Marked For Death | klangst

Eleven.

Lance woke once again, a headache threatening to split his skull in half. It only got worse as he recalled what happened. Striatha... he remembered bitterly, a grimace forming over his face. A dull throb pounded in the base of his abdomen where the mysterious woman had released that strange fire-like substance -- the feeling not biting and searing hot, but rather wrenching, as if it was pure energy.

But that wasn't the only thing that had popped up in his memory. He remembered Voltron and his team. He remembered Keith and Hunk and Pidge. He remembered their mission to this wretched planet. He remembered everything.

"Well, look who finally decided to wake up," someone sneered, their voice baleful and venomous.

Lance squinted around the room. It was then that he realized that his wrists and ankles were bound to a slab of smooth rock, the chains pulled taut and the cuffs pressed hard against his skin. He struggled hard against them, but the cuffs seemed to grow tighter and tug more against his skin. It was also then that he realized he didn't have his armor on -- just his usual baseball shirt and jeans. "What do you want from me?" he shouted at Striatha, sweat already beading on his forehead. "Let me go!"

Striatha came into view at the foot of the rock slab, right by his own two feet. "Yes, because I will definitely listen to you," she answered sarcastically, walking up by his wrists, her face looming over Lance's darkly. "As for what I want from you..." she continued on, standing up straight and walking behind him, behind his head. "Your service."

Lance's eyes widened a fraction. "You mentioned that earlier..." he trailed off, trying to look in Striatha's eyes.

"Did I?" she asked, her voice not one of inquiry but mockery. "Hmm, must've slipped my mind."

"What do you mean by it?" Lance tried again, hoping for a straight answer for once.

"Why, exactly what it sounds like," she responded simply. Even though he couldn't see it, Lance knew she was smirking malevolently.

"You just think I'm going to bow down to you just because you say I am?" he asked in disbelief, trying to contain a laugh. "Yeah, sorry, lady. Not gonna happen."

"Not without some help, that is," she replied, not in the least bit amused or threatened by his refusal.

Lance's amusement died down to nonexistence. Wariness grew in the back of his mind instead. "Help?"

Striatha turned to him sharply, her eyes wild and knife-like. "Come now. You surely must've noticed that I am a witch?"

Lance swallowed, cursing himself for not making the connection sooner. "Well, duh. Who wouldn't have noticed?" he lied through gritted teeth.

The woman rolled her eyes in annoyance. "You pesky humans must learn how to lie better," she told him spitefully.

Growling in impatience and frustration, Lance asked her, "So why me? What's so special about me?"

To his surprise, Striatha laughed. "Oh, dear boy! You are not special in anyway! You are the most clumsy, the most gullible, the easiest target! Your mind is so feeble and you, as a person, are just so foolhardy and reckless! I knew you'd be the perfect victim. You wouldn't be able to distinguish strange from normal, fantasy from reality." She paused to look at him in his constrained and depreciated form. "Face it, Lance. Amongst all of your team, you are the one that is most easily expendable. Your spontaneous way of thinking and the under-thought out course of action you always seem to take make you a burden."

Lance blinked furiously to stop the tears before they came. His worst fears, his biggest concerns, his capacious doubts... all laid out in front of him. He screwed his eyes shut in denial. "You're wrong," he choked out, his throat constricted, a qualm starting to rise up again in the back of his mind.

"Am I, though?" Striatha asked him, her voice low. "Am I really?"

Lance turned away from her as best as he could. He felt tears sliding down his face silently and splashing onto the cold rock he was chained to. He didn't even bother trying to stop them.

He felt her smirk -- once again -- at his weakness. "Lance," she whispered, her voice still low and soft, "there's no need to fret. There's no need to become upset about all of this because I can change it."

He blinked his eyes clear. "How?" he asked, his own voice demoralized with sadness.

"Just do as I ask, and I will give you what you want. You can go home. You can go back to your complicated life as the pilot of the infamous Blue Lion. You can do whatever your heart sees fit, but I just ask one thing -- one simple task. Doesn't that seem fair?" Striatha inquired, her voice like melted chocolate -- warm and smooth and soft.

Lance thought on it for a moment. He could go back to the Castle of Lions and be with his team, his friends. He could go back to Earth, to his family, to his home. Was it worth following her orders? "The Castle of Lions is my home. The rest of my team, the other Paladins... They're my family. That's where I need to be," he answered a minute later, looking straight into her icy eyes.

"As you wish," Striatha responded, a mischievous note in her voice. She walked away from him and was gone for a few minutes before she returned, an interesting looking tool in her hand. It appeared to be some sort of rod with a razor sharp stone tied to the end of it, almost like an arrowhead.

"What is that?" Lance asked in panic, trying to scoot away from its point.

With wide eyes brimming with blankness and then wickedness, she said, "This is how you'll get home."

After that, Lance's memory was a blur. Striatha drove the sharp stone into his chest, but not like it was a knife to kill with. She started to move the stone around in different patterns, scarring the skin and forever burning it into his memory. All the time she was working, she was chanting the same thing over again. It didn't sound like English, but Lance couldn't tell through his ceaseless screaming. A few times, he thought he saw her eyes glow white, followed by the same light emitted from his chest, but he couldn't tell if it was a pain-induced vision or reality.

It felt like forever before she stepped away from him, the tool in her hand splattered with deep red blood. Lance could feel the thick blood on his torn shirt, clinging to his chest like burrs do to cotton. His head was light yet his limbs heavy and numb. He felt nauseous but was too weak to do anything about it.

Striatha leaned over him again, admiring her handiwork.  A slew of different shapes and symbols was carved into his chest, the blood around the markings already clotting and crusting over. To assure herself that everything had gone as planned, she whispered, "You shall do my bidding." The symbols on Lance's chest first glowed red, a searing hot pain working its way though the Blue Paladin's body. He screamed again in agony, tears pricking his eyes. As quick as it started, the pain stopped, and the symbols glowed a blinding white. To accompany that, an icy cold feeling replaced the burning, causing Lance's blood to metaphorically freeze within his veins.

Out of nowhere, Striatha's assistant showed up behind her. "You've done it, my lady," he awed, his eyes wide with power and admiration.

"Yes, my dear Uchi, we have," she replied. As the words left her mouth, McClain morphed into a man-like creature with a sculpted face and broad features. He walked up beside Striatha and looked at Lance's depleted form, a disgusted look in his eyes. "Do you know what this means?" she asked her partner. When he stayed silent, she answered for him. "It means the galaxy is ours for the taking."

With power hungry eyes, she glided over to Lance's feet. She unlocked one of the cuffs binding his ankle and took hold of it her hand. Too numb to do anything, Lance just let it lay limp in her grasp. As if she expected this, she narrowed her eyes and tightened her grip on the bone. With unbelievable strength, she squeezed his ankle until Lance felt the bone snap. He cried out in pain, biting his lip until he tasted blood.

"Why'd you do that?" Uchi asked her, genuinely confused.

"So when the other Voltron members rescue him soon -- as I know they will -- they will believe he's just been wandering this planet and in his delusions, broke his ankle," Striatha simply replied. Then she frowned. "Get this cleaned up, and get him back into his armor so they don't suspect anything. Then drag him as far from here as you can get without becoming lost in the process. As soon as his team retrieves him, our plan will be set into motion, and the universe will be ours."