Chapter Text
All around her were cream coloured walls. Cream walls, cream ceiling, and if Pawn looked at where she lay, she could probably guess that too was cream-coloured.
Pawn sat up, rubbing the back of her head with a scowl. Her head was a bit scattered at the moment, so she retraced her steps from her last clear memory.
It took a while, but she slowly worked back from seeing the Black Paladin’s face, feigning concern for her, to seeing the other Paladins arriving to aide their horrible leader and one of them stupidly going at her without a weapon.
But if she really thought about it, there was something wrong there. Why would the Blue Paladin come at her without a weapon? She had clearly seen his bayard before, so it wasn’t as if he had arrived weaponless. So why did he seem like he was more interested in embracing her than hurting her?
A thought nudged at her consciousness, pleading to be heard but it was too small and vague for Pawn to understand. It spoke of words Pawn wasn’t sure were true or not.
The thought spoke of friendship, camaraderie with those men, but that had to be impossible. They were murderers, they killed Matt and her father…
But she was so sure she had seen Matt just before getting knocked out. He looked a little worse for wear but he was flesh and bone. Had she imagined it?
A door suddenly appeared from the smooth cream wall to Pawn’s side, and her hand went to her hip for her dagger, but found nothing.
The person appeared in the doorway, looking concerned and a little hurt by Pawn’s movement. She was tall and beautiful even to Pawn, with shocking white hair and cotton candy eyes, pointed ears like fantasy elves, dark skin and strange pink markings not too unlike Haggar’s markings under her eyes.
“Pidge? What happened?” The woman asked, a heavy accent that reminded Pawn of Earthly Brits.
“Who’s Pidge? Who are you?” Pawn rebuked, taking a couple steps away from the elven woman when she approached, the door closing and sealing like it was never there.
“What?” The woman looked deeply confused, and genuinely concerned that Pawn felt herself relax around her without understanding. “Pidge. That’s your name. I’m Princess Allura, remember? What happened to you?”
“Allura?” Pawn’s eyes wandered the room as she tried to figure out if she knew the name, vaguely hearing the small thought rear its head excitedly. “Allura. I know that name? How?”
“Oh, Pidge, what did they do to you?” Princess Allura sounded so sad, her hands clasped in front of her.
Pawn - or was it Pidge as this Princess seemed incessant in calling her? - took another couple steps back, her back hitting the back wall. “What’s going on?”
Allura looked uncertain, searching Pawn’s face closely despite the wide gap between them. “Do you really not remember?”
“I remember my mission. I have to return Voltron to the Galra. Where it belongs.” Pawn spoke almost robotically, her words automatic.
Allura’s eyes widened and she shook her head quickly. “Pidge, no. The Galra can never get their hands on Voltron. You should know this. The Galra would destroy the remaining free galaxies until nothing was left.”
“No, Voltron belongs to the Galra Empire. Those four are murderers and thieves.”
“Murderers? How can you say that about your friends?”
Pawn’s head snapped up, terrible confusion written across her knitted brows. “Friends? They killed my family, Princess! How could you defend them?”
“Your family?” Allura’s brows also knitted together before a spark of understanding appeared in her eyes and she shook her head quickly. “No, they would never. Your brother is fine. He’s alive and well, he’s even in the Castle right now.”
“My brother’s here? How can that be? He was…” Pawn struggled to think straight, so many thoughts now jumbling together. “But that man, the leader… I could have sworn he…”
Nothing was making sense. Pawn… Pidge… Katie… Names and thoughts swirled in her head and she clutched her head, shaking it violently like it would fix the jumbled mess.
She jumped when a slight hand touched her shoulder, and looked up to see the Princess was kneeling in front of her to see eye-to-eye with the soldier. “I don’t know what they’ve done to you, but you are safe now. The Galra have failed.”
Pawn looked at the other woman with wide eyes, not being able to even think of anything to say.
~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~
Keith and Hunk paced in the medical bay anxiously. They kept looking over at Lance’s now sleeping face, his brow creased in slight pain, but they both knew while the pod healed him, the crease would smooth over.
But still they worried. They were all forbidden from going near Pidge until Allura decided it was okay after what happened to Lance. The one to put up the biggest fight was Shiro, with Matt just behind, although they fought for two very different reasons. Shiro was worried for Allura’s safety with the rogue Green Paladin, thinking she would be attacked like Lance had been, while Matt just wanted to see his sister again after so long.
So while Allura went off to talk to Pidge, the two teens paced in front of Lance’s pod, their worry feeding off one another in an endless cycle that they weren’t sure would end until Lance awoke. But that would be a while, according to Coran.
“She managed to hit the lining of his stomach.” He had told the others when they had joined him in the bay. “We have to keep him in there until there’s no threat that his stomach acid will escape and harm him further from the inside-out.”
“How long?” Keith had demanded.
“About twenty-four of your Earth hours if I had to hazard a guess. Maybe less.” The Altean had replied before heading off to check the Castle’s defenses, to make sure they wouldn’t get surrounded or anything like that.
The two had been there ever since, which had been a couple hours ago now.
“I… I still can’t believe it.” Hunk stammered quietly, sitting on the steps leading to the middle of the room. “He-she-I can’t believe that happened.”
“I can’t either, big guy.” Keith sighed, looking over at Lance’s pod before sitting beside Hunk, patting his shoulder.
“I just… She just went and… And he said nothing.” Hunk ran a hand over his face slowly before turning to face Keith head on. “I’ve never seen Lance that quiet before. Why did he get so quiet?”
“I don’t know. Shock maybe?” Keith guessed, but he knew whatever he thought would be wrong if even his best friend didn’t have a clue.
“Quiznak… How did it come to this? I thought we were done, man. We defeated Zarkon, shouldn’t we be done with this entire thing?” Hunk asked.
“I…” Keith looked away, his hand retreating from Hunk’s shoulder. “I don’t know.” He repeated.
~+~+~Several hours later~+~+~
Haggar felt the fail-safe she had placed around her experiment’s mind go off and growled angrily. She headed to her labs with a hard look to any who dared cross her path to the lab.
When she reached the dark area that was her labs, Haggar went to an old book where she had found the spell for the fail-safe link and got to work.
She focused on her magic energy and fed it through the link to the Green Paladin’s mind, and even through the distance, overran the child’s mind easily. Tearing through the recent memories, Haggar smiled at the fact the child had actually attacked one of his own allies before tearing everything apart, leaving shambles in the Paladin’s mind.
“You may have failed this mission, but you will not leave that Castle without a captive.” She telepathically ordered her Pawn. “Find the Blue Paladin and escape back here. Now.”
~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~
Pawn awoke with a gasp, bolting up from her spot. The words clouded all thoughts and she found herself standing and walking off. She found an airvent small enough to escape through and crawled out of her containment area to the main hall, and still her mind was abuzz with Find the Blue Paladin. Find the Blue Paladin.
It took a bit of guesswork and apparent muscle memory before Pawn found the place she was looking for.
The Medical Bay had people in it still, the other two teenaged Paladins sleeping against one another on part of the steps leading to the medical pods, where one stood up, containing just the person her mind was demanding her to take.
If she had been able to think properly, Pawn would have been confused why she had to do such a thing, especially after everything the Princess had told her. She would have realized she was in fact being brainwashed to listen to the Galra, but the noise was too loud to think of anything but to fulfill the orders, if only for the noise to quiet in her mind.
Pawn walked around the two sleeping Paladins and looked at the healing Blue Paladin with blank eyes. She reached forward, somehow knowing just what to do, and within ticks and a quiet hiss the pod opened.
The Paladin fell out, still out of it, and Pawn struggled, much too small to pick him up. She huffed quietly, glancing at the other two furtively as she dragged the wounded Paladin out of the room as quietly as she could.
The rest of the journey was quick, and soon Pawn found herself in the docking bay and she began preparations to get a small ship out of the Castle when she heard movement.
“Katie, what are you doing?”
Pawn whirled around, her right arm hooking around the Blue Paladin’s neck threateningly as she saw the Black Paladin walk over towards them.
“What are you doing with Lance?”
Pawn opened her mouth to reply, but when she spoke, she found another voice speaking instead. “This is compensation for attempting to break this child free.” She spoke woodenly, Haggar’s voice sounding odd coming from Pawn. “Do not attempt to follow or an accident may befall both Paladins and we will be closer to finally getting rid of you pests.”
“You won’t get away with this.” The leader spoke in a hard voice. “We’ll find you and save both Pidge and Lance. You can’t win. We already beat you several times.”
“You may have, but can you beat your own allies?” Haggar asked, Pawn’s body dragging the Blue Paladin’s body to the ready ship. “See you again, Champion.”
The Black Paladin didn’t move as Pawn dropped the lanky teen into the ship and hopped in herself, and within ticks, they were gone.
Story done!