Nyle POV

After our trip to Oriande, we headed back to Galra Central Command. And once we reached there, I realized how tired I was.

"To return so triumphantly is a dream I thought I would never achieve," Lotor says as we dock to the ship. "We are one step closer to bringing peace and prosperity to the entire universe. This is all because of you, Princess."

"We did it together, Lotor," Allura responds. "I would have never even known about Oriande without you, and therefore could have never unlocked its secrets."

We docked and walked to where we first met with Lotor on the ship, and I of course had Mereida with me.

"We'll see intel in your briefing and decide what to do," Shiro says.

"Maybe we can-" Lotor started.

"Lotor," Some Galra lady in front of us says.

"Oh, no," Lotor mutters.

"Uh, who the heck are you?" Lance asked.

"How dare you speak to me without authorization from Blood Emperor Lotor," The Galra lady says and hits him with some kind of whip.

"She was my governess," Lotor says. "No one has used the term 'Blood Emperor' since before we were a star-faring race. And these are, my colleagues. They have more than my permission to speak. Everyone, this is Dayak."

We all greeted her, Lance only groaning.

"So, to what do we owe the honor?" Lotor asked, unamused.

"Word of your victory at the Kral Zera has spread throughout the empire," Dayak responds. "I always knew you had it in you to crush your enemies. Dayak's raised you from a child to a man, and now I'll witness your ascension to the throne."

Lance started laughing, while Lotor looked at her almost begging her to stop. 

"Wait, she raised you from a child?" Lance questioned. "Aww, is this your nanny?"

"Governess," Lotor corrects.

"You have a nanny!" Lance exclaimed. "Is she going to read you bedtime stories? Is she gonna rock you to sleep? Is she gonna-" 

He was interrupted by being hit in the face by Dayak again.

"I instructed Lotor in the ways of the Galra," Dayak says. "The history of our conquests, our customs, battle philosophy, the art of war."

"Hm, Galra customs, huh?" Hunk says. "Is that when you guys say like 'Vrepit Sa' and stuff? There's so much we don't know about you."

"If you're interested in our society's history, you couldn't find a better teacher than Dayak," Lotor says, putting his hand on Hunk's shoulder.

"What Lotor says is true," Dayak says. 

"Oh, wow," Hunk says. "Would you really teach me about the Galra?"

"What do you wanna know about the Galra for?" Lance asked.

"We're gonna be working with Lotor to bring peace through the empire, right?" Hunk starts. "Makes sense the more we know about their society, the better."

"If you are to learn the ways of the Galra, be prepared for the most challenging trial you could ever undertake," Dayak says. "There will be no turning back. Victory or death."

"Uh, ok, that's okay," Hunk says, putting his hands up.

"Hunk, you're a Paladin of Voltron," Allura says. "There is no challenge too great for you."

Hunk grumbles for a moment before looking at Dayak. "Will I learn what 'Vrepit Sa' means?"

"Yes," Dayak answered.

"Let's do it!" Hunk exclaimed before walking away with Dayak.

"Let's get to that briefing," Shiro says.

Lotor led us to where the briefing was, a Galra soldier starting the meeting. 

"The civil war continues unimpeded," He starts. "More and more Galra forces are leaving to join other fractions. Sendak has claimed most of the deserters. They call themselves the 'Fire of Purification'."

"It's time I address all Galra and make my claim as emperor absolute," Lotor says.

"Is that going to start with you freeing planets?" Lance asked.

"It's not that easy," Lotor starts. "My grip on the empire is tenuous as is. I need to proffer an alternative to our current state. That's why it is so important that Allura and I gain access to the quintessence field."

"Are we to focus all of our energy on that?" Allura asked.

"It is paramount," Lotor responds. "However, we cannot let the empire fall apart. I will address my people at the astral conflux.

So while Lotor went with Allura and got ready for his speech, the three of us tried to discuss some kind of plan.

"So what exactly will we be doing to help if this is only an Altean thing?" I asked.

"I'm not exactly sure but, all we can do is show support and do anything we can to help," Shiro says.

"How exactly do we help when we don't even know what to do?" Lance questioned.

"Again, I don't know. All we can do is what we're told," Shiro replies.

I sighed and held Mereida close to my chest. "Nyle, this is probably a dumb question but, why would you bring her aboard?" Lance asked.

I rolled my eyes and leaned back a little bit. "Because one, I don't feel comfortable just leaving her alone while there are a bunch of Galra around. I'm just really uneasy about it still. And two, after the ship shut down she's been scared out of her mind. And she started wailing whenever I walked away from her."

Lance lets out a small hum and shrugs before turning back as we continued our conversation before alarms started to blare.

We all gathered as a call from the Galra came through. "The planet has already been fired upon and we do not have the means to protect ourselves," The Galra spoke. "You must send assistance immediately."

"Understood," Lotor says as the call ends.

"What's going on?" Shiro asked.

"One of our labor planets is under attack from Sendak and his fleet," Lotor replied.

"Sendak? Not that guy again," Lance spoke.

"We've got to help that planet immediately," Pidge adds.

"Sendak would have me respond to his attack and neglect my empire," Lotor says. 

"Voltron can handle this while you continue to rule," Allura says.

"But, Princess, I need you here. Without you-" Lotor says, getting interrupted.

"Your plan has waited this long," Allura says. "It can wait a tick longer. We must protect your innocent subjects."

"Of course," Lotor says. "You're right."

"We will return as soon as we can," Allura responds.

As we started walking away, we heard Dayak yelling. "You dishonor me. A fight to the death!"

"Okay, well, I've got to go with them right now," Hunk says, walking backward to us. "But maybe we can put a pin in that? Reschedule for tomorrow? Or never?" Hunk quickly jumps to us as we headed for our lions. 

I gave Mereida over to Coran and got to my lion before taking off with everyone else.

"Hey, Dayak isn't really gonna fight me to the death, is she? Is she?" Hunk asked.

"She seemed pretty serious," Pidge spoke. "But, I bet if you ask Lotor nicely, he can have her exiled."

"Oh, that'd be nice," Hunk muttered. "I'm not really in the mood to die, you know?"

"Oh yeah, speaking of which, is no one else worried about who it is we're supposed to face? Sendak, the same guy who tried to steal the castle AND the lions?" I spoke.

"Come on, Nyle," Pidge says. "We're Paladins. We got this. Right, Shiro?" 

Then we started to hear a bunch of pained sounds coming from Shiro.

"Shiro?" I questioned. "Are you alright?"

"Pidge is right," Shiro says, ignoring my question. "Let's focus on our mission."

A wormhole then opened and we headed through. We flew by the ships and faced them when we heard Shiro yelling in pain.

"Shiro, are you all right?" Lance asked worriedly.

"I'm fine," Shiro says, panting. "Come on, team, let's form Voltron!" 

The team formed Voltron as I started flying towards the fleet, them coming along almost right after. 

"I know your true weakness," Sendak says, coming on my screen. "That you value the lives of others. And I will hammer that weakness until you are crushed beneath my heel."

The cruiser in the front then shot at the shield system, damaging it.

"No!" Pidge shouts. "Without those panels in place, the planet will be fully exposed."

"Which means?" Lance questioned.

"That means no protection from those radiation bands," I replied.

We turned back to see the fleet leaving the planet. "We can't let him get away!" Lance shouts.

"There's no time," Shiro starts. "We gotta fix that shield as soon as-"

He started yelling in pain again, causing us to worry once again. "Shiro, are you alright?" Allura asks.

"I'm fine," He replied. "We can't leave that planet unprotected." 

We flew to the shield station as Shiro opened a broadcast to them. "We are the Paladins of Voltron, working with Emperor Lotor. We're here to help you. What is the status of your shield system?"

"Paladins, I am Commander Bogh," One of the Galra responds. "Our damage report indicates that a plate has been fractured. Our generator is offline and needs rebooting. Other plates have shifted out of their harnessing and must be repositioned. Only five dobashes until the next solar sequence."

"You're the engineer, Hunk," Shiro starts. "How should we handle this?"

"We need to split up," Hunk says. "Pidge, you handle the generator system."

"I'm gonna need Shiro to come with me," Pidge replied. "I can use his arm to power the mainframe."

"Okay, good," Hunk said. "Allura, Lance, re-fuse that fractured plate."

"Affirmative," Allura responded.

"You got it," Lance replied.

"Nyle, you and I are gonna try to get the other plates aligned," Hunk spoke.

"On it," I replied.

"Okay. We've got out orders. Let's move!" Shiro yelled as they separated into lions and we went to go do our jobs.

Hunk and I started moving the plates, putting almost all of our power in our thrusters. Since our lions were much bigger, it was a little easier. 

"Where does this plate need to be lined?" Hunk asked.

"You're moving plate 7-2," Commander Bogh says. "It needs to be aligned with plate 8-1."

"Got it, but those other plates are out of positioned," Hunk says. "There's no way we'll move them all ourselves."

"I'm trying to work on getting this guy in its place," I added.

"I can activate the manual thrusters on some of the plates," Commander Bogh says. "It'll be slow-going, but I-"

"First you side with Lotor and get our system attacked by Sendak," The Galra next to Commander Bogh says, aiming a gun at him. "Then you willfully work with Voltron, our sworn enemies!"

"Get to your station and begin the thrust sequence," Commander Bogh says. "That's an order!"

"Are you freaking kidding me?" Hunk exclaimed. "Palen-Bol!" 

The two Galra stop and look at us. 

"You're both a dishonor! Do you fight for yourselves or do you fight for the Galra?" Hunk questioned.

"Galra!" They both exclaimed, turning forward.

"Then victory of death!" Hunk shouts. "Enough of the bickering!"

"We're going to die because of Commander Bogh," The other Galra spoke.

"You know, long ago, there was a desperate group of Galra that thought they were going to die," Hunk started. "They executed a spear-like attack known as the Killing Thrust. Those soldiers knew what it meant to put their life on the line. They won the day. Are you ready to put aside your differences and fight with me?"

"Vrepit Sa," They both said, putting their arm across their chest.

"I guess all that pain did make me smarter," Hunk says.

"That was awesome Hunk, I'm proud of you," I said. "You honestly sounded like a real leader there. Dayak did tell you something useful huh?"

"I guess so huh?" Hunk says before I heard him open another line. "Pidge, I need you to restore the main shield power to get the gravitational harnessing going."

"We're on it," Pidge responded before the line closed. 

Hunk said something to Lance and Allura that I wasn't paying attention to. But I kept trying to move the plates, noticing how slow this was going. 

"Ugh, Hunk! How do we make these things move faster?" I complained.

The Yellow Lion growled and its eyes glowed gold before it formed a huge set of thrusters, making it move faster.

"Whoa! Hunk that's so sick!" I shouted with a smile.

"I know! It's awesome!" He yelled back.

Allura and Lance got the broken plate back in place soon after. "Nice job, guys. Pidge, you ready? We're almost at the radiation belt." Hunk spoke.

"Hold on," Pidge responded. "I just need a few more minutes."

"Well you better hurry, we're running out of time," I added.

"Uh, guys," Lance started. "That radiation belt is getting closer."

"Last piece in place," Hunk says. "Fire up that power, Pidge."

The shield started to power up, making me relax a bit in relief.

"Shield's up!" Pidge exclaimed.

After a few moments, the shield disappeared and lost power.

"No!" I exclaimed.

"What's going on with the plates?" Lance asked. 

I heard him yell and looked to see Lance push Allura out of the way before getting shocked, his lion drifting away.

"The broken plate shorted out, Lance isn't responding, Allura jumped out of her lion," Hunk said.

"What else could go wrong today?" I asked, over the situation.

Hunk and I rush to the broken part of the plate, starting to push it back in place.

"Pidge, what happened to the power?" Hunk asked. "We're almost at the radiation belt."

"I know. I'm on it," Pidge replied.

We pushed the part back in place, holding it there. "Let's restart this," I spoke under my breath.

"Pidge hit it now!" Hunk shouts as the radiation belt started getting closer and closer.

The shield came up just in time as the radiation hit the shield, eventually passing.

"Great job!" Hunk shouts.

"It worked!" Pidge added.

"We did it! Whoo!" I cheered.

We all grouped in the station as Hunk stepped forward to take to the two Galra from before.

"Thank you for reminding us what it means to be Galra," Commander Bogh says.

"Vrepit Sa!" The two exclaimed, putting their arms over their chests.

"Vrepit Sa!" Hunk exclaimed back, copying them. "Man, that's weird to say."

We all laughed before jumping back in our lions and heading out.

"Nice work out there, Hunk," Pidge says. "That Galra training really toughened you up."

When there wasn't an answer, I opened a line to where I could see his face before laughing at what I saw. "Poor baby's sleeping."

We quickly got back to Galra Central Command and went our separate ways. Then I joined up with Hunk, Pidge, and Lance. We went to where Lotor and Allura were building the comet to help.

"You guys starting without us?" Pidge says as we face them.

"You didn't think to call the engineers before you began building your inter-reality quintessence field magical Altean alchemy super ship?" Hunk adds.

"Right," Lance starts. "You didn't think to call the engineers...and me?" He put his arm on some kind of toolbox car before it fell over, causing a bunch of noise.

We all looked at him before he held his hands up. "What?"

Allura sighed before looking at us. "I appreciate that you want to help. Unfortunately, there's not a lot for you to do."

"Infusing the comet ore with Altean alchemy is quite different than simply building a ship," Lotor adds.

Pidge, Hunk, and I looked at each other. "Magic," We all said.

"We'll certainly call you if we're in need of assistance," Allura says.

"Mm, oh well," Hunk says as we walked off. "More time to integrate those Galra shields with Altean tech. There's gotta be a way to do it."

Soon enough, Lance followed behind us as well. We changed into our armor when we got back and met up in the Green Lion's hanger. But before I went there, I grabbed Mereida on my way.

I sat down on one of the chairs and held Mereida on my lap as we started to work.

"It's amazing how the Galran subroutines translate almost one-to-one with the Altean axiom inhibitors," Pidge says, messing with the wires.

Hunk comes back up and turns to Lance. "Okay, Lance, let's test this puppy."

We all looked at Lance when he just stared off into nowhere with a blank face. 

"Oh, I think lover boy Lance is distracted not thinking about the princess," Hunk says.

Pidge picked up some kind of bead, flicked it at Lance, and hit him in the head.

Lance held the back of his head and turned to us. "Ow! What the heck?"

Hunk made some kind of dreamy eyes and held his hands together, imitating Allura. "Oh, Lance, could you stop daydreaming about me and test the connection?"

"Ha, ha. Not funny," Lance said, turning back. "And I'm not daydreaming about you. I mean her."

"That's good," Pidge says. "Because it seems like Allura's got a thing with Lotor."

"A thing?" Lance exclaimed as he shot up.

"Seems like she does," I added.

"Probably gonna get married, have babies with beautiful, flowing, white alien hair, all that stuff," Hunk says.

"He's probably proposing right now," Pidge says as she and Hunk got up, holding hands. She got down on one knee and held onto one of Hunk's hands, imitating Lotor. "Princess Allura, will you marry me?"

"Oh, Lotor," Hunk starts as Pidge holds Hunk off the floor. "You bad boy, of course, I will."

We all started laughing before Lance started to steam. I smiled at him and rubbed his back. "Hey, if something does happen between them you always got us bud."

"Yeah sure. That's a lot easier for you to say. I mean you have a boyfriend and a daughter," Lance says.

I frowned some and sighed before looking away. "Yeah well he isn't here, it doesn't exactly matter right now does it?"

"Nyle I, I didn't mean it like that," Lance said, his voice softer now. 

I shake my head and unconsciously held my necklace. "Don't worry about it alright? I don't wanna talk about it."

They stayed quiet for a while before going back to testing everything.