For disclaimer, see the index page.

Note: Everything set off in ~~'s are asides and have nothing at all to do with the story, such as it is, really. Certain characters just couldn't seem to keep their respective mouths shut. Oh, and I should probably add to the disclaimer that the Muppets are the property of Henson Productions. I do seem to have an unhealthy obsession with Muppets.

Lightning slashed through the stormy skies above the Castle of Lions, leaving the crackling taste of ozone on the back of the tongue. A crack of thunder followed, the sound vibrating until it seemed the castle would leave its foundation. Inside the castle proper the lights flickered, gave a final last-ditch effort, and clicked off, plunging the inhabitants into darkness.

Deep in the heart of the castle, away from windows and the uncertain illumination provided by the flashing lightning, the Voltron Force paused in the interrogation of their prisoner.

Keith: Ahem.

Yes?

Keith: We're the good guys. We don't interrogate. We interview.

So did the Inquisition.

Keith: ::sputtering:: Now look-

Oh, all right.

…the Voltron Force paused in the interviewing of their subject. The sudden darkness made it difficult to see the torture implements hanging from the cold stone walls.

Keith: Hey!

The omniscient narrator raised one hand and produced a glowing ball of fire, ready at a moment's notice to incinerate difficult characters and replace them with Muppets.

Gonzo: I'm ready for my cameo!

Keith: I'll just go wait over there.

I thought you might.

The castle's generator kicked on after a moment's delay, bathing the room in a mix of the pale yellow glow that permeates these kinds of stories and flashing red light from the warning beacons. Lance reached out casually with one hand and shoved Lotor back into his chair.

Lotor glared daggers at him. "Take your hands off me!"

"Sit down, Lotor. You're not going anywhere till you 'fess up!"

Lotor slumped in the chair, sighing and rolling his eyes. "I've told you. I don't have anything to confess."

Keith leaned forward, glaring deeply into Lotor's eyes. "Where is she, Lotor?"

Lotor stared back. "I don't know."

Hunk lost his cool and punched the wall, normally gentle eyes narrowed to slits with anger. "Come off it, Lotor. Allura disappears and you just happen to be here wandering innocently around? You don't expect us to believe that, do you?"

Lotor took a deep breath. His expression assumed the kind of concentrated patience adults take with a particularly slow child. "Look. I'll explain one more time. Hagar was looking for someone to turn into a new robeast. Since my father's not incredibly happy with me at the moment-"

"I wonder why."

Lotor glared at Lance and continued over the interruption. "-I decided to find someplace else to be."

Keith raised an eyebrow. "And you chose here because?"

"It seemed like a good idea at the time. I can find peace with the universe here." His eyes grew distant and he smiled a dreamy kind of smile.

"Allura," Pidge growled.

Lotor blinked. "Yeah, sure. Right. Allura." He shook his head roughly, his gaze returning to the here-and-now. "Anyway, I don't have her. Otherwise she would have been with me, right? Even I'm not dumb enough to leave a captured princess alone somewhere. Lovestruck heroes," he stopped to pointedly glare around the room, "tend to bring about things like the downfall of an entire empire solely for a glimpse of big blue eyes. No, thank you very much, I have quite enough problems of my own at the moment."

Keith frowned and glanced around the room, meeting the worried eyes of his teammates. This was going badly. Lotor was supposed to have cracked by now under the pressure of their combined goodness, revealing his guilt and making them all look like tragic heroes. Maybe it was time to bring out the torture implements after all.

The narrator paused to glance at Keith, who has engaged Gonzo and Kermit in a game of poker in the corner and is currently too engrossed in trying to swindle defenseless Muppets out of their lunch money to pay any attention to the story whatsoever. Smiling maniacally, the narrator continued.

Right then. It was definitely time to bring things to a head. A little bit of flaming bamboo under the fingernails could work wonders in these situations.

Lotor: Excuse me?

Just kidding. I have it on good authority that there are no bamboo shoots or, for that matter, koala bears to be found on Planet Arus. Not even one.

Lotor: Whew.

So we'd have to resort to teak instead.

But- torture being such a messy option with all the blood and screaming- Keith instead decided to use the power of his vastly superior intellect.

Pidge: ::falls over giggling incoherently::

Keith: ::looks up from the card game just in time to miss Kermit stacking the deck:: What's so funny?

Keith leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms. "That's okay, Lotor. You don't have to confess."

Lotor raised an eyebrow. "That's good, seeing as how I have nothing to confess."

Lance exchanged worried glances with Hunk and Pidge. "Keith-"

Keith waved a hand, cutting him off. "No, it's all right. I'm going to tell you how it was done."

And, in the nature of high quality flashbacks everywhere, the scene slowly faded to black.

Lotor's ship touched down in the woodland beneath the Castle of Lions, the smooth shiny hull gleaming in the afternoon sunlight. A hatch opened in the roof and a figure emerged, clad in a spotless dark blue uniform with spiffy fringes that went out of style in the '60's and a horned Viking-style helmet.

Lotor: Actually, did you know that the Vikings never put horns on their helmets?

Hunk: ::pelting Lotor with popcorn:: Shh! I want to watch the movie!

Moving swiftly from tree trunk to tree trunk, Lotor finally appeared at the edge of the lake. Blue Lion- apparently on sentry duty- hunkered down by the water, and by its front paw sat a beautiful young girl in a pink bikini. She was singing softly to herself and brushing her long hair, staring down at her reflection in the water.

Lotor sneaked up behind her, reaching down to capture her wrist and yank her to her feet. "Hello, my love."

Allura shrieked and kicked daintily. "Lotor! Let me go!"

Lotor fell down on one knee, dragging a protesting Allura with him. "Never, my beautiful princess. I must have you. Without you the sun won't shine, the birds won't sing, the stars will fall from the sky…"

"Yeah, whatever." Allura rolled her eyes and yanked her arm away. "Look, can you just let me go now?"

"Never! Not until you admit your love for me!"

"But I don't love you, Lotor."

Lotor stood up, his face suddenly strangely calm. "So there's another? You love someone else?"

Allura nodded sadly. "You know there is."

Lotor sighed. "Well, that's it, then. If I can't have you, no one will." Lotor whipped out his laser sword and slit her throat. Allura fell to the ground obviously dead, Y7 tv or no..

The scene faded out as Lotor fell to his knees in a pool of blood, screaming his anguish to the sky.

Lotor: I cut her with my laser sword? Where's the drama in that?

Hey, it's a type of knife. Don't push your luck. I've still got five murder weapons to go. Would you like a demonstration?

Lotor: No, no. Quite all right. I think I'll go help Keith with the Muppets.

Slowly Lotor's interrogation- oh, excuse me- interview cell faded back into view.

Lance quickly snapped his hands down and innocently pretended that he wasn't making obscene shadows in the projector light. Pidge mumbled in his sleep and rolled over onto Lance's shoulder. Hunk was busy lobbing popcorn at the back of Keith's head. None of them appeared to have been watching the flashback besides Keith.

Keith nodded briskly. "And that's how it happened."

Lance looked up, concern on his face. "Keith, we found him in the mountains, remember?"

"He flew there after he finished screaming in anguish."

"Oh, right."

Lotor snorted. "That's ridiculous. I would never say something as corny as 'If I can't have you, no one will.' That's just so blasé."

Hunk looked thoughtful. "Yeah, I suppose it is a bit too high class for you, isn't it?"

Lotor fell immediately headfirst into the number-one rated Acme villain trap. "What? Wait! Maybe I did say it!"

Lance shook his head sadly. "Sorry, Lotor. We don't buy it. Anyone that would run away from his father rather than standing up like a man-"

"Whoa, back up. That was cold even for you, Lance."

"But what about the puddle of blood?!?"

Keith's shout stopped everyone. They turned to face him as one.

Hunk cautiously shook his head. "What puddle of blood?"

"The one we found him kneeling in!"

Lance took a step backward, dropping Pidge's still-sleeping form on the chair. "Keith, there wasn't any blood involved. Lotor was lying on a rock picking out the shapes of fuzzy animals in the clouds, remember?"

"I was not! I was… I was…"

"But there has to be blood somewhere! He's the bad guy!"

Lotor jumped to his feet. "For the last time, I did not kill Allura!" He spun wildly, raising both chained hands to point at Hunk. "Maybe it was him! Maybe she ate the last of his ice cream or something and he whacked her with a frying pan!"

Everyone spun to stare at Hunk.

Hunk stared back, his face very serious. "She ate my ice cream? Where is she? I'll kill her!"

Keith frowned. "Hunk in the kitchen with a frying pan?"

Lance shrugged. "Works for me."

Hunk shook off thoughts of food as reality once again smothered dreams of cool creamy chocolate goodness. "No, wait. I ate the last of my ice cream yesterday."

"So you say now," Lotor taunted with a smug smile.

"Yeah, well… I mean no! Maybe it was…" Hunk paused and glanced wildly around the room.

Just at the moment, due to a twist of fate-

Lance: Fate. Sure. More like cruelty on the part of the omniscient narrator.

I'm warning you all. Just one more comment and it's Muppet time.

-the door opened, revealing a slightly frazzled looking Coran. The lace around his neck was wilting and water was dripping from his foppy curls.

Coran: ::indignantly:: Foppy?!?

I couldn't help myself. That's just such a fun word, don't you think?

Hunk's eyes locked on the Prime Minister- or whatever the heck it is Coran does- like a man faced with his salvation. "Coran!"

Coran gave Hunk a decidedly odd look, but he refrained from agreeing that yes, this was his name. Good breeding and all that. "I went out to check the generator. Looks like the power's going to be out all night."

Hunk pointed. "You went out to hide the body, you mean!"

Keith blinked. "You're reaching."

Hunk shook his head violently. "No, no. I'm sure of this one. Allura probably found out that he's been nipping her underwear and confronted him about it. Anyone would snap under circumstances like that."

"And I suppose that he then sliced her throat with a laser sword?"

Hunk glared at Lotor. "Of course not."

"Good. I was worried there for a minute."

"He probably beat her over the head with one of those old candlesticks in the control room."

Coran was gaping at them. "I do not steal Allura's underwear."

The four awake men snickered and suddenly found very interesting patterns on the ceiling.

"I don't! It's not my fault if sometimes it's just lying about… just lying… Oh, hell."

//Coran: I am not a crossdresser! ::stamps one stiletto-heeled foot on the ground for emphasis::

I rest my case.

Hunk pointed triumphantly. "So you did hit her with the candlestick!"

"I didn't hit anyone! What her? Who are you talking about?"

Keith jumped up and started pacing. "Allura. She's missing. He cut her throat!" He pointed accusingly at Lotor.

"I did not! He winged her with a frying pan!"

"I'm telling you, it was Coran with a candlestick!"

"No, it was Lotor!"

Lotor pounded his hands on the table in frustration.

Pidge, reacting to the sudden noise, woke up and jumped to his feet. "It was King Alfor's ghost in the tomb with a bolt of lightning!"

The room went silent.

Lotor stared at Pidge incredulously. "A bolt of lightning? What kind of stupid weapon is a bolt of lightning?"

"He's a ghost," Pidge answered, like this should explain all the mysteries of the universe.

"Yeah, right. I'd imagine that would make holding something like a gun a little difficult, wouldn't it?" Hunk put in slowly, always willing to try to help out his "little buddy".

Keith gently pushed Pidge back down into the chair. "Pidge?"

"Yes?"

"I don't think her father's ghost killed her."

"Oh." Pidge looked slightly crestfallen.

Lance shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe he's sick of having to save her when she takes it into her head to sneak out of the castle half-dressed in the middle of the night."

Lotor nodded. "That would be understandable, wouldn't it?"

"Aren't you supposed to be blindly in love with her?"

"I almost forgot. It must be all the tragedy of having a life cut short so young."

"It was not Alfor's ghost!"

Pidge turned around and peered at Coran, who apparently had finally cut his way through the gist of the conversation. "How do you know?"

"You're just trying to distract everyone, so the killer must be you!"

"Me? Why would I kill her?"

"I've seen the way you look at her, sneaking around to her room in the middle of the night with those lovestruck eyes. I saw the missing wrench from the control room. It doesn't take a genius to put two and two together."

Everyone looked slightly blank again.

Coran sighed and gave in to the inevitable. "You snuck into her room in the middle of the night, and when she rejected you again…"

"With a wrench? Don't be ridiculous! Why would I use a wrench?"

"Because you want to make it look like someone else. Hunk!"

Everyone spun around to stare wide-eyed at Hunk.

Hunk looked incredibly hurt. "You'd frame me?"

"No! Don't be stupid, Hunk! He's just baiting you!"

"I'm not stupid. Did you really think you could get away with this?"

"I didn't-"

Keith turned to stare down at the youngest member of his team with a disapproving expression. "You've been sneaking around Allura's room in the middle of the night?"

"Wow, Pidge! How'd you manage to make it around Nanny?"

"Lance, don't encourage him."

"I didn't kill anyone!" Pidge spun around and pointed desperately at Lance. "He's the gun-toting maniac. Maybe he just shot her!"

"Give up, Pidge. You know you're just trying to protect yourself."

"No…no… let me think." His brow furrowed for a minute, then a cold smile began to spread over his face. "Didn't you have hand-to-hand practice this morning?"

"Yeah, but what's-"

"I bet Allura kicked your butt again and you got mad and shot her."

Lance went white. "I don't lose to her. I pull my punches."

"Sure you do."

"I do!"

"Lost again, didn't you?"

"Maybe… I didn't shoot her!"

"Right, and I don't steal her underwear!"

The room went quiet again. Coran blushed. "Oops. Did I say that out loud?"

Keith dropped his fist down on the table to regain everyone's attention. "Right, look. We know someone killed her. So if we just figure out which one of you-"

"One of us?" Lance stepped around the table and cocked an eyebrow at Keith. "I don't think so, lover boy. What makes you so suddenly innocent?"

Lance: Ouch. That remark's going to cost me, isn't it?

Keith: ::glaring down at his now empty pockets, having lost all his money to assorted card shark Muppets:: It most certainly is.

Coran, desperate to repeal that last wayward remark, stepped up beside Lance. "Yes Keith, why exactly should we believe that you're innocent? It could just as easily have been you."

Keith went very still and stared around the room. "It wasn't Keith. Keith wouldn't ever hurt anyone. He just wants to protect people."

Lance blinked. "Um, Keith?"

Hunk leaned over to Pidge. "Is it a bad sign when someone starts talking about themselves in the third person?"

"I'd say so. I don't suppose you still have that frying pan on you?"

"No. Left it in the kitchen."

"Maybe we should start moving towards the door."

"Good plan."

Keith turned slowly to start at them. Hunk and Pidge wisely decided to stop moving.

Lance took another step forward. "Keith? Look, you're innocent, okay? No reason to go all weird on us."

Keith shook his head. "No, no Keith. It's Sven. Sven makes Keith do bad things sometimes."

"I thought Sven was dead."

Everyone turned around to stare incredulously at Lotor. Lotor stared back wide-eyed. "Oops."

Keith/Sven slowly shook his head. "No. He's in here." He tapped his forehead with one finger. "He keeps Keith company, but sometimes Sven scares Keith." He pulled a lead figurine of a lion out of one pocket and dropped it wordlessly on the table.

Everyone dove for it at once. Coran reached it first, by merit of pulling Lotor's hair and elbowing Pidge in the ribs. "This came from the front foyer."

"Keith?" Keith turned slowly to look at Lance. "Did Sven hurt Allura?"

"Don't know."

"Don't know? Looks like he beat her with a statue to me."

"There's no proof. He said he doesn't know."

"Come on, Lance, he's got split personalities. How much proof do we really need?"

"Don't you think we would have noticed a dead body in the foyer?"

"Good point."

"Maybe he killed her somewhere else and hid the body."

"Maybe it really was you."

"It was not!"

"Look here-"

"All right!" Lotor's voice thundered across the small room, accentuated by the clanging of his handcuffs. "Look, why don't we try to sort this out before someone else gets killed?"

"Fine. Let's go about this logically." Pidge sank down into a chair and tried his absolute hardest to assume a Scotland Yard kind of pose. " Here are our choices:"

Pidge: Do we really need to go through this again?

Hunk: Taryn does. She's getting lost.

With a poof of magic, Hunk disappears and is replaced by a fuzzy brown bear.

Hunk/Fozzie: Wakka wakka wakka!

Pidge: You can't do that!

I warned you.

Hunk/Fozzie: ::begins lobbing banana peels at Yellow Lion::

Pidge: See?

You may have a point.

In another puff of light, Fozzie disappears and is replaced by Hunk.

Hunk: Wakka?

Pidge counted people off on his fingers. "Okay, we have six choices:
Lotor at the lake with his laser sword
Hunk in the kitchen with a frying pan
Coran in the control room with a candlestick
Lance in the practice room with a gun
Keith- Pidge pauses and glances at Keith- or maybe Sven in the foyer with a lion statue
And finally King Alfor's ghost in the tomb with a lightning bolt."

Lance sighed. "Nice try. How about Pidge in Allura's bedroom with a wrench?"

"That is so stupid!"

"So how do we find out?"

"I guess we have to split up and look for the body."

Lotor: Just like that?

Keith: You want more? Are you crazy?

Lotor: No. There's good. Actually, stopping roughly 14 pages ago would have been good.

Keith: Take what you can get.

Hunk nodded and stood. "Sounds good to me. Let's go look."

The sound of chairs scraping back from the table echoed around the room, the only indication of everyone's general agreement.

Well, almost everyone.

"Wait a minute!"

Everyone stopped with varying degrees of frustration. Keith, looking more like himself,-

As in Keith-himself, not Sven-himself. Everyone got that?

Lance: Yeah. Sure.

Keith: What exactly did I ever do to you, anyway?

I don't know, exactly. I guess it's just that whole hero-worship thing.

Keith: Oh. I see. ::starts backing away and looking around wildly for any stray bolts of Muppet-inducing lightning::

Anyway, Keith glared at Lotor in exasperation. "What is it now?"

"How do we know that the murderer isn't just going to go collect the body and dump it in the lake before anyone else can find it?"

"Easy. You're the murderer and you'll be locked in here. So the body's in the lake, is it?"

Lotor: I like him better with multiple personalities.

Frighteningly, so do I.

"I didn't say that!"

"Where is it, then?"

"How should I know? Can't Sven remember where he put it?"

Lance kicked Lotor hard in the shins. "All right, look. Why don't we split up into groups?"

Pidge nodded. "Good idea. I'll go with Hunk. You go with Keith."

Lance glanced at Keith, who was still looking remarkably sane, and turned back to Pidge. "Wonderful. Can I at least take my gun?"

"Why? So you can shoot him too?"

"Come on! He's carrying on conversations with himself!"

"I am not!"

"Not at the moment, maybe…"

"Like you're so innocent yourself, Mr. Poster Child for Paranoia."

"What?!?"

"Oh, excuse me. I didn't mean to interrupt."

The room went completely silent. It would have been possible to hear a pin drop, assuming anyone had one and really particularly cared to listen. The six men turned very slowly to stare at the open doorway.

The figure in the doorway stared back, surrounding by a glowing halo of flickering light.

Pidge backed slowly into Hunk, who stepped between Pidge and the obviously anger specter.

Hunk: Obviously angry?

Well, it stands to reason, doesn't it? How many cool ghost stories are about happy, content, and well-adjusted ghosts?

Hunk: None?

My point exactly.

The only sound in the room was a low whisper. "Maybe it really was Alfor's ghost."

Keith, brave and currently sane Captain that he was, slowly took a step forward. "Allura?"

The figure took a step into the room, peering around the clustered- for protection, you understand- inhabitants.

"Lotor?"

Keith whirled around, grabbing Lance's gun and aiming. "Hah! I knew it was you!"

Lotor stared back at the doorway with a look of horror. "But I didn't do anything!"

Coran, having years of experience in dealing with the ghosts of the Royal Family, turned calmly back to Allura as Lance, Pidge, and Hunk stepped back out of the line of fire. "Your Highness, I'm afraid this may be difficult for you, but we really need for you to tell us everything you remember from the last couple of hours."

There was a moment's hesitation, during which even Keith dropped his guard enough to glance back over his shoulder.

"Really?"

"Yes, really."

With a shriek of pure delight the specter bounded into the room away from the glowing halo that was, of course, nothing more than the candlelight from the hallway.

"Well, we went shopping. You know the malls on Titra? The ones that are supposed to be the biggest in the universe? We got there just as they opened, and there were so many shoe stores you just wouldn't believe it!"

What followed is a nonstop deluge of details only a woman on a shopping trip could ever possibly understand. The men, therefore, were totally and completely lost, the endless words washing over their shocked minds leaving nary an impression.

Well, maybe one. It seems their murder victim wasn't quite dead.

Yet.

"And there was a whole store where everything was pink!"

Lotor leaned over the table. "You know, the Alliance has rules regarding cruelty towards prisoners of war."

Keith let the gun drop uncertainly. "I'm sure they'd make an exception for you."

"Why? I didn't kill her. I told you."

Lance was beginning to look desperate. "If I uncuff you, do you think you'd be willing to consider it?"

"How long's this likely to go on?"

"Coran did ask for the last couple of hours, didn't he?"

"Oh my God."

Lance sighed and glanced warily at the maniacal glint still shining in Keith's eyes. "Let him go, Keith. No matter what he's done, he can't possibly deserve this."

"Oh all right. But next time, Lotor, I swear-"

Lotor rolled his eyes in exasperation."Next time do you think you could make sure that someone's actually been murdered first?"

"I won't promise anything."

There was a soft clicking noise as the handcuffs dropped off and slid to the floor.

"And we stopped at Maximo's for lunch, and you won't believe who we ran into…"

Lotor sighed in relief. "That's it. I'm leaving."

"I'll go with you."

"Lance! You can't leave!" Keith made a wild grab for Lance's arm, but Lance- already prepared- managed to slip behind Hunk.

"Someone's got to take him back to his ship. We captured him in the mountains, remember?"

Lotor peered around Hunk at Lance. "How do I know I can trust you?"

Lance shrugged and grinned. "Because I'm going to kill you if you leave me here."

"I'll accept that."

Allura turned her back to grab a shopping bag from the floor. Lance snatched his gun back from Keith's limp hand and yanked Lotor out the door. The sound of their laughter could be heard as they broke for freedom.

Hunk glanced down at Pidge. "I think I have some ice cream left in the kitchen."

"I thought you said it was all gone."

"I lied."

"Let's go."

The two slipped out as Allura dug out another pair of new shoes.

Keith sank into an empty chair next to Coran, who had buried his face in his hands on the tabletop. The gentle sound of his snores was just barely detectable.

Keith stared blankly at the wall, listening to the sound of Sven laughing from the vaults of his mind. They were going to pay for abandoning him here. Oh, yes. There were all going to pay.

Keith: I hate you.

I can deal with that.

Keith: The least you could have done was actually killed her.

Sven: That can be arranged.

Lovely. I'll just leave the two of you to your plans then, shall I?

Keith: Right after I take care of Lance.

Lance: Hey!

Keith: Traitor.

Lance: But the clouds are so pretty from up there…

Lotor: Give up. I don't think he's buying it.

End.

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