Battle for the Castle of Lions
Disclaimer: I do not own either Voltron the Legendary Defender, Harry Potter, or anything directly affiliated with either series with the exclusion of any OC's I may introduce.
"Speech"
Spell (Spells may appear in regular speech or narration.)
'Thoughts'
'Lions Communicating'
'Reading'
The scene is bleak.
Before the Red Paladin, Princess, and Sirius was the sight of the Castle of Lions completely encased in a Galra themed particle barrier. Simply staring at it while trying to figure out what to do next.
Suddenly they hear Hermione's voice speak out over the communicator.
"Hello. Can anyone hear me?" Hermione is heard whispering out.
Harry, quick to respond, immediately replied back with. "Yeah, Hermione, we're here. But we're stuck outside the particle barrier. What's going on? Where are you currently?"
"Right now, I am in the ventilation ducts." Hermione paused as the sound of her crawling is heard over the communicator. "The Galra have taken over the castle."
"Yeah, we kind of figured that part out. How are the others?" Sirius asked out loud, hoping it was caught by the communicator.
"Their all captured. Cedric tried fighting them off, but got nocked out, and they caught Professor Lupin completely off guard." Hermione said.
"Hermione, listen carefully. If the Galra have control of the Castle's systems, it won't take them long before they manage to get the engines online. Whatever happens, they can not be allowed to leave the planet with Voltron." Allura said urgently.
The scene now changes to show Hermione crawling through the air ducts of the castle. Slowly making her way forward while trying to make as little sound as possible.
"How exactly am I supposed to do that?!" Hermione asked in a slightly harsh whisper while staring at her communicator.
"You will have to make your way to the primary engine's manual interface module. From there you will need to disconnect the thrusters from the primary energy relay." Allura said to the young witch.
"We believe in you Hermione. Just start heading in that direction and we will try and find a way inside." Harry said.
Hermione, her dedication now reinforced by her friend's reassuring words. Nocked open the nearest grate and entered the coinciding hallway undetected.
Back outside, the trio of heroes are contemplating on how to get inside. Harry is pacing, trying to come up with an idea. Sirius is waving his wand around in trying to see if he can cast some kind of spell to dismantle the barrier. Allura, meanwhile, is simply standing back. Watching in worry as the others are in danger.
"Wait a minute!" Harry called out before whirling around to face Sirius while both he and Allura turn towards him. "We were in such a rush that we forgot two very important details."
After only receiving blank eyed stairs and some blinking from the two Harry simply sighed and replied saying. "Dobby and Winky," he said simply out.
"Ohhh!" The two said in unison.
"Wait," Allura called out, "wouldn't the Galra have captured them with the others?"
"Not if they didn't see them." Sirius said before turning towards the princess. "House elves are naturally non-aggressive creatures… for the most part. It takes a lot for them to actually attack another person. The only times I have even heard of a house elf attacking anyone is because that person was attacking their master." Sirius explained to the princess.
"So…because me and Harry weren't in there when the castle was attacked, they didn't see the need to protect themselves." Allura concluded.
"More or less, house elves actually see hiding as defending themselves." Sirius replied.
"Guys we're off topic!" Harry spoke out to the two having their attention return to him. "We can just call the two to us and they can get us in."
"Wouldn't the barrier disrupt their ability to do so?" Asked Allura.
"I am afraid Allura is correct. From what I can tell from my preliminary observation, the nature of the particle barrier disrupts the disaperation process. Without incredible control and a decent amount of power, any attempt to cross the barrier will tear the individual, and anyone with them, apart." Sirius explained.
"Such as, I don't know, being able to track, pinpoint, and disaperate to a single person's side who is on another planet, in another solar system, that is how many kilometers away from Britian?" Harry said in a slow, and somewhat demeaning voice, to his godfather.
"Oh…yeah, there is that." Sirius said sheepishly while rubbing his head.
Simply giving each other a silent glance with a nod of approval, Harry and Allura both called out their respective house elves.
A matching pair of loud POP's is heard by the trio.
Dobby, after quickly looking around, jumps upon Harry, hugging onto his legs for dear life. "Master Harry! Dobby was so worried that you were caught by the purple men as well!" He said with tears in his large eyes.
Winky, who was a bit more reserved than Dobby, held back from hugging her mistress's legs but also had tears in her eyes. "Mistress! Winky was so worried you were hurt!" Winky then dropped to her knees when her fear and past hurt made itself known. "Please don't send Winky away for allowing bad men from taking you castle!" Winky wailed out to the princess.
Allura, alarmed from the outburst, knelled down before the house elf and drew Winky into her arms. Patting her head and back, trying to calm her. "Shhh. Shhh. Its ok Winky. I am not going to send you away. You did nothing wrong. Shhh." Allura said in a calming voice.
After giving the two a minute for the female elf to calm down, Harry turned back to Dobby and said. "Dobby, do you think you and Winky can get us inside the castle?"
"Yes, Master Harry Potter Sir." Dobby energetically nodded his head.
After Dobby confirmed what this, and Allura was able to completely calm Winky down, the five joined hands with each other in a circle. Which in turn caused a light blush to appear on the faces of Harry and Allura due to them holding each other's hands as the other held onto their respective elves and a teasing grin appeared on Sirius's face at the sight. The five soon disappeared in a loud POP and reappeared inside the barrier. Though, they only really managed to make it outside the main gate.
Dobby and Winky, unexpectedly, started to sway from the experience and were about to collapse until they were caught by their masters.
"Dobby! What happened?" Harry worriedly asked his friend/servant.
"Sorry Master Harry." Dobby said a bit woozily. "Dobby didn't think the trip would be so tough." Winky silently, and dizzily. nodded in agreement to this.
After making sure the two elves would be okay, Harry and Allura turned to the worriedly watching Sirius.
"Sirius, do you have any theories as to what just occurred?" Allura asked the elder man.
"I am not too sure myself." Sirius said as he shrugged a bit in defeat. "The best that I can figure is that when Dobby and Winky appeared before us, whatever hole or flaw in the barrier that allowed them to get through was just the right size for them, but it was to narrow for all five of us to slip in at once. The strain must have been to much for the two elves."
After quickly looking around to make sure the coast was clear, Harry turned back to the others and said. "Ok, the coast seems to be clear for the moment but for how much longer we can't be sure. So, we need to move now." He then placed his attention on the elves of the group and asked. "Can you two go into the command center of the castle and keep watch on the others the Galra have captured. After you catch your breath, of course. Make sure that you're not seen. Also, if you see a chance to get all three of them out safely, take it."
After Winky got a quick, yet somewhat hesitant, approval from Allura both said, "Yes Master/Mr. Harry Potter Sir," and quickly disaperated away.
When the two disappeared Allura turned towards Harry and asked in slightly confused tone. "But Harry, we don't have a way to make it up to the command center without being seen?"
"Oh, that's simple." Harry said before he pulled out a cloth from one of his suits hidden pockets.
The cloth was, to Allura, surprisingly large, being able to comfortably cover a grown adult without issue. It was a strange mix of silver and black in color that had the light shimmer off of it. While its consistency was like that of the fine silks, she saw in some dresses growing up.
"Your fathers invisibility cloak, brilliant!" Sirius exclaimed.
"Invisibility!?" Allura said in surprise. "That would definitely help, bu-ut the 'cloak' as you called it doesn't look large enough for all of us." Allura said after taking a closer examination of the cloths size.
"That's an easy fix, Princess. I will just turn into Padfoot and trail after the sounds of your footsteps while you two snuggle up and tip toe under the cloak." Sirius said with a teasing grin that turned into a shit eating one when he continued and said. "But just to warn you, I have good hearing in my human form, great hearing while as Padfoot. So no hanky panky while under there."
Which got the two teens to tern atomic red in the face and to both yell out, "WHAT!?"
In Zarkon's throne room. A Galra general kneeled before his emperor, his young lieutenant/assistant doing the same behind him, with said emperor sitting on his throne with Hagar at his side.
"My lord, with Voltron being as much of a threat as you say. I think it is prudent that we move the main fleet to their last known location for capture." The General said to his emperor.
Before Zarkon could give his approval or denial to the stratagem, Haggar interrupted.
"Sire, after years of research, I believe the Komar is finally ready to be tested." Hagar said to her master. "We could have more quintessence than ever before. Testing the weapon before moving the fleet is necessary."
Here the General raised his head to look at the witch. "We don't have time for your magic, Witch. The fleet must be moved immediately."
Instead of addressing the General, Haggar fully turns toward Zarkon. "Voltron is the most powerful weapon in the universe. His puny ships won't be able to defeat it. In order for us to be victorious, we must be well prepared." Haggar advised in her deathly calm voice.
Before the argument could go further, Zarkon slammed his fist down on his throne. The sound of which echoed across the chamber like thunder.
"I, more than anyone, know the power of Voltron." Zarkon said as he leveled a hard stair at his now nervous General." Haggar has my trust. We will preform her test."
Back with Hermione, she is slowly making her way through the empty hallways. Checking every corner she comes across before she progresses.
Eventually, she comes to an elevator shaft. Instead of trying to hack the control panel and risk setting off an alert in the command center, she pulled out her bayard and uses it to pry open the door enough that she can physically push it open by hand, and just to be safe, she also uses a sticking spell on the door to keep it open as she looks around to know what she is dealing with.
"Come on." She whispers to her drone companion. Which then floats by her and enters the shaft.
Hermione then looks down and adjust her stance. She then jumps to the lower ledge across from her, using her jet pack to buffer her descent, and proceeds to repeat her actions as she continues downwards. With her drone trailing after her silently the entire way.
In the command center, Sendak and Haxus are going over different holo-screens. Checking on different statuses for various systems and the processing of data.
"Begin preparations for launch." Sendak intoned to Haxus.
Haxus then began rapidly typing a few things when he said. "Primary engine priming," he paused for a moment, "now."
As the two were watching the progress of the engine warming up an alert began to go off on one of the holo-screens.
"What is it?" Sendak asked/commanded his subordinate.
Haxus quickly brought up a security screen which revealed Sirius, disguised as Padfoot, walking down a hall.
"It appears to be an animal. It may have come in sometime during the party, or it may even be a pet of one of the paladins." Haxus says as the two observe the footage.
Sendak, who was paranoid of any and all potential threats and potential deceptions, watched with narrow eyes. When the creature stopped at a corner, his eyes narrowed even further. That is until the beast hiked its leg up and proceeded to urinate on the portion of the wall.
Sendak, who now has a look of disgust on his face, quickly swipes the screen away and says. "Ignore it. Proceed with launch preparations," he commanded.
With Sirius and the hidden Harry and Allura.
"You are so going to clean that up when we are done with this." Allura angrily whispered to Sirius before turning toward Harry. "Did he really need to relieve himself on my walls?" She asked pointedly
Sirius, who can't actually say anything in his dog form, begins to whine a bit as he tucks his tail and flattens his ears.
"Probably not, but it helps sell the stupid animal routine he's going for. Now come on, we can make fun of Sirius and his microscopic blader later." Harry whispered to his companion. Though he blushes when he realizes exactly how close the two of their faces were.
Allura, who did not notice this, merely sighed and nodded her head.
As the trio began to continue their journey, Allura proceeded to silently study the invisibility cloak. She could feel the energy imbued into the cloth. She could feel that it was ancient, powerful yet subtle, but most of all, she could feel that it was intrinsically tied somehow to Harry.
She then began to wonder. 'If this single piece of their people's magic feels like this, then what else are they capable of.'
Hermione is now getting close to her destination. She is currently running to get to it but begins to hear a rising roaring sound that reminds her of a car coming to life.
She then speaks into her com and says. "Allura. I am getting close to the engine room, but it sounds like the Galra have already started the launch process."
"Then you must hurry!" Allura spoke urgently into her own communicator. "Get across the catwalk and to the edge of the primary energy conduit. There should be the primary access panel for the primary engine." Allura said over the comm before stopping to sharply say. "Ouch! That's my foot Harry!"
Harry, who in his rush to look at Allura didn't see were he was stepping in their confined space, looked a bit sheepish and quietly muttered a quick, "Sorry!"
Sirius, who is still in his Padfoot form, growled to get the two teens to focus.
Hermione, upon entering the engine room, ran to the circular central portion of the platform which surrounds a giant pilar of energy.
Upon reaching the access panel, which was the only thing on the platform besides railing, she spoke into the comm. "I made it."
"Ok, now open the hatch below the controls. Find the primary control relays and disconnect them in the following order…" Allura's voice instructed Hermione.
Hermione quickly followed the directions, but upon opening up the hatch she came upon an unforeseen complication. "Allura, we have a big problem. Everything is in bloody Altean."
Back in the command center, Haxus looks towards Sendack.
"Commander Sendak," Haxus said to get his commanding officers' attention. "We are prepared to launch."
"I can't tell which one it is. Allura? ALLURA!?" Hermione yelled into her comm, but the rising sound of the engine was drowning out the sound of any potential response.
Hermione then returns her attention to the control panels guts, trying to make heads or tails of what she was seeing. She may not have ever experienced a genuine space ship launch before, but her intuition was telling her that is exactly what was currently happening.
"Hermione! HERMIONE!? I've lost connection!" Allura yelled out in fear, losing all pretense of stealth.
She knows that it will be possible to take back the castle even if it did successfully launch. But with Sendac at the helm there were several potential negative possibilities filtering through her mind. Sendac could fly the castle into a star then allow it to be retaken, or they could potentially run into another Galra ship that could capture the castle or assist Sendak.
Hermione, meanwhile, is hurriedly looking between all of the different symbols. Trying to figure out how to properly shut the energy flow off but was having no luck.
Not being able to understand the literal alien language before her, was causing the female paladin to begin to hyperventilate. That is until she decided to just say. "Bloody hell! To fuck with it!" Hermione yelled out in desperation.
She then pulled out and activated her bayard. She then stabbed it into the panel and proceeded to forcefully cut all of the connecting wires.
The results of this action became apparent immediately. An energy pulse began to go off from the station and the pilar of energy in the middle of the room dissipated immediately. While Hermione herself was launched from the panel several feet away and onto her back. All she could do at this point was groan a bit as her drone flew over to observe her.
In the command center, an alarm starts going off and all of the screens displaying data on the launch proceedings fall either to a standstill, start blinking, or drop down to zero percent.
Haxus, who is hurriedly typing on his console says. "The primary engine just shorted out." He then pulls up some security footage from the engine room and sees Hermione sabotaging the console.
"We have a saboteur! Find her and take her out!" Sendak ordered some droids.
"Commander Sendak, there is a signal being transmitted within the castle. From the looks of it, it is a short-range transmission that is also being received from within the castle as well." Haxus, who was scouring various security pages, informed Sendak.
Haxus then hits another set of keys and brings up two sets of audio lines. "Ther's not much time before they get the castle up and running again. You must shut down the particle barrier before Neville and Coran get back." The princess's voice is heard over, and being displayed by one of the audio lines moving, the intercepted coms.
"We'll continue on to our objective. The two- 'BARK' Ok, three of us will take out the head of the snake." Harry's voice, plus Padfoot's own, is heard from the same source.
"Great, but how can I do my part?" Hermione asked, which was visualized by the second audio line.
As Allura explained the steps Hermione needed to take, Haxus turned toward Sendak and said. "They are telling the saboteur how to take down our defenses."
"Yes, but they are also telling us precisely where our little stowaway is." Sendak said with a cruel smirk before it slipped from his face. "However, I want to know how the princess even got in here. I thought we brought the barrier up before she and her companions returned."
"We did sir. I am unsure how they got in. I have since been trying to track the signal back to its source, but due to it being within the castle, I can't lock on." Haxus said in frustration as he continued typing.
Sendak slammed his organic hand onto a nearby station in anger. "Grrr. If only we had a…" Sendak trailed off before his eyes widened in realization. He then turns towards Haxus and orders. "Send some droids to find that creature from earlier. The princess is following that beast. Then go over see the repairs to the engine personally."
Back with Harry and co.
They are making their way to a hidden safe room to observe and plan for an attack on the Galra. However, as they make their way to the end of a hallway Dobby 'POPS' in front of them.
"Master Harry!" Dobby yells out, not being able to see Harry or Allura but is able to sense that he is near. "The nasty Galras know you're here!"
"How!?" A worried Harry, still cloaked, asked his little companion.
"And where is Winky?" A worried, and also cloaked Allura, asked.
"Winky is ok. She stayed to keep watch. And Dobby is not sure how they found out. One minute, the one-armed fluffy looking one was talking to the skinny one, and the next he was telling the metal men to hunt Mr. Doggy Sirius." A distraught Dobby answered while wringing his hands.
"That doesn't make sense. They wouldn't have anyway of knowing unless…" Harry trailed off before slapping his head. "Bloody hell, they must have intercepted our coms and heard his bark."
"What can we do?" Allura asked Harry, while Sirius simply watched the invisible back and forth between the two with his keen hearing. "We can't proceed as plan now, can we?"
"That's exactly what we'll do. The Galra may be able to listen in on us now, but they don't know exactly what we're planning. And I think I have an idea on how we can utilize this to our advantage." Harry said with a crooked grin and sharp look in his eye.
Sirius, who recognizes that tone from years before from Harry's father, barks and wags his tail in excitement.
A short while later with Hermione.
Hermione is on her knees in a room with glowing purple bolts of contained energy on both sides, working and rewiring something in the floor. "Ok, I'm in." She says over the coms to Allura. "You're going to have to walk me through it from here."
"Good, this is where things start to get difficult. The first thing you will need to know is that you can't touch or disrupt the beams in any way. You do that and you will release the energy all over the room." Allura advises in a surprisingly steady tone.
"Don't touch the giant bolts of lightning, check." Hermione replied somewhat snarkily.
Suddenly, four of the droids appeared and started firing at Hermione who stood up in shock. But instead of hitting their target, they passed through. Hitting one of the beams and causing the formerly contained and controlled energy to surge out and hit two of them, destroying one and damaging the other.
Then Allura's mice jumped out of an air vent and onto another droid. They quickly scurried under the larger plates and began to gnaw on and pull wires and circuits. Causing the droid to randomly wonder about in a haphazard way until it hit the guard rail, flipped over, and fried upon contact. Luckily, the mice managed to jump out before it fell over.
Simultaneously, Crookshanks knocked open the same vent and fell on top of the still standing droid's head and began clawing at it. The droid dropped its gun and began to blindly attempt to swipe at the cat. However, its programing never had such a scenario added, and thus could not escape the cat's fury. Despite said fury not actually damaging it.
The damaged droid, who could no longer stand due to the energy discharge blowing off one of its legs, aimed its blaster at Crookshanks. Headless of the potential of eliminating its comrade as well. That is until it heard the distinctive sound of a blade forming.
The droid then looks up and sees a materializing Hermione, who used a scaled down version of the cloaking tech she added to Neville and Coran's space pod. In her hand is battle ready bayard. Which she then quickly swings and decapitates the damaged droid before extending it into its whip form to slice the remaining droid in two.
"Hands off my cat." Hermione says in a cold tone as Crookshanks quickly runs over, jumps onto her shoulder, and begins rubbing his head against her helmeted one and begins to purr.
Hermione then looks around and lets out a long whistle and says. "Blimey, I can't believe that actually worked." She says as she quickly runs to a ventilation shaft and climbs in to avoid the cameras.
In a hallway near the personal quarters.
Three droids walk down a hall, searching for Padfoot. They walk in a uniformed formation, not making any deviations from their path. Then they turn a corner and see Padfoot in the middle of an intersection at the end of the new hall.
However, he is not surprised to see them. He is actually calmly sitting down on the floor, with his tail wagging behind him. In fact, if the droids were capable of processing it, they would have almost thought that the dog was cockily smirking at them.
Before the droids could raise their weapons or move forward, Padfoot lets out a loud bark and runs down the path on his rite.
Hurrying after him, the droids soon turn a corner and see Padfoot's tail going down another corner. After making it to that corner, they turn and see Padfoot with his head looking back at them with his body hidden past yet ANOTHER corner.
Padfoot cheekily barks at the now, somehow, angry droids as he pulls his head back out of sight. The droids then charge down the hallway until they hit a surprisingly slippery section of the floor. Which causes them to slide down the hall until they hit the wall at the end and fell to the floor. Before they could even move, they were electrocuted from the floor being lit up.
Padfoot walks up to them to make sure they're down as he shifts back to Sirius. Then a door, hidden as the portion of the wall the droids slammed into, opened up to reveal Harry.
"Well, that worked." Harry said bluntly with a smile on his face.
Harry and Sirius then walk into the hidden panic room, which reseals behind them.
Allura turns in her seat in front of a control/security panel at the far back of the room to look at the two and ask. "What now Harry? The plan was to take Sendac by surprise."
Harry confidently and calmly leaned against a wall but gained a stern expression on his face. "For now, we wait. The Galra droids are most likely spent, considering how few they must have had after their ship's destruction, but we can't make any moves until Hermione gives the signal."
"How do you know that she will be ok? She is alone out there, and the Galra are bound to be trying to fix whatever Hermione did." Sirius said as he took a seat on a bunk in the wall opposite of Harry.
"Because this is Hermione we're talking about, she can take care of herself. As for the repairs, I thought about that. In the instructions we gave Hermione, I wrote for her to double back and sabotage whoever Sendac sends. Whoever is sent is bound to be critical to Sendac's intended control of the castle." Harry said to his godfather.
"How can you tell that, Harry? For all we know, it will just be some more droids that will do the repairs." Allura inquired from her seat.
"I don't know for sure. I mainly just made a guess, but I do think I have an idea on what kind person Sendac is from what we have seen." Harry said with a shrug.
"And what's that? Besides being a genocidal racial elitist." Sirius said with a slight chuckle.
"The best I can tell, his personality seems to be a combination of your batty cousin and Lucius Malfoy. That's Draco's father, by the way." Harry told Allura before refocusing on what he was saying. "On one hand, he is a zealot who would kill and die for his cause without question. On the other, he is an elitist and a pragmatist. Meaning, that if he has any actual underlings beyond the droids, then he would likely give a task this vital to them."
"That…actually makes sense. He does give off a bit of a wanker vibe." Sirius said after a moment.
"I concur. This Sendac does seem like someone to make such an action." Allura agreed.
"Now that we've gotten that straightened out, lets plan our next step." Harry said.
Back in the engine room, Haxus is seen repairing the damage done to the central console. Hermione, meanwhile, is an alcove higher up in the same room. Crookshanks and the mice, however, were hiding away in the ventilation.
As Haxus is making progress on his goal, Hermione is trying to hack into the systems via a wall panel that she is next to. But due to her lack of practice in technical fields, and the literal alien nature of the technology, she was making little progress.
"Grrr!" Hermione hears in her head.
"What?!" Hermione whispers to herself.
"Grrr!" Hermione hears again.
Suddenly, she is aware of how the tech works and is able to hack into the system. Hermione then realizes that the growling she was hearing was the Green Lion. She smiles to herself with this knowledge and whispers, "Thank you."
Haxus, during this quick development, makes the final repairs to the controls. He pulls up his wrist communicator and contacts Sendac.
"The repairs are done commander. Preparing to begin the ignition process." Haxus informed his superior.
"Confirmed," responded Sendac over the communicator. "All systems are ready and in standby."
"Powering up." Haxus says as he presses a final button on the console.
The entire chamber begins to come to life like it was before. Unknown to Haxus, however, Hermione was watching everything with both her own eyes and a holo screen being projected from her gauntlet.
"And up and up." Hermione impishly muttered to herself with a smirk as she pushes two bars indicating energy output to the max. "That is a really bad spot to stand rite now." She said to herself.
Haxus, who is now only realizing that something is wrong, widens his eyes in shock as the control console. A pulse of energy then goes out from the console, electrocuting Haxus severely, through the floor and any other metallic surface in the room.
Seeing the wave coming her way, Hermione quickly leaps off the ledge of the alcove. Grabbing on to her drone companion and uses him to roughly glide down to the platform with the control console and the now downed Haxus. Rolling to a stop, Hermione quickly stands up as Haxus slowly recovers and notices her.
"You're the one behind this?! A child!" An angered Haxus growls out to the female paladin.
Hermione, not at all intimidated, goes into a combative stance, bayard at the ready, and says. "I may be young, but I am more than a match for scum like you."
Haxus was actually amused by this statement. "Ha Ha Ha," he chuckles as he fully stands up. "You actually think you stand a chance against me. I have fought countless battles. Slain numerous enemies. I am a soldier of the Galra Empire, and I can only be stopped by Victory or Death." Haxus said, quoting the infamous Galra battle cry.
Haxus then charges Hermione, drawing a combat knife from his side as he did so, and made to quickly stab Hermione in the throat. Hermione, however, used her smaller size to her advantage and bobbed out of the way. Quickly striking at his exposed back with her free hand, but apparently had no effect. She then roles away from Haxus as he attempts to slash at her.
Now with some distance between them, Hermione shifts her bayard into its whip mode and swings it at Haxus. Haxus, in turn, catches and winds the whip with his free hand but growls as he notices that the bladed segments cut into his suit and lightly into his flesh. But before he could do anything else, he notices that Hermione is smiling at him.
She then energizes the whip and pulls. Causing it to cut deep into the arm and causing it to bleed profusely, most assuredly ruining the appendage.
In a mix of pain and anger, Haxus yanks the whip and paladin around and slams Hermione into the console. Which in turn, causes her to drop her bayard which reverts back to its default form. Haxus then slowly begins to walk towards Hermione as he cradles his now ruined hand.
"You think this will stop me, stop the empire! No! We will take Voltron and the castle this day, and the entire galaxy tomorrow!" Haxus drones on before he finally reaches the still recovering Hermione and holds his blade to her throat. "However, I am not unmerciful. If you beg, I may allow you a swift death." He finished with a cruel smirk.
Hermione, on the other hand, finally regains her breath and gives a smile of her own. "Why should I beg 'huff' when I have you exactly were I want you." She pants out as she subtly hits a button on her wrist.
This causes a mini-booster rocket, that Hermione placed onto Haxus with her direct blow from earlier, to activate. Its force is so powerful that Haxus is blasted into the air, dropping his blade halfway up, and then free falls over the edge of the platform. Desperate not to fall to his death, he grabs onto the only thig he can with his one good hand, Hermione's drone.
Haxus looks down and, unable to accept his defeat, returns his attention at the recovering Hermione and growls out. "You think this will stop the Empire. We have crushed foes far greater than you. THE EMPIRE CAN NEVER BE DEFEATED!"
Hermione stands back up and limps to the edge, holding her side, and stairs at Haxus and the drone that is barely staying afloat with the extra weight. But this isn't the kindhearted Hermione that her friends care for, in her eyes was burning a cold fire of hate and determination as she glared at her hanging adversary and says in a mocking and somewhat cruel tone. "ha. ha. You like to talk about the Galra Empire this and all of your so called 'Great Power.' You take so much pride in it and yet, you couldn't even beat little old me." Hermione paused as she finally stood to her full height and continued. "We have an old piece of wisdom were I come from for people like you. Pride comes…." Hermione says as she brings her wrist holo-screen up with a depiction of a drone on it, "before the fall." Hermione said simply as she pressed a button on the screen, much to Haxus's horror.
As the drone holding him up shuts down and has the both of them fall to their end. All that Haxus could do was scream as he saw experienced his free fall was scream as he fell until he couldn't be heard or seen anymore.
Hermione stares at her now, quite literally, fallen foe and takes a deep breath to reign in her loose emotions and tears that threaten to leak out. Once she gets a handle on that, she takes a deep breath, turns around, retrieves her bayard, and goes to meet up with her friends.
A short while later, Hermione makes it to the hidden room that Harry and the others are hidden in by following some directions in the note she was given.
As she stands in front of the entrance, it opens, letting her in. Once inside, she sees Sirius leaning against the wall and Harry and Allura looking over some schematics on a terminal.
They all turn to look at her as she walks in, and Harry asks. "Is the coast clear Hermione?"
"Yeah, Harry. I didn't see any more droids on the way here." Hermione responded as she took a seat on the bunk in the room.
"From my connection to the mice, they aren't seeing anything either." Allura added.
"I also managed to take out Sendac's lieutenant." Hermione included.
"Good work Hermione. Now we just have to…" Harry began to say before the holo-screen on his console became scrambled and was replaced with an image of Sendac.
"Princess and Paladin, I may not know where you filth are hiding, but you have delayed me long enough. So, I am giving you an ultimatum. You have approximately ten dobosh's to present yourselves, and your pet, to me or I will begin executing the prisoners." Sendac threatened and then stepped away from the screen to reveal said prisoners.
Sendac then approached the prisoners, who were bound and gagged, and grabbed Draco by the hair and pulled him up to face the screen. "I think I will start with this one first and put him out of his misery." Sendac intoned before the screen cut black and returned to the schematics that were on before.
"Fuck!" Sirius said out loud, voicing everyone else's feelings on the matter. "Now what?!"
Harry didn't say anything. He simply narrowed his eyes and stared at the screen in concentration.
In the command center a few minutes later.
Sendac stares at multiple holo-screens, overseeing the now much slower progress of the castle's launch. Then a screen on the far right began to blink and drew his attention. Putting his focus on that screen it shifted to show the security feed showing the other side of the command center's doors. Revealing Allura, Hermione, and Padfoot to him.
Allura, who is leading the small group, looks up at the hidden camera's location. "We have come to surrender!" Allura announced in a loud and clear voice.
Sendac then silently motions to his last two remaining droids, who approach the doors with weapons at the ready. He then hits a button at the base of the screen and turns to face the opening doors.
Once the doors open and allow the trio inside Sendac orders, "Search them!"
Upon patting down the princess, they discovered no weapons. With Hermione, they only found her bayard, which she handed over without a fuss, and found nothing else. Padfoot, due to being an animal in the Galra machines artificial mind, was not searched but was scanned and found nothing out of the ordinary.
Upon the completion of this process, the two droids stepped to the side and stood on guard. The trio then stepped forward but stopped halfway to the central platform.
"So, you decided to finally reveal yourselves. I knew you were to soft hearted to allow your companions to perish." Sendac boasted to his perceived surrendering foes.
"You will never get away with this Sendac!" Allura stubbornly stated.
Sendac merely chuckled and smiled cruelly. "Heh Heh. You think you can still defeat me. I have the lions. I have your companions at my mercy. I…" Sendac paused as a distortion of the light caught his eye and with deft reflexes shot his organic hand out and grabbed the hidden figure by the neck. Upon doing so, it revealed Hermione, "am not so easily tricked by simple holograms."
However, before Sendac could strangle his new captive or threaten the princess further he heard a loud 'CRACK' behind him. Turning around quickly, Sendac sees Harry aiming his wand at him, Dobby untying the recovered Cedric and Remus, who were moved to the front of the room to distance them from the entrance, and Winky grabbing Draco before disappearing again.
"There is nothing simple about this, Sendac." Harry stated as he aimed his wand at Sendac's prosthetic arm and casting, "Reducto!" The spell made contact with the appendage and shattered it upon contact. Flooring the already surprised Galra commander.
Hermione, who managed to slip out her own wand while Sendac was distracted, aimed it at Sendac's chest and intoned, "Bombarda!" Causing a small explosion to hit Sendac and blasting him and her apart from one another.
Meanwhile, as Harry and Hermione were dealing with Sendac, the original trio were not sitting idle. Upon the real Hermione's reveal the illusion on the first 'Hermione' dropped to reveal one of the training drone's from the training hall. It then pulled out a hard light staff from its arm, spun it around, and used it to crush the nearest Galra droids head before it could react. On the other side of the little group, the remaining droid managed to raise its blaster and aimed it in Harry's direction. But before it could fire it heard a gruff voice yell out at it.
"HEY! TIN FACE!" The voice called out.
Upon looking in the direction of the voice, expecting to see the animal from before, the droid somehow gained a look of confusion on its expressionless face. For it did not see Padfoot, but Sirius with what it assumed was a fancy stick. That is until its sensors detected a surge of energy flowing through the stick as it was released itself.
"Stupefy!" Sirius cast at the droid. He only expected it to nock the machine back and potentially shut it down, but upon contact with the mechanical being it completely short circuited and fell in a heap.
"Blimey," Sirius said in shock as he raised his wand and looked at with wide eyes before returning to look at the droid. "I did NOT expect that to work so well."
Allura, due to not having an opponent herself, charged directly for Sendac. After he was blasted away from Hermione and struggled to stand again, Allura managed to punch him in the stomach. Not allowing him to recover, Allura then grabbed the Galra by the back of his suit and threw him toward the front of the command center.
Hitting the reinforced transparent wall and falling to the ground, Sendac was left a struggling mess. As he struggled to push himself back up, he looked at the sight with wide eyes.
"I-Impossible!" He managed to stutter out as he saw Harry, Remus, and Cedric aiming their wands at him.
"Nothing's impossible Sendac. We're proof of that. Incarcerous!" Harry cast at Sendac, releasing a rope that bound itself tightly to him.
"Stupefy!" Remus followed soon after. Causing Sendac to seemingly pass out.
"Immobulus!" Cedric finished off but received confused looks from the other two. "What? Better to keep him frozen like this for a while instead of potentially waking up and breaking out while we're all distracted."
"Fair enough./Makes sense to me." Harry and Remus said at the same time.
The three wizards then turned around and walked back towards the others.
Above a distant green planet, filled with plains of grass and grazing animals, the Galra Central Station/Command Hub is floating menacingly. In an open chamber, that is still somehow pressurized, Haggar stands upon a floating platform looking down on the unobstructed planet below. There are also four other cloaked individuals, wearing bird-like bone mask, standing upon smaller floating platforms around the room.
Four clamps soon were released from the wall and connected below Haggar's platform.
Haggar then yells out, "Begin the ritual!"
Haggar then released purple energy from her hands into the platform. Which caused the platform to glow. The four masked figures then released their own energy towards Haggar. Who, without saying a word, redirected it around herself before having it join her own, and then sent it down to the conjoined clamps in a single beam. The energy was then redirected throughout the entire chamber. Causing dark purple symbols and lights to appear throughout the room.
Outside of the station, at the very bottom, a black orb began to form for all to see. Then suddenly the orb struck out towards the planet below in the form of a jagged black bolt.
On the planet, the grass began to quickly wither, but the beasts were unharmed. As the withering quickly spread small lights began to get sucked up from the ground and towards the black beam as the simple creatures of the world looked on in confusion.
Back in the ritual chamber.
Tanks along the wall began to be filled with a purple-colored glowing liquid. As the tanks continued to be filled the planet below was slowly being drained of its color and life. Becoming barren as the Galra Central Hub's quintessence storage was filled.
When the process was done, Haggar rose from her hunched state to see Zarkon standing on an attached platform. Currently, he was looking upon the gathered quintessence.
"Most impressive Haggar," Zarkon said in his stoic tone. "With this instrument, the Galra can revolutionize how we push through the cosmos." Zarkon continued to say as a small, cruel smirk formed on his face. "Colonizing and mining worlds is now a thing of the past. With this we can dedicate all of our resources to hunting Voltron."
"I am glad that you approve of my work, my emperor." Haggar said with a small bow. "As for how we can use this quintessence, I may have an idea." Haggar then motioned with her hand, giving a silent command to another of the masked figures standing in the room.
The figure comes forward with and hands a data tablet to Zarkon before retreating with a bow silently. On the tablet is the image of a chameleon like alien with a list of long-range weapons it was proficient in. Then the image shifted. At first, Zarkon assumed it was simply the original figure in a type of armor. That is until he looked upon the size, weapons capabilities, and power output of the figure. The only response Zarkon gave to this was a savage smirk.
A short while later, everyone is still in the command center.
Harry was watching over Sendac, who is still knocked out but is bound almost entirely by rope except for his head, hands, and lower feet. Which were locked in place by the same cuffs that used to hold Cedric and Remus. Cedric was off in a corner force feeding a still unconscious Draco some potions to help him heal. Allura and Hermione are messing with the computer systems. Trying to see if any kind of malicious data got introduced while under the Galra's control. Sirius and Remus, meanwhile, were left to pick up the droid remnants from around the castle. They were currently holding a droid between the two of them as they lugged it to the pile of three droids they had already built in the corner of the room.
"Hey, Sirius…uh…why are we taking these things up here…huff…and not the cargo bay or something?" Remus asked as he huffed while they performed their task.
"I don't…oomph…bloody know. I am just doing what…uh, bloody fuck…what Hermione told us. She's the only one of us that even has an inkling on how this stuff works." Sirius grouched out as he held his side of the droid.
Allura overheard this and turned from her task to ask Hermione what the two elder wizards were talking about. "That is a good question Hermione. Why exactly do you need the droids for?"
"Oh, that's simple." Hermione responded as she continued to look over the data. "The droids programing is entirely comprised of Galra designed data. I am hoping to use them to help filter out and isolate any non-Altean data. Allowing us to fix anything the Galra messed with. It also helps in devising counter programs to Galra networks."
"Makes about as much sense as anything else that's happened today." Harry spoke out as he turned from watching Sendac.
"Yeah," Sirius puffed out as he and Remus dropped the latest droid, "huff…but why do you need so bloody man-" Sirius trailed off as the sound of the doors opening was heard.
"Hey…oomph, watch it Coran…we're back." Neville called out as he and Coran walked in while carrying the new power crystal between them, "And how did you get the power back on."
When the two looked up from their shared task, their eyes went wide at the mess they saw.
"WHAT THE QUIZNACK!" Coran yelled out at the sight.
In the cryo-chamber room some time later, Harry, Cedric, and Neville were looking over Draco as he slumbered in the newly activated pod.
"Bloody hell," Neville said as he shook his head after hearing what happened at the castle while he was away. "I thought I had a tough time in the past couple of hours."
"From what you've told us, it was." Cedric said in response after hearing Neville's own tail. "I mean, you and Coran infiltrate a Galra inhabited world…animal…thing, whatever, stole a big old crystal and got out."
"Yeah, but now I know exactly how cruel the Galra are. What we're really fighting against." Neville trailed off for a moment until Harry gave him a light slap upside the head.
"No moping, Nev. You heard Allura, as soon as the castle's systems fully reboot, we're heading straight for the balmera. We'll save them…don't worry." Harry reassured His friend.
"Harry's right Neville." Cedric said as he put his hand on Neville's shoulder in reassurance before turning to Harry with a minor look of confusion. "Though one thing is bugging me. How exactly did you guys and Hermione know Sendac was on to you?"
"The simple answer is Dobby." Harry said with a shrug as he recounted what happened.
(FLASHBACK)
Back with Harry and the others back in the hallway, rite before the scene cut to Hermione.
Harry pulled off the cloak and turned back to Dobby. "Dobby, I need you to quickly go back to Remus's room and grab some parchment and a box of quills that say 'Tr Quills' with a big 'Tr seal on it. Can you do that for me?"
"Yes, Master Harry." Dobby said with a slightly confused look on his face.
"Harry," Allura said as she also took the cloak off, "why are you sending Dobby to get quills? We need to hurry to cover."
"We need to let Hermione know what's happening and we can't do that with the comms compromised. The quills I sent Dobby to collect are called translation quills. We need them so that you can write down the instructions Hermione needs to get the barrier down." Harry explained.
"But how will Hermione understand what I write? I don't know your written language, and from what we heard over the comms, Hermione doesn't know mine." Allura asked in a worried tone.
"That's where the translation aspect comes in. Each quill is paired with another in the box, one red and one blue. Whenever something is written in another language by one quill, its match will float up and write the same thing in the preset language, in this case English." Harry said further, a smile still on his face.
"So, I can give directions and instructions to Hermione without having the Galra listen in. Harry you're brilliant!" Allura said, putting her hands on Harry's shoulders and with a sparkle in her eye, as Sirius/Padfoot barks in agreement.
"Oh, it gets better than that. We know the Galra are sending some droids to take both us and Hermione out. And with the help of Dobby, your mice, Crookshanks, and some toys I know Hermione has been working on, I know we can help 'thin the heard' as I think the Yanks back home call it." Harry said as his smile became even more devious. "Now tell me Allura, does this hidden panic room we're heading to have any emergency defenses to it?"
(FLASHBACK END)
"After that, I sent him back to Winky. She's too high strung for this kind of thing to begin with, not to mention that she doesn't really have a mind for stealth, unlike Dobby." Harry muttered the last bit with a bit of an annoyed tick as he remembered his first experiences with the elf.
Shaking his head to clear his mind at the reminder of the less than pleasant early encounters with the elf. "Anyway, what do we need to due before the castle launches?"
"According to Coran, nothing. He suggests we rest until the reboot completes." Cedric answered.
"Yeah, I think I am a bit to wired for that. I think I will go to the training hall and see if the flight simulator is working. I really need to get a better handle on the Yellow Lion's controls." Neville said.
"Speak for yourself. I am going to lay down for a nap." Harry said with an exaggerated yawn.
The three guys then burst out laughing before they began to walk out of the room.
With the Galra General at High Command, he is looking out of a view port in his quarters. Hands behind his back as he thinks about the frustrating events that have occurred for him and what he considered a waste of time. His lieutenant standing behind him.
"With all the time we have wasted with that witches experiment we could have captured the lions already. So what if we now have a surplus of unprocessed quintessence. The lions are the true prize!" The General spoke aloud to no one in particular.
"I agree sir. However, this new information may be of interest to you." The stone faced lieutenant said as he handed a tablet over to his superior who turned around.
"Oh, this is interesting alright." The General said as a savage grin began to form on his face. "Very interesting indeed."
Hey guys. This is for all intents in purposes my last post of the year. So, I hope you enjoy.
I know some of you are likely going to point out that the events with Zarkon, the Komar, and the fat General don't take place at this point in the series. However, I pointed out in the previous chapter that I will be largely bypassing the Rolo story, where these events do take place.
I would also like to note that I will not be completely writing out Rolo's existence. Just that the events won't take up an entire chapter.
Another thing I would like to explain is Hermione's reactions during her one-on-one events with Haxus. I made Hermione colder than usual due to a combination of this being her first real interaction with a Galra, and thus bringing out all kinds of emotions from her missing family, and the stress of the day's events. She also had no qualms about dropping the drone because she did not have any emotional ties to the machine.
Anyway, I hope you guys have a happy Thanksgiving, a Merry Christmas, and a Happy Happy New Year!