Hagar the witch cackled softly to herself as she stared into her crystal ball. "Yes," she sang out. "That will do nicely." Her smug examination of the images was so intense that she failed to notice Lotor's intrusion into her hidden laboratory high in the towers of Castle Doom.
"What are you cackling about, old witch? Developing another weapon for Voltron to defeat?"
Hagar smiled fiercely at the prince, forcing him to take an involuntary step back. Turning back to her crystal ball, she giggled with glee. "I've found a power source for the new Doom weapons."
Lotor studied Hagar cautiously from the relative safety of the doorway. 'She's finally lost it.' He entered the laboratory, sighing and shaking his head. "The Doom weapons are already on line, Hagar. What power source are you talking about?"
Hagar motioned him over to her crystal ball. Lotor circled the room and took a cautious glance over her shoulder. Fascinated in spite of his skepticism, he stared at the image of the planet hidden in a deep, incandescent red mist. "What is this place?" he asked in awe. "So much power…"
"It is a world on the edge of the far universe." Hagar's voice took on a soft dream-like quality as she focused her will to solidify the image. "Long ago a horrible weapon was created by users of the dark magic to vanquish their enemies. The weapon is represented in physical form by a crystal powered by blood and spirit. The crystal was believed to have been lost long ago, but the aura of power surrounding this world matches the old descriptions."
"If we retrieve this crystal, we will be unstoppable," Lotor breathed. Pulling his eyes away, he danced around the crystal ball. "It will be the end of the wretched Voltron Force! Allura will be MINE!"
"Yes, of course," Hagar replied absently, her eyes locked on the image.
"What are we waiting for? Where is this world?"
"The inhabitants call their world Bas. The coordinates are already programmed into the castle tracking systems."
"Wonderful! I'll ready the robot fighters to attack," Lotor laughed, already running down the stairs.
"All that power," Hagar smiled to herself. "Soon it will all be mine."
The droning voice was suddenly shattered as a small whirlwind burst into the room, eluding the guards posted at the door. "Mother! Father!"
"Now, Trey, you know that your father and I are busy," scolded the queen, hiding a smile at the disapproving frown on Chief Miten's face.
"But you have to come see!"
"I'm sorry, your majesties, I tried to catch him." Their son's tutor leaned on the door to catch his breath, glaring at Trey. "I'm afraid he's right, however. You really must come. We seem to be under attack."
King Rolan cast a measuring glance at the participants scattered around the conference table. "Attack? By whom?"
At that moment, a battle alarm began to clang throughout the castle. The king was on his feet and out the door before the end of the first bell. Queen Tira scooped Trey up in her arms and followed at as close to a run as his weight would allow. As she reached the observation lounge, she froze in shock. A scene of madness beyond the conjuring of her worst nightmares had descended on the peaceful countryside. "W-w-what…?" she stammered.
"They came from the sky, mommy, just like in the stories. Cool, huh?"
Tira grabbed the wall unsteadily as a laser blast hit the castle foundation. "From the sky?" she repeated in a daze.
Rolan walked over to his side, never removing his gaze from the destruction raining down from the peaceful midday sky. "I'm going to run for the signal tower."
"No, you'll be killed!" she cried, her voice rising in hysteria.
Taking his wife's shoulders in his hands, Rolan shook her gently. "It's our only chance. I never thought this day would come, but we have to heed the old warnings and try to call for help. It's our only hope!"
"But…" She was too late. Rolan was already out the door, running towards the ancient radio signal tower.
The Voltron Force gathered around Coran as he tried to clear the static from the incoming distress call on the castle monitors. "Help us...attacked…skull…ships…destroy us…"
"That's it." Coran switched off the message as the voice dissolved into static. "The same message repeats over and over." He turned to Keith expectantly.
"Where's it coming from?"
Coran switched on the universal map in the center of the room, his brow wrinkling as he concentrated on a set of coordinates.
Lance leaned over Coran's shoulder, his eyes widening visibly as the quadrants near Arus dissolved in a blur of motion. He frowned the map recentered itself on the programmed coordinates, a single world outside of any galaxy recognizable from the surrounding constellations. "Skull ships mean Lotor, but what would he be doing out there? Is there anything special about that world?"
Coran shifted so that Lance could see the screen more clearly. "The planet is in a system near the edge of the far universe. The last reports seem to indicate a great deal of electrical disturbances in that quadrant, which would account for the static."
"We've been trying to find information on the planet based on the coordinates given in the message, but we haven't been able to find anything specific," Pidge commented, one hand fiddling with the control console. "No history, no past messages. It's almost as if the world just suddenly came into existence."
Lance's eyes lit up. Keith glared at him from across the map. "Forget it, Lance. We're in enough trouble already. I really don't have any desire to spend the next couple of years in Lotor's cell on Bastille 12, do you?"
Lance gave a long-suffering sigh and rolled his eyes at Keith. "Do you really think Amalgamous would go that far?" Keith's expression darkened as he clenched his jaw in a desperate attempt to hang on to his temper. Lance threw up his hands in exasperation. "Come on, Keith, we can't just ignore a call for help."
"What if it's a trap?" Allura pushed Lance aside to stare intently at the map. "Can we really afford to go that far away and leave Arus defenseless?"
"We have to do something." Pidge walked over to stand beside Keith, his eyes distant. "Lotor's destroyed too many worlds already. We can't hand him another just because we're afraid to take a risk." Lance nodded at him silently, his expression understanding. Pidge nodded back then returned his gaze to the map.
Keith shook his head in defeat. He'd been ready to battle Lance about this, but Pidge was another matter. Keith too clearly remembered the pain on Pidge's face when his home world of Balto had been destroyed years before. One of Keith's deepest regrets was that Balto might have been saved if they had just arrived sooner, if Coran hadn't tried to bar them from leaving. How could he possibly sentence another world to the same fate now? He took a deep breath, biting his lip as he took in the triumphant gleam in Lance's eyes.
"Why don't we split up?" Hunk suggested in an attempt to head off what seemed another inevitable fight between Keith and Lance.
"That's not a bad idea," Coran mused. "Although I don't like the idea of leaving Arus unprotected, Lotor cannot be allowed to continue this destruction unabated."
"All right." Keith agreed, deciding fighting his teammates was going to be a useless waste of time. "Lance, Pidge, and I will go check out this distress call. Hunk, you stay here with Allura. Keep in contact. We might have to work to get messages through once we get close to the source of that disturbance, but our equipment should be able to work around it. Arus is still our first concern. Right, team?"
"Right," they all answered in unison.
"Let's go then!" Pidge yelled, running for his lion.
"Right behind you!" Lance took off after him
Allura caught Keith's arm before he could follow. "Are you sure this is a good idea?" she asked, glancing worriedly after Lance.
"I won't let him out of my sight if I have to chain him to the seat of his lion," Keith promised. "If I don't let him go, he'll probably manage to follow anyway."
"Be careful. There's something wrong about this."
"I will." Allura blushed as Keith winked at her. "Stay in touch!" he called, running out after Pidge and Lance.
Deep beneath Ridge Castle, the Taken scattered in fear as the Keeper stirred in her sleep. Something was coming. The time for waking would soon be at hand.
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