Author's Note:
Hello everyone and welcome to another chapter. For this one, I saw LBthebookworm's suggestion of board games and was inspired, resulting in this peek at Team Voltron playing Risk (don't worry, they will still be friends afterwards). Thank for your continued support and chapter suggestions, and I hope you enjoy the chapter.
I own nothing.
Chapter 5
How, amongst everything else she'd been doing, Pidge managed to create a replica of Risk, Shiro would never know.
She bounced into the lounge, bursting with excitement, and thrust the box at him, practically shouting.
"Shiro, I've managed to make this, so we have to play it now!"
It took him a moment or two to register what was in front of his face, but he eventually managed a reply, "Is this Risk? Where did you get it?"
"I made it using the castle's fabricators. I had to bypass several layers of code plus reconfigure the…"
"Risk! I haven't played that in ages!"
Keith interrupted Pidge's explanation, as he gazed at the creation joyfully, "I love Risk!"
Hunk glanced at him, "Why doesn't that surprise me…"
"It's about the only time you see him stop and think about something." Shiro said with a playful smirk.
"Hey!" Keith gave a mock glower, "Just because I beat you at it Shiro."
By this point, Lance had become intrigued, and he picked up one of the little figures (seriously, Pidge had even made proper figures for it) and studied it, a question mark showing from his headset.
"It's a board game called Risk." Hunk explained, "Each player chooses a colour and that acts as their army. You play on a board that mimics a map of the world and you can attack countries of an opposing colour to attempt to take that part of the board."
Pidge nodded, "Right, and you're each given a mission at the start of the game the others don't know about, the first player to complete their mission wins. If you're playing 'World Conquest' rules, then the first player to conquer the whole map wins."
Coran and Allura had arrived in time for the explanation, and the royal advisor twirled his moustache thoughtfully, "So its kind of a tactical game."
The princess looked to Pidge, "I assume there's more rules than that."
Pidge smiled, "Of course, there's rules for reinforcements and so on, plus the results of attacking are determined by dice rolls, as well numbers of troops on each side, adding an element of chance."
"Similar to actual combat." Coran rubbed his hands together delightedly, "Well, what are we waiting for? I can't wait to crush you all with my brilliant tactics!"
Shiro grinned, "Well, since this is downtime, I don't see anything wrong with having a game. It'll even double as a type of tactical training."
Allura agreed, her eyes sparkling at the thought of learning an Earth game, "Right, we'll improve while having a little fun."
As Shiro expected, Hunk and Keith were also on board with a game, but Lance raised a hand, a worried look on his face.
"Don't worry Lance, you can team up with me as you learn the game." The Black Paladin assured him.
The boy smiled and nodded.
After a more in-depth explanation of the rules, Team Voltron were soon prepping their armies.
Naturally, the Paladins chose the colour of their lion, with Shiro and Lance as Joint-Commanders of the black armies, while Allura and Coran shared command of the blue, since they were also playing for the first time. Having opted for missions, Shiro looked at his and Lance's mission card.
Destroy all Reds.
So, they had to wipe out Keith, Shiro began formulating a plan as he showed Lance the card.
Though far from fully literate, they had been teaching Lance written English and he could read some words and scribble out some simple sentences.
He gave the boy a minute or two to examine it, then spoke quietly, "Do you understand?"
Lance nodded, likely having only read the word 'red' and worked out the rest from there based on how the game worked. The boy then leaned over the board, frowning in concentration as he tried to come up with a plan himself.
Eventually (after a lengthy whispered debate between Allura and Coran), their starting armies were placed and as the winner of the die roll, Keith went first.
As expected, he started aggressively, shoring up his already strong position in Africa by swiftly removing the single armies in nearby territories, he usually tried to claim a continent early in the game, gaining an advantage over his opponents. However, this could spread his forces thin, potentially helping him and Lance in their mission.
Hunk was next, and his opening move was also aggressive, but with the intention of a more passive overall plan.
He swiftly claimed Australia, the smallest and easiest continent to hold, he then redeployed as many armies as possible to Indonesia, barricading the only route in. Shiro guessed that the Yellow Paladin was attempting to wait them out, slowly building his forces with the reinforcement bonus and striking when everyone was weakened.
Pidge's turn came, and Shiro wasn't sure about her plan.
She'd put as many troops as she could into one territory in Asia, ignoring all her other ones. Then, she attacked a nearby single army, took that territory and stopped there. Though a strange first turn, Shiro decided that they had to keep an eye on her, she likely had a unique scheme in place to throw everyone's game off.
Then came Allura and Coran.
While the starting territories of the red and yellow armies had been more localised, the blue, green and black had been spread across the map, so where the Altean's decided to focus would affect how they approached Keith in Africa.
They'd placed the majority of their forces in Great Britain and took over Iceland and Western Europe, cementing their hold over most of that continent with a decent defence, leaving only Ukraine to claim. They appeared to be attempting to expand out slowly from Europe, likely because they had a continent or territory claiming mission.
Finally, he and Lance got to go.
Naturally, with their mission, they needed to head in the direction of Africa and assault Keith's developing stronghold, unfortunately, the spread of their armies put them some distance from their target. The majority of their strength was in North America and the east of Asia, so the initial plan had been to surround Africa's borders and gradually drive Keith into a corner, creating a battle of attrition. Unfortunately, the blue armies were on most of the routes in, with their expansion across Europe. No doubt that by the time they reached them, Coran and Allura will have built up considerable strength and they wouldn't get past without a bloodbath.
Lance tapped him on the arm, and Shiro looked at him then down at the tablet-like device in his hands.
Pidge had supplied it to him and it held a digital replica of the Risk board, letting Lance sketch out lines and such onto the digital copy so he could give Shiro ideas without broadcasting them to everyone else. While the headset was good, the symbols it produced could be seen by anyone.
The boy circled three points on the map, the sea route from Brazil, the border of the Middle East and Egypt, as well as its sea route to East Africa.
Shiro nodded and gave the boy a proud grin.
If they used those routes in, they could bypass the blue armies entirely, or at least their main power base. Since it was likely Hunk was going to hold down in Australia, they could simply go past and ignore him. Pidge's plan was still a mystery, but it looked like she wouldn't bother them so long as they avoided her little horde, and with little happening in North and South America, they could push southwards and maybe claim some reinforcement bonuses while they were at it.
Plan decided, Shiro placed their reinforcements in Siam and booted out Pidge's single army in India to move on and claim a card.
Slow and steady was his and Lance's plan, and so far, it was working.
Shiro tended to evenly spread his armies, forming a gradually moving wall that moved along the map, each territory holding enough armies to not look like a mighty force, but still not be worth attacking without reasonable numbers.
Also, with their current plan, they were leaving a single trail of armies behind them, not too concerned with holding bits of Asia and North America. These were capitalised upon by Hunk and Pidge for easy cards, or Allura and Coran who were gradually expanding the blue mass through Asia.
Their Asia forces had pushed their way to the Middle East and were now sat quietly in position. Naturally, Keith had reinforced Egypt and East Africa, but they didn't want to press the attack…yet.
The armies in North America were also making steady progress, having now reached Central America, but had hit a slight snag.
Unfortunately, since he had firm control of Australia, Hunk had expanded his armies from Brazil to almost hold all of South America. He'd also left a formidable force in Venezuela, blocking their path southwards with the potential for a major bloodbath that would severely weaken their black army.
He frowned, they had to push through to Brazil, they'd just have to take the bloodbath and hope they got lucky with the dice.
Lance nudged him and subtly showed him their collected cards, revealing a set that would give them ten reinforcements. More than enough to bolster the North American force to let them overwhelm Hunks defence.
At the start of their turn, Shiro eagerly cashed their cards in, and it wasn't until after their turn ended that he got the feeling that they didn't have the right cards to cash in for anything when they picked up their last card.
The game had reached its dangerous stage.
With everyone working to claim victory, backstabbing and all out war were the order of the day.
Shiro and Lance had broken through Hunk's defence, taking over South America and fortifying it to slowly build their armies for the assault upon Africa. This had apparently thrown a wrench into the Yellow Paladin's plans, and he overloaded Australia and launched a brutal assault upon Allura and Coran's steadily growing strength in Asia. Keith, who'd been niggling away at the blue's hold on Europe, as well as picking on one army territories in North America for easy cards, cashed in for major reinforcements and struck Western and Southern Europe at the same time. Then, Pidge's steadily growing horde rampaged into Australia, devastating Hunk's power-base and ripping chunks into the blue mass of the Altean armies.
With this all kicking off, Shiro and Lance's hold on their vital entry points into the heart of the red forces had been challenged several times. However, they'd somehow been able to cash in cards regularly, always having the right combinations of cards every time they got three.
Shiro was suspicious.
While unnoticed by the others, he knew it was too convenient, but it wasn't until he paid especially close attention to Lance that he realised how it was happening.
It was during Keith's turn, as he was attacking one of Allura and Coran's heavily fortified territories, that Shiro noticed it.
Coran got very into the dice rolling, overreacting with exuberance or despair depending on the result, while Allura would stare at them intently, as if to influence the rolls with her mind. This meant that those three were distracted, and with Hunk throwing threats of severe in-game repercussions at Pidge for her devastation of Australia, they weren't paying attention either.
That's when Lance made his move.
The card deck was near to him, and the boy would swiftly slip one of their unwanted cards in and draw a replacement, if it still wasn't one they wanted, he'd wait until everyone was distracted again (which was now happening frequently because Risk always got personal) and repeat the manoeuvre until he got a card they wanted.
The whole thing was so swift and innocuous, you wouldn't notice unless you were intently watching Lance or the cards, and it was deliberately done in a way that wouldn't draw attention. He didn't get extra cards or steal someone else's, he simply swapped out what he already had until he had the desired result.
The sneaky little…
At this point, Shiro should've stopped him, because it was definitely cheating, and they should really be encouraging the boy to play fairly...but Keith was about to overstretch himself and the Black Paladin knew it, so if they got the right reinforcements, they could mop up his leftovers and win the game.
As such, he leaned close to Lance's ear and whispered, "If you get us the right cards for ten reinforcements by our turn, we could win."
In the end, Keith overstretched as Shiro predicted, and the black armies struck hard and fast with their surge of reinforcements, utterly ruining the red armies and completing their mission.
The Black Paladin smiled at the stunned faces around, Lance looking smug beside him, as Keith sat back in his seat in exasperation, "How did you guys do that!?"
"Good strategy and patience." Shiro replied, while also thinking, 'as well as a little manipulation of the cards'.
Lance simply nodded in agreement, and Shiro sat back as the others all began chattering to each other, revealing their master plans and how the other players had spoiled them.
While he felt a little guilty about allowing their minor bit of cheating, he told himself that it had been Lance's first time playing, and it was a part of every child's life to try a little bit of cheating at board games at least once, the teen just happened to be better at it than most. The fact it allowed him to win as well was merely a fortunate side effect.
Though he'd need to keep a close eye on Lance if they ever played Monopoly.
PS-So, Lance is quite good at the slight-of-hand. For those who might think Shiro wouldn't let him cheat, remember they were playing Risk, and all's fair in love and Risk. Please let me know what you thought and any chapter suggestions and I'll hopefully update soon.