Status Quo
Chapter Twenty-One: Way of the Warrior
by Kyence

Disclaimer: All Voltron characters are property of World Events Productions.

‘’ denote character thoughts.
 

Allura hurried to the hangar, using the directions Saoche had scratched on a piece of plating for her. Her entire ordeal was exhausting her, and the more she tried to figure out the insanity, the more it fatigued her. 'I can't believe I was put under some mind controlling spell! Saoche said she was put under one as well, and that's why she did what she did to me. And Lotor…' her thoughts trailed off as she remembered the embrace of the blue prince. Although the idea of him being so close to her like that made her ill, she could not dismiss the newfound doubt she had regarding his persona. 'When I was in that state, he could have done anything he wanted with me…but he didn't.' She bit her lip as she brooded over what this could mean, hiding behind a statue of His Majesty when a pair of patrolling guards marched by. Thankfully for Allura, the sculpture was exact in its dimensions to King Zarkon, and hid her entire frame with room to spare. The guards pivoted at the corner, and moved into the next corridor. She crept away from her hiding place and ran as fast as she could into the hangar.

'Well, I can't think about him now, not when Blue Lion's before me!' she concluded, looking lovingly up at her brilliantly colored robot. She was startled at the movement she saw on the head, and her feelings sank into a pit of dread. She would not retrieve Blue Lion so easily.

Jepaya leaped from the metallic cranium. Her fluid movements were threatening, hinting of her fighting skill. Allura took a step back as the long train of skin between the Sapientydan's neck and shoulders settled.

'No time for words or petty translating. Let my actions be my voice!' Jepaya decided as she aimed her long staff at the human princess. A circular laser projectile shot out from its apex, humming towards Allura. She lunged to the side, dodging enough of the attack to spare herself serious damage, hissing as it grazed her right biceps. She did not her eyes off of her opponent for a moment.

'Impressive, pink monkey, but ultimately futile,' Jepaya mused smugly. 'Still, I do not mind watching you dance a bit before I kill you.' She fired several more shots in a quick succession, not aiming for vital organs or arteries. In spite of herself, she was quite surprised by the woman's lithe sidestepping, and wondered, 'Perhaps the helpless routine is truly a clever ruse after all. Very well, you have earned a suitable death from my blade.'

Allura shivered as she witnessed a laser blade suddenly generate from the eerily silent saurian. The staff was transformed into a scythe, a weapon that held a macabre connotation to its name she knew all too well. Jepaya skillfully weaved it about her body in elliptical arcs, her fingers adeptly maneuvering it like a loom shuttle. Without a breath of hesitation or any hint of transition from this showcasing, she advanced, swinging a lethal semicircle. Allura did her utmost to avoid this new move, and suffered a gash across her left thigh. It burned as it bled, an anomaly she had not anticipated from a laser weapon; a particle beam either cut or cauterized, but never in a perverse coexistence. The skin around the wound sizzled from the trauma as her blood oozed out. The warm stickiness soothed the screaming flesh. It was painful, but she knew it was not life threatening. 'However, the next attack very well could be. If I can just make it to the Blue Lion…' she planned.

She was unable to develop the strategy further, for Jepaya knocked her off her feet with a quick tail whip. Sharp scales emerged from Jepaya's left palm as she pinned the princess to the floor. "Nnngh…" Allura strained against the strength holding her down.

'How I wish Lotor was here to see this,' Jepaya chuckled as she pushed harder into her prey's shoulder. Allura cried out as the scales punctured the suit and pierced her flesh. She grabbed her attacker's forearm and tried to push it away, but she was powerless in comparison. Nevertheless, she continued to struggle. Every movement on her part caused greater damage to her impaled shoulder. Desperate for something to alter her disadvantageous position, Allura pleaded, "Please, you don't have to do this! You don't have to act like a blind slave for those bullies!"

Jepaya was taken aback. She had not understood all of the words shouted, but she had managed to learn "slave" in her brief time on this world. She released her hold on the girl and blinked a couple of times, as though a newfound clarity overcame her. Allura clutched her injury and sighed with relief at the truce.

Jepaya spit in her face. The unexpected action caused Allura to yell out. "How DARE you call me a slave of Zarkon! I am slave to no one, especially HIM!" She roared as she raised her weapon, its morbid blade kissing the air. Allura knew not what was spoken exactly, but she understood that her situation had drastically deteriorated. She was able to make out Jepaya's next word in a distorted, gruff form of English: "Die!" Allura squeezed her eyes shut and waited for the final blow.

"I have been waiting, what took you?" Zarkon sat upon his throne in a lazy manner, his left foot idly tapping the dais. His gaze suggested an exasperated boredom as he beheld a fuming Lotor far below. The Crown Prince was agitated to say the least. His entire body trembled with his futile attempt to maintain a calculating demeanor. His teeth were clenched and bared a ferocity that bordered on madness. Their maniacal gleam contributed to the fearsome expression on his young face, one that stirred Zarkon's instincts.

As he had expected, the speed of his wayward son had the youth drawing his sword and stabbing his throne in one stroke with the blink of an eye.

"You missed." Zarkon uttered the criticism in a low voice, his eyes conveying a sense of disappointed scrutiny more so than anger at being attacked.

"How the…how are you doing that?!" Lotor exclaimed in disbelief. Indeed, his father's torso was twisted to avoid his weapon, but did so at such a severe degree it suggested that the muscles and ligaments may have been ripped off of the old king's bones. His hand now shook from dread.

The mortal attack never came. Allura opened her eyes, happy yet confused why she was still alive. Rather than stand still and figure things out, she ran towards a tower of metal storage bins in a corner of the hangar. Once in that makeshift sanctuary, she turned her attention to seeing where Jepaya now was, and what had stifled her own death.

"Ecchai! What is the meaning of this?" Jepaya raged at the crimson guard who had often guarded Shai with her back on Apodia. "We have stood post together many times. Explain yourself!"

Ecchai displayed two sword hilts. A quick noise resembling a clap of thunder yielded a pair of black particle blades protruding from each hilt on the same side. Jepaya clenched her jaw. "So I see…" She trailed off as she prepared her own weapon, wiping the blood from her sliced cheek. She squeezed her neck skin, cut by the unforeseen attack, like a housemaid with a damp dishrag. Her dark maroon blood slapped with thick plops on to the metal floor. Her poise was unaffected.

"I had intended to remove your head," Ecchai continued in the Sapientydan dialect, though her accent changed. "Were it not for that excess hide of yours, you would never have known you had perished."

Jepaya's eyes narrowed. "Since you have frequented Xandias long enough, you should be aware of my epithet."

Ecchai raised her speckled chin defiantly. "Jepaya, Veneer-Killer of Xandias, Protector of the Great Meteriarch Shai," she rehearsed, crooking a thin smirk. "And yet I was underneath your nostrils the entire time. Perhaps you should take to learning some magic to compensate for your failing's fighter's insight." She pointed at the infuriated Sapientydan with her right double sword.

Jepaya retorted with posing of her own, holding her scythe over her shoulder. With a flick of her free arm's wrist, she taunted, "Such bravado, when you will not even reveal you legless true self, Arydican."

"Veneer-Killer, I do you no favors."

"Hmmph. Then I will remove your false ones myself."

Zarkon's body released its tension much like a spring, using the force to propel his backhand with a terrific level of power. Lotor had still held the hilt of his sword in his rattling hand, and took it with him as he began a painful cascade down the stairs. Zarkon turned away from the scene, clenching his eyes at its familiarity with an event from long ago. He heard Lotor groaning, and opened his eyes. Peering over the stairs of his dais without standing up from his seat, he saw a bruised Lotor pulling himself up. The clever prince had used his blade to cease his tumbling by piercing the steps as he fell down; a trail of bisected carpet proved this. Blood trickled down his chin, the bright, crimson blood of a human being.

"You have impressive agility, Lotor, but you know nothing of sleight-of-hand. And all this time, I thought you were as double-jointed as I. Too bad for you. May your legs never fail you," Zarkon raised from his position of authority and took slow, deliberate steps while his dumbfounded son hoisted himself up with the aid of his faithful weapon. The murderous glare of the Prince was unchanged, despite his body being racked with pain.

"You…you transformed me into a puppet…you…bastard!"

Zarkon's eyes glowed a blazing, penetrating violet. He grabbed his own hilt from underneath his black cape and brandished it horizontally. Two aquamarine lasers materialized at opposite ends, each several yards long. "I will never tolerate that word…from ANYONE!" he roared without his typical composure. "Do you understand?!" he shouted, before checking himself and taking a few long breaths. "No, I doubt you do," he resumed in a calmer tone. He pulled his arm back, flexing and strengthening his frame as he prepared to launch his slasher. "But, why should you?" he continued. "And for the record, you make a better puppet than a Crown Prince." A cacophonous chord burst from his mouth that ended in a demonic howl as he flung his weapon. It spun through the air, whirring as it burned the ether particles it severed into oblivion.

With her voice finishing the threat, it possessed the chilling calm before the storm. Jepaya swung her formidable scythe abruptly from its rest on her shoulder. The laser slice flew off of its metal base, spinning with a whirring buzz. Ecchai caught the projectile in the twin beams of her right sword.

"Yah! Hah! Yah!" Jepaya cried out as she swung her ferocious scythe in a vortex of twisting and twirling lines. A flurry of whizzing purple blades cut through the air in all directions. A dozen sliced through the metal barges Allura was hiding behind. She cried out as metallic shards and shrapnel plummeted on top of her. The harsh clanging of larger debris mingled with the contrary jingling of smaller steel particles, but it was not enough to drown out a painful howl in the distance. Suddenly, a dull piece of cold material smacked into an area of her head not sheltered by her arms and hands, banishing her to the dark regions of unconsciousness.

Lotor instantaneously pulled his sword from its temporary sheath, curling into a ball as he rolled down the staircase, staying a hair's length ahead of his father's immense arsenal. Once on the floor, he sprang to his feet and launched into the air with all his might, flipping over the reciprocating slasher. The hilt landed smoothly into Zarkon's awaiting hand, which had the subtle visibility of an electric charge from Lotor's vantage point.

"Had I wanted you dead, boy, you would be splattered on my floor," Zarkon replied truthfully with contempt. "Be thankful that for some reason I still deem you worthy of existence." Lotor stumbled forward some as he completed his landing. He defiantly raised his chin as he met the gaze of the source of his enmity. Zarkon chuckled as he descended the dais, alternating his favorite weapon between his hands, showcasing his prowess. Lotor had never seen nor heard of such a melee device before. It resembled a glorified, straightened boomerang, but one far more malicious and capable of great destruction, the extent of which was yet to be determined.

'It would figure MY old man would use something no one's ever bothered to invent before,' the Prince thought dryly. "Why do that to me? Must you always demean me in order to tolerate you?!" he shouted out.

"Hmmph. Do not play innocent. You look foolish, especially when you attempt to pass it off on me," Zarkon spat. "Who tried to poison who? Who challenged my throne by way of a duel? Who conspired with the Drules and ousted me? Look at the reflection cast in the pool of your blood for the answer, and then dare claim innocuous intentions."

As his father spoke these dire words, Lotor felt the pit of his stomach grow denser as though it were a black hole trying to suck his entire form into it in a grisly demise. 'I should not care, I should not care!' Lotor's inner voice screamed. 'Do not listen! Who is he to rationalize and administer guilt when he is guiltier than I'll ever be!' His stare wavered as he concluded morosely, 'Damn it, I cannot argue with that hateful fool's logic. Once again, he concocts a web of spite and vileness to trap me under his foot. If I go willingly, I must vow…vow to find a way to incapacitate him once and for all. No matter how long it takes, no matter how much bile I must swallow, I will win this war, father. Take this battle's victory for now and feed you hungry ego's gullet. I will wait in the shadows, and when I find your anathema, your weakest point, I will strike you and see you crumble before me.' Once his train of thought was complete, Lotor verbally reconciled in a different manner. "If you allow me back into servitude, will I still be your heir?"

"You have a one-track mind, don't you?" Zarkon smirked, though he was quick to observe the change in his son. 'Trying to jade me, are you?' he pondered. 'As usual, you assume too little of me. Will you ever learn to assess me correctly, or will you always take me for a fool? Ah yes, this question always intrigues me my son, and sustains me even as your black heart tries in vain to overpower mine. You are coddled compared to me…and it is my greatest mistake.' His weapon returned to it inactive state as a lonely hilt. "Will you still be the commander of Dhm's fleet?"

"But what of Allura? What of Arus? Any chance that I…" Lotor began hopefully.

"Now it is a matter of principle. Ultimately I will have Arus, and the only acceptable way at this point is by force. If you are implying the use of diplomacy, you shall never do so with Arus or Allura. You will look weak to your contemporaries and to history. I am certain you do not wish to be committed to posterity in such a disgraceful way."

Lotor's warmonger intellect eagerly agreed wholeheartedly with the impeccable logic, but his heart felt heavy with sadness. 'Allura's love, or Father's weakness; which do I want to take more?' "Fine. I will obtain her by other means when Arus is ours."

On the distant wall that witnessed all, a ripple of the pattern could be discerned for an instant if someone was watching. 'Foolish Lotor,' Shai chided sadly as she shook her head. 'Your solution for both relationships is one and the same.'

A sudden explosion behind her thrust her forward from its power. Shards of glittering silicon-laced walls and cold granite rock flew wildly around her, mediocre confetti. It took only a small moment of time for her to invoke her levitating ability. Whispering a chorded incantation, and invisible force field surrounded her floating body, protecting her from any physical harm by will of the spirits.

A zooming hum traced her path as she rushed to the aid of the royal family. With a concerned hand on each male shoulder, her protection and flight engulfed Lotor and Zarkon as well. The triad looked upward at the roaring face of Yellow Lion.

Zarkon growled. "Give me some room," he advised. She nodded, and moved a distance behind him. She no longer touched him, but her abilities were such that her spells still resonated in his lone body. He quickly readied his slasher, charging it with a large amount of energy from his skin, electrifyingly visual in its magnitude. He thrust it without a word. The span of the blades expanded upon its release and twisted through the air as a vicious, unavoidable, cosmic buzz saw. Zarkon nodded as he observed his target- the left forepaw- get shorn from its mechanical limb. Bereft of balance without a chance to compensate with a thruster, Yellow Lion fell on its side with a resounding crash. The collapse permitted a most strategic escape for them.

'Jepaya, we have intruders,' Shai sent the message telepathically as she raced her family to the laboratory.

'I am moments away from dealing a Veneer the final blow,' Jepaya answered back.

'If the Veneer's death is inevitable as is, leave it be, and meet me at the Laboratory in haste. The Voltron Force has pierced through our defenses,' Shai explained.

'Pierced through OUR defenses! I suspect there is a Veneer with them as well,' Jepaya determined.

Shai was grim. While a significant fraction of her armada was in the Denubian, it was at the present securing the various worlds of Zarkon's empire that had since been under the Galaxy Alliance's jurisdiction. The remainder of her armada was busy with Planet Opachre's annexation, a priority surpassing all others once Dhm had been reclaimed. Defeating humans and Drules was so far a successful endeavor, she was well aware of the peculiar bionic facsimiles that were the Robot Lions. She found them repulsive and insulting to her heritage. The Lions were bastardized caricatures to her, yet she did not want her bias to underestimate them. Now, it seemed her forces stationed here were outmatched, and it was not due to technological advantages on the Lions' part. She concurred with Jepaya; a Veneer must be among them, and a powerful one. If she was correct about this Veneer having special Arydican techniques, than it was of an Essentian grade, and she was the main target.

Shai was all too happy to oblige…her armada had some surprises left.

Allura was nudged awake. She moaned as she cupped her throbbing skull. "Unnh…where…where is…" She opened her eyes and was greeted with a gruesome sight.

Ecchai gripped her slashed chest as she felt her life seeping out of her mortal wounds. Beneath her serpentine torso was a bleeding stump through which varied viscera and fluids poured from, littering the floor in a viscous gel. With her free hand, she pointed to the robotic Lion that the now-absent Jepaya had been preventing the human female from approaching. "Go…prevent victory of…Xandias. You have…Arydican blessing. My Veneer…stripped…life forfeit. Go…" she managed between labored gasps.

Allura could not comprehend the language spoken, but the tone was that of a warrior who knew her last living moments were passing by all too quickly. "You need medical attention. I will take you with me! You will get treatment!" Allura shouted, tears in her eyes.

Ecchai sensed the desire to help her from the pale monarch. Perhaps there was a need to reward her actions? Could they only speak the same tongue, Ecchai would tell the small creature that she had never expected any greater reward in her service than to give her life to preserve the Arydican way of life. That was the purpose of a Veneer, a being of espionage, who must kill in secret or be killed. Now the latter was imminent from being reality, and she was ready to perform her final act of fealty. "They cannot know…my bloodline…" she forced out as she choked on her thick blood. She pointed to a small spot on the nape of her neck. Allura noticed the gleaming metal and sadly understood the intention. She nodded and bowed before running to the Blue Lion.

It was a wonderful feeling to be sitting in the cockpit if her beloved Lion again, but the reunion was not be savored now. She started the thrusters and it sprang to mechanical life. She shot a hole in the hangar's wall and took to the Dhmk sky, but it was not far enough without hearing and feeling the force of the explosive her savior had just detonated.

In times past, she would have cried, but today she held back her sorrow. The serpentine hero had bravely welcomed death as a soldier without remorse or self-pity. She could only honor the unknown warrior's memory by being strong and triumphant.

Continued

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