Disclaimer: Voltron, in all its varied forms, is the property of World Events Productions. Star Trek: The Next Generation is the property of Viacom, I do believe, and Dick Clark is the property of himself.
Allura crossed her arms across her chest and glared at the monitor screen in disbelief. "No, surely you're not serious."
Amalgamous' indicators turned red with a bout of righteous robotic ire, courtesy of an emotion chip cleverly stolen from the set of Star Trek: the Next Generation when no one was looking. "You heard me, Your Highness. You will give yourself up to Lotor immediately. All 900 Alliance worlds have unanimously approved this course of action as the most effective way to distract Lotor's attack fleet from their current collision course with the Troika Moons."
Allura clenched her hands into fists in an uncharacteristic display of anger. Eyes flashing, she turned to the captain standing faithfully at her side. Keith sighed and shrugged. "He's got a point, princess."
"What?" Lance jumped forward and stared at Keith with his best patented 'you have got to be joking' expression. "Come on, Keith. You're the one who's always harping on me about dividing up the team, and now you want Allura to give herself up to Lotor?"
"Well, he does have a point."
Lance's eyebrows shot up somewhere around his hairline and Allura decided to head this off before it got ugly. "All right. I'll do it."
Lance spun around to stare at her. "Don't be stupid, Allura. You can't give yourself up to Lotor. He's a murderer." He paused, annoyance crossing his face as she continued to stare back, obviously undaunted by his flawless logic. "He's a half-human monster."
Allura grimaced. He did have a point there. The very idea that Lotor's once-flawless form had been so thoughtlessly ravaged by the Alliance doctors struck her as a travesty of justice. Surely there had to be a halfway decent plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills available that day. That Dick Clark person still looked young and fit, even if she didn't truly believe the boys when they said he was now 3000 years old. Shaking her head, she pulled herself physically back to the point. "I have to do this, Lance. I can't let all those innocent people suffer for my own misguided pride. Can a princess of Arus do any less?"
Blindsided by self-righteous logic, Lance was struck speechless for at least two minutes. Allura took full advantage of the situation. Turning back to Amalgamous, she pasted a sweet smile on her face. "Tell Lotor I accept the conditions of his surrender and I will turn myself over to him at Galaxy Garrison, just as soon as his fleet has left the area surrounded the Troika Moons."
Amalgamous' buttons turned a happy green color with absolute delight. "Wonderful, Princess! I'm so happy to hear it!" The screen cut short with a burst of static. The logo www.voltronforce.com immediately filled the now-blank screen in a burst of gratuitous advertisement.
Allura sighed and turned to meet the faces of her friends for what might be the last time. Lance had stopped being struck speechless in favor of glaring at her wordlessly, his arms crossed over his massive chest in obvious anger. Keith stood next to him, still looking faintly dazed. Allura let her eyes run over him slowly, suddenly noting changes that had not caught her attention before. 'Since when did his hair develop blonde streaks? For that matter, weren't his eyes black?'
Blinking, she turned to Hunk and Pidge. Both were regarding her sadly from the space on the far side of the monitor reserved for the less-important characters. Coran, currently with only a bit part, was nowhere in sight.
Hunk cocked his too-round head sideways. "So what's the plan?
"Plan?" Allura shook her head. "What do you mean?"
"Come on, princess, there's always a plan. You agree to give yourself up to Lotor and then WHAM! We get him from behind."
Keith crossed his arms and managed to look a great deal like a sulky child. "This is important, Hunk. You're beginning to sound like Lance."
At this apparent slam in his direction, Lance instantly perked up. "Oh? And you're implying that's a bad thing?"
"No, I'm implying that you just never think things through, that's all."
Slipping unnoticed out of the room towards the door to her lion [author's note: has anyone actually ever seen any of the characters from V3D get in their lions? Hey, that's where Coran is all the time. He's their valet! Oops. Sorry. Back to the story.], Allura grimaced and blocked out the voices raised loud in argument. Maybe life with Lotor would actually be an improvement.
Blue Lion shot alone through the sky towards Galaxy Garrison. Allura was lost in melancholy sadness. In the old days, before the disbanding of the team, she never would have been in a situation like this. What had happened to them all over the last five years? Things could not possibly have changed so much. They'd won the war!
Now was not the time to worry about such things, however. Her future was about to begin. Following the flight coordinates sent to her by the robot drones controlling the Garrison airbase [author's note #2- do any people actually work at Galaxy Garrison? Someone has to program all those robots, right?], Allura landed directly in front of Lotor's flagship.
Emerging into the afternoon sunlight, she let her cold gaze travel over Amalgamous, waiting patiently on the tarmac with Zarcon standing directly by his side. There was something about Zarcon's presence in the Alliance that just wasn't right [author's note #3: well, duh!], but she couldn't put her finger on it.
The thought vanished from her mind as a shadow passed over her. Tilting her face up, she found herself staring directly into Lotor's half-mad yellow eyes. Lotor reached out with one robotic arm and yanked her to her feet.
"Allura, my love, my life! It's about time you came to your senses!"
The grip on her arm was threatening to cut off her circulation. Allura began to struggle. "Lotor! Let go of me! I said I'd come with you willingly."
"Willing, unwilling, who really cares? It's not like I'm a whole man anymore anyway. Your Alliance doctors saw to that." Picking her struggling body up, he thrust her towards a robotic guard. "Take her away and chain her up in the hold!"
Allura gasped. "What?"
Lotor shrugged. "Maybe I'll fetch a good price for you at the slave markets." He jumped back into the ship and winked at his father. The last words she heard before her vision dissolved into blackness was his shout.
"Set a course for the Troika Moons!"
Allura struggled against the grip pinning her to the floor with all her might. All those people were going to die. Her sacrifice was in vain, and no one was even coming to rescue her! Tears fell down her cheeks and muffled sobs constricted her chest.
"Allura! Allura, come on, look at me!"
Slowly the voice filtered through Allura's consciousness. She blinked her eyes, trying to clear her clouded vision.
"I don't know, Keith. Maybe she smacked her head when she fell."
"Allura!"
"K-Keith? Lance?"
The object in front of her slowly came in to focus, resolving into a pair of large very concerned dark eyes.
"Princess? Can you hear me?"
"Keith?" Allura pushed him away and sat up. She shook her head in confusion then forced her eyes back to the man kneeling in front of her, unruly dark hair curling over the shoulders of his ever-present red flight suit.
"What… what happened?"
Lance knelt down in front of her. "You wandered out in the middle of the night again. What are you trying to do? Give us all premature heart failure?"
Allura shook her head. "I was supposed to be at the Garrison. Amalgamous is going to be furious."
Keith's eyes narrowed. "Who?"
"Amalgamous. You know, the robotic leader of the Alliance."
Lance shook his head and dropped down by her side. "You must have hit your head. The leader of the Alliance isn't a robot. I don't work for any-"
"-glorified calculator." Lance blinked in astonishment as she finished his sentence. Suddenly sensing her amusement, he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket and shot her a mock-glare.
Allura glanced around at the landscape, recognizing for the first time the forest surrounding the castle. "The war isn't over? We were never disbanded?"
Lance shook his head sadly. "That must have been some dream, princess."
Allura considered this for a minute. Whatever it was, things were definitely looking up. Keith and Lance actually looked more like human beings than walking talking action figures and she wasn't decked out in revealing body armor like some kind of killer Barbie doll. Chances were good then that the Alliance had never been corrupted. As the last images of the dream filtered through her mind, Allura smiled. Lotor was probably still a whole man, then, and he likely still worshipped the ground she walked on.
Keith ruffled her hair affectionately and pulled her to her feet. "Come on. If we don't get you back to the castle and let Dr. Gorma take a look at your head, Nanny'll have us for breakfast." He paused, staring down at her intently. "What was it like? The war being over, I mean."
Allura shuddered and turned to begin the trek back uphill towards the castle. "You don't want to know, Keith. You don't even want to know."