Warning, there is a graphic description of ants in a dream sequence. I didn't want to freak out anyone too badly without a warning. (Unlike Animorphs that gives you a nightmarish description of ants trying to tear the kids apart in ant morph. Curse you K.A. Applegate for making a good series for kids with such desciptions.)
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When arriving back at the bridge, Lotor knew he had to fight the rest of the Voltron team. It didn't matter that he might be developing certain type of feelings for the Red Paladin, he still had to run the Empire. That includes eradicating Voltron from existence. It would let the empire flourish much more than it would with Voltron there to hinder its progress.
It was his father's downfall that he wasn't able to get rid of it. At least what he heard from Hagger on the subject of his father when becoming the new leader.
"Narti, get the ship to where the signal is. Zethrid be on standby when the castle starts to shoot at us. Acxa you will be in charge of them while I go to battle the lions." Lotor said, placing himself in his chair. Under one of his arms was his helmet.
"Understood sir." Acxa said, steeling her face that she used for battle.
He watched his generals quickly move around the room. They moved around each other with ease, much more than he would expect the Voltron team without their Red Paladin.
As the ship went through a wormhole, his thoughts returned to Lance. He knew that he liked the paladin, much more than he anticipated when he rescued him from the room on fire. But it wasn't enough at the moment to waver his duty to rule the Empire nor stop his mission to destroy Voltron. He knew that the Galra army would not be so lenient with him as they were with his father if he didn't get rid of Voltron. That was a guaranteed fact for him.
But he also wished he could have Lance join his small knitted family.
"The castle is in sight. Should you go to your ship now or wait for a few more minutes?" Acxa asked. Her stance showed she was serious about the battle that was to come. That coupled with her carefully blank face, he knew she was ready to fight with him, no matter the cost.
"It'll take me a few moments to get down to the hanger and get my ship going. I'll do that now than give the Paladins a chance to use a plan against me." He said standing up. Acxa nodded at his statement and faced towards the other generals.
As he left the room with his helmet, he heard Zethrid claim that they should use the cannons against the castle. It brought a smile to his face to hear Acxa with a clam tone, explaining why that wouldn't work in this situation. He choose his odd little family well.
Reaching his ship, he then remembered the way his hair was. While it did keep his hair out of the way when he was on the ship, it was stacked too tall to put the helmet over his head. Lotor would need to pull it out of the bun and let it hang loose. For a moment he mourned Lance's hard work before letting his hair down.
Hopefully he could have Lance either try to do the hairstyle again or try a whole new one. It would be a shame for the one person with gentle hands to be lost to the other side.
With that thought in mind, Lotor turned his ship on.
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Keith was angry. That was the simplest way of how he felt at the moment as dashed to the Black Lion. After the fact of Lance being kidnapped to one of the Galra ship, Keith didn't have much self control. Lance was the one that kept him calm in tense moments and made him see the bigger picture with the rest of team when Shiro was lost.
So the fact that Lotor's ship shows up to the castle after Lance being kidnapped, he didn't have enough patience to simply think things out. He wanted Lance back on the team and he wanted him now.
Vaguely he could hear his teammates, shouting at him to calm down through his helmet. But in the moment he could only listen to his rage that ran rampant through his body . He pushed his body to get to the Black Lion faster. If he pushed himself to go faster than that meant seeing the new Galra Leader sooner. It also meant getting answers of where the Galra were keeping Lance if he wasn't with Lotor.
He could feel a faint connection in the back of his mind as he got closer to the Black Lion. He also ignored that, focusing on the battle that would come and the he could rescue Lance. Keith didn't need an distractions if he wanted to do both things successfully.
'Why are you so full of anger, little one?'
This new voice in his head made him skid to a stop. Quickly looking around to find whoever was trying to mess with him, he heard a low chuckle in his head once more. 'I do not mean any harm to you nor the team. I just want to know why you are so angry.'
"Who are you?" Keith shouted into the empty hallway. His shoulders started to tense up and he could feel his body going into fight mode. It was a familiar move for him as he continued to fight the war against the Galra empire.
For a few moments the voice didn't speak. Then softly, the voice gave him an answer. 'I'm the one they call the Black Lion. I'm the one who protects you and the rest of the team in battle when needed.'
"Then that means you've been feeling what I've felt since that battle against Prince Lotor?" He asked, curiosity taking control over the swelling rage.
'Yes. But only brief flashes. You are much more closed off than the last paladin I had. He was a leader that doubted himself, but still pulled through for the rest of the team's sake.' The Black Lion said.
'You mean Shiro right?"
'I suppose. I only remember how my paladins who lead their team. Names never mattered much to me unlike the other lions.' For a moment, the lion went silent before speaking up once more. 'But that is not important. I ask why you are angry.'
He took a few seconds to search for the answers. He knew what he felt and what he should do, but to explain that to the Black Lion? It was much similar to the therapists he had visited for much of his life. "I just want my teammate back. He was the one after Shiro disappeared to keep me from Voltron turning into a big pile of shit. I want him back to help me and the rest defeat the Galra."
All the Black Lion did was chuckle at him, the timber of it close to a purr of a cat. It calmed Keith down more than he expected. 'I will talk to you more when we can rescue your friend. I believe I should start to be more open myself.'
With that the Black Lion's voice went away, leaving Keith reeling from the power that had left his head. For a few short moments, he clutched his head. Then pulling himself together, he moved towards the hanger.
When seeing the Black Lion where he had left it after Lance's kidnapped, it brought a bitter smile to his face. Shuffling quietly, Keith slowly put a hand on the lion's metal paw. The same feeling from before entered into his mind, providing comfort that he had when his father was around. Taking in a deep breath, he got into the Black Lion.
He would get Lance back no matter what.
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The battle was intense was all Lotor noted. He noticed that the Black Lion was being piloted with the same intensity he saw in the previous battle. But the difference this time was that Lance, Paladin of the Red Lion wasn't there to guide the leader from trying to risk the safety of the team.
Lotor knew he had the upper hand in that regards, having years of being with his generals to know that he could trust them to do what they could to aid him in battle. All he would provide in return is that they would be respected and that he would protect them in battle.
With a sudden turn, he quickly evaded the Blue Lion's obvious tatic of ramming into his ship. He scanned the rest of the battlefield, noting that the Yellow and Green Lions fought close to each other, quickly taking down ships as a tag team. Before he could type a message to Acxa about this information, the Blue Lion shot a beam of energy at him.
For the next few minutes, Lotor dodged the blasts of energy from both the Black and Blue Lion. Annoyance grew inside him, but he wouldn't let him control how he got would get out of this situation nor how he would the rest of the battle.
Using quick turns, he noticed that each time that the lions attacks would get closer at aiming at the other. Smirking that he was tricking them into closing the attack towards he each other, Lotor waited for a few more seconds before using one last sharp turn. The small explosion that came from the beams of energy hitting each other was satisfying to see.
After escaping the Black and Blue lions attacks, he sent a message to his general about the tag teams. He ordered that the ship should split the two tag teams, noting that it would be easier to take them down this way rather than trying to fight them as two separate teams.
The screen he used was pushed to the side, wanting to fight the Green and Yellow Lions. It was getting kinda boring, not having different opponents to fight against for each battle he had with the Voltron team.
As he swiftly made his way towards the tag team, he kept an eye on the Black and Blue lions. He noted that they didn't move, but the lights were still on in the eyes. Mostly likely meant that the lions were repairing themselves along with the paladins making contact with each other.
Still Lotor moved towards the the Yellow and Green lions, the challenge of a different opponent exciting him. The different fight style that the tag team had, came with its own difficulties.
For one the paladins didn't just use the lions to barrage him multiply times nor use the energy beams other than to make him turn sharply. No, they made him plan a game of chase where one would dart into his ship's range while the other stayed out of the way and then crash into his ship when he got close enough.
When he trying to go after the one in his range, they would dart away and let the other speed at Lotor's ship. It was a game of chase that he didn't like and grew frustrated at this tactic.
But even with the frustration, he did noticed that the Green Lion was the one to closely surround a ship before lurring them towards the Yellow Lion. In the back of his mind, he guess that it was because the Yellow Lion could take more hits than the Green Lion could.
As he continued to fight the tag team, he saw a flash of red speed across the front of his ship before Lotor's vision started to spin with his ship.
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He could feel sharp nails raking all over is arms and legs, digging into cuts that had formed from before. It felt like many of his younger siblings gripping his limbs with their fingernails when they roughhoused. Painful, but not enough to warrant him to scream in horror.
Then he looked down at the cuts and saw the blood dripping out of them slowly. That caused him to squirm slightly and that led to the discovery that he couldn't move. It wasn't the fact that it was blood that freaked him out, it was the way it moved out of his cuts along with him unable to move. The blood would continue to drip down his body, slowly leaving his body until he was nothing left but a dead body.
Then he could feel something else crawling on his legs. Looking back down he saw hundreds of ants crawling into and out his cuts, not even bother by the blood flowing out of the cuts. They continued to do so up his legs until they reached his stomach, for a moment perched there quietly.
Lance breathed a sigh of relief, ecstatic that the ants would do nothing more. When he looked back down the ants suddenly surged all over his stomach and torso, biting into the skin there. He watched in horror as the ants started to eat their way into his body.
It got even worse when he saw that when the ants bit into him, white stuff that closely resembled ant larvae crawling their way out of his body.
That's when he let out a scream, louder than any scream he had ever done. He didn't want to see himself getting eaten from the inside out by any living creature. Nobody deserved such torture, not even the crusty Glara Emperor himself.
As he continued to scream, Lance could feel something soft moved its way over his body. That caused him to start thrashing, wanting this whole situation to just stop.
"You will not be harmed, Paladin Lance." Came the soothing voice.
Lance opened up his eyes to see a lion's head attached to a woman's body. The red mane glowed a soft orange and the eyes this odd creature had were willed with worry and anger. He could only answer with a scream, not sure what was real and what was not.
The strange lion creature held out a hand that looked to be switching between a human hand and a lion's paw. With one quick sweep over his body, the creature rid him of the ants and larvae, burning them from a fire that didn't harm him. It also flickered between red and yellow.
Lance stopped screaming at this point, watching the ants being burned alive. He also noticed the creature watched his body also. Then with another sweep of the giant paw, the fire was extinguished along with the ants and larvae gone. He could also see his cuts stitching themselves back together.
All he could do was look up at the creature, wondering who they were.
"Lance, I'm here to protect and guide you. I have failed the first when you were kidnapped, but I will be here with you in spirit, guiding you through your dreams."
"Who are you?" Lance asked. Now that he wasn't screaming his head off, he could that there were wisps of fire on the wild mane and that the body also had symbols and words moving across the skin. He also saw the deep blue eyes were filled with regret.
"I'm the Red Lion. I protect my Paladin when they are battle and help guide them when they need me." Came the deep voice. They moved closer to his head and he saw that the paws were now humans hands as they gently touched his face. "I do not appear often for I feel that my Paladin must doing everything they can think off before reaching my help. But I will make an exception for you this one time as you can't do much kidnapped."
"So that means that the team is close to me? They can rescue me?" He asked with unsure happiness.
"Yes. Now I need you to wake up. If you don't then the team will not be able to rescue you." The Red Lion said. Lanced nodded eagerly. They chuckled at this action before moving their hands to his eyes.
"Awaken now!"
That's when Lance awoke to the ship rumbling. All he could do for a moment was stare at the ceiling.
Then he moved towards the door to find the hanger.