While out on a mission, the Paladins along with Coran and Allura had the misfortune of fighting with some rather nasty Galra soldiers.
Just when they thought they had defeated all of them, one more blasted his laser gun directly at them and caught Pidge's arm.
Though the armor didn't break under the blow, it still bruised her and she stumbled back with a cry of pain. Lance quickly stepped protectively in front of her.
"Where's the princess?!" the Galra commander demanded. "I know you have her!"
"What do you want with Princess Allura?" Keith asked as he and Coran stood in front of their princess.
"Not her, you imbecilic fools! Princess Serenity!"
Everyone's eyes widened.
"Did he just say 'Princess Serenity'?" Hunk said quietly. "You guys heard that, right? It wasn't just me?"
Shiro took a step forward, his bionic arm raised in front of him at the ready. "Why do you want to know about Serenity?"
"That is none of your concern."
"She's under the protection of Voltron now, so that makes it our concern."
The commander laughed darkly. "You think she trusts you? She's spent deca-phoebs being taught to fear and hate you."
"What are you talking about?" Lance asked.
The commander sent another shot towards them, but this time, all of them managed to avoid it. "I don't need to waste explanations on the likes of you."
Shiro prepared to charge forward, his hand lighting up with energy. But before he could do anything, a huge blast hit the commander from behind and it was enough to knock him out cold.
The Paladins looked at the figure approaching them. He wasn't one of the current planet's inhabitants, but he wasn't Galran either. In fact, he looked similar to Serenity. They had the same skin tone and the same purple marks above their eyebrows. The difference was that this alien before them had a pair of elegant horns on his head.
"Is it true?" he asked them all as he took a few steps closer. "You have the princess?"
"Who are you?" Shiro asked.
"I'm a Taizenithian like her. My name is Castor. Please tell me, Voltron, is she with you? Is she safe?"
"Yes. She's back at the ship. She's okay."
"Thank you. Thank you for saving her."
"What happened? Did the Galra capture you too?"
"Yes. We have both been their prisoners for many deca-phoebs."
"Why?"
"They needed me to train her to use her powers."
"Her powers?"
"That pink energy we saw…" Keith murmured.
"Taizenithians have the ability to harness and manipulate energy," Castor explained. "We are a very peaceful race and have always used our abilities for the good of our planet. But that does not mean we are incapable of using them to do harm. Those of royal blood have greater power than the rest of us. They have the power to wipe out armies."
Allura's eyes widened in horror. "You mean that they've been using her to take out armies?"
"Not just armies. Once they had trained her enough, they had planned to take out entire planets with her aid." Castor sorrowfully shook his head. "Please understand, the princess is not a bad person. But all she knows is life with the Galra."
"I thought you said you were both captured," Pidge said.
Castor gestured to the downed commander. "Commander Kyzik, that gentleman you've already met, was assigned to abduct her when she was a child. And he succeeded after he murdered the king and queen. When they realized they wouldn't know how to properly train her due to how complex it is to use our abilities, they captured me too. After that, Haggar erased all of her memories of her life on her home planet so that they could raise her as they saw fit. They wanted to ensure that her loyalty would always be to them, and they convinced her that it was her duty to serve them. Even though they forbade me, I tried so many times to tell her about her heritage and her home planet. But every time they inevitably always found out, they hurt her and made her think that it was her fault."
"It doesn't make sense," Lance put in. "She didn't even talk for weeks when she was on the ship with us. And if she has this level of power, why hasn't she used it on any of us?"
"She tried to, remember?" Keith said. "When she was unconscious, that pink energy came out of her hands and tried to destroy the ship and us."
"Okay, but then why not afterwards when she was actually awake?"
"It was probably the Galra poison along with the anesthetic I had to give her," Allura told him. "Or perhaps she has seen how different we are compared to the Galra and has simply chosen not to use them on us."
"We all saw how freaked out she was. If she had the chance to use her powers, she would've."
"Maybe that's why she was so scared around us. Because she couldn't use her powers."
"She was, as you say, 'freaked out' because Kyzik has deeply instilled in her the belief that Voltron is an evil being who will stop at nothing to get what it wants," Castor told them. "She believes that the Paladins of Voltron will all torture her and kill her if given the chance."
"But the way I found her," Shiro began, remembering how weak and terrified she'd looked chained up. "Even after all that, she still thinks the Galra are the good guys?"
"You don't understand. In the very long time she's been their prisoner, they've put her through enough mental torture to get her to believe anything. She's been beaten, starved, forced to use her powers well beyond her limit, and when she wasn't good enough for them, well…you, Black Paladin, saw what happens."
Shiro clenched his jaw. All he could picture was Serenity as a little girl, ripped away from her family and her entire planet, strapped down and electrocuted in order to take away all of her memories, treated as if she were a tool instead of a living creature…
"For Taizenithians, the training process is usually an enjoyable one, but I was required to be extremely tough with her when I taught her and push her farther than I ever would've under normal circumstances. Then Kyzik would come in and stop me, cementing for the princess that he was the one with her best interests in mind while I was not. I had to watch each time they hurt her and when they sawed off her horns. I don't doubt that those screams of agony will haunt me until the day I draw my last breath. I only hope that one day, the princess will be able to forgive me."
"What can we say to her?" Lance asked softly. "She'll never believe all of this."
"Do not underestimate her so quickly. Some people grow to hate the world and seek to destroy it after being raised by those like the Galra. There are others who still hold on to the goodness in their hearts. And the princess is one of those people. Her memories may have been stolen, but she is still the same kind little girl I helped raise on Taizenith. If you can just reach that part of her…"
Allura sighed heavily. She didn't know how to process all of this. Part of her wanted to hate Serenity for being on the side of the Galra who had destroyed her planet and ripped away everything she held dear. But the rational side of her knew that Serenity was as much of a victim of the Galra's intense desire for ultimate power as she was.
"Please—"
Castor's speech immediately cut off as his eyes widened and he fell forward with a groan. Keith quickly went to catch him before he collided with the hard ground.
"That's enough," Kyzik stated hardly, his laser gun smoking. "I knew we should've killed you long ago."
Shiro knelt down next to them, and Castor tightly gripped his hand. "Paladins of Voltron, I beg of you, please protect the princess."
"With my life," Shiro replied as he squeezed Castor's hand back.
Then his body went limp in Keith's hold.
Shiro released Castor's hand and his own robotic one lit up.
Kyzik chuckled as he looked Shiro straight in the eye. "The princess will return to me one way or the other, Black Paladin."
Shiro charged, but Kyzik disappeared before he could land a hit.
Clenching his jaw, Shiro closed his eyes and let his hand return to normal. "We need to get back to the Castle."
As she waited for the others to return, Serenity stumbled across what appeared to be a control room. She curiously examined all the pieces and parts that made the Castle run, though she had absolutely no idea how to use any of this equipment.
When she lightly touched a small button on one of the machines, a holographic screen popped up causing her to jump in surprise.
She knew she probably shouldn't be messing with technology she didn't fully understand, but it was all too tempting. She lightly pressed a few holographic buttons and different screens appeared before her that showed various places throughout the Castle.
And then an image of the hangar appeared. Serenity smiled when she saw Allura and the rest of the Paladins, but her smile disappeared when she saw their faces. They all looked so…sad and angry.
She pressed another button and she was then able to hear their voices.
"How are we supposed to tell her?" Lance asked. "How do you break the news to someone that the person they trusted most killed their family and abducted them?"
Serenity frowned. Surely they weren't talking about her…were they? They couldn't be. The only person she considered her family was Kyzik. Was Lance talking about themselves? They had sort of abducted her. Had they killed Kyzik too?
"We have to be careful," Shiro stated. "She's probably still a little wary around us, and this won't help anything."
"Castor said we were supposed to reach into the part of her from before she was abducted, but how are we even supposed to do that?" Keith asked. "We barely even know her."
Serenity gasped. What were they talking about? How did they know Castor?
"We have to show her that the Galra have only been using her," Shiro answered.
Serenity shook her head. All this time, they had been talking about Kyzik? Were they trying to say that he had abducted her? That couldn't be true. Kyzik was her protector. He was the only one who'd ever tried to keep her safe. He wouldn't just use her. He had helped her.
"I'm sorry, I still can't believe that she's actually a princess," Hunk put in. "Can't say I saw that one coming."
A…princess? Princess of what? Kyzik would've told her if she was a princess, wouldn't he? She couldn't be a princess. She didn't feel like a princess.
Keith put a hand to Shiro's shoulder. "It's not your fault."
Shiro clenched his fists. "I should've seen Kyzik behind him. Castor shouldn't have died with us there."
Serenity felt as if she couldn't breathe. Castor…dead? At Kyzik's hand?
With an anguished scream, she fell to her knees as inky black tears began to sink down her cheeks. It was too much.
Castor was dead? She was a princess? She'd had a family? They were dead too? Kyzik had been lying all this time?
No…
She had been warned about this. This was the moment she had been dreading ever since she'd been brought to this Castle. How could she have been so stupid to fall right into their trap?
Shaking with anger, her hands began to tingle with power begging to be released. Her fingertips sparked with pink energy for the first time since Shiro had kidnapped her under the guise of saving her.
She wiped her tears and headed for the main console.
"How do we know we can trust her?" Allura stated, her brow furrowed in concern. "I am deeply saddened by her situation as much as you all, but it doesn't change the fact that she's been raised by the Galra and taught their ways of living. It could be that she's been plotting our downfall since the moment she set foot on this ship."
"You didn't see what I did," Shiro told her. "It doesn't matter how she's been raised. Just because she may not have seen herself as the Galra's prisoner doesn't mean she wasn't one."
Suddenly, the ship jolted forcefully, knocking everyone off their feet.
Allura looked at Shiro pointedly. "You were saying?"
"Come on!"
The Paladins, Allura, and Coran rushed down to the main deck where they found Serenity bathed in pink energy. She moved her arms to send tendrils of the energy all around the ship, disrupting their systems in the process.
"Serenity, stop!" Shiro pleaded.
She turned to glare at him. "I heard you," she bit out. "All of that nonsense about the Galra using me and Kyzik killing Castor. Kyzik always warned me about you. I should've listened."
"Serenity, Kyzik only told you that so that you would trust him and give all of your loyalty to the Galra. But Castor told us all about you. About your home planet, and how Kyzik killed your mother and father and captured you before erasing all your memories of your childhood. About how much he cared for you."
"Castor never cared about me. His training nearly killed me. Kyzik saved me from him."
"That's just what he wanted you to think. But we just watched as he killed Castor right in front of us for telling us what really happened."
"You're lying!"
"I'm not! I swear to you!"
The castle began to darken, losing all of its power thanks to Serenity draining it of its life force.
"Kyzik…was all I had. He protected me. He…he was my family. All I've ever wanted was his approval."
"Serenity, do you remember how I first found you? They've done things like that and worse to you, haven't they?"
"I deserved it. I was weak. If I was stronger, they never would've hurt me."
"Listen to me carefully. There is nothing you did to deserve any of that."
"You're wrong." She tightened her fist which made a tendril of energy squeeze around one of the ship's mainframes. "I'm going to destroy Voltron just like he wanted me to."
"Serenity, think about everything that has happened since I first found you. Do you truly believe that we want to hurt you or kill you like Kyzik said we would?"
Serenity paused and loosened her grip. Being here in this castle for the past few movements had been the happiest and safest she'd ever felt. And even if it went against everything she'd been taught, she knew in her heart that none of it had been a ruse.
"What's the point?" she said softly. "If Kyzik isn't really my family…then I have no one. My true family is dead."
"Serenity…look around you. We are your family."
She looked up at Shiro, his face desperate and pleading. Then she looked at the others behind him who all stared back at her in a combination of fear and pity. Every single one of them had taken the time to care for her and comfort her and help her feel at ease around them since she'd come here.
"Serenity, I know you have no reason to trust us," Shiro said quietly. "Please at least give us the chance to prove to you that the Galra aren't who they say they are."
Serenity didn't know if she was more afraid if they were lying or if they were telling the truth. Since the moment she'd first met them, she had wanted to put all of her trust in them. But if they were right, then everything she had ever believed in, everything she had ever worked for, was all for nothing.
But either way, she couldn't bring herself to hurt them.
Ever so slowly, she allowed the tendrils of energy to untangle themselves from the ship and flow back into her awaiting palms. The Paladins watched her movements, which almost seemed like a dance, with fascination.
Once the energy disappeared, Serenity collapsed onto the floor, drained from the effort it took to use that much of her power at once.
Inky black tears fell to the ground below her weakened form. How had she come to this place? How had things gone so wrong for her? Why couldn't things just go back to normal? But what even was normal anymore?
Shiro slowly approached her.
Serenity looked up, and to her shock, he extended his hand for her to take. After nearly killing them, he was still willing to help her? How could he always be so kind to someone like her?
She reached up, and after a moment's hesitation, she accepted his outstretched hand.