A lot of you are excited about this, and I'm so happy! Be ready for your minds to be blown!

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Keith was reluctant to wake up again. Every time he did so far he was thrown into the Arena or tortured by Haggar.

He did open his eyes slightly, struggling to hold in a groan. His hands were currently cuffed behind him instead of in front.

Keith spotted himself in the blurred reflection of one of the metal walls, and struggled to not shriek at his reflection. He quietly scooted closer to the wall to better see the monster he had become.

Purple ears sprouted from his head. Splotches of purple skin covered his face and exposed arms. His fingernails had slightly grown into claws. Worst of all, one of his eyes was glowing bright yellow, instead of the dark violet they once were.

Keith looked just like the Galra that the universe feared and hated.

Why him? Why did he have to be the half-Galra Paladin? I shouldn't have left the others...

If he had stayed like Lance argued, none of this would've happened. He wouldn't be a Galra prisoner. He wouldn't be the new Champion. He wouldn't be some visibly freaky accident...

And he hadn't found Shiro. Shiro, his closest friend at the Garrison before the Kerberos mission. Shiro, the one Paladin he truly thought of as a brother. Shiro, the only one who truly understood him, who believed in Keith when nobody else seemed to.

"Shiro," Keith murmured in the darkness, curling up into his grotesque self, his voice, the smallest, most inaudible plea. Keith had never felt so, alone before.

He started to fall back to sleep, pressed in his corner, before an explosion shook his cell. Keith was immediately on his feet, new ears twitching and swiveling as he listened to the fighting grunts and shouts from somewhere on the ship, followed by blasts fired from Galra guns.

Stomping feet grew louder and louder, before abruptly stopping outside Keith's cell. A few long seconds of eerie silence passed.

The door suddenly slid open, blinding Keith for a few minutes. Three or so figures stepped through the doorway, but the spots in his vision made it hard to identify them.

As Keith's vision adjusted, the first reached for him. Keith instinctively recoiled with a threatening hiss, but paused. The first person, an Earthling, that had reached for him; something was familiar about the light brown, almost sandy colored hair, the small freckles, brown, almost orange eyes...

"P--Pidge? Is that r--really you?" Keith asked quietly in disbelief.

"Pidge--?" The boy questioned in confusion.

"Captain, he's delusional," one of the others grumbled. "And he may not be the one. We need to go or we'll get pinned down."

The Pidge look-a-like pulled out a blaster and pointed it at Keith. "Are you the Red Paladin of Voltron?"

"My name is Keith Kogane, pilot of the Red Lion, the right arm of Voltron," Keith responded almost with a growl as his fighting spirit slowly flickered back to life. He was tired of weapons being pointed in his face, tired of being shoved and dragged around. "Now get that blaster out of my face."

"Captain!" Someone called a bit down the corridor. The Captain stepped into the doorway and shot a few blasts down the hall. A few seconds passed before Keith heard the guy again. "The other prisoners attest that he is the Paladin."

"Grab him," the Captain ordered to the one who'd offered to leave Keith. He crept around behind him, and blasted his cuffs. Keith cracked a relieved smile as the cuffs fell away clanging on the metal floor.

Keith got to his feet, rubbing his aching wrists as they all sprinted out and down a corridor. Keith noticed all the prisoners watching him run past, the hope leaving them as they were left behind again.

Keith jerked to a stop, and the rebels turned to him expectantly.

"Whatcha stoppin' for?" The one who freed Keith demanded.

"Two things: I need my stuff, and we need to free them," Keith snapped back as he looked at all the cells.

"Go, Paladin!" One cell shouted.

Waves of "Save the galaxy!" and "Save our families!" spread across the rest of the cells, echoing down the corridors.

A hand grabbed Keith's arm and jerked him back. "We need to leave now. I had a few guys grab your things, but we're about to have Galra all over us," the Captain growled.

Keith only watched the prisoners as he was dragged away again. He was wrong before, about them being hopeless. They had a hope: Voltron, and right now, that hope was Keith.

"I'll come back!" Keith roared certainly. "Voltron will save you and the universe!"

Waves of cheering flooded the ship before Keith was thrown into an escape pod and they blasted away.