His Rival

Prologue (Season 7)

Hey guys, Jess here!

This chapter is quite small (9.2 pages/ 2,964 words), but still please take breaks as needed.

If you have any questions or comments about this chapter, let me know; I'd like to hear from you!

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy this chapter!

*As the seventh and final season of "His Rival" begins, I will no longer give any Angst nor Blood/Gore Warnings. In fact, the only warnings I'll put from this point onwards will be placed right before scenes that contain certain triggers.

So, I'm only saying this now: Season 7 has a General Profanity warning. That being said, any language that's particularly strong will be censored to prevent another "M" rating. For that and other reasons that are to be revealed later on, this season has a PG-13 rating. Reader discretion is advised.*

As soon as Commander Holt was cleared upon his return to Earth, he was brought to a dim room in the heart of the Garrison, where all the most powerful figures there awaited him.

Admiral Sanda sat at the head of the long table with the nine joint chiefs bordering her on either side, the medals and sashes on their grey uniform's flaunting just how much influence they had and how serious the atmosphere was. Commander Holt was just barely lucky enough for his wife to be allowed in, witnessing the briefing from a row behind.

"Here's what we know" Commander Iverson monotonously began, pulling up an image of Kerberos behind him with a click of a button. "Two years ago, during your Kerberos mission, our scans picked up an anomaly at your location. Minutes later, we lost contact with you and the rest of the crew. In the immediate aftermath, we intercepted a transmission."

"We found these primitive scientists; I don't think they know anything useful" graveled an unhuman tongue, presumably one of Zarkon's underlings.

"Take them back to the main fleet for interrogation" Zarkon growled in reply, his rattling tone dripping with malice. "The druids will find out what they know."

"That last voice is Zarkon, the emperor of an advanced hostile alien race known as the Galra" Commander Holt pointed out with narrowed eyes, his revelation immediately sparking questions.

"How advanced?" One of the older men asked, looking for specifications.

"And how do you know they're hostile?" added a woman, showing just how in the dark they all were about what he had been through.

"Do you have the device I asked for?" he requested from Admiral Sanda, knowing that he'd need proof. "The one from my pod?"

"Bring it to him" She allowed, motioning for one of the guards to retrieve it. Once he handed over the slate, Sam took it to the other end of the table, standing beside his fellow commander as it projected, blue light emanating from the device.

"Before I left, I downloaded as much information as I could from the castle of lions" he began to explain, sorting through various graphics and pieces of data before landing on a certain red-clad tyrant. "For 10,000 years, Zarkon has been expanding his empire, conquering mass swarths of the universe and harnessing it's quintessence in order to survive and maintain power."

"Quintessence?" Admiral Sanda inquired, confused by the foreign term.

"It's an energy generated by living beings" Sam answered.

"You mean certain alien beings?" the man with the glasses tried to correct.

"No, quintessence is within us all" he countered, the screen flickering from the map of Zarkon's empire to a different set of graphs and imagery as it illustrated his words. "And there are various forms of the substance, the most powerful being purified quintessence. After Haggar, the same alchemic being that gave Shiro his prosthetic hand, operated on her, our very own (Y/n) has even gained the ability to purify quintessence into that form and manipulate it."