FW09: Guhhh, why you do this to me Netflix? Why give me such good content and encourage binge-watching? Why?
LOL Nah, but for real though, I'm very close to finishing the first season of Voltron: Legendary Defender and again, mad love for the animators who - I just found out - are from the same studio that did Avatar: Legend of Korra! And I didn't realize it, but Steven Yeun! If you didn't watch "The Walking Dead", he plays a character named "Glenn" who is a huge fan favorite, like OG-zombie slayer right there. Anyway, he played a character named "Steve" (LOL) in Trollhunters which didn't sound like at him at all and surprised me with how he transformed himself into a total douche. THEN, you have him playing Keith?! The same Keith who is NOT a douche, and is a proper hero in Voltron: Legendary Defender? Bruh, mad props to you, too, Steven Yeun!
(Also...also, also...Shiro is played by the same guy that did Young Hercules' voice, from the Disney version? DUDE, I WILL GO THE DISTANCE WITH YOUUUU! If you don't get that reference...y'all need to watch Disney's Hercules. And for anyone who hasn't seen what Josh Keaton looks like? Just...guh...he's pretty much as hot as Shiro. He's the real-life, Caucasian-version of Shiro. LMFAO)
Okay, goofing around aside, it's time to get into the meat of this story! And warning! If you haven't seen at least the first episode, you'll probably be really confused. I'm relying on the assumption that the readers here will have at least seen it, and will remember its events, so I won't be going into introducing the known characters here - like Shiro, Pidge, Keith, Hunk, or Lance. They will have more in-depth moments, definitely, but I prefer not to have to re-hash episodes line-by-line, at least not more than I need to. It just tires me out and, in my opinion, it will probably bore the readers who already know what happened in the episode.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything from Voltron: Legendary Defender or its sister versions, but I do own this story and the OC.
Chapter 1
"A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step." - Lao Tzu
Log Entry 8222-015
One o' the less inventive ones, in mah opinion.
Been capturin' this...idiot that keeps escaping from Sendak's prison ship fer the better part o' the lunar cycle. Sure is chatty. Likes ta talk about all these..."proverbs" and what not. Said there was wisdom innit, but if ye're goin' somewhere, 'course ya have ta take a step. Said the same thing ta him when 'e told me, but 'e jus' laughed - the little brat.
*sound of rustling*
Hey, who're you calling a 'brat'?
You, ya brat. An' brats need their rest, so go back ta sleep.
Then you shouldn't have called me 'brat'. *sound of footsteps drawing closer* What are you doing?
Recordin' in mah personal log. Helps me relax.
...Like a diary?
?! Wha - I weren't - I mean, it ain't no diary! It's a log!
*sound of silent laughter in the background*
Look, can ye jus' go back ta sleep, ya brat!
...You know I can't see anything from this cell, right? And you're the one who decided to do their "personal logging" in the brig.
Well I didn't expect ya ta be awake! An'...it's the quietest place on tha ship. Always did mah logging 'ere.
Hahahaha.
...? What're you laughin' 'bout, brat?
"Toughest bounty hunter in the universe" needs to write in her diary to relax.
...Ya know, I've been real lenient with ya, but you and yer cheekiness're askin' fer it, ya little -
You know...it's been a while since I've been able to talk like this. To anyone. Ever since that thing with Matt, everybody calls me 'Champion', but they don't talk to me. And there aren't any other humans on that ship.
...
Why don't you talk to me instead of that log? It'd be nice to have a decent conversation.
I don't talk to brats. An' don't you think this ain't the first time a bounty tried ta sweet talk me.
I'm not a brat. I'm Shiro, and I'm pretty sure we're the same age.
Really? Ye're over 240 years old?
...Uhhh...
Pfffftttt - hahahaha! See, ye're still a brat!
...Well, I'd still appreciate it.
An' what, pray tell - "Shiro" - would we talk about? Hmm? After ya soften me up with yer 'friendly conversation' an' all? Secrets o' the Galra Empire?
What? No, I just wanted -
All the weapons in mah arsenal?
Okay, now hold on -
How much ya miss yer momma? Or, who was it ya said - "Matt"? That the name of yer girlfriend or what -
Enough! You could've just said 'no'!
*sound of retreating footsteps*
...Heh. Such a serious one, ya are. And ye're still a brat.
(A few light years away from Earth...)
"Damn it...damn all of this...Sun-forsaken - gah!" Tracker 84-2009 cried out suddenly as her ship groaned around her, rocked by several plasma shots to her main hull, "Quit blastin' mah ship, ya purple quiznaks! Ugh...sorry, baby, just hold out a little longer fer me."
The Tracker's fighter-class vessel, affectionately named the "Cutting Edge", was an old revamped Altean scouting ship, outfitted with high-class Galra parts to make up for its older design. It was an ugly thing to untrained, and unfamiliar eyes, but to anyone who crossed its path, they found that what it lacked in beauty, it made up for in raw fire power and pure combat ability. The round, peaceful aesthetics of the neon blue cockpit, speed-centric boosters, and soft, dolphin-like vertical stabilizer or fin clashed heavily with the violent violet and deep red hues of its pointed, diamond-shaped wings, spiked nose like that of a combat knife, and corrupted Quintessence crystal propulsion system hitched to its back. It was 9.8 lorans (12 meters) in length, small for its design and class, but it was nasty in a close-quarters fight, and could slice through the heaviest of metal hulls with that knife-like bow. Speed and maneuverability were its greatest assets, and with the gunmetal-haired bounty hunter at its helm, it gained a bloodthirsty reputation.
However, the Cutting Edge wasn't made for long-term, attrition-style warfare, and it was starting to lose ground. Crystal energy was running low, the engines were overheating, and her combatant was more well-equipped than she was. Things weren't looking good for Tracker 84-2009.
"Tracker 84-2009, halt in the name of the Galran empire!" a boorish voice crackled over the intercom, barely heard over the blaring sirens.
Unable to block the frequency, the announcement ran as if on eternal playback, and her head was throbbing from the headache of it all. Not only did she have to deal with the oaf that couldn't take the hint, her vessel bothered her incessantly with all the problems that she knew of, but couldn't fix - like the small fire that just started in the small gearbox located on the right wing. It wasn't as if she could take a break and get out of her craft to repair it while in the middle of battle!
Granted, she'd managed to slip into her bounty-hunter gear - a heavy-set helmet that covered her entire face and a slightly bulky, but snug suit that was made for cases in which she needed to leave her ship while still in space. The faded steel-blue helmet, scratched and worn from years of battle, had two horns that covered her ears and a third horn that sprang from the forehead. A black face plate obscured her Altean features, and the Galran insignia was inscribed on its lower half, just below her eyes. Her suit was similarly colored, and covered in spikes with tones of maroon and indigo that streaked across her chest plate and arms.
Not that it would help against a battle cruiser-sized laser beam.
The Altean glanced at the screen showing the Galran battle cruiser on her tail, only a few hundred clicks away, and a sour grimace pulled at the corners of her mouth. All this time she'd been the one chasing criminals, but now that she was on the opposite end, she could only bemoan the irony of it all.
"Lock-on detected, lock-on detected," another voice, synthesized and mostly female, added to the excruciating noise.
"ArrrgghhhHHHHH! ENOUGH!"
A pale, almost white hand reached up aggressively and pulled out the speakers above. She offered a silent apology, but a broken speaker system was the least of her concerns at the moment. Her main mission had been to either destroy the battle cruiser's tracker, or at least lead them astray and away from Shiro's planet, but she was failing both objectives horribly. It had to be the new tracking systems - they were positioned at the rear, tucked safely behind the captain's deck, and protected by a particle barrier. Not only was it effective, but impossible to get to, not with the multi-directional laser cannons, six mounted on each side. Though it hurt her pride, she had to concede that the battle cruiser was just plain stronger than her Cutting Edge.
'What've I got m'self into?' she thought miserably, flipping a few switches which shut the ventilation circuit to a flaming regulator, extinguishing the fire, 'Hope things're goin' better on yer end, Shiro...'
(Meanwhile, on Earth...)
Shiro groaned as he was packed into the small cockpit of a futuristic, alien space craft in the shape of a blue lion with four other boys, much younger than him, and tossed around like a baby rattle. He winced as Keith's elbow slammed into his chest from the violent shaking of the craft, perpetrated by an over-excited Lance. Pidge's glasses flew up and slapped his forehead, and one of Hunk's hands grabbed at his non-robotic shoulder, squeezing it painfully in fear.
"Isn't this awesome?!" Lance asked, grinning at everyone's panicked expressions.
"Make it stop, make it stop!" Hunk replied, his voice strained from trying to keep the bile in.
"I'm not making it do anything," he let his hands leave the levers for a few seconds, causing all of them to panic even more, before regaining control, "It's like it's on autopilot!"
"Where are you going?!" Keith demanded, eyes narrowed dangerously.
"I just said it's on autopilot! It says there's an alien ship approaching Earth...actually, two," the young cadet named Lance translated the Blue Lion's thoughts as the group of five lifted off and out of Earth's atmosphere, "I think we're supposed to stop them...or at least, one of them? Uhhh..."
The tan teen closed his eyes, letting the Blue Lion into his mind and present him with the images of two ships. One looked to be in dire distress, and the other was attacking it rather than helping it. What did the Blue Lion want him to do? Stop the attacking ship? Rescue the one in distress?
"What did it say, exactly?" asked the youngest of the group, Pidge, as he gripped onto the sides of the cockpit and Lance's seat.
"Well, it's not like it's saying words. It's more like feeding ideas into my brain, kind of," Lance tried to concentrate once more, but Hunk's voice distracted him.
"If this thing is the weapon they're coming for," Hunk offered in desperation, "Why don't we just, I don't know, give it to them? Maybe they'll leave us alone. Sorry lion, nothing personal."
Shiro straightened his posture as his hazy memories gave him a counter argument.
"You don't understand," he remembered the conquering, the slaughter, the thousands of prisoners he had to share cells with, "These monsters spread like a plague throughout the galaxy, destroying everything in their path! There's no bargaining with them. They won't stop until everything is dead."
The rest of the group turned to stare at Hunk, and he raised his hands in surrender.
"Oh," he stated numbly, his face blank, "Never mind then."
"Wait, how do you know this? I thought your head was still..." Pidge gave a little 'cuckoo' swirl of his finger around his temple, "Scrambled?"
"I just...do," he closed his eyes, "I don't know why I can't remember everything, but I can at least remember the most important thing: we can't let the aliens get their hands on Voltron, or Earth'll be next."
(Returning to the battle between the Cutting Edge and the Galra battle cruiser...)
...This was it. This was the end.
The last shot the battle cruiser landed had knocked her propulsion system out. Her engines, without the necessary fuel, sputtered to nothing, rendering her helpless to the might of the Galran warship.
'Deadlocked...' she thought, a term used when a vessel was stranded in the black abyss of space, 'Never thought it'd happen ta me, of all people.'
Then again, there were a lot of things she didn't think that would've happened to her - the most surprising probably being Shiro.
'Well...guess this's tha end fer me,' Tracker 84-2009 watched as the battle cruiser faced her fully, preparing to send her into oblivion, 'Least I tried, right? Guess I'm jus' not cut out fer this "hero" business after all...'
The Altean sighed and reclined back, letting her body relax. Maybe dying would feel like going to sleep. Just a flash of laser, then nothing - no pain, no worries, no quiznaks given.
'I'd have gone out guns blazin' if I could...well, guess we can't always 'ave what we want...'
She closed her eyes and breathed in from her nose, letting the breath exhale from her mouth, and let oblivion come to her.
...
...
...
"All righ', what's goin' on?"
Frowning, the Tracker cracked open a ruby-red eye impatiently, wondering why she hadn't been blown to kingdom-come yet. Not that she wanted it to come at all, but now that it was inevitable, a small, insane part of her just wanted it over with.
That's when she realized that a small alert had popped up on her screen, which had probably been the same for the battle cruiser: it was the Voltron Lion alert. All Galran ships were outfitted with scanners that were to find and locate any and all Voltron Lions if their energy was exposed.
And this alert was pointing directly to Earth.
"No, no!" she gave a shout of panic and frustration as the battle cruiser started turning from her and instead towards Earth - picking up on the energy trail of the Voltron Lion, "Hey! Come 'ere, I'm surrenderin', I'm giving - ah, quiznak..."
Unable to distract them or even hail their frequency, the Altean gave an inward groan. Pulling out the speakers had worked against her, ironically, and now she could only watch as the Galran craft moved slowly towards Shiro's location. Her mind fumbled with a solution, and worked out quickly enough that with the battle cruiser distracted, maybe she could get away with doing some quick repairs.
"All right, baby, come on...don't you give up on me. We got work to do."
The Altean knelt down to the floor of the cockpit and proceeded on repairing as much damage as she could, re-routing crystal energy from the main jets to the auxiliary ones. Rocked by a slight shockwave, she could only watch as the giant warship zipped out of view. Tracker 84-2009 groaned and worked faster, her fingers singed and sparking from handling the live wires. She couldn't stop, however bad the pain stung, not if she wanted to reach Earth before they had a chance to find Shiro and eliminate him.
"Come on...come on..." she gave a little prayer and licked her lips as she touched the last two wires together. When her engine sputtered, then roared to life, she gave a little holler of victory and twisted the wires to hold them, sitting herself back into the pilot seat.
"Hang on, kid, I'm comin'," the Tracker pushed the driving gear forward and pushed the engines into hyper drive, "Yeah, c'mon!"
Beams of light surrounded her as she followed the battle cruiser's trail, the thrust nearly crushing her into the seat as she heard the alarms continuing to blare. Then, a new alarm popped up, one that told her she was about to run straight into the enemy's aft.
"Oh, quiznak - !" she grit her teeth and pulled up at the last second, veering just off its port side...nearly into a giant blue blur, "Alfor's Beard!"
(Aboard the Blue Lion...)
"Whoa, bogey out of right field!" Hunk yelled in Lance's ear as he jerked a finger at the new alien craft that just jumped in front of them.
"Hang on!" Lance warned everyone before pulling up, causing the lion to rocket upwards and out of the careening craft's path, "Okay, what the heck was that?! Is that a new enemy?"
"I don't think so," Shiro spoke up as he noticed the ship fly in front of the lasers bravely...or perhaps stupidly, "Allies don't shoot each other."
"Whoever that is, I don't think their ship's gonna last very long," Pidge stared at the smoking engines and badly-damaged hull.
"Not our problem!" Keith reprimanded everyone, "If we don't do something, we're not going to last long!"
"No...I think the lion wanted me to help them before. We can't just do nothing..." the young cadet piloting frowned at the mullet-head, "All right, okay! I think I know what to do!"
(Aboard the Cutting Edge...)
Curses flew from her mouth as she fought the controls, her limping ship barely dodging the laser show. When she noticed that the lasers weren't targeting her, however, she looked around and saw the battle cruiser's true target: a flying blue lion.
"...The Blue Lion..." she murmured, astonished and horrified at the same time, "No...it can't be - guh!"
The Tracker was stunned momentarily by the lion's appearance, and it had cost her nearly half of the bottom of her hull. The alarms for "fire" and "malfunction" swarmed her HUD, but she waved them away and focused on dodging the lasers once more.
"Son of a...eat this!" she swung her ship around so that her blasters were facing the Galran ship, and fired her remaining shots.
It was a futile effort, but if this was how it was going to end, then she'd at least go out guns blazing. Just as she had, however, she noticed a blue blur pass by her, firing its own laser and razing a long, hot line of plasma against the cruiser's side, disabling the port side cannons. Amazed, the Tracker watched as it then ran to the battle cruiser's starboard cannons and raked its claws just above them on the surrounding hull, causing a trailing explosion that rendered the cruiser without weapons - save for the ion cannon mounted on its front and the tractor beam just beyond that.
"...Well I'll be..." she breathed as the Blue Lion passed her with a little roar, its head tossing as if to motion for her to follow it, "Wait, wait...hailin' frequency...c'mon, answer it..."
The Tracker grinned when the lion turned back and a screen popped up on her monitor, showing five humans - including Shiro - inside its cockpit. But just like the others, his face was mystified and confused. Her grin slipped a little when she noticed this, but brushed off the cold feeling that brushed her heart - now wasn't the time to feel emotional.
"Keep goin', I'm right behind ya," she spoke in her usual deep tone, surprising them when they could understand her. However, with the battle cruiser still behind them, there was no time for questions. The human in the pilot seat nodded to her and pushed his levers forward, urging the lion to continue onward. She did the same, although she cut the feed first. Just as there was no time for questions, there was no time for distractions either.
For a few minutes, both the Blue Lion and Cutting Edge danced beside one another, bobbing and weaving among asteroids as they hurried to keep ahead of the battle cruiser. Kerberos, the ice planet that Shiro had once spoken of, shined brightly on them, its white surface gleaming. The Tracker took a moment to stare at it before returning her attention forward, noticing a distortion rippling in front of them. When it turned into an ancient Altean portal, her eyes widened.
"Hey, we all decided we're going through there!" the cockpit of the Blue Lion appeared on her monitor once more, surprising her. Must've been the lion, clever machine.
"You comin' with?" he asked, and she nodded, "All right, guess we're all ditching class tomorrow!"
The Tracker's entire body tingled with both anticipation and fear. Every fairy tale and legend she'd ever heard of in her childhood were suddenly becoming reality - the Lions, Altean portals, the prophecy. All of them were coming true.
And she was right in the middle of it all.
With bated breath, the Altean watched as the Blue Lion disappeared into the center of the vortex, sparks and swirls of hypnotic blue light exploding around its frame. She hesitated for a brief moment, unsure of the mystical wormhole only spoken of by elders who've gone and passed, but with the enemy bearing down on her, she swallowed her emotions, straightened her spine, and pushed her craft right in after them.
'Down tha Trublaxian rabbit hole we go...'
FW09: Sorry if this chapter seemed rushed, guys! I just wanted to get this part out of the way since not much happened during this part of the series/episode and there wasn't really any time for the main cast and Tracker 84-2009 to interact. I was also a little unsure because the way that I had to bring them together was...sort of slapped together? I dunno, I might have to go back and re-do this part, which doesn't thrill me, but...this series is so amazing, I'd like to give the same effort they did.
Note: There is a new "curse" that I sort of had to improvise, which is the "Alfor's Beard" the Tracker said when she nearly hit the Blue Lion. I imagined it like the equivalent of "Jesus Christ!" or "Dear God!", though Alfor is not actually a God. Again, whether Alteans had a religion or not, I figured something simple like this might actually exist in some way or form.
So, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, even though I'm not 100% satisfied with it, and I'd appreciate it if I could get a little feedback - especially on this chapter! See you next time!~