Return Of The Stars

Chapter 7: Legendary Defenders

To My Readers,
I want to take a moment to thank each and every one of you who have stuck around. Whether you joined at the beginning nearly a year and a half ago, or just found this story the other day! Thank you for your support - it means the world to me. This series has been my pride and joy for a while now and seeing it come to an end is bittersweet. I'm so proud of this one and I hope you enjoy the ending as much as the rest of the story!
- Kars

NOTE: I changed the title of the last chapter from "Sendak Part 1" to "The Battle Begins" because this final update is so much more than just fighting Sendak and to call it a Part 2 didn't feel right.

TRIGGER WARNING: Graphic depictions of violence | Character Death | Degrading language (Sendak speaking to Keith)

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Keith paced in the engine room, his body unable to remain still. Behind him, Acxa sat cross-legged on the floor, fruitlessly toying with her comm in an attempt to make it connect with someone, anyone.

They'd tried every possible solution they could think of and scanned every last inch of the vast room in hopes of finding another exit. So far, all they'd been able to find was a small vent near the top of the engine shaft and an emergency escape tunnel approximately halfway down the shaft. Both required the use of a jetpack to reach and neither Keith nor Acxa's suits were functioning properly.

The Blade suits and the Paladin armour were vastly different from one another, having been designed for specific purposes and by entirely different species. Keith's Paladin armour was Altean tech meant to protect the wearer and brightly announce their affiliation with Voltron. The Blade suits were Galran tech designed to shield and conceal, allowing them to remain as hidden as possible. Though they were wildly different, both suits utilized the quintessence of the wearer to power their many functions. This meant that even if there was some sort of electrical interference, both suits should still work. Which they did not.

No damage had been sustained during this increasingly botched mission, and neither of their suits were showing as "off-line" - and yet, they couldn't so much as connect their comms to each other while standing in the same room.

Both had tested the various features of their respective suits for anything that might still be functioning and finished without a single successful attempt. Acxa couldn't even extend her blade out of its dagger form and Keith couldn't summon his bayard from where it'd been stored inside his armour.

This could only mean one thing: whatever was causing this, whatever was trapping them inside, it seemed to block the flow of quintessence, and altering the flow of quintessence was something only a Druid could do. Keith really wished the other Paladins would get here faster.

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He sat cross legged on the cold metal floor of the engine room, hands resting in his lap and back straight as an arrow. Acxa had given up banging away on the doors with her blade, desperately attempting to manually pry them open to no avail, and was now silently pacing around the edge of the tunnel; searching for a way to scale the smooth walls.

Keith shifted his weight slightly; the pressure of the floor was making the little knobby bones in his ankle sore. The whole point of meditation was to relax and that was proving to be super difficult while his ankle was throbbing. Letting out a heavy breath, Keith opened his eyes and stretched his legs, switching into a new position and trying again.

This time he rested with his legs bent beneath him, sitting back on his heels and placing his hands in his lap once again. He could feel his own heart racing, feel the energy radiating off the Balmeran crystals behind him, even feel the pulse of life from Acxa as she attempted whatever new plan she'd come up with.