed her back against the door. "A lot of things happened in the course of a day and I still have a hard time assimilating it completely."

"Yeah, the same goes for us." Connie responded by scratching her shoulder showing melancholy in her voice.

"We have killed lives like nothing while trying to stop the Galra" Steven said quietly and looking away.

"I didn't like the things I've seen in Olkarion either ... but I think that goes with the fact that we are a group dedicated to protecting the universe." Pidge shifted his gaze to the other side showing sympathy. "It will not be easy".

Steven and Connie agreed with that.

Footsteps were heard and soon they saw that it was Keith who had a new outfit which consisted of a black shirt with a red jacket and blue pants with black shoes.

"It seems they have already woken up." Keith announced monotonously and turned to look at them over his shoulder. "Breakfast is ready, I suggest you start now so that we can meet Allura" and with that, the Galra left, leaving the children alone.

"We better follow him." Pidge spoke and she with the other two followed the alien teenager into the dining room.

Without any of them knowing: there was an insect similar to a large fly but what was very striking about this was that it looked like a small robot that a real fly and was following them.


Garnet, Pearl, and Peridot greeted the newcomers in the dining room while Amethyst was in the kitchen preparing something that smelled surprisingly delicious. Shiro and Matthew were sitting at one of the tables enjoying an Altea coffee, Pidge greeted his brother and everyone sat down to eat except for the gems who did not need to eat (except Amethyst who sat next to Keith)

"So where is Allura and the others?" Shiro asked Garnet and she adjusted her glasses.

"They won't be long in coming, especially Lance who will be drawn to the smell of breakfast." the fusion responded and took a small sip of her coffee.

As the vision of the gem came true, a sleepy Lance appeared mesmerized by the sweet smell of breakfast in the morning with Allura in tow.

"hmmm ... is it me or am I hallucinating at the wonderful smell of breakfast?" Lance let out a pleasant sigh after smelling Amethyst's breakfast.

"Yeah, dude, come fearlessly into Chef Amethyst's great kitchen." the purple gem pointed to herself with her swollen ego and brought Steven with one arm "after all I was the one who fed this man."

With Lance making breakfast, Allura approached the paladins with a smile, the space mice sitting on her shoulders. "I hope your stay at the castle was comfortable."

"It was, princess. Now it may sound rushed, but when do we go into space?" Shiro asked the sovereign Altean.

"While we wait for Matt and Coran to make those modifications, we can continue to discuss our plans to defeat the empire." Keith spoke when he saw Allura sit next to Pidge and Lance who kindly prepared food for their cousin.

On that, I think the first thing to do is free the Balmerians from the Galra first." Connie raised her hand first, Amethyst and Steven nodded in agreement with the girl. Since they came to the Balmera they have become close friends with Shay and Hunk, the three of them hoped that the Galra had not done something wrong to him since they left to form Voltron.

"That would be a good idea. But the problem persists in how we will approach it." Allura pointed at the young human. "There are other races in the universe that are a danger just like the Galra."

"These dangers are in the form of the Orks, Tyranids and the Druhkari, there are also the gems who are wreaking havoc in the universe." Keith mentioned with Pearl and Garnet paying their full attention.

"About that, Steven just like Connie and I want you to give us information regarding it in addition to the other powers that exist in the universe" Pidge pointed out with Connie and Steven nodding. "We have heard about the Tyranids and Orks from the Balmerians and the Olkari, but we would need more detailed information about them as information about the empire of mankind".

"Well, all the information is on the castle's computer." Allura answered and turned to her cousin. "Lance, when you're done can you take the boys there?"

"As you like". Lance shrugged.

"I want to go there too." Peridot raised her hand. "I don't know much about the other races and I would like to learn about it as their technology."

"All right". Lance nodded.

"Now, I recognize that the species you have mentioned are a serious threat to the life of other species but the Galra have ceded the universe for over 10,000 years and will not stop until the entire universe is under their control." Allura explained looking at the serious faces of every Paladin and helper in the castle. "If monsters like the Druhkari, Orks or gems get in our way we will show you what Voltron can do. I just want to make it clear that the only thing we need to focus on is Zarkon and the Galra Empire."

Almost everyone agreed to Allura's argument. The Galra have been a danger and must be stopped as soon as possible by the paladins. If anyone who confronts them or tries to interfere with their work they will face the defenders of the universe.


After finishing breakfast, Lance led the young men and the gem into the castle's computer room to educate them about the universe around them and to satisfy Connie and Steven's knowledge of the other humans living in the empire.

After accessing the information through Alfor's AI. The young people heard an incredible story.

As Lance showed them: the empire of Humanity has a duration of 48,478 years of history and dates back to the self-proclaimed leader of humanity who is only known as "The Emperor", a being whose power was considered a god before his subjects.

They learned many things from the human empire, both good and bad: they learned about the age of conflict, how the machines rebelled against their masters.

They learned about the Primarchs, immortal humans with spectacular armor to behold along with the so-called Emperor and a group of super-soldiers called Adeptus Astartes and the Imperial infantry.

Pidge and Peridot learned about the Adeptus Mechanicus, a vast legion of religious Cyborgs who praised the same machines, archaic-looking but highly advanced machines which are manufactured in fully industrialized worlds.

The Great Crusade: A campaign imposed by the Emperor to unify the other human colonies scattered throughout the galaxy and also conquer other worlds to be inhabited. Here they learned the behaviors of the empire about the Xenos, (prefix imposed on aliens) they saw nothing more than a vermin that had to be eradicated so that humanity can be the owners of the universe.

Steven was particularly surprised and shocked at this article, he read how many aliens were exterminated or expelled from their home worlds just for the simple fact of not being human, to top it off he also saw how mutants (prefix for those who had birth deformation or hybrids of other species) were treated in much the same way. This made the humans of the empire equal to or worse than the Galra.

And the worst was yet to come, they learned about chaos.

To say they were shocked, disgusted, shocked, scared, and angry was an understatement.

Chaos was a kind of psychic energy that was fed by the negative and sadistic thoughts of intelligent beings, it came from an immaterial space known as the Warp and in it existed the gods of chaos, beings of great power and malice whose purpose was to cause misery and destruction throughout the universe.

Among the four gods was Khorne, the god of blood. Tzeench, the great conspirator. Nurgle, the lord of plagues and Slaanesh, the prince of pleasure.

These four gods spent millennia brainwashing people to create cults on their behalf and perform gruesome acts on their behalf. The empire's countermeasures against this threat were just as horrific from burning an entire continent to destroying the entire planet when things got out of control.

But then came the Horus heresy.

Genocide on such an unreal scale, thousands of worlds being burned into oblivion, a great host of demonic creatures feasting on their victims, it was such a horrible thing to read.

The conflict took to the heart of humanity where the emperor faced his favorite son in a duel to the death being the victorious Emperor but at enormous cost. He was mortally wounded and then put into a machine that would keep his consciousness alive as his body slowly rotted away over the millennia.

Humanity had fallen to its lowest point, for the next 10,000 ... there would only be war and technological stagnation while chaos prevailed. With its invalid leader and missing primarchs, the empire had to press on to survive, its disdain for the Xeno, the heretic, and the mutant prevailing like fire over iron.

"This ... this is horrible." Connie whispered with great regret after witnessing the most tragic story she has ever heard in her life.

"That was the most brutal thing I've ever heard." "I agree" Pidge and Peridot mentioned with a strange feeling in the human girl's stomach.

"A universe at war, one in which there is no end." The one who was most affected of all was nothing but the most apathetic human of all. Steven could not believe, he refused to believe that humanity fell to this point: his racism towards hybrids and defectives, his immense hatred towards aliens and his total aberration towards his subjects who fell out of favor with these 'evil deities'. If someday Steven or the others were to encounter this Empire, he was honestly afraid of what would happen to him.

And worst of all, he understood how they felt that way. They only did all those horrible things to survive before those monstrosities that only wanted their annihilation and move on with their lives, but the very idea of peace in a universe where there was only war seemed more than a joke.

"And what happened next?". Peridot asked the sovereign Altean who stood idly by.

"Well, things changed the moment Voltron appeared. Humanity was stagnating, they knew well that if they continued with the same thing every day and every year they wouldn't last any longer, they had to find a way to deal with the chaos itself." . Lance explained while typing on the computer where he displayed images of Voltron, clashed swords against an aberrant green mass of pestilence, teeth, tongues, and horns that was almost so large that Voltron instead teeming with factories and refineries.

"A legion of worshipers of Nurgle invaded the forge world of Diantris III and summoned a great filth to turn it into a demonic world, the planet was already considered lost." Lance explained when a jovial smile crossed his face. "But that changed when the paladins came into the world and completely mastered the hordes of chaos and formed Voltron to successfully defeat the great demon."

The image below shows the legendary defender victorious atop the remains of the great creature with an immense plume of smoke and flames in the background.

"The paladins gained favor with the cult of the machine by saving their world from corruption despite their animosity against us, and the paladins took advantage of it to gain an audience with the high lords of Terra and the inquisition".

Lance's speech about the events lasted what seemed like hours. The youths and the gem were mesmerized by the great feats Voltron had performed against the ruinous powers and convincing the warring species to unify to defeat them.

It was a good pass of time.


Far from the castle of lions, the camouflaged Drukhari cruiser was gravitationally suspended without successfully drawing attention.

In the cockpit. Captain Syakallar was in a rush of emotions, anger was the one that stood out the most.

When his spy drones returned to the Specter Marauder and downloaded the information they collected to the computer, the result was both disconcerting and disturbing.

First: Mon'keigh, filthy and aberrant Mon'keigh! The drukhari have always hated humans above other species since time immemorial after the fall, they stole what was rightfully theirs. The sight of Mon'keigh children scooping up inside that castle produced such a fury that almost immediately he ordered a raid.

He also saw them interact with other beings that they had met previously: Gems, in addition to the Galra brat who was among them, the Gems were in the castle with other Mon'keigh as if they had already known each other for years.

This was confusing for the crew, gems are not known to socialize with organic life forms, in other terms they would see gems slaughtering them en masse to reclaim their world and make more gems.

And then there were two more that he almost confused with other Eldar.

Eldar know how to differentiate themselves through shape, skin tone, height, and runes etched into their faces. Pleasant was the surprise that everyone took when they found out that they were not Eldar.

They were Alteans.

Humans have earned the hatred of the Eldar by thousands of years. But it was the Alteans who earned the deep rage of the Drukhari, these beings were the main responsible for the changes occurring that shook the universe itself. Every Dark Eldar hated the Alteans with their heart, especially their cursed sovereign Alfor!

The Archons would bite their tounges but deep down they thank Zarkon for sending that scum to the Inmaterium.

Syakallar's hands tensed and trembled with barely repressed rage. He could feel the anger of his crew through his psychic bond but had to calm down immediately when the latest discovery of the drones came.

She had heard the stories of the elders who served the shrine when she was only an apprentice. Stories about a colossal metal warrior made up of five mechanical lions.

They called it Voltron.

The hatred that Syakallar accumulated quickly turned into anticipated fear when he asked the computer to analyze and find matches with those ships. The results were irrefutable.

With a mental order, he asked to leave the planet immediately and open a portal to the base world.

He needed to go back to the Archon and tell him about this revelation.


II: Legendary defender arrives.