(From Ashes) Chapter 21

Pride: From Ashes
            Chapter 21
            The Name of the Defender

"That big rock in the middle, maybe?"

"Better stick to the edges, I think. Make the sinycka actually look before they realize it's a trap."

When the Falcon had returned to the Castle of Lions, it had brought more than militia and prisoners. They'd found it in the grass that evening: a chunk of metal and wires about the size of a melon, ringed with tiny maneuvering jets. It had not taken much poking at the device to identify a Drule surveillance drone, and little more for the offworlders' engineers to determine it had been tuned to their ship. Lurking in orbit, presumably, waiting to attach when they left Arus.

Of course, when the Falcon had launched it hadn't left Arus, and the thing about orbital drones was that they didn't work too well in atmosphere. Hence its ending up half-buried in the Meadows of Raimon instead, and hence the Arusians now taking it elsewhere. Very much elsewhere.

The Falcon itself, after delivering them to and from one of the Burning Ridge's furthest calderas, would be hidden back in the foothills. Parking right next to the castle with Drules on their way maybe hadn't been the wisest of choices, in retrospect.

"This looks good. Right under that outcropping."

Allendar had come out accompanied by the knight, Miralna—most of the militia was overseeing things with the prisoners, and Hanso was still too wounded for real field work. The plan was simple. They would place the drone in a nice, empty crater, reactivate it, and let the Great Lions do the rest.

What a weird plan.

The Great Lions were still a source of some… bemusement. Yes, bemusement was the word. After who knew how many months of scurrying around in the tunnels, it felt very weird to suddenly have five giant metal cats with elemental powers among their allies. Within the shelters, they were still only whispered rumors; there had been no formal announcement of their appearance. Maybe it was too early, with them still so untested. Maybe it was just a question of how to break such news.

Even the militia had only really been told someone will explain sooner or later, and they'd fought beside the damn things.

Personally, Allendar would like an explanation sooner, and he knew he wasn't the only one. All he'd been able to coax from Larmina—all she knew for sure, she claimed—was that they'd been hidden on Arus all this time, but required offworlders to awaken them. Why? Golden Gods only knew.

Golden Gods might actually not know, on second thought. Some legends had obviously been a little bit wrong.

"Kind of hope we'll get this back," he muttered as he poked at the drone's wiring, reconnecting the transmitters. "We're going to need a new orbital network sooner or later, I'd think it's better to reverse engineer this thing than get it blown up."

Miralna shifted beside him; even with no sign of Drule forces, reactivating something specifically designed to get the enemy's attention was stirring a nerve or two. She would much prefer to just duel some sinycka face to face. "You sound confident that the need will be sooner."

Confident? He wasn't sure he'd have called it confident. Maybe optimistic. Hard not to at least be that, after the rout they'd seen at the fortress. "Hope for the best, expect the worst, plan for both."

"That is fair." She startled a little as several lights sprang to life on the drone, and a shrill whirr echoed over the caldera. "Time to go?"

"Time to go."

Arus was as prepared as it was going to be. Now, once again, they would just have to wait.

They probably wouldn't have to wait long.

*****

Discovery of the drone had Keith on edge—not only him, of course, but maybe especially him. They knew for certain that no such surveillance had followed them to Arus, which could only mean that the Drules had been here since they'd arrived. Why hadn't they attacked? There could be several reasons.

None of them were good.

They were watching our ship. They know we're here.

Questioning the prisoners hadn't gotten them much of anywhere. Not a single Drule was speaking, and Lord Del Seva was just repeating his vague story about negotiations. Only the liberated Arusian commoners had provided any insight: the on-site liaison had openly claimed to be the planet's 'true' governor, because he oversaw the garrison.

There was, at least, an implication there. The Drules were big on symbolism to cow their conquered worlds. Putting the planetary governor in the Castle of Lions had been important… but it wasn't much of a location for housing troops. Hence the Radiant Fortress, and two competing political operatives, each believing themselves the planet's most important overseer.

Again, it seemed Drule arrogance proved their undoing. And it wasn't as though they had many other weaknesses to exploit, so the team wasn't going to complain. They needed to take advantage of it while they still could.

Which meant they'd best be as prepared as possible to unleash their secret weapons. Keith had them running drills over the lake—far enough from where the drone had been planted that they might not be immediately detected, but in good position to get between the diversion site and the castle quickly.

Three extended sessions in about twenty-four hours were showing some definite improvement. Even Hunk, who would much rather have been blowing things up, was getting slightly more comfortable with aerial maneuvers—under Keith's watchful eye, he was coaxing quite a bit more speed out of the bulky Yellow Lion than either of them had anticipated. Maybe he wasn't as slow as they'd first thought.

As Yellow finished up another agility drill, Keith pulled Black towards the center of the group and looked around. It was still pretty haphazard, but far less than when they'd started. "Looking good, team."

"Of course I look good!" Lance dove Red towards the water, pulling back only inches from the surface into a flashy little backflip. He thought it had looked pretty damn cool, but could've sworn Red growled… he dipped closer to the lake again, and this time the growl was clear. "What? Don't like water?"

"I'm fire," the lion pointed out grumpily. Probably fair.

Not too far away, Sven was watching and wishing they could be in the water, a sentiment Blue shared. Though his lion was not overly pleased with all this activity over her lake, and as Red pulled up again the navigator felt a glimmer of deep concern.

"Brother, kindly do not get your fire in my lake."

"Dear sister, I would never."

"Dearest brother, you would."

For a moment, Lance had the odd sense that his lion was smirking, though he didn't know why.

In the meantime, Pidge was running his own agility drills; Keith had been giving him some coaching earlier, and he almost felt like some of it had stuck. Swooping down on the lake he attempted to skim Green's claws along the surface.

It lasted for precisely three and a half seconds before he lost it, plunging into the lake with a great deal of colorful Baltan profanity.

"What were you going for there, ninja?"

"I do not think I needed the bath, but it wasn't unpleasant?"

Ignoring both his lion and their team's actual pilot, Pidge wrestled Green back into the sky. Salys sa kye. Truthfully, he was curious how the lions would function underwater—but it seemed like they ought to master the air first.

Sven broke in, sounding about as exasperated as the ninja felt. "Blue would like us to be careful around her lake."

"I promise I didn't fall in on purpose."

"I'm sure if it had been on purpose, it would've been much more graceful." Lance did another dive just to show off, shaking his head. I need to train these people. Clearly Keith couldn't do it alone.

The thought of training drew his attention to the back seat, again. He still had no answers, only infuriating vagueness. Worse, he couldn't discuss it with anyone, least of all Daniel. Not yet. That was the one thing Red had made clear.

It was starting to remind him of the fucking tunnels.

"Careful doesn't sound fun," Hunk said lightly, testing out a few evasive maneuvers well above the water. "But I don't think my lion wants washed right now, so guess it'll have to happen, yeah?"

"I don't like being wet," Yellow grumbled.

Still hovering over the center of the lake, Keith rubbed his forehead tiredly. Black Lion chuckled in his mind.

"My siblings have not played like this in some time. Nor have yours, it seems."

"…Yeah." That was certainly a way of putting it. "It's not very disciplined, but it works for practice. Have to learn somehow."

"Indeed. Mistakes are how one learns and improves."

Keith nodded slowly, though he still felt on edge. He was proud of the progress his team had made—but did they really have time for mistakes? It wasn't as if they had a choice, but… "Okay, let's do another lap in formation. It's a better test of precision than going for impromptu swims."

Halfway around the lake, in a ragged but reasonably coordinated V-formation, their comms crackled. Not unusual. Coran was monitoring from the castle, and Allura had checked in a few times between various tasks. It was the princess who came across now, but the words were something very different.

"Keith, lions—one of our orbital receptors just pinged. I'm sending you the location now." They hadn't had an actual location from the tattered remnants of the old orbital network since Drule warships had patrolled the skies in packs. This wasn't likely to be another false positive.

This could be it.

"Roger that, Princess. We'll take a look; suggest you get under cover just in case."

"We're heading to the shelters right now. The rest of your team is with us."

"Thank you." Keith allowed himself one steadying breath. "All right, team. Playtime is over, we have work to do."

"Work can be play, boss."

"Please do not jinx us, Lance."

"Don't bring up jinxes if you don't want jinxing."

"Isn't sayin' the fun is over the jinx?"

Sighing as the others bantered, Pidge brought up the console for something he was still significantly better at than flying. "Directing sensor sweep." The first traces were already lighting up Green's monitors.

"Look," Lance muttered as they headed for the location, "all I'm saying is I like fire roasted Drules." And he fully expected to get a lot of what he liked today.

"I have contacts." Pidge frowned as Green's IFF scrolled through scrambled characters and error messages, and nearly asked her if it was broken before realizing the real problem. "…My lion doesn't know anything about Drule ships." And why would she? "But there's several of them and they're large."

"Not all of them are large."

True. The data was still refining itself. "Correction: three are small, two are medium, five are large."

A brief silence fell over the comms; it was Hunk who produced the immediate protest. "Uh, probably coulda led with 'there's ten ships', yeah? Doesn't sound great."

"I did say there were ten ships!"

"And five are large," Lance interrupted with a smirk, "and large just makes for a better target." You got this. "We've got this."

Sven eyed Red doubtfully out the side of Blue's cockpit; he felt nowhere near as confident as Lance. Then again, who was?

Also not feeling quite so confident was Keith, who breathed in slowly and nodded in determination. "Let's go see what we've got, team. Be careful." His own sensors were beginning to paint a picture, and he hissed under his breath. "They look like Drule ships to me."

"Who else were you expecting?"

"Were you expecting something else?"

He rolled his eyes in Lance and Sven's general direction, though they were fair questions. "Expecting and hoping, two different things."

"I was hopin' for some door to door saleslizards with a new vacuum cleaner, personally," Hunk offered.

"I mean, vacuum cleaners are handy." Lance quieted as they moved in on the distant contacts, which so far didn't seem to have any idea they were there.

That seemed odd, actually. "Pidge, any sign they've noticed us?" Keith asked; he just assumed if any lion had the equipment to tell, it was Green.

He wasn't wrong. Typing in a few commands with his eyes on a secondary monitor, Pidge slowly frowned. "If I'm reading this right, they're in pursuit mode—we aren't even painted on their sensors yet." Which made a level of sense, he supposed. Why would the Drules expect enemy ships here beyond the one they were hunting? "Do you want me to stealth in and get a closer look?"

Keith nodded reflexively, then realized the ninja couldn't exactly see that. "Good idea. Do it, but be careful."

"Yessir." Engaging cloaking, he pushed Green ahead at top speed, musing grimly that his inability to fly in a straight line might help if he had to turn and run for it. As the ships became visible on his main screen, dark specks in the distant sky, he punched up his magnification and started feeding it back to the others.

Hunk's eyes went directly to one of the smallest ships. "…Ain't that an Andura?" The battle at Calidar flashed back through his mind, and he very badly wanted to melt the ship immediately, but it probably wasn't the best tactical move.

"Looks like it, Hunk."

"Think so." Lance's eyes narrowed as he looked over the others. He'd seen a lot of Drule ships in his time with the Andromeda Vanguard; enough to recognize some design commonalities. "Almost all of those look like troop ships." His fingers twitched on his weapons console.

"Lance is right." Pidge was carefully weaving between the Drule ships as they made their way to the caldera. He was shocked they hadn't detected him yet; even Baltan cloaking systems would've been tenuous at this range. "All three of the frigate-sized ships have boarding cutters, and the cruisers have a lot of shuttle bays."

Keith's eyes narrowed as he looked over the images. "I'm betting that central cruiser is a command ship of some kind." Smaller than the usual Drule command ship, but the formation—and its number of visible gun ports—were a hint. Not to mention the two smaller ships flanking it, which didn't appear to be troop ships at all. "Let's focus on one of those destroyers, they look to be carrying the most firepower for their size."

For their size. Pidge personally felt like all of the Drule ships seemed very large, when compared to a lion. But Keith was right, too; taking out the ships that were optimized for aerial battle was a more efficient start than the troop carriers. And if they had the opportunity for a first strike here, they had to take it.

He should just get out of here and rejoin the others before something went terribly wrong, but…

"…Target is painted," he said quietly, coming around one of the destroyers and tagging it on his sensors. "I'll make a hole, the rest of you come put some lasers and missiles into it, kir sa tye?"

"Fuck yes," Lance growled, pushing Red forward. We've got this! They had to have this. What was the point of bonding to magic lions if not?

Once again, Sven felt less confident, readying Blue's missile launchers and steeling himself. This seemed unlikely to be as fun as the tanks, and he was acutely aware that he'd never done anything in real aerial combat except for reading nav sensors and prepping maps.

Hunk came up beside him, keeping his own thoughts strictly optimistic. At least the waiting was over. Time to make with the booms!

Allowing himself just enough confidence for a small grin, Keith took point with the others and nodded. "On your mark, Pidge."

"Engaging."

In a ripple of light and shadow, Green Lion emerged from stealth over the destroyer's spine, diving along its flank and skimming the hull with her claws. This time it went much better than the lake—Pidge gripped the controls as if his life depended on it, which it might, and tore a pair of shallow gashes that left armor plates hanging in shreds. Then he was clear and flying at full speed into the mountains, not even stopping to see what might be following.

"Now!"

"Holy ninja…"

"Move it, team!"

The other lions surged forward, opening fire on the damaged destroyer with everything they had. All Green had really done was open up the armor, but that was enough. Black Lion's ion cannons fired energy pulses into the wounds, Keith foregoing the weapons' tactical modes in favor of raw damage. Yellow Lion was doing the same next to him, pouring a solid stream of white-hot plasma into the breach. Red Lion's heavy lasers and Blue's primary missiles punched into the holes, coring critical components and sending violent shudders through the vessel.

Narrowing his eyes as the destroyer's damage readouts scrolled in front of him, Lance fired his lasers again, and this time added Red's tail beam to the mix. An enormous explosion rocked the ship—the reactor's hydrogen stores going up—and it plummeted from the sky.

"YEEHAW!"

"Guess that's one way of saying hello."

"That's one way of saying goodbye and good riddance!"

The suddenness and ferocity of the ambush—not to mention the general unwieldiness of capital ships—had prevented the Drules from reacting immediately. But while the destroyer had been withering under the lions' combined fire, its companions had been getting their wits about them. A flurry of lasers struck out in all directions, several either grazing or outright missing their targets, but enough hitting to give the team pause.

"Mijtairra sa kye!"

"Oh, fuck."

Immediately they broke what semblance of formation they'd had. If the Drules were going to land shots, they'd have to do it through their own skill or luck, not by shooting at clustered targets. The lions were giant robots, but they handled like fighter craft; speed and agility would be their advantages here.

Unlike the tanks, these Drule weapons were actually doing damage.

Sven wheeled Blue around and switched to his elemental cannon, returning laser fire with blasts of supercooled water. It was effective to a degree, coating the laser barrels in ice and briefly dispersing the beams—but it didn't take long for the lasers to melt away the obstruction, either. Hardly a long term solution.

What his own damage displays were telling him was confusing. Blue's armor wasn't simply losing strength from the hits. The armor displayed as a rippling wave of status colors, seemingly restoring itself nearly as quickly as the enemy's lasers could warp it.

Nearly.

That won't last, will it? he asked grimly, lurching away from a stream of cannon shells and firing a volley of missiles in return.

"It can only do so much," Blue confirmed.

Understood. He pulled back a little, giving himself more space to maneuver, and launched another wave of missiles at the nearest cruiser. They left a few scars in the armor, but nothing more. Not ideal.

Lance had also pulled back, cursing profusely as he tried to pick out a new target. Even with the one destroyer down, the Drules had plenty of firepower to unleash, and no real gaps in their fields of fire. Come on, they're just fucking troop cruisers!

Even troop cruisers were still heavy fucking warships. With a snarl of frustration, he launched a pair of something called inferno missiles at the other destroyer. The detonation left behind a clinging, burning substance, melting through a large patch of armor and sending the ship into a retreat. It wasn't nearly enough.

All the fancy maneuvers he'd been showing off with earlier were now his lifeline; lasers blazed out all around him as Red looped and danced through the sky. It was mostly light lasers impacting—he was moving too erratically for the aiming mechanisms of heavier guns to keep up. But even light warship lasers were at least carving temporary scars in his armor. If he tried to shift any effort into finding better firing positions, it would probably be bad.

Pidge was also relying on evasion; he tried to fire on the destroyer as it pulled back, but his plasma blasts scattered wide. Green's tactical options were limited in this situation. He'd been launching shrapnel pods into the melee, and the metal fragments were doing admirably enough at disrupting laser fire.

It had not helped him when a stream of heavy cannon shells slammed into the lion's side.

Getting close enough to claw any other ships open was entirely out of the question. He couldn't even get enough space to re-engage cloaking again. Oh, he'd tried. Another stealth strike in the midst of the Drule formation seemed like a fantastic idea. But Green had to stay still briefly as the cloak engaged, which had ended in several laser impacts and no invisibility. Suboptimal.

Hunk was not attempting evasion—he'd barely learned how to do it in theory, in practice he'd mostly been dodging into enemy fire. Besides, Yellow had the armor to take some serious hits even from cruisers. He'd switched to trying to draw their attention, but that premise didn't work so well when they could fire in multiple directions at once.

Making a face, he launched a couple of plasma spheres at the far cruiser. They detonated as impressively as ever, but where the explosions had simply erased the assault tanks, warship armor held up. They did leave a couple of good-sized dents, but he'd hoped for better.

Maybe…

His thoughts went back to the crush car circuit. Causing chaos had been as important as anything. Maybe what this fight needed was a little more of that.

Taking a deep breath, he pushed forward into the teeth of the fleet, landing on the hull of another troop cruiser and slashing away at its armor. Several lasers followed him—a few washed over Yellow, but a few more scattered across their comrade's hull. He grinned. "Thanks dudes!"

Keith had circled underneath the warships. They didn't have many weapons here, but the force from their atmospheric thrusters was nearly overwhelming; being beneath them was like trying to maneuver through cement. He couldn't stay long. Eyes narrowed, he pumped a pair of Black's ionic piercer rounds into the belly of the command cruiser. The piercing projectiles ripped through armor before unleashing a disabling charge deeper within the ship.

Though the cruiser lurched, it recovered quickly, and he couldn't hang around for another shot. Dodging return fire from the cruiser's ventral cannons, he fought his way back out of the thruster wash.

We can do this. We have to do this. Black Lion came up on the outskirts of the formation, between most of the ships and one of the frigates; it looked like the smaller warship had moved out to try to flank Lance, and had overextended just a bit.

A bit they would punish it for, dearly. "Everyone with me!" One of Black's melee switches drew his attention, and when he flicked it a surge of energy shot between the lion's fangs. Not lightning this time; the energy left a crystalline blade clamped in Black's jaws, and Keith lunged for the frigate. The energy blade ripped through armor easily as he sideswiped the frigate's starboard engine, and he was thrown a bit to the side as the fuel cells exploded.

We have to stay mobile, but we have to fight together!

Lance oriented on the crippled frigate, lashing out with lasers and plasma darts. Sven's elemental cannon followed from the opposite side, followed by a pair of lasers from Blue's eyes. Pidge was under too much suppressive fire to add much, but he managed to whip one of his tail blades at the target, piercing through an existing breach and ruining its centerline engine.

Hunk almost fired off his sandblaster, but thought better of it at the last second. The wounded frigate was going nowhere fast. Which meant… digging Yellow's claws into the cruiser's hull to brace, he took careful aim and launched a plasma sphere directly into its side.

A gutted shell was all that remained to plunge to the mountains below.

*****

"The War Cog is down, Captain."

The War Cog was down, indeed! Graktag could see that, and barely managed not to snarl to that effect. It wasn't his aide's fault; the man was doing his job. It wasn't as though the Furled Banner had ever led a capital fleet into combat before. And this first experience doing so was going less than smoothly.

"Have the smaller ships take an interior position. The cruisers are holding up well, we can wear these… whatever they are down." How in Dra'ki'iri's own sacred name the enemy craft hadn't been crippled already was beyond him. "I do not want anyone else left isolated for these beasts to focus on. Understand?"

"Understood, sir!"

It had been a tenuous mission, to be sure. Nobody had expected recapturing the escaped Earthlings to be easy. Hence bringing five full regiments of infantry with them. Troop ships and a couple of escorts would be sufficient to burn Arus to ash, once the soldiers had found what they were looking for on the ground. At no point had they expected to face anything in the air, except for perhaps capturing the Xaela.

And then they'd been ambushed by five… what? Heavy fighter craft? Lion-shaped robeasts?

Lion craft?

If this was someone's idea of a joke, Graktag was not laughing.

"Sir, the yellow one is still on the Whispering Shade's hull."

He growled in annoyance. Perhaps he should contact Admiral Yurak, to tell him circumstances had changed and request assistance. There were proper aerial combatants, including the Anduslin's Fist itself, waiting at the nearest jumpgate. But the honor of commanding this fleet and this mission had been given to him. What would it say if he had to beg for help against such meager opposition? They were still only five lion ships, dwarfed even by the frigates. They surely couldn't hold out much longer.

"Remove it, then," he snapped, "and end it! I want this farce finished."

"As you command."

*****

The team had time for very little celebration as the frigate went down. Everyone knew they were far from out of the muck yet, but still, a ruined Drule warship was a ruined Drule warship—and that one had been done in style. Snapping a shot from Red's tail beam at one of the fleeing frigates, Lance gave a low whistle of appreciation. "Hunk, that was—"

Before he could even finish the compliment, a massive impact ripped Yellow from the cruiser he was perched on, as the command cruiser launched what looked like a capital missile directly into the lion's side.

"Oh SHIT!" Watching Yellow slam into the ground, Lance opened up on the command cruiser, successfully drawing the attention of its main guns and dodging one of the powerful missiles himself. "Fuck. Hunk?"

The voice sounded like it was coming from somewhere far away, through a massive static storm, and possibly also underwater. Shaking his head slowly, Hunk felt certain that perception was all from the cobwebs in his own skull. But nonetheless. "Yella Fella, you good?"

"I am… intact."

"Beats the alternative." The lion's diagnostic displays were saying something similar; he noted that some of the dent in Yellow's side was fixing itself, but some was not. Definitely not great. "Think we're leavin' some freaky metal of our own layin' around," he reported as he wrestled the lion upright, "but we're good-ish."

Good-ish sounded significantly less than optimal, and Yellow was moving very sluggishly. Pidge was the one with an angle to see another cruiser shifting, lining its main cannons up with the stricken lion. "Kimora salys…" Without stopping to actually think, he slammed the throttles, wondering briefly as Green streaked forward if they were about to have to ram a warship. That felt like a terrible idea. But at the last second, instinct gave him something better—a long, narrow blade that appeared in Green's jaws, slicing the gun barrels off as he wrenched the lion upwards.

Without the barrels to guide them, the cruiser's heavy projectiles slammed into the dirt maybe twenty feet from where Yellow was standing. "Holy fuckin' fuzzmuffins!" Adrenaline overwhelmed the last bits of fog, and Hunk launched back into the air. "Thanks, guys."

Neither had a chance to respond. Lance had gone chasing the destroyer as it tried to take some potshots; Pidge had felt about a second of satisfaction before half a dozen lasers converged squarely on Green's back, nearly flinging them into the peaks below.

"Keep moving," Keith ordered, trying to angle for a shot at the command cruiser. A storm of metal slugs chased him back. "Don't be an easy target."

"Easier said than done, boss."

"What he said." Sven was trying to be a hard target, but Blue's sluggishness out of the water was making it difficult. Then again, he couldn't totally blame her for it, either—roughly ninety percent of his vision at any given moment seemed to be lasers. "This isn't good." He could feel the lion shaking from other impacts, and her armor restoration was definitely not keeping up with the damage anymore.

A laser slashed across Black's front legs, and Keith swore softly in Japanese. They were right, and he knew they were right. "We need something more." They weren't going to win a battle of attrition, not unless the lions had something else up their sleeves.

They had to, didn't they?

"Thought these things were supposed to take out mile-long monsters!" Hunk wasn't sure if he felt more worried or more indignant. Had the lions' previous pilots—all of them—just been that much better? It didn't feel right. There had to be something they were missing.

Lance's thoughts were running along the same lines. "Anyone got any bright ideas?" Red? That includes you!

"There… is more."

Blink. Wanna be more specific?! But the lion said nothing else, only a glimmer of warmth.

"We are giving much better than we're getting," Pidge pointed out; the burning hulks below them were proof enough of that. "It's just not enough." There had to be an answer.

"It is only beginning."

Before he could ask for any elaboration, one of the command cruiser's missiles launched at him—cursing, he wrenched Green out of its path. The damn things were nearly as big as the assault tanks had been, he did not want to know what one would do to his lion's light armor.

Unfortunately, dodging that placed him directly behind Black Lion, which had moved in to launch some ionic piercer rounds and hopefully silence some main guns. Instead, a plasma beam took the lion full in the chest, slamming him into Green and sending both crashing to the ground.

"Holy fuck!" Lance's moment of distraction was all the destroyer needed, and a hail of cannon fire flung Red off to the other side. He managed to right the lion in midair, but couldn't arrest the momentum—there was a horrible screech as they hit the ground in a hard slide, claws ripping furrows in the stone.

Hunk rushed in to stave off a followup shot from the destroyer, which wisely wanted nothing to do with his plasma mortars. "You okay, bro?"

"We're alright… I think… fuck."

Gritting his teeth, Sven jumped Blue back from the fray, landing on a terrace overlooking where Black and Green had fallen. They needed something more… his eyes went to a weapon panel he hadn't yet tried out. Instinct had warned him not to dare unleash it in their test runs. Maybe it would be powerful enough to turn the tide.

"Icehunter, no—"

Blue Lion's main missile launcher retracted, replaced by a cannon barrel braced between her wings. Sapphire energy flared within it, plasma tendrils crackling and building, weaving into a glittering beam of blue-hot particles. With a flash and a thunderous crack, the beam surged forward, ripping through the side of the oncoming cruiser and blasting out lion-sized chunks of armor and internal components to rain over the mountains below.

"HOLY SHIT!" Lance got Red back into the air just in time to gawk at the damage—and this time it seemed like the Drules were doing precisely the same thing themselves.

Intent on taking advantage of the crippling blow, Sven went for his missiles again. In fact, he went for everything. No sense holding back now. But as he squeezed the triggers, all he got was a plaintive beep and a warning light.

Glancing at a secondary monitor, he found Blue's weapon power at zero. "Oh, fuck."

"I told you to stop," she said irritably.

"Apparently I don't know how to listen." The thought of asking her why she would have a weapon like that came and went; they could discuss it later. If there was a later. "Or use a magic robot lion correctly." Looking up, he saw the warships reorienting. It looked like the brief reprieve was over.

"We won't be able to deliver much damage for some time, but we can still run. Move."

"Yes ma'am." He launched back into the air, leaving lasers and plasma beams to scorch the ground just behind them.

It had covered Keith and Pidge enough, at least; both had regained their feet and at least some of their senses. "Pidge, you alright?"

"…Yeah, fine." His ears were still ringing, but that seemed like the least of their problems.

"All right. Get moving." Both took to the air and split up before the Drules could take further advantage.

Red and Yellow had been able to follow up on Sven's attack; lasers and sand ripped through the damaged areas, shutting down most of the cruiser's port side weapons. It was essentially half a cruiser now, but half a cruiser was still a pretty large problem.

"There's gotta be somethin' else we can do."

"Faith."

Should the Paladin of Faith be sick of hearing about faith? Because Hunk was just about there. Faith is great, ideas would be better!

Red, what was that 'more' you were being all vague about? Lance launched a few more missiles and twisted away from incoming fire. Or tried to, at least; he didn't clear it all. "This isn't enough!" What else do we have? I can't—we can't protect Arus like this!

Reflexively attempting to fire as he got a good angle on the destroyer, Sven hissed in frustration. "Blue has informed me that we will be useless—"

"That is not what I said."

"—I'm sorry, practically useless for the foreseeable future. That cannon drained her weapon power."

"Fuck."

"Great, perfect." RED!

"There is something." The warmth ran through his fingertips. "It is within us. In all of you."

"Oh great, more fucking cryptic bullshit? We're under fire!"

Just barely evading another of the capital missiles, Keith readied himself to give a command. He wasn't exactly certain what command, only that this wasn't working. They had to fight together, themselves and the lions. They knew that. The only question was how…

Then Black Lion's voice came through his thoughts loud and clear.

"Pull back."

*****

Deep beneath the Meadows of Raimon, the sounds of battle were echoing through one of the shelter's stone chambers. Not because the lions or Drules were anywhere near them—because the refugees there had brought a commset in with them, and they could hear everything.

It didn't sound good.

Vince had still made a valiant attempt to do what they'd been working on earlier, which was sorting through miscellaneous supplies from the Radiant Fortress. They'd rushed from the Castle of Lions with armfuls of the stuff, mostly because nobody had quite thought to drop it.

His efforts had slowly given way to just fidgeting with a Drule rank insignia pin, and he hadn't even noticed.

They're experienced soldiers, he reminded himself as the team's frustrated yells rang from the comms. They've got this. Somehow, no matter how many times he told himself that, it didn't outweigh the sound of large explosions and cursing.

A lot of cursing.

Daniel wanted to curse too, but he found himself pacing, too agitated to even swear—for the moment. If anyone dared to point out he was doing a Kogane, swearing would happen. But they all seemed to know better and it was almost disappointing, because it meant he had nothing to do but listen and be worried.

It's fine, it's gonna be fine! They've got awesome giant lion robots!

"Thought these things were supposed to take out mile-long monsters!"

"Anyone got any bright ideas?"

…It was not sounding fine.

"Fuzzmuffins," Vince muttered under his breath, and very seriously considered joining Daniel in his pacing. He doubted it would calm him down—what had ever worked for that?—but sitting still sure wasn't either.

Looking between them, Romelle considered and discarded thought after thought of what she might say. What good would it be? They knew their teammates and what they were capable of; she couldn't offer any further insight.

She did wish they were giving her a bit more confidence. Or perhaps more to the point, she wished the sounds from the commset were inviting more confidence.

"They'll figure out something, right?" Vince asked, wincing as what sounded like a warning alarm blared. "Right?"

"Yeah, they totally will…" Daniel didn't sound as if he believed himself, but he refused to admit that he didn't.

"Always have before."

"That's right."

Daniel wasn't the only one of the group who was pacing. Allura was circling the edges, quietly alternating between prayers and agitated murmurs. "Please, let this not be as bad as it sounds… only a small thing." She clenched her fists as a deafening clang echoed over them. "We will get past this, they will find a way!"

Larmina was watching her, only able to make out bits and pieces of what she was muttering to herself, and that was probably just as well. It could only have annoyed her. She was fairly annoyed as it was; sure, she wasn't too enthused about offworlders having to save them, but she was really going to not be enthused if the offworlders didn't save them.

It wasn't just that bothering her, though. It was the whole situation. Not being able to help, to fight, to even see what was going on—was this what the original Drule attack had been like in the shelters? She wouldn't know, she'd been unconscious in a forest.

Unconscious in a forest wasn't sounding half bad right now, by comparison. At least that hadn't involved any worry. Or worse, fear.

Was she afraid? Well, it would be stupid not to be right now.

Another crash of metal against metal, and Lance's voice came through. "Holy fuck!"

"What just happened?" Vince asked, much too quickly to pretend he wasn't worried.

"Nothing!" Daniel snapped, much too fiercely to pretend he wasn't worried. "He's fine!" He better fucking talk again. Vince said nothing, but nodded; he wanted to believe it.

"You okay, bro?"

"We're alright… I think… fuck."

Not the most encouraging response, but he was talking. Daniel sighed in relief.

Then there was another extremely loud crash. "What the fuck now?!"

Romelle jumped at Daniel's yell, swallowing back her worry. "That—that may have just been—"

"What we're imagining is probably worse, right?" Vince didn't exactly sound confident about that. Not that he could be blamed for it.

Allura's stomach was starting to outright twist itself into knots. She saw Romelle absently fidgeting with her knife, and wished she'd brought her bow along; not because it would be of any practical help whatsoever, but because fussing with a bowstring felt like it might relieve some tension.

Maybe.

Please let what we're imagining be worse. Vince did have a point, even if it was one he was clearly desperate to believe himself. She had heard a great deal of battle from the shelters before. Combat during what few victories the Golden Knights had won had sounded little better than the defeats. How were they to know? The worst can't truly be happening.

She refused to give up hope. It was all they'd had for so long…

"This isn't enough!"

At that yell from Lance, Daniel had finally had it. "Fuck this!" He wasn't certain how he'd managed to spit those words out when it felt like he couldn't even breathe. I'm not just going to sit around here and listen to them die!

They'd promised not to die!

"I'm going to watch," he announced, and bolted.

Vince blinked. "You're wh—this is a bad idea!" But even as he yelled it he was following. It felt insane, like running into a fire, but at the same time it felt right. Daniel was right. This was their team, they couldn't just stand here.

Of course they are. It's their team, Romelle thought, watching them go. Then her eyes narrowed. It's our team. Without another moment's thought, she took off behind them.

This is our last hope. Allura followed too. She'd entrusted the offworlders with this—they had agreed to fight for Arus, to try to save her people. She owed them more than just listening in safety, surely!

And with that, Larmina found herself alone in the chamber, staring blankly at several piles of unsorted Drule military gear. "Hey…" She wasn't sure why she'd bothered speaking; they were already gone. Because they were weird. Offworlders were weird, Auntie was weird…

And they were all in this together, whether she liked it or not.

With a few muttered curses, she ran after them.

*****

"I think it's time."

"Now? Can it be done?"

"We will remember. We must remember."

"We are more than this."

"We must awaken…"

"Yes. It is time."

"Is it? We are not yet strong enough."

"Our Bonded are strong enough."

*****

"Fall back and regroup!" Keith wasn't convinced that would be effective under all this fire, but he didn't have any better ideas. If the lions had advice he would take it. "Now!"

"Yes sir." Sven pushed Blue ahead, keeping an eye on the power gauge; it was crawling. Hunk moved up next to him, soaking a few more lasers to shield the group as they withdrew.

"Regroup…?" Lance felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. It is within us. In all of you. "…Okay, regroup it is." Off to his side, Pidge didn't question it, deploying a scrambler pod to cover their retreat; he didn't expect it to do much, but it was better than nothing.

Probably.

Keith brought Black down on a large outcropping, watching the enemies in the distance. "This isn't working." They'd gotten out of the range of fire, but the warships were slowly turning to pursue. It wouldn't take long for them to catch up. "Black suggested falling back and regrouping, but I'm not sure what we're supposed to do next."

"It feels like we're missing something." Pidge landed next to him. "Something we should know."

"Red was saying something, not that it made sense." Landing on Black's other side, Lance tried again to plead for answers; a soft growl was the response. "He said it was… in all of us?"

"What does that even mean?" All Sven seemed to be finding in himself, as he wracked his brain for ideas, were various routes away from this place. That was his job, not this…

"Yellow wants us to have faith," Hunk grumbled. And instead of the reproach he'd expected, a different contradiction rang through his mind.

"You misunderstand…"

One of the troop cruisers had gotten its bow aimed at them, and was firing at the edges of its range. Lance fired back as lasers sizzled around them. "Uh, regrouping kind of just making us targets…"

"We have to do something with it."

Hunk launched a plasma sphere that he knew wouldn't reach its target, then took a few steps back. Okay Yellow, I'll bite. What exactly did you mean, then?

His eyes glowed brighter, and his instincts—the lion's instincts—drew his hand to a panel he'd never paid attention to before. A series of toggles surrounding a five-pointed star, made up of what looked like status lights. Even staring at it, he had no idea what it was… but with a slow nod, he started to flip the switches anyway.

Yellow's growl rumbled through him, enough to make him jump.

"Activating interlocks."

"Dynotherms connected." Blue's voice was grimly determined, and Sven found himself engaging—what? Dynotherms? What did that even mean?

"Infracells up." Pidge startled as a soft hum of energy followed Green's words, and several other consoles lit up as each of the star-shaped light's points sprang to life.

"Megathrusters are go!" Lance jumped too, Red's whole frame shuddering slightly as he pulled the final switch. Megawhat are fucking what?

Keith could feel the energy running through his lion—through all the lions—and the blinding glow of his eyes seemed to be matched by a similar glow outside. The Drules were getting closer, still firing, but his damage sensors weren't lighting up anymore. He had only the vaguest sense of it, really. Everything seemed centered on… what was this?

"Call the name of the Defender, Stormsoul…"

The name of the Defender?

His mouth opened to ask the question. But it wasn't the question that came out. In a blinding flash, a crackle of lightning, he knew.

In a streak of electric-blue energy, Black Lion shot into the sky, and the others launched beside him.

"Form… Voltron!"

*****

Though Daniel did not know the Arusian tunnel network, some combination of his sense of direction and unexplainable instinct had led him northwest. Shoving his way out of a hidden trapdoor, he found himself in the foothills; immediately he tried to get his eyes on the lions.

It wasn't hard. They were still huge rainbow cats.

All five of them were intact, and didn't even look as damaged as he'd have expected. A good sign? On the other hand, all five were making a mad dash away from the Drule ships. Less good sign.

Right on Daniel's heels, Vince emerged from the trapdoor just in time to see Green launch something towards the warships. He breathed a small sigh of relief; maybe they were retreating, but they were all there and moving with some kind of purpose. "Maybe they have a plan?"

"They have to, right?" Romelle had clambered out behind them, shivering slightly as she watched. She was trying to puzzle out the tactics, as she had in those wargames with Lotor… but she had too little to go on. They'd just gotten here.

"Yeah…"

Larmina was helping Allura from the tunnel—Allura didn't need the help, but accepted it because she had the strong feeling Larmina needed to give it, to do something—and resolutely not looking at the lions herself. "Hear they're good at bad plans," she said lightly.

Both Daniel and Vince nodded almost too quickly. "They're kind of our thing."

"Excel at them."

Even Romelle nodded distractedly as she kept her eyes on the sky. It wasn't wrong.

Closing the trapdoor behind them, Larmina wanted to say something sarcastic, but couldn't quite find it in her to do so. Instead she tried for an encouraging tone; why not try optimism? She wasn't real good at it, but pessimism hadn't helped yet. "Lots more options if they don't even need a good plan!"

That also wasn't wrong, probably.

The lions had regrouped on a rocky ledge, and whatever diversion Green had fired off didn't seem to have lasted, if it had done anything at all. Daniel grimaced as a few long-range lasers stabbed out; it looked kind of like they were just sitting ducks now. Sitting lions. Whatever. "Whatever they're doing is definitely bad, so maybe that's a good sign?"

"I believe in them," Vince said quietly.

"As do I," Allura agreed, stepping up next to him and watching nervously. She did believe… she wanted to do more, somehow, but she knew there was nothing more. Only hope. "Great Lions, please…"

Larmina stepped up next to Romelle and frowned slightly, trying to avoid watching what seemed to be passing for a battle. But her eyes were drawn there regardless, by instinct? Or maybe just by bright flashing lights, that would do it.

The lights seemed to be shifting…

"…Uh." Vince felt something off, a sort of pounding in his blood that usually he'd expect to precede sparkage. And nervous as he was right now, sparkage would've made sense. But he wasn't the one sparking. There were flickers of energy crackling around the lions, gathering haloes of color with flashes of silver-white within. "What's happening?"

"Are they glowing?" Daniel did not remember taking drugs today—though on one hand, he'd heard the Arusians liked their mushrooms, so who knew.

On the other hand, magic robot lions.

"Yeah. Yeah, I think they are."

"Pol akhatsha…" Larmina muttered several more expletives that Nanny would've chained her to a desk for.

Allura and Romelle exchanged looks, confused and understanding at once. Both of them could feel it. Whatever was happening…

In a blaze of colored light, the lions shot into the sky.

"Holy—"

Vince found himself staring mostly at Yellow, as the lion began to… warp. That was the only way to describe it, really. The bulky metal plates shifted, its front legs folding into themselves while the back ones tucked away beneath its armor. Then the lion's entire body swung upward, with only the head remaining parallel to the ground, and he found himself flailing to grasp what sense that could possibly make.

Blue was undergoing a very similar metamorphosis, and as the lion's sleek wings locked against its back, Romelle felt another shiver running through her. Is this…? Can it be? It had to be, but no legends had ever said…

Larmina was still swearing under her breath—Daniel wasn't sure if he was thinking it or yelling it, but there was definitely some profanity on his mind too. Green and Red had folded their legs up like the others, but instead of their bodies swinging up, they'd split open to reveal a hidden joint on each lion's midsection.

At the center of the formation, Black Lion's front legs had folded in; his back legs had stretched out rather than being tucked away. Allura was at a complete loss for words—for anything but wonder—as the lion's great crimson wings stretched out, extending above his shoulders. Then his chest split open down the middle, the outer hull plates expanding, beams of rainbow light erupting from a second armor layer beneath as a glowing multicolored sigil came into view.

"Black Lion…?"

The auras surrounding the lions abruptly seemed to contract, arcs of silvery energy drawing them together. Red and Green's rear sections fastened to Black's shoulders with a pair of metallic clangs, while Blue and Yellow attached to his back legs in a manner that looked strikingly similar to boots. And in a final flash of silver light, Black Lion's lower jaw dropped open, armor sliding aside to reveal a more humanoid face.

As the glow faded, a single huge, robotic person stood where five lions had just been.

"WHAT. THE. FUCK."

"Holy fuzzmuffins."

"That's—that's not a lions!" Larmina was certain that grammar had been wrong, but she was equally sure the sentence was damn well correct.

"No, it is not a lions," Daniel agreed; it really was as good a summary as any.

"No," Allura agreed, looking from the robot to her hands and back. The words returning to her suddenly made sense, and she whispered in pure awe. "The old tales said… we become Voltron."

"The Lord of the Lions," Romelle agreed softly. Not a knight that is a lion—a knight made out of lions. Of course that understanding had been lost. She was staring at it and she still could hardly believe it.

"Wait. Voltron?" Daniel and Vince stared at each other, then back at the robot. And as it came to rest on the rocky ledge, it finally seemed to fully sink in.

"Oh, man…"

*****

With a final, resounding clang, they landed on the outcropping again. But everything was different.

"Am I…" Sven was the first to find words. His vantage seemed a bit lower, and as he looked at his monitors—it was so nice to be looking at his monitors and not at all the things shooting at him—the new schematic displays all seemed to be telling him the same thing. "…Am I a foot?"

"I uh, I think you're a whole leg, bro." Hunk had instinctively understood he was no longer in a ship anymore, precisely. What exactly he was in had defied description until Sven spoke. "I think we're both legs. How are we legs?!"

"If you two are legs, I think I might be a fucking arm." Lance was shaking his head, trying to get his bearings—he didn't even have a starting point. But he was definitely an arm.

"We're…" Pidge was staring blankly at his damage readout. No longer a lion, but a highlighted section on a larger, humanoid frame. How? "We're a…"

"Appendages, Pidge," Sven offered dryly. "We're appendages."

"We're… a giant robot," Keith completed at the same time, staring at the new consoles that had opened up in amazement.

Lance gave a low whistle. "Voltron." Nobody else answered that, because nobody else needed to.

They knew it now. This was the answer—the truth about what they'd been searching for. And it was crazier than their wildest speculations.

"Is this… helpful, Stormsoul?" Black inquired with a satisfied purr.

"Uh… yes?" He was trying to take in everything at once—power graphs, new weapon readouts, interlock status, armor—and it was impressive beyond anything he could express. "Yes, I believe so." He looked up at the Drule ships, which had pulled up short. Obviously they had not been prepared for, well… combining lion robots.

Who could blame them?

"I think they're confused," Pidge observed. It felt like a silly observation, but it also felt like someone ought to put it out there.

"They're confused?" Lance echoed in disbelief, and Red chuckled in his mind. "Dude, yeah, I'd say they're confused!"

"Aren't we all?" Sven was still trying to wrap his head around—

"Be proud of your status, Icehunter."

My status as a foot?

"Yes. We are the strength the Defender stands on."

"Definitely all confused," Hunk agreed, a slow grin spreading over his face. "But we're also awesome!"

"We are fucking awesome!"

Smirking, Keith pushed the control sticks forward, carefully. How did one pilot a giant robot? He had definitely missed that class at the Academy. But Voltron stepped forward smoothly, and it felt almost natural. Almost. Bizarre, but there was a logic to it…

"They're confused, we're a magical robot. Let's finish what we started, shall we?"

As Voltron broke into a run, the warships started to open fire, but it was more than a little haphazard. Cannon slugs rained down, glancing off their armor, as lasers all but inundated the ground. The damage was superficial, not even enough to slow them down. Everything had changed.

"Pidge, Lance." Keith could see displays for each other lion's available weaponry; the elemental cannons seemed to still be available, as well as a few other options. "Let's see what you two can do like this. Get ready."

"Yessir." Pidge was studying his own displays; only Green's plasma and elemental cannon seemed functional, but the two of them alone were drawing more power than the entire lion could normally provide.

"Fuck yeah." Lance was noting the increased energy readings on Red's elemental cannon, but was more interested in something new—some kind of heat cannon? In lion form he didn't think it was a weapon at all, but now his instincts told him it very much was.

They stayed on the ground, cutting beneath the warships and causing the Drules to scramble for firing angles. Voltron didn't seem the least bit bothered by the thruster wash, and as the enemies scattered, the nearly undamaged Andura found itself alone in their sights.

"Now, Lance!"

Red Lion's radiator fins glowed as Voltron raised its arm, and a wavering mass of heat ripped through the sky. The air warped and distorted, and the frigate barely even saw it coming before one entire side of the ship glowed white-hot and melted away.

"Holy. Fuckin'. Fuzzmuffins."

"Whoa…"

"Holy fucking AWESOME!"

There was nothing remotely recoverable about the Andura's predicament; its fuel cells and ammunition went off, and what wasn't vaporized outright poured down in a molten rain. It was a damn good thing they'd set the drone up as a diversion, really—having this battle over anything that wasn't the mountains could have been a disaster in itself.

Not that it wasn't already a disaster for at least one side. Keith turned them quickly, simply trusting Sven and Hunk to be able to pull the move off. He could feel Voltron's center of balance shifting, and everyone's movements to compensate. Once they'd practiced with this, he could imagine the robot—the giant robot made of sentient elemental cats, he reminded himself—would be incredibly nimble itself, maybe even graceful.

For the moment, raw power would have to suffice. "Pidge, let's get that damaged cruiser."

"On it."

The troop cruiser Sven had so effectively, if recklessly, crippled had already been lagging behind its fellows. No doubt the damage had taken out at least one engine. With the formation falling apart, any help it might've hoped for was out of the question. That didn't stop it from trying to claim the kill; its remaining weapons flashed as Voltron moved to challenge it, getting in a couple of decent hits that caused the robot to stumble.

Not near enough.

Green Lion's back cannon surged to life, stitching a stream of glowing darts along the warship's damaged side. Several of the blasts cored entirely through the ship, letting the sunlight stream through; Pidge frowned. Focused fire was good, but perhaps not what they needed here—he had no idea where to aim on an unknown cruiser type that would take it down at all efficiently.

On the other hand—well, no, definitely still piloting the same hand—he did have other weapons. With a small smirk he triggered the elemental cannon as well, and a blinding plasma cyclone ripped into the cruiser, tearing internal components to shreds and sending the debris flying through the ship.

Something inside detonated. Then something else. Then the whole thing was falling.

The Drules had seen enough. As the surviving destroyer and frigate turned and fled outright, the cruisers attempted a somewhat more cohesive fighting retreat. To Keith's surprise, it was the command cruiser bringing up the rear, buying time for the troop cruisers to back off.

We'll take that trade.

Something was tugging at Keith's mind. Blue and Yellow Lions seemed able to use some weapons too, which felt like it would be unwieldy on the ground. And the lions themselves could fly. Surely Voltron didn't lose that capability? "Okay team, brace yourselves." With maybe a trace of trepidation, he pulled the control sticks back, half expecting Voltron to jump and then fall on its face.

The robot sprang into the sky and stayed there.

"Oh, sweet." There was a roar of engines from ahead of them; a few of the Drule ships had decided to expedite their retreat. Lance laughed as Voltron flew forward, easily weathering a laser barrage. "Yeehaw! That's right, run!"

Let's see what more we can do. Keith pulled them back, evading a pair of cannon blasts before focusing on the lead cruiser. "Sven, Hunk. Let's soften up that command ship."

"I don't know about softening it up?" Sven felt like what he had available was the opposite of softening, in fact. Adding ice usually made things harder. "But I certainly can freeze part of it." A deluge erupted from Blue's jaws—he still could not help finding the concept of a foot spitting water to be absolutely absurd—but he couldn't argue with its effectiveness as a massive field of ice coated the cruiser's bow. For good measure, he added a shot from her eye beams, and shook his head in bemusement. "I'm a foot with laser eyes."

"Which is awesome," Hunk declared, looking over his own weapons. Yellow's options didn't look much different than normal, really, except that the energy readings were off the scale. With a huge grin, he fired off a plasma mortar… and a glowing sphere easily the size of his lion's head sprang forward, smashing right into the frozen section with a blinding flash. "GOOOOOAAAAAAAL!"

Sven chuckled. At least someone didn't seem to be struggling with the concept. "Good footwork, Hunk."

"Thanks bro! Good freezin'!"

It wasn't over; the cruiser had lost huge swaths of armor, but had somehow still managed to get a weapons lock on the robot in front of it. Keith's eyes narrowed as fire blossomed from its main launchers, and a pair of missiles zeroed in on Voltron.

"My turn."

Black Lion's gauss rifles still showed as active. He felt a slight lurch as he keyed them up, and noticed out of the corner of his eye that Voltron's schematic changed slightly; apparently the wings had different positions? He was sure they'd learn more about that in time, too. For now, a second lurch followed the first, and two silvery blurs flashed out to meet the missiles.

And pierce through them.

And as the warheads detonated, the rifle slugs continued on to punch straight into the launchers, ruining the weapons and sending more broken armor to the ground.

"Holy hells…"

*****

"Missile launchers are down! Ventral ramming deck destroyed! Prow armor is entirely compromised, Captain!"

Graktag glowered at his aide; he'd heard entirely enough of this. Everyone knew what was happening by now. "Save your breath and run for the escape pods if you will, Crimon. I am trying to make a report, and I know I have little time for it."

Swallowing hard, Crimon nodded and gave him a salute; he did not run for the escape pods. Nobody on the bridge did. Drule warriors went down with their ship, when defeated in honorable combat.

Had this combat been honorable? It had felt like trying to swat stubborn insects—until suddenly those insects had found their sting.

"Admiral Yurak." He held up a hand for quiet as the communications link finally went through; to interrupt an Admiral would probably have meant his head, but that hardly mattered now. "Time is short. There is a weapon on Arus we didn't anticipate. Small ships, hardly even corvettes, but with capabilities perhaps only occult science could match. We've bought most of the troop cruisers time to flee—they will have footage of the enemy." It served nothing to let the infantry die in the skies. This wasn't the battle they'd been sent for. "Don't underestimate these lion craft, Admiral. It would be your last mistake."

He cut the comms before Yurak could answer.

"Captain, the occult beast is closing."

Occult beast. That probably wasn't what the… lion-man creature truly was, but it would suffice. "Fire everything we have left," he ordered calmly, turning back to the main screen. "We will be dead, not defeated."

"Aye sir."

A few lasers blazed out over the enemy machine; a pittance compared to the armament the Furled Banner had wielded in its prime. Then the lion-man raised both its arms, and a cyclone of fire and magma erupted.

It was over in an instant.

*****

As the burning remnants of the command cruiser plummeted to the mountains below, the rest of the Drule ships abandoned any thought of a fighting retreat. Trailing gouts of blue-hot plasma they fled the atmosphere, not even attempting to regain formation.

Then again, that may have been a tactical decision.

"Should we pursue?"

"No." Keith exhaled, watching the drive flares fading into pinpoints in the sky. "We won't catch them all before they hit metaspace, not with them as spread out as they are." Chasing down a fleeing enemy wouldn't sit right with him regardless, but if it could stop word from getting back to the Ninth it might have been a necessary evil. As it stood, absolutely not. Let them run. "The cat is out of the bag, now."

"…The cats appear to be in a robot, sir."

"Shouldn't we say box?"

"No more cats in boxes!"

"That's what I said, the cat is out of the box!"

"Dude—"

Had he expected anything else? No, Keith decided, he had not expected anything else. Chuckling as the banter continued, he let the relief wash over him. After a moment, he patted the consoles. "Thank you, Black."

His lion purred.

"You all did well, Firestriker."

"We fucking did," Lance agreed, his long sigh of relief belying the confident words. It was still hard to grasp what had just happened…

Pidge hadn't even come close. It felt like he was breathing for the first time since, well—since whatever the hells.

"It is begun," Green growled softly, and he frowned at the consoles.

"This is still only a beginning?"

Sven had wound down from snarking about cats in boxes, and felt Blue chuckling in his mind. "I am glad to see you in such high spirits, Icehunter."

He was, wasn't he? "You seem to be as well."

"Yes."

After a few more moments, it registered that they were still hovering, and probably didn't need to be. As Voltron carefully maneuvered to the ground, Hunk tilted his head curiously. There was something he still didn't get.

Well, a lot of things he didn't get, but one stuck out.

"So uh, Yellow? About that misunderstanding?"

The lion gave a purring chuckle as they touched the earth.

"We, too, had faith."

*****

"I am so jealous right now," Daniel declared, his eyes on the streaks of flame that still hung in the sky. He'd thought he was jealous before? Oh, like hell he'd been.

Voltron was a giant robot man made out of lions!

It made its way down from the mountains slowly, visibly cautious. Probably understandable, considering the team had been flying it for all of what, ten minutes? If that? Though they'd done a pretty damn good job of it.

Then their whole group was running—leaving behind the entrance to the shelter in favor of getting a better look. Scrambling over some of the smaller foothills, they found a particularly steep rise and crested it just as Voltron touched down in the meadow beyond.

Perhaps on some instinct, the robot turned to face them, its golden eyes glowing bright. And all five of them froze.

Daniel couldn't explain the feeling that briefly washed over him—a sense of fierce determination that wiped all the jealousy away in an instant. Determination to do what? He didn't know. But the conviction welling up inside him was absolutely not to be denied, once he figured out what it was for.

Something very much the opposite had fallen over Romelle. A pure sense of serenity, one she hadn't expected at all. Here she was face to face with the truth of the legend, the knight that her people had fled into exile over. She shouldn't feel so at peace… but for a moment, there it was.

Allura felt a shiver of pure awe running down her spine, and it drew her back into a dream. The memory of a vision she knew now to have been a premonition. But it wasn't the lightning she saw, or Keith's shadow. It was the moments before, the crimson wings stretched out from her back, the stars and the hint of moonlight shining around her… that feeling of endless space, and the freedom it brought with it.

The sensation didn't quite fade as she took a step forward, but a few tears of wonder gathering in her eyes drew her attention from it. "All this time it was hidden so deeply… oh, Father, if you could be here to see…"

A glimmer of starlight appeared at her side, and she smiled softly. Perhaps he was.

Larmina saw the ghostly figure too—except he didn't look like a ghost. King Alfor was standing at Auntie's side, looking alive as ever, and the foothills around them were overgrown with some ancient forest of things she'd never seen… closing her eyes and shaking her head fiercely, she managed to banish the vision, but the sense of life surrounding her remained a bit longer.

The glimmer of light was not lost on Vince either; he was seeing more light than just that. Sparks were dancing over his hands as he stared up at Voltron, but the energy didn't feel uncontrolled, uncontained. It felt right, familiar… he blinked in confusion, and blinked again as the Arusian ghost looked at him and smiled warmly. He should definitely be freaked out right now.

For just one brief moment, he wasn't freaked out at all. And then he stepped back with a start.

Nope!

As the overwhelming feeling of conviction faded away, Daniel sighed and looked up at the robot, his eyes lingering on Red. Everyone else seemed caught up in the spell, too; he cracked a small grin as each seemed to regain their senses.

"…So. Fucking. Awesome."

*****

*Scheduling note: we'll be switching back to posting on Saturdays after this chapter. For now it'll still be every other week, though this should be another step closer to having weekly chapters again.