I felt warm. Something heavy was on top of me.
"Wake up Zurine." A kind voice said to me, "Breakfast will be served in a moment."
I rolled onto my side and opened my eyes to see a happy smile.
In front of me was a woman with long white hair and a sparkly crown on her head. Her eyes were like sapphires, similar to my right eye. And her smile shone brightly with her peach skin.
I almost felt like crying when I realized who this woman was.
She was my mother.
"My love," another voice said from the door, "Is Zurine awake?"
I looked over at the voice and saw a tall man with short white hair that barely brushed the back of his neck. His golden eyes held so much warmth and kindness.
This was my father.
"She's almost awake," my mother sighed as my father walked up to her side, "I swear, she inherited your stubbornness when it comes to waking up in the morning."
I yawned and sat up, rubbing the sleep from my eyes, but when I opened my eyes again, a perfect morning turned into a frightening nightmare.
I gasped and backed away from the cold and lifeless bodies of my parents.
Over and over I saw their assassinations. I couldn't stop crying as I watched the life fade from their eyes.
"Be a good girl." My father said as he passed away with a smile, regret and sadness filling his eyes as the light in them faded for good.
"Find strength and love." My mother said, grabbing my hand until it went limp.
I sobbed for what felt like hours.
"MAMA!!!!!! PAPA!!!!!!!" I screamed.
I screamed and abruptly sat up, finding myself in my bed. Luna fell off my bed with a loud thump.
I breathed in and out as I called myself down. Luna purred and placed her head on my lap. Suddenly, the door opened. Allura, Coran and all the palidans came running into the room.
"Are you okay Zurine!?" Allura asked in a panic, sitting beside me and grabbing my hand.
I felt a hand on my shoulder, turning my head to see Keith looking at me with such concern, that it made me think about my father.
"I'm fine, everyone." I said, "Just a bad dream."
"We were worried when we heard you scream." Lance said, "Care to tell us about the dream?"
I shook my head no, and no one decided to press for answers.
"What happened to me Allura?" I asked.
"You collapsed due to energy loss," Allura said, "I told you not to use so much energy. You scared us half to death."
I looked down, "I'm sorry, I wanted to help."
"You've helped even more than any of us could've imagined." Keith said, "Just rest for a while longer."
As everyone left the room, I grabbed a hold of Keith's hand, pulling him back and making him stay.
"Keith," I pleaded, "Stay for a while longer, please." Keith was startled, but sniled and sat next to me.
He pulled close and lay my head on his warm chest. I smiled and fell back to sleep, listening to the soft beats of his heart.
The nightmares didn't come back.
I slept for about three more hours before waking up, feeling refreshed and powerful.
I looked around to see that only Luna was in the room with me. I smiled and pet her head, waking her up as she licked my hand with her scratchy tongue.
"Shall we go find the others?" I asked, she silently roared in response.
I got up, washed my face and brushed my hair before walking with Luna to the command deck.
I smiled, deciding to play a trick on everyone. I turned invisible and snuck in through the door.
Everyone was surrounding Allura, I stood next to Keith.
"There's no point in debating this further," Allura said, "Zarkon is clearly tracking us through me."
I couldn't believe her accusation. It couldn't be her that was leading Zarkon to us.
Everyone shared in my negative opinion, saying that it wasn't possible.
"Why is that so hard to believe? Zarkon's forces showed up on Arus only after I awoke."
"She's got a point," Lance reasoned, before pulling out a cheeky smile and bowijg towards Allura, "I would absolutely travel across the galaxy to find you."
Allura looked uncomfortable, so I snuck over to Lance and hit him on the head.
"All right, who did that?" Lance asked angrily as he held his head and looked for the culprit.
Too bad for him, the culprit is invisible.
"It's not you princess Allura," Keith said fron his linely corner of the room, "It's me."
And I thought Allura was ridiculous about this tracking hypothesis. Keith, what's going ok through your head?
"Because....." Hunk trailed off.
"I mean, like.... Zarkon must've imprinted on me during our fight or something."
"We'll the fact is, we don't know how Zarkon is tracking us." Pidge said, "It could be through ths Black lion."
"Of all the hypotheses I've heard, Pidge is the only one most accurate." I said, revealing myself to everyone in the room.
"Zurine!" Everyone shouted.
"When did you get in here?" Coran asked.
"Just before Allura accused herself of being the one Zarkon is tracking, but that's beside the point. If Allura and Keith's thoughts were correct, Zarkon could be tracking us through me as well."
"How can that happen?" Keith asked.
"I was fading in and out of consciousness when I was brought to Zarkon. He could've done anything to me, including giving him a way to track us. And think, every time Zarkon comes near the Black Lion, Shiro has to fight for control."
"But that's only when Zarkon is nearby," Coran pointed out, "No palidan has ever been able to connect to a lion over such a vast distance."
"So what're we gonna do?" Hunk asked.
"Look it doesn't matter how he's tracking us, 'cause we're gonna take the fight to the Galra soon enough." Shiro said, "They've been chasing us from galaxy to galaxy, the last thong they'd expect is for us to come after them."
Lance picked up a smirk, "The hunter becomes the hunted, hmm? Awesome, that's a tag line from like, six of my favorite movies."
Pidge tapped my shoulder and pulled me over to her seat. I watched as she pulled up data from all the recent Galra attacks we've recorded.
"As it happens," Pidge said, "I took a list of recent Galra attacks and analyzed it for both commonalities and anomalies from the attack sites. I was hoping to create an algorithm that would, with a statistical amount of error, prepare a list of target rich Galra environments, color coded of course, because what are we animals?"
I chuckled at her color coded lists, "You've never let go of color coding things, huh Pidge?" She smiled.
She pulled up a wide spread map of galaxies around the room, pinpointing all Galra rich targets.
"Cool!" Lance exclaimed, but then went back to a confused state, "What is it again?"
"It's a Garla finder?" Hunk answered unsure of his answer.
I read the algorithms on Pidge's screen.
"Well, to me," I said, "Finder suggests that kocates the Galra, whereas it would be more accurate to say that Pidge's model predicts."
I stopped when everyone looked at us in confusion. Pudge slumped into her chair and crossed her arms over her chest, pouting.
"Fine, it's a Galra finder." Pidge grumbled, I patted her shoulder in comfort.
"So, where are the Galra?" Lance asked.
Pidge pulled up a planet called Taujeer. I was barely familiar eith this planet, but had read in the castle library that it was not exactly a place to spend the summer on.
"Then that's where we're heading," Shiro said, "Everyboone should get some sleep, especially you Zurine. Tomorrow we find the Galra fleet and we take it out."
Everyone but Shiro, Keith and I went to their rooms. Shiro walked over to Keith and I.
"Everything okay?" He asked Keith.
Kieht didn't make eye contact, a sign that something was wrong with him.
"Yeah, why?" Keith answered.
"You seem a bit... anxious."
"I'm fine, just tired. Like you said I should get some sleep."
Keith walked away and headed towards his room.
I knew what he was so anxious about. It was the dagger he has in his room.
"Zurine," Shiro said, snapping me out of my thoughts, "How about you, is everything okay? You were really.. out of it when we found you crying in bed."
I shook my head and held myself, "I'm okay. I said before that it was a bad dream, one that I would like to forget."
Shiro looked sadly at my tense behavior when mentioning that horrible nightmare.
He placed a hand on my shoulder, "You can trust us Zurine. When you're ready to tell us, we'll listen and be there for you."
I looked up at him, and for a moment, I saw my father. I cracked a said smile.
"You know, you remind me a lot of my father." I said, startling him a little.
"How's that?" He asked.
"He was a great leader and an even greater king. But he would always be there for his comrades and more importantly, his family. You have the same kiind of heart my father had. That's why the black lion chose you."
Shiro smiled and walked me back to my room. Luna hopped onto my bed and lay down, silently snoring with slow breaths as I followed her into sleep.
I didn't dream, or at least, no dream that I can remember. At least I didn't have a nightmare like before.
A few hours later, Pidge came in to wake me. We walked with Lance, Shiro and Hunk to the command deck. I was suspicious when i didn't see Keith or Allura.
"We should be reaching Taujeer's orbit soon." Coran informed us.
Shiro ordered for the particle barrier to be raised and for Coran to scan for Galra.
He turned around as we sat in our stations.
"Where are Keith and Allura?" He asked. I pulled up recent scannings of the ship.
"It appears that one of the pods ejected in the middle of the night." I sighed, resting my head in my hand.
"Wait a minute?" Lance said, "Keith and Allura, in the middle of the night? You don't think they're..... sitting in a tree?"
"Contact the pod."Shiro said.
Communications were good and we reached the pod.
"Princess, Keith where are you?" Coran asked.
"Exactly where we should be. Far away from the castle." Allura replied.
"W-what? Why?" Shiro asked.
"We must know if we are the ones Zarkon is tracking."
"They're isolating the variables, well isloating two variables."
"In english please." Lance said.
"In order to test a hypothesis,"
"I said English." Lance shouted. Pidge gave up explaining.
"Pidge is right. If Zarkon finds you despite our absence, we will know with total certainty that we are not the ones he's tracking." Allura said.
"Allura," I said, "You know as well as I do that splitting up thr group will make us even more vulnerable."
"Come back to the castle immediately." Shiro ordered, but Keith and Allura didn't listen.
Suddenly, the castle was hit by debris.
"I believe that's coming from Taujeer." Coran said, taking a closer look, "Correction, I think it is Taujeer."
We faced a large, broken yellow planet. Our communications with Allura and Keith.
"Some kind of radiation is blocking communications." Coran said.
"Move the castle away from planet to reestablish the link," Shiro ordered, "everyone else get to your lions."
I ran to the white hangar, changed into my armor and took off in the white lion.
We flee through the debris and towards the planet. We landed on the smoking surface of Taujeer.
"I don't see any Galra." Hunk said.
"Looks like that fancy Galra finder doesn't work," Lance said, "Nice try Pidge."
Shiro and I ran out of oyr lions and up to a plump alien.
"Thank goodness you're here," The alien said with a robotic voice, "I am Baujal, leader of the Taujeerians. The Galra just desteoyed our ship's engines and left. They've taken everything. We must get everyone off the planet before it dissolves completely! Please help us!"
"How long do we have?" Shiro asked, followed by rumbling.
"From the sound of that rumbling, I'd say not very long Shiro." I said.
"How did this happen?" Shiro asked.
"We've known for years that our planet would lose its outer layer." The Taujeerian said.
"Like a snake shedding its skin?" Lance asked.
"That doesn't sound so bad," Hunk said, "Beneath that old skin is a new, healthy layer, right?"
Another rumble shook the planet.
"Nope. No, I-I think the next layer is acid." Pidge said. I looked down a crack in the layer amd saw acid bubbling under the rock.
"The plan was to evacuate the population to our nearest moon, where we have built a colony to wait out the shedding process. So we relocated to higher ground and constructed that ark."
The Taujeerian focused his gaze in the large ship holding his people inside.
Lance asked, "What happened?"
"The Galra attacked, led by a vile commander named Morvok. He robbed us of vital resources and left with only one operational engine, stranding us here."
I could feel the fear of the Taujeerians aboard the ark.
"You're not stranded anymore," I said, "We'll help your people get to safety."
Baujal turned towards us, "I believe you, for I have heard many legends of the valor of Voltron and the power of the child of sun and moon."
He looked up and only saw five lions. He asked us where the sixth palidan was. We didn't go into details and told him that he wasn't here, but we could still help.
"Pidge, Hunk, take a look at the ark and see what we're dealing with." Shiro ordered.
Suddenly, the planet shook again, this time more violently. The force broke off parts of the ark, making tumble down towards the acid below.
"Would you settle for upright?" Hunk asked.
We ran back to our lions and flew up to see the damage to the ask.
"Assuming we can get it back up, the repairs will still need time." Pidge explained.
"Which would appear to be the only thing we don't have." Lance said.
"We need to slow down the shedding." Shiro said.
"How do stop a planet that's coming apart at the seams?!" Pidge asked.
"By sewing it back together!" Hunk cheered.
I smiled at the yellow palidan, knowing exactly what he was thinking.
"Good thinking Hunk!" I said, "The green lion has the power to cause vegetation to grow."
"Right, if we aim the vines at the cracks in the planet, tye vines could act like stitches." Hunk finished.
"Won't the stitches be dissolved by the acid?" Shiro inquired.
"The stitches might hold longer if they're frozen." Pidge said.
"And if I give some power, they'll hold even longer." I said, smiling at the plan we laid down.
Shiro and Hunk went to the ask, while Pidge, Lance and I bought time for the ark to released.
Right as the ice and vines were laid down, I shot a white beam that supplied more power to hold the planet together longer.
Meanwhile, Allura and Keith were floating in space.
"What happens if Zarkon really does come after us?" Keith asked worryingly.
"You said you coyld pikot us to safety, right?" Allura asked.
"Sure, but after that, could we even go back to the group? And if we don't, who would pilot the Castle or create wormholes?"
"Well, what about you? Without you, the team cannot form Voltron. And my dear little sister would lose the first man she had ever loved."
Keith looked down sadly.
Back on Taujeer, we were just finishing up the repairs, when we were attacked by the Galra.
We climbed into our lions and prepared to fight.
Hunk held up the ark and kept it from falling into the acid.
Coran provided back up for us and called Allura and Keith to come as soon as possible.
I tried contacting Keith and Allura, but all I got was static.
We dodged fires and attacks, until a large Ion cannon focused its aim on the ark.
"Lance! Pidge! Attack the ship with your jaw blades!" Shiro ordered.
The green and blue lion did as told and sliced the ship like ot was a piece of cheese.
The black lion and sliced the Ion cannon at the base, making it misfire and hit the planet surface.
We had plenty of lasers to dodge. Just then, the castle of lions came in and fired lasers to cover us.
"All right, Coran!" Shiro cheered.
"Thank you Coran!" I shouted happily.
I screamed as a laser hit my lion on the back. I was sent spiraling towards the acid, just before Shiro caught me.
"You okay Zurine?" He asked.
"I'm fine," I said, "Maybe a case of whiplash but, other than that I'm okay."
"Guys, I can keep this thing fron falling any farther, but I need help getting it back up." Hunk said.
I felt a rush of energy come from the yellow lion. As we flew down to help Hunk, I noticed an extra layer on the yellow lion. The aemor was bulkier and the claws dug deep into the earth.
Our lions pushed the ark along with Hunk and slowly made it stand upright.
I looked behind me, and saw that the Ion cannon was aiming at us.
Just as it was about to fire, the red lion flew in and sliced at the cannon with its jaw blade. The cannon was sliced clean off and fell ibto tue acid.
"Good to have you back, Keith!" Shiro cheered.
"Good to be back." Keith replied.
"Is the princess with you?" Lance asked hastily.
"Yeah."
"Like 'with you', with you or..."
"Come on Lance, Keith may be a jerk sometimes but there's no way he would ditch Zurine for Allura." Pidge said, "No offense Allura."
Allura laughed. The red lion flew over and helped with the ark.
We quickly formed Voltron and formed the sword.
"Will the sword be able to cut through an entire battle cruiser?" Lance asked.
"It will with my help!" I shouted transferring powet to the sword.
Suddenly, all the lions began to purr and speak to me, not in the way that they were speaking to the others.
"We're with you young child."
"You've done enough for now, let us finish this battle."
"You've done well child of Sun and Moon."
"Thank for the power."
"Thank you and white."
Suddenly, the sword became larger and cut through the ship like butter.
We went back to the ark and carried it to safety on the closet moon.
After we were done on Taujeer, we went back to the the castle of lion.
Allura apologized for leaving, along with Keith.
"At least now we know tyat Zarkon isn't tracking us through you two." Lance said.
"Plus, I lewrned that my lion can grow armor and extend its claws like that.... Ting! Which will come in handy if we ever needed to, say, I don't know, slice up a giant steak while getting beat up."
I smiled while everyoje stared at him, slightly unamused.
Hunk stiffened, "Or fight evil and save innocent people. That too. That would work."
Shiro turned towards Keith, "The fact that the red lion came to help Keith from so far away is a vital piece of information."
"Shiro is correct," I said, "this prves that a lion and palidan can, in fact, connect over a far greater distance than we realized."
"Which means we finally know how Zarkon is tracking us." Shiro said sadly, "It's through the black lion."