Full Dive

Chapter 5: Raid Boss

SEASON SEVEN OH MY GOODNESS

For those of you who haven't seen it yet, don't worry, I won't be spoiling anything. This fanfic officially takes place after season five and before season six, mainly because Keith and Pidge are in the Castle of Lions. I can't very well move them, now can I? That's too much work. So for now, the only threat is Haggar and everything else is FINE. IT'S FINE.

That said, I have made the decision to omit Lotor (for the most part. I will mention him once.) He's just...dumb. I'm sure many of us can agree that he has no place here. So, he just won't be here. He's off taking care of his empire.

That also means that this fic operates under the assumption that there is no clone Shiro. The one that many have labeled as "Kuro" is the Shiro of this fic, and as far as I'm concerned, that's enough. So I won't be worrying about any of that either.

Chapter 5: Raid Boss

Olkarion was in mourning.

Thousands of innocent Olkari were trapped in Fantasy Quest. Of those, hundreds had been killed in the weeks since the game's launch. The death rates had been steadily decreasing, but the damage had been done. A majority of the population had been personally affected by the tragedy.

A ceremony was organized to honor those who had fallen thus far. Lance wondered how many more would occur before either Haggar won or somebody found a way to beat the game. He knew that there wouldn't be an end to the deaths until then. Yes, this ceremony was important to a lot of folks on Olkarion, but Lance figured it wouldn't be the only ceremony of its kind.

Ryner gave a brief, powerful speech, right up until the end, when she was choked up, fighting back tears. Her own grandson had been killed in this massacre, and it was clear that all of this was taking its toll on the queen.

Lance felt someone grab his hand. He looked over to see Allura, a look of comfort on her face. He hadn't noticed that he himself had been crying.

Lance had yet to see Allura cry over the whole affair, and he thought he'd figured out why. She was still blaming herself for everything. She was so full of self-loathing that it was blocking out any opportunity for her to grieve.

It was also possible that she had faith that Keith and Pidge would save everyone, that they would make it out of the hell they were trapped in and free all those under Haggar's control.

Those who had helped design the game, oblivious at the time to Haggar's plan, had explained that it could possibly take months or possibly over a year for those participating to reach the end. The game wasn't meant to have an end at all, as it was filled with various branching paths and areas to be explored and could be constantly updated with new content to keep people interested. As it stood, the players had a set base game to complete, but since the Olkari wanted to release as much of the game as possible with the initial release, there was still a lot of ground to cover to reach the end. Added to that, players had to be strong enough to defeat the bosses, taking even more time to get stronger.

In short, Lance knew that there was a lot of waiting to do.

As Ryner concluded her speech and the crowd dispersed, Lance pulled Allura off to the side.

"Hey Princess, I didn't want to bring this up with everyone else around, but...what are we going to do about Voltron? We need Pidge to fly the Green Lion, and I think it's pretty likely that Haggar or Sendak or somebody will try to pull something while we're all distracted."

"Lotor's doing his best with his allies to keep everything in line within the Galra empire. However, I do believe you have a point. Voltron could be needed at any time. However, finding a new paladin isn't going to be easy."