A Voltron Christmas Carol

Chapter 5: Christmas Future

The fire faded to a lingering burn in the pit of his stomach. Zarkon started awake once more to find himself in the depths of his own bed in his own room. He brushed a hand across the new lump from the Ghost of Christmas Present's mallet as memories from the latest visitation came flooding back in. With a muffled curse he leapt back out of bed, the sudden need for action outweighing even the vengeful fantasies of various ghosts beaten to a ectoplasmy pulp.

Planet Kringel was trying to rebel. Thought they'd catch him napping, did they? They were in for a big surprise tomorrow. He didn't really need the whole fleet to annihilate Arus. The strength in numbers was more to impress than anything else. He could crush those damn children with half the numbers and still leave plenty of ready capable strength here on Doom, even after having the whole lot of guards in charge of decoration burning summarily executed.

There was no more time for sleep. The time for action was now. His hand touched the door, and then something very odd happened. The doorknob jumped and twisted underneath his fingers. Just as the bedside clock switched to 4:00 A.M. the door began to slowly open of its own accord, creaking in a way that was very unusual for a highly futuristic metal polymer.

Zarkon snatched his hand back and grabbed for his sword. His hand came up empty. He was just about to begin casting around the room for anything that could double as a weapon when the door ceased moving and something of more immediate importance grabbed his attention. His sitting room was gone. There was absolutely nothing on the other side of the door except for blackness impenetrable by even the faint light of his bedroom fire.

A sense of cold foreboding shivered down Zarcon's spine, but the king shook it off and took a careful step back. No matter what was on the other side of that door, he would face it down. Someone in Zarcon's position learned early on that you either faced down fears immediately or they popped up from under your bed in the middle of the night with a knife ready for your throat. There wasn't anything that could be that bad. Except, just possibly, for Hagar in a bikini still carrying mistletoe. Barring that…

The thought faded as something stepped out of the darkness. A glowing figure stopped in the doorway, face creased in a very familiar disapproving frown. Zarcon's mind actually started gibbering, but only for a second.

There was one person who was much worse than Hagar in a bikini. One person who had almost been his undoing.

"You're dead," he whispered in soft disbelief.

The glowing form of Alfor nodded solemnly and motioned Zarkon through the door with one hand.

"You're the third ghost, aren't you?"

The ghost nodded again. His hand was still stretched back into the impenetrable blackness in an attitude of silent purpose.

Zarkon stared at him a moment longer and felt his heartbeat slow back to normal. Face your fears. Taking a deep breath, he stepped through the open doorway.

The blackness of the room dissolved into a wash of blinding sterile light. After a moment the heat of the sun crashed over him in insufferable waves, cooking the very air in his lungs. The landscape he found himself standing on was arid and lifeless. The ground was pockmarked with huge ripped craters and the twisted remains of cooked metal. The sky was barely visible through an odd haze that seemed to amplify the heat of the baking sun. The whole thing looked like an environmental poster description of nuclear winter.

Actually, it was really quite pretty. Zarkon was sure he'd never seen the place before, though. He turned back to the ghost with a confused expression. "Where are we? Why are we here?"

The ghost raised one hand and pointed across towards the lip of a particularly large crater. Zarkon followed the motion, shrugged to himself, and set off across the landscape, conscious of the burning warmth seeping through the scales of the feet.

By the time he reached the indicated area the heat was already beginning to make him sluggish. Suppressed biological urges were pointing out that he should be sunning himself on a large rock somewhere, not traipsing around the baked rock like a complete and total idiot. One glance back at Alfor's still form stopped the wayward evolutionary notions, however. There was something obscurely threatening in the silent menace of his oldest foe.

He climbed up on the rim of the crater and looked around. It was absolutely enormous. Whatever it was, it must have been ground zero. Not so much as a speck of dust existed inside. Except… His eyes caught something and he moved around to pick the object up. It was a single thin crutch, as impossible as that may sound. The ghost did have a point to make, after all, and rules of logic don't apply to the dead.

Zarkon held the crutch up to his face in disbelief. A memory slowly filtered back into his head.

"God bless us, every one!"

"Arus," Zarkon whispered. He straightened back up with the crutch still clutched tightly in one fist. He turned back to the ghost in a burst of excitement. "Arus! We're on Arus! The attack was successful!"

Jumping up and down with childlike glee he ran to the ghost. "Wonderful! What do you have to show me next?"

The ghost took his arm and swirled away the view of the ruined planet into another wave of blackness.

When the blackness rolled away this time it was to a similar view. The world beneath his feet was now cold and lifeless instead of hot and baking, and thick dark clouds swirled overhead, effectively extinguishing the life-giving light of the sun.

This place was familiar. It was home.

Zarkon spun around quickly, wondering why he was here. Maybe the ghost was going to show him the execution of his insubordinate guards? But no, where was the castle? Where was he?

He looked at the ghost. The ghost again raised one hand and pointed silently forward.

Zarkon started out at a slow walk until he reached what looked to be the remains of the Pit of Skulls. Just ahead in the distance he could see something that his mind was refusing to register as the shape of his castle. There was something very wrong here. He turned back in confusion, but the landscape was empty.

A hand on his shoulder nearly made him jump out of his skin. He looked up into Alfor's sorrowful face. "The castle…it was…it was defeated?"

Alfor nodded, indicating the massed wreckage with a finger.

"But…but Arus was defeated."

The ghost nodded.

"Then where was I?"

The ghost's hand pulled away and pointed down, into the Pit of Skulls. Zarkon followed its motion helplessly. Down beneath their feet rested a hunched figure chained to the Post of Torment. There wasn't enough of the figure's flesh remaining for it to be recognizable, but the robes gave the identity away. No one would dare wear the King's robes. No one.

Zarkon shrieked and stumbled backward, his skin crawling as his imagination conjured the ripping tearing bites of a thousand hungry vultures and robeasts. How could this happen? How could he fail? Kringel! It had to be Kringel!

His back hit the coldness of the ghost's chest and his vision once more dissolved into blackness.

Zarkon was afraid to look when the world sprang into color once again. "So I'm dead," he whispered to himself. "I'm dead. But the Empire…" He spun around to face the ghost with sudden desperation. "Arus was defeated! The Empire lives on in my son and followers!"

Alfor simply raised a finger and pointed.

Zarkon spun around to find that things were only getting more unbelievable. Grassy hills spread out before him under a bright blue sky. Fluffy clouds dispersed in entertaining shapes drifted slowly overhead on a warm afternoon breeze. Birds were singing and yes, there were even fluffy pink bunnies. It was singularly disgusting.

Laughter once again reached his ears. Familiar laughter. It was…

It was his son dressed in a white suit swinging a laughing child through the air. Two more laughing children jumped up and down at his sides, eagerly waiting their turn. Resting on the grass with a newborn baby cradled in her arms was Allura, the Princess of Arus.

Zarkon stared in disbelief. "You're not serious."

A noise caught his ears then and he looked up at the sky just in time to see the cursed shapes of the five lions zoom overhead in practice maneuvers.

Arus was destroyed.

Arus was destroyed. He was dead.

It wasn't enough!

Shrieking in rage, Zarkon flung himself forward at the smiling figure of his traitorous son just as the world dissolved into blackness one final time.