#Elephant Pocket Bodysuit | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

annoyinglyjovialbird · 4 years

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Voltron: Next Generation

Wavering Objectives: I

Word Count: 3283

A/N: Longer cause I can!

It had been a few days since Kova's great escapade, but the effects still lingered.

Yorak and Vhix were studying the holoscreen recording of the event. She was smart, quick on her feet. Vhix stared at the recordings in a begrudging impress. Yorak was supporting himself on the table, bowing his head and glaring at a still of Kova's face.

"Well, Kyla sure has grown up, hasn't she?" Vhix muttered. Yorak's hand tightened into a ball. With a thunderous blow, Yorak pounded his fist into the table, shaking the screen and disabling it.

"Kyla is still the same spineless girl she was before." Yorak stood at full height, cradling his fist. "We can break her. Rebuild her. Make her fight for us." Yorak had turned to look out the small porthole-sized window behind him. The stars flickered past the slow-moving ship. The rainbow clouds of dust glowed in the distance, much too far to reach.

"And how do you intend to do that?" Vhix asked, crossing his arms across his chest and leaned on the edge of the table. "Her moral compass was determined by the ones who raised her, and that wasn't you."

"Ezrid," Yorak growled. "Don't tell me things I already know." Yorak turned to glare at the man behind him. Vhix looked unimpressed, only uncrossing his arms at Yorak's turn.

"Well, Junior," Vhix said. Yorak sneered at the name. "Entertain me. How are you going to break someone who isn't here to break?"

"In due time, Vhix." Yorak flexed his hand, wincing at the pain that shot up his arm. "When we return to the outpost, I'll tell you."

"Until then?"

"Track her down. Double the ransom. We need her back."

———————

The crew of the Coeus was gathered on the bridge, hoping to hear all about the amazing escape. Kova, for her credit, stood in the middle of the floor in full view of everyone's eyes as they looked her over. She was wearing only a black t-shirt, black pants, and combat boots. Her hair was held back in a loose ponytail, her eyes downcast.

Rolling her head around, she met everyone's eyes and sighed.

"Let's just get this over with." She muttered. Stiffening her shoulders and holding herself steady, Kova's eyes brightened. "Who's first?" A barrage of questions came her way, and if there was a way to physically be blown away by the questions or the volume at which they were being asked, Kova would. "Time out, time out!"

"What happened? What did you do?"

"I called for a timeout, Griffin!"

"Don't care!" Liz held her face in her hands in a glamor pose. "How did you escape?" Kova rolled her eyes and rested her hand on her hip.

"I made an elephant toothpaste trap, escaped through a hole in the sewer, and was blown out through the back door." A few awkward blinks came Kova's way, and she stared back. "Seriously, that's what happened! Ugh, anyway. Who's next?"

"Are you physically okay?" Cake asked next. Kova nodded.

"Besides a wrist sprain from holding on to the door, I'm fine."

"Then why are your arm and leg wrapped?" Kova really hoped Cake wouldn't ask. Her body language said as much. Kova's leg had been scratched from her jump into the emergency toilet that she hadn't noticed, the small scratch on her hands climbing out of the emergency toilet later on, and the wrist sprain didn't and shouldn't warrant an arm sling and Kova's left arm and right leg to be completely wrapped in gauze and tape.

"I wish I could tell you, Cake." Kova looked to the quiet side of the room. "Next?"

"Did you recover any pertinent information?" Allie asked.

"Not much. I'm sorry. They took me to a closet across from the Emperor's room. The second-in-command told me I should be grateful for not being in a crowded prison cell."

"They were treating you well?"

"I know! I was shocked too. It seemed like I was their main priority. They tried feeding several times. I even dunked a soldier's head in a toilet, but they let me go. I wasn't punished." Allie sat back in her chair, pondering. "Who's next?"

"How were we able to track you?" Shiro was supporting himself on the banister around Kova's station.

Kova's eyebrows lifted at her father, who stood firm. She shrugged and turned to face the windows to the dark space outside. She stooped down to lift a small panel on the floor and inserted a small chip. The screen came to life, showing a unique code, color-coded to show the differences. Kenny and Cake marveled at the sight, geeking out at the individual codes. Everyone else was trying to understand what it was.

"These are the individual tracking codes on the suits. When I was going through the suits and updating, upgrading, or even unlocking several different components, I also inserted a tracking code."

"Into the armor or the bodysuits?" Cake asked, tuning into the conversation.

"Both," Kova said, turning to face him. "I managed to have the codes be separate from each other unless combined together."

"Meaning?" Keith asked. He had been quiet throughout the whole conversation. At least he was interested in something.

"Meaning that the bodysuits will emit a tracking code unless attached to the armor. Then, the bodysuits disable their code when their pairing code is in position."

"So, wait. The code Cap knew is—" Liz started again, being cut off by Kova.

"The code to the Black Paladin bodysuit." Kova's right hand found itself a home on her hip as she stared at everyone's awed stares. If reversed, you'd be impressed, too, she chided herself. "I kept all the code on a small password-protected chip in case of plagiarism. I hoped to integrate it with the modern suits after test runs."

"So, wait." Caleb held a finger in the air. "Our suits are tracking code experiments." Kova raised her eyebrows again, giving Caleb a flat stare. Allie, although not visible to Caleb, also gave a flat stare.

"Caleb," Kova pinched the bridge of her nose. "You. Were. There." Caleb crossed his arms and pouted. "Are you going to ask a question, now, or are you going to keep pouting?"

"What is your relationship with the Fire?" Keith demanded, turning all eyes to him.

"What are you talking about?" Kova asked. Her heart was racing. Did he know? Did Keith recognize her?

"You're half-Galra, aren't you?" Darn.

"Yeah, but what does that have to do with anything?"

"Whose side are you on?" Keith had descended the staircase to stand in front of Kova. He was taller than she was, but she didn't move. She met his stare. "The Fire's or the galaxy's?"

"Stand down, soldier." Kova's eyes flared at the accusation. "I'm on the side that takes down the Fire, not the other way around."

"Then why haven't you done anything against them?"

"What are we supposed to do? We're kids!"

"So was I, and I defeated the Fire! Give me a real excuse!"

"Alright, alright, enough!" Shiro intervened. "We can discuss more later. Kova, go put ice on your wounds. Keith, go rest in your bunk. Everyone else, continue normal duties." To a chorus of 'yes sirs' and huffs from fighting parties, the crew did exactly what they were told to do.

Later that night, and in the middle of the night, the crew had a rude awakening. One minute, the Coeus is stable. Drifting through space without much interference from the space around it. The next, it went nyoom to the right. With thunderous crashes, every teen had fallen out of bed. Kenny, who positioned his bed in a small alcove, hadn't been affected. Until the ship took a hard left to reposition itself. Then he raced to the bridge.

The paladins raced in, in varying degrees of sleepwear. Together, they scanned the windows, searching for warnings or blasts. Instead, they found Keith. He was wearing the clothes Shiro had gotten him from the space mall: A plain black t-shirt, a gray vest Shiro had stolen back from Kova, matching gray cargo pants, and boots. Red ribbons were tied around his calves to keep the pants from billowing.

Keith only stared at the teens, holding the console. It seemed to the teens he didn't expect the teens' response time to be so fast. Clearly, he didn't know how often they've been attacked.

From left to right, the teens wore their Lions' colors well. Allie wore a light blue long-sleeved smocked waist dress with matching blue pants and white slippers. Caleb wore a bold red shirt with a plaid breast pocket and black and white plaid pants with black socks. Kova wore solid purple sweatpants and long-sleeved tunic with fitted wrists and ankles and barefoot. Liz wore a white tank-top with bright green shorts underneath. covered by a green robe and white socks. Cake wore a long green and yellow tunic similar to the ones his mother wore on the Balmera. They all had varying degrees of bed head, from Allie's bent pigtails to Kova's tri-pronged hair and everything in between.

"It's the middle of the night!" Liz exclaimed. Cake and Allie were quick to follow her anger but did nothing to stop Keith. "Kova! Kova?" Liz tried to rally the stunned teen and noticed a vein protruding from the girl's forehead.

"DAAAAD!" Kova's voice started small, growing in volume as she stood to full height. "DAD!" She leaned her head out the doorway. "DAD! Control your, uh, whatever!"

"Get into positions," Caleb ordered, sighing tiredly. The teens complied, watching. "He's probably still strapped into the bed."

"What a shame. I don't care." Kova turned to glare at the man in her place. "Get away from my console." Keith didn't budge. She repeated it. His eyes hardened as she got closer.

"I have to get back to Earth!" Keith shouted, pulling a hand away from the console. The Coeus once again went nyoom but the teens were semi-prepared this time. "I have to get back to my family!"

"We have a larger mission at hand!" Kova argued, lunging at his hand. Keith moved away from her grasp, turning the ship right-side up. "Sorry to say, but I think your family can wait!"

"You don't understand!" The Coeus tilted to the left.

"Try me!" Rightside up.

"You're a kid! What do you know?" Coeus went almost flat to its right.

"More than you, apparently!" Rightside up again.

"Enough!" Shiro yelled, interrupting the two. Kova took Keith's distraction to pull him forward and flip him onto his back. "Kova!" She stood at attention, directly in front of the console. "What's going on?" Keith was quick to stand up. He opened his mouth to explain, but Kova beat him to it.

"We awoke to the Coeus changing direction. While aware of your sleeping circumstances, we attempted to resolve this on our own."

"Kova."

"Fine." She sighed. "I tried to solve this on my own. But he started it!" She pointed a menacing finger at Keith. He pointed one back.

"She doesn't understand what happened!"

"He almost killed us!"

"No, I didn't!"

"Stop it! Enough, you two!" Shiro stood in between them. "Kova, be more understanding of others around you." She glowered as Keith beamed. "And Keith, you're new to this dynamic, but Kova's in charge until I take command." Now it was Kova's turn to beam while Keith scowled. "Kova."

"On it." She turned to her team, ready for orders. "Liz, pull up cameras. Cake, redirect our course. I uploaded some data into the Coeus's hard drive. Allie, can you decode for Kenny? It's Altean. Caleb, get me a hot chocolate."

"No." He spun in his chair, typing away at his console to check on weapons systems. Kova shrugged at her dad, who gave his head shake of disapproval. She didn't mind much.

"Keith, there's a chair in the corner." Kova pointed at the chair in its long-forgotten corner. Of course, he didn't listen. Luckily for the teens, there was an all-clear. The teens climbed up the stairs, all hoping to reacquaint themselves with their sheets and pillows.

The Coeus, once again, went nyoom, taking a hard hit from the left. The teens slammed into the nearest walls.

"Oh, I'm never going to sleep tonight," Kova muttered with her head bowed. She stood, taking command. "All right, everyone, get to stations!" Keith had a first-class seat to the efficiency the team dealt with the threat. Unfortunately, now they were all too wired to go to bed. Keith wasn't pulling his stunt again tonight.

They're kids! What do they know!

Kova was typing away at her console. The low light on the bridge had darkened her features, making her look more tired than she was. For once, the look matched the feeling. All the attacking and the running and the plotting were starting to take their toll. The universe didn't have to know about Voltron just yet, but having to break the news to the Coalition might be the end of her. Or her career. Or both.

"You ask her!"

"No, you!"

"Why do I have to do it?"

"She's your pilot!"

"This was your idea!" The hushed, hurried argument between Cake and Liz was entertaining at best, annoying at worst. There was no reason for them to be up here. They knew Kova was more than capable to handle the bridge duties by herself.

"Hey, uh, Cap?" Cake inched himself closer to Kova at her console. He glanced at Liz, who motioned him to continue, and he smiled awkwardly at Kova's head.

"What's up, Cake?" She replied, still not looking up.

"We, uh, um," Cake cleared his throat. "We want to play a game up here if that's alright."

"I won't interfere. Go for it." Cake rolled his eyes and Liz smacked her forehead.

"We want you to play with us." Kova's fingers stilled over the keyboard and she looked up. Slowly she turned her head to Cake, who began to sweat bullets. They stood there for a few seconds as the message was being processed in Kova's brain. She half-smiled and agreed. Cake, blown away that it worked, was dragged to the floor by the hand by Liz, who held an empty bottle.

"Guys, she said yes!" Liz cried excitedly, and Caleb and Allie soon appeared. All the teens sat down in a circle on the floor of the bridge and placed the bottle in the middle of the group.

"I think we're too young to play spin the bottle," Kova said.

"We're not," Liz said, spinning the bottle. "It's kind of like truth-or-dare, twenty questions, and spin the bottle rolled into one." The bottle slowly came to a stop in front of Cake, who had finally come out his daze.

"Whoever the bottle lands on has to answer every question the other members of the group ask them truthfully." Cake explained further.

"And it's your turn." Kova pointed out. Cake smiled sheepishly and turned to the person on his right. This was Liz.

"Lady Eliza, what do you wish to ask me?" Cake said in a fake posh accent. Caleb stifled a laugh and Allie covered her mouth. Kova smiled at the ridiculousness.

"Why thank you, sir," Liz replied with a matching accent. "Lord of Cakes, I wish to know your real age."

"My word, Lady Eliza, know you nothing of proper manners." Caleb couldn't hold his laughter in anymore. At Caleb's laughter, Allie laughed too. Kova giggled, which was enough to boost both Liz and Cake's egos.

"For real, though," Liz said, dropping the accent. "What is your real age? I know Balmerans probably age slower than humans do."

"I'm still your age." Cake answered. "It's human genetics. I live longer than a human but tragically short for a Balmeran. I don't think about it too much."

"Does that—" Liz started. A finger twice the size of her own pressed against her lips, and Cake looked away dramatically.

"Lady Eliza, please! Only one question!" The three other teens erupted in laughter again and one by one asked Cake their questions.

"What's the story behind your nickname?" Allie was the last to ask, and Cake scoffed at her question.

"Easy." Cake rested his hands in his lap. "I was trying to help my dad in the kitchen. He was working on a huge cake order at the time, and I thought I could sift or mix or pipe frosting or something. I wanted to feel useful. I tripped and caught myself on the counter and dropped a sheet cake Dad had been saving for his overworked pastry chefs. I wound up returning to the Balmera with some proper embarrassment from Talia, who sent pictures of me around the Garrison. I was famous as the 'Cake Kid' before I even got there."

"I thought you were told the story before," Liz mentioned, and Allie shrugged.

"I wanted to hear it again." Allie rested her hands on her knees. "Who's next?" Liz leaned forward to spin the bottle again. Round and round it went. It slowly came to a stop in front of Kova.

"Can I start?" Cake asked excitedly. Allie nodded.

"Who's Kyla?" Liz butted in instead. Cake pouted, but accepted it and turned to Kova. Kova had wide eyes, a look of fear etched into her face. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. May Allura forgive her.

"Kyla is my real name," Kova answered, her hand reaching out to rub the back of her neck. "Kyla Hannah Kogane."

"Ha!" Cake exclaimed, earning everyone's stare. Well, everyone except Liz. "You owe me 20 GAC!" Cake turned his head to read the room and muttered an apology.

"Who's next?" Kova asked. Cake's eyes lit up, but Kova ignored him and looked to the other side to stare at Caleb. "How about you?"

"Nope. Look at Cake." Caleb answered. Kova said something about Caleb being no fun and turned to Cake.

"If Keith and Pidge are your parents, and you knew they were your parents, why do you never call them mom and dad?" Cake asked his perfect question. Kova lifted her knees to rest her chin in the crook of her knees.

"Keith and Pidge weren't the perfect parents everyone imagined they were." Kova started, looking off into the distance. "Oh, sure. They had their shining moments, but those were always with my brothers. It was never with me. I can't remember ever calling them mom and dad. TJ always called them by their first names, and Kenny always called them mom and dad when I wasn't in the room. When I left the Kogane home, I took a family picture with me. I stared at it every once in a while. I never had an issue because they weren't parents."

"Th-that's s-s-so sad!" Cake sniffled, tears and boogers coming out of his eyes and nose. The other teens distanced themselves from Cake, equally disgusted.

"Ugh, Cake! You asked the question!"

"I didn't think it would be such a sad answer!" Cake sniffled again.

"Ew." Kova shook her head. "Allie, you're next.

"Alright. Um," She began. She wouldn't finish.

The Coeus took another blast from the left, earning a quick response from the team. The bottle, disturbed from its resting place, rolled itself to the outermost wall and falling into a vent. The Coeus survived by making a wormhole jump about a week's worth of travel, but barely. In the morning, Kova, Kenny, and Cake would have to suit up and make repairs. Calling it a night, the teens left the bridge and slept in their bunks, leaving the bottle forgotten and left behind.

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dreamtimeagain · 3 years

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...I am exploring an empty house, the rooms are well kept and I wander through each one apraising the place. When I make it upstairs I am joined by a few other people, and I begin pointing out the nice things about the house that I now own. As we explore, I realize that there is something odd in the back of one of the closets, a large brown curtain, wool from the rough feel of it, and behind it is an extra space that I didn’t see before.

I called out to the others in the house as I stepped past the curtain into a very long and narrow room. I thought it was an attic space before I noticed that every surface was covered in pale yelow tiles that had browned a little with age. It looked like it might have been a bathroom, and I could see that it extended clear to the far end of the house, but I couldn’t see all of it because there was a large collection of pipes blocking the way.

I tried to look past the pipes, and was frustrated that they were too crowded to climb past. There was clearly more room back there, and I wanted to see how I could use the extra space. So I decided that there was a way around, and backed up to the entrance, finding a gap in the wall to the left that hadn’t been there before.

I slipped past the wall and was suprised to find an absolutely massive space on the other side. It was a huge vaulted room, with tons of old fabric draping from the walls and celing and old crates gathering dust in the corners. The back half of the room had a raised floor, like a stage. On the stage were several wing backed lounge chairs and a stylish table with a false wall propped up behind them, all clearly in a fasion that was popular in the 70′s; it looked like a tv talk-show stage.

as I started to look around the space I realized that the crates were full of old housewares and toys, and there were several pieces of wood furniture tucked into the corners. I was really excited about all this space, and the things in it, it filled my mind with the possibilites, and hope for a comfortable future that I couldn’t have before.

Then the rest of my family joined me, several young children and extended relatives, and we all explored the space together, chatting excitedly about the things we could do to open it up and make it liveable. Then one of the children found a large play house, clearly made with plywood, but elaborate nonetheless. it had a door and a second floor with little windows and a balcony that the kids could sit on.

But as soon as the oldest child pushed the door open, hundreds of spiders burst forth from the doorway and windows. They were large, about the size of my hand, with long fuzzy legs and grey striped bodies. They swarmed over every surface of the playhosue, but stayed only on the playhouse.

I grabbed a mesh laundry bag from a nearby table and tried to scoop up as many spiders as I could, shoving them all into the bag until it was full. Then I tied the top and ran to a window nearby and chucked them out as hard as I could. The bag sailed through the air and landed, hard, on the roof of the neighbor’s house, and immediately burst open, the spiders scattering as fast as they could.

Then, to my horror, they all regrouped and headed for a large tree who’s branches convieniently connected the roof with the side of our house. They skittered across the branches, and right back into the house through the window. I grabbed a large spray bottle of vinegar & water and started to squirt at them, hoping to drive them off with the smell.

Someone, one of the relatives who by now had all huddled together at the far side of the room, pointed out that was great for getting rid of ants, but not spiders, and told me to seek out the old woman, who for sure would have some old-school remedy. I run to the gap in the wall that we had entered through, and shouted for the old lady to come up and help us.

She replied and slowly wandered into the room. She was absolutely ancient, scrawny and withered, standing hunched over and using a large walking stick as a cane. She seemed completely unperturbed by the hundreds of spiders streaming into the room, but her bodyguard wasn’t as easygoing.

She was followed in by a verly large man, a bit chubby aroung the middle, who was dressed in a grey suit with a red tie, but he was running circles around her like he was a chihuahua or something, snapping at the spiders that got too close and glaring at everything else. The old lady patted him on the shoulder and told him to relax, she knew exactly what to do do get rid of them.

She then looked at me, though I couldn’t see her eyes through the heavy grey hair and wrinkles, and told me to get her a fish. I sent one of the other relatives down to grab one, and they came back up with a massive tuna, almost too big to carry, and we tied it by the tail to a rope hanging from the roof.

As soon as we stepped away from the fish, all of the spiders in the room rushed forward and attacked it. They swarmed all over the fish in a layer so dense that you couldn’t see a single scale anywhere.

Then the old woman just casually walks up, twists the end of her staff into the rope, and plucks it from the celing. With the fish dangling from her staff, and the large man continuing to circle around her, she walked out of the room. After a moment, I could see her step outside and hold the fish up into the morning sunlight, where all of the spiders vanished in a cloud of dust and particles.

When I turn back to the house, excited now that I can clear the space and use it for something, I end up instead in a smaller room, the walls were a dark, smooth stone and there is a wooden table sitting in the center of the room. Everything has a slight bluish hue to it from the lights in the celing. When I sit down at the table, I am greeted by a man dressed in a black uniform, who tells me that they are starting a game, and asks if I would like to join in.

I am excited and agree, but he stops me and asks if I have bought the proper pieces yet. I roll my eyes and tell him there’s no reason to waste money on fancy pieces, when something similar will do, and I pull a handful of brightly colored legos out of my pocket. He is annoyed, but agrees to let me play.

As we spread out the legos across the table, we are joined by a woman dressed in a dark grey and red bodysuit with long shimmering blonde hair, and a large man with a scraggly beard. Everyone is excited about playing, moving the pieces around to set up the board, but then the man in black tells me that he needs to leave, and i watch him rush out of the room.

As I turn back to the table, it has vanished, and instead I am floating in the blackness of space, a large structure is before me, some kind of ultra-massive derelect spaceship, though to me it looks like a side-scrolling video game level. The woman in red is rushing along the corridors, running into dead ends and pitfalls, getting more frantic with each setback.

I pick up the legoes from somewhere and place them into the holes in her route to make it easier for her. Both the ship and the woman are on a much smaller scale than I expected, and it only takes a couple legoes to fill in the spaces. As I watch she ends up down a dead end, and something from the dark corridor behind her begins to shoot, the projectiles ricocheting off the walls around her.

Then the man in black reappears, dashing in from another corridor, and leads the woman out and away from her persuers, constantly tuning to fire back into the darkness. The get onto a smaller ship that has been docked nearby, and leave as fast as they can. The ship is a very old-school design, with an enlongated football shape, fins at the far end, and a single engine, all in shiny silver chrome.

As I watch, the spaceship soars through space, leaving the adrift hulk behind and then crashes onto a planet. The planet is strangely porous, and made of intertwined fiberous structures in dull greys and bright reds. It looks vaguely like the worst tangled yarnball in the universe. The ship becomes wedged in some of the fibers, and the two bail out as smoke begins to billow out from the engine.

Then suddenly, from the darkest depths of the planet, swarm thousands of spiders, the same spiders from the house before except they are larger, towering over the stranded people like elephants. They are quickly overwhelmed, surrounded and desperately trying to survive, firing their guns at the creatures as fast as they can.

I am annoyed. They can’t lose, and I don’t want to see them lose, so I pause the scene, they are all frozen in place, and I lean in to get a better look. Then I turn around, shouting into the void that this isn’t how the story goes, and if they aren’t going to play it right, then I’m not going to stick around to watch them fail...

...Then I woke up.

#lucid dreaming #dream

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