#Quintmagic Chronicles 1 - The Battle Begins | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ridiculous-in-action · 7 years ago

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Quintmagic Chronicles 1: Chapter 5

(THE BEGINNING | LAST | NEXT)

I’m back with chapter 5 and I think I finally opened all the plotlines I need right now. This will be an interesting ride, guys.

Also, sorry that it took forever for me to post this… I was busy, okay?!

One of a kind

LX-014-6. The number echoes in the back of her head. Her stare is empty and unfocussed as she is being dragged along and back to her holding cell and into the isolation she’s learned to hate. She has lost her own battle against the control of the druids long ago, making her nothing more than their puppet or weapon. They didn’t even bother giving her a name, calling her by her identification code or simply referring to her as ‘the weapon’.

Perhaps, that is all what she will ever be – a monster created to serve the galra empire without questioning any orders. She raises her head when the two soldiers make a turn that does not lead back to her isolated cell. Instead, they’re bringing her to a part of the facility she hasn’t ever been in.

They pass a few patrols, consisting of mostly sentries. The lighting changes too. The hallways aren’t lit in the familiar green glow of the containment blocks. Instead, they’re purple. The girl bites her tongue, resisting the urge to ask where they are headed with all her remaining willpower. Eventually, the question answers itself when the doors open to a hangar. She’s being brought away for some reason.

The girl isn’t sure if she wants to know the reason.

- - -

Being held on a cruiser turns out to be a lot different from her usual environment. First, there’s always the distant hum of the engines, the clanking noise of the sentries’ feet on metal. There’s also the hum of the energy barrier generators that keep her in this holding cell. The lighting is purple, something that would take some time getting used to.

Then, there’s the others. She’s no longer alone. She can hear hushed whispers from the other cells. The other captives are making assumptions about her. Nobody dares to speak up, though, afraid of her for some reason. Perhaps it’s her appearance.

That changes abruptly when another person gets brought into the cell across from her. It’s a girl with bright pink eyes and blue pupils. There’s dark lines all over the skin of her face, indicating that the druids must have used her for some sort of quintessence experiment. She has light pink hair that she has tied in a ponytail somehow. The hair is wavy and the ponytail still reaches her mid back. Her eyes seem to light up brightly upon spotting her in the cell across from her.

“Finally! A new face around here!”, she cheerfully states, smiling widely at her. The girl frowns at the cheerful one. That’s when she notices the purple scales on her face, right under her eyes.

“My name’s Lyra! Who are you?”, she asks, pushing her face against the purple energy field that keeps her in her containment unit. LX frowns.

“I’m no one”, she mumbles, sinking to the metal floor and leaning against the right wall of her cell. Her hair is messy in comparison to Lyra’s. Some strands of white and black are covering her eyes, and she pushes them out of her view with a snarl.

“Awh c’mon, don’t be a killjoy. Everyone has a name, right? Also, it’s been quintants since something interesting happened around here. Not since Sai and the rest decided to go sloven-de-hoe”, Lyra argues back and the girl simply growls at her.

“Who says she’s like the others around here? She might as well be that experiment the druids were talking about moving on here”, a male voice argues back from the cell on the girl’s right.

“They couldn’t have finished it already. I thought we had more time to figure this out!”, another male voice interjects from across the hallway, in the cell on the left of Lyra’s. The figure steps into view. He lets his metal hand, it’s his right, rest on the energy barrier, looking at the girl’s cell in worry. He has black hair in an undercut and his eyes are of a dark grey color. Those other three are starting to get on her nerves.

“Wait, if you’re right, does that mean we can’t stop them anymore?”, Lyra suddenly asks, her eyes going wide, “W-we promised Nora that we would-” The girl frowns.

“Can you just stop talking about me as if I wasn’t here?!”, she snaps, startling the other three. Silence follows. Lyra’s eyes scream disbelief. The girl huffs, hoping that she wouldn’t have to keep up with all of them for much longer. She secretly wishes for the isolation of her old cell again, deciding that the silence there was much more bearable that the people talking around her.

“Quiznak”, she whispers, “Mura, Iraj, she- she’s…” The expression of the man on Lyra’s left turns to something that the girl can’t read. What is he thinking of? Trying to come up with a way to get me killed for whatever reason those three have, she wonders, averting her gaze.

< < < - > > >

Somewhere in another reality, the castle of lions is under heavy fire. A fleet of galra ships have it cornered against a massive asteroid field. They’re doing their best to hold up against their weapon systems, but it seems to be a struggle the castle of lion can’t win.

A puigan girl with thin pink hair, tanned skin and light green markings is doing her best to keep the engine from losing any more power. She rushes from terminal to terminal, diverting power from anywhere she could get it. She manages to trip over a wire. She curses, pulling herself back onto her feet and rushing towards another terminal.

Meanwhile on the bridge, Hieronymus Myran the second and a balmeran are doing what they can to keep everything up and running, trying to shoot back at the offending party without much success. “Quiznak! The bay of the blue lion is of fire!”, the royal advisor exclaims, waving his arms around in a panic.

The balmeran is standing at a display, supervising the crystal energy levels with a critical eye. “Section 12-B is down. Maiko, work around it!”, he informs the puigan girl over the ship-intern coms using his headset.

“Got it. Thanks for the warning”, she responds, only to shriek when something in the panel in front of her short-circuits. She jumps back in surprise, dodging a stray bolt of energy sparking from the malfunctioning panel.

Myran skates across the floor of the bridge towards his personal controls using the roller-skates the green paladin had recently made for him. And in the middle of the whole fiasco, there’s princess Priyane, standing at the two crystal pillars with closed eyes. Her brows are furrowed in concentration and a single drop of sweat rolls down her forehead and nose, only to drop to the floor in front of her feet. Her hands clench tightly around the crystal pillars, and her whole body is glowing turquoise.

“Careful, Number 5! On your six!”, Myran warns the green paladin. The green paladin yelps, barely pulling herself and her lion out of the line of fire of the enemy’s secondary ion cannon.

“Thanks, Coran!”, she calls back at him gratefully. She dodges a few smaller asteroids, trying to shake off a few enemy fighters.

“What is it with this ship?! Its weapons are unlike anything we’ve ever encountered before!”, she then continues on, blasting a few of the annoying fighters that are following her with the greening-cannon with an angry snarl.

“I don’t know, Katie! Focus on shredding the main ion cannon! We can’t let another blast hit the castleship!”, the red paladin argues back, dodging a few asteroids while rapidly approaching the ship’s main ion cannon. There’s rapid fire from the ships other weapons, and he’s being tailed by a small squad of fighters. He hisses angrily before pulling off his attempt under the pressure.

“They’re just too many, Yorak! Already tried getting close that way without success”, the yellow paladin yells. He’s distracted for a moment by the beam of an ion canon and a fighter manages to hit the yellow lion’s left side. The lion and Hunk are sent flying straight into the asteroids. Hunk screams loudly in surprise, immediately trying to regain control of his lion.

“Tsuyoshi! Hang in there, buddy!”, Yorak shouts, turning red around to help him, only to crash into a fighter himself. Keith yelps in surprise, followed by a thud and then silence.

“Yorak! Tsuyoshi! Quiznak! Takashi, what are we going to do?! We’re being overrun!”, Pidge shouts in concern, barely dodging another ion canon’s beam with an angry roar.

“Yorak, Tsuyoshi, do you copy? Are you two alright?”, the black paladin asks, keeping up a façade of calmness. All he gets in response from Tsuyoshi is uncontrolled screaming. Yorak groans lightly on the other end of the transmission, but not giving any other response.

“Yorak!”, Takashi calls then, showing a lot more concern for his friend. Once again, there is no response. Katie curses again, but in another language that none of the paladins understand. Shiro can tell by the way she spits the words out, but he decides not to act on it as there’s more important matters to be dealt with now.

“Yorak is down. He must have gotten knocked out cold by the impact”, Katie concludes, gritting her teeth.

“Paladins! Retreat!”, Priyane suddenly shouts, opening a visual channel. Behind her on the screen, Myran is chasing Kaltenecker through the bridge, throwing various altean sentences out while rushing after the rampaging cow on his roller-skates.

“What the fuck is the cow doing on the bridge?!”, Katie shouts in disbelief, steering the green lion towards the yellow lion and attempting to stop the other lion from spinning out-of-control.

“Language”, Takashi throws back at the younger green paladin, deciding she’s over-doing it with the cursing now.

“English”, Katie then snaps at their leader, clearly aggravated. Tsuyoshi finally calms down and stops his screaming when his lion finally stops spinning, thanks to Katie.

“Thanks, Katie”, Hunk pants, holding his head.

“Paladins! Please return to the castle! We must leave, now!”, Priyane orders once again with urgency in her voice, “We’ll get torn apart if we don’t retreat right now!”

“I’ll go fetch Yorak. You two, get me an opening!”, Takashi orders, turning his lion towards red and dashing towards him in the black lion. Black picks up Yorak’s lion by the neck and Takashi maneuvers the two towards the opening the other two paladins create for him.

“Please, Hurry! We’re running out of time! Re-route weapons system energy to the main turbines and telludav!”, Priya exclaims, regaining her balance after a particularly hard hit on the ship’s particle barrier.

“Princess! We can’t let them- “, Coran begins to interject, but he’s quickly silenced by the princess.

“I’ll deal with this myself. Just get the telladuv ready and enter coordinates!”, Priyane retorts with a determined gaze, before closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, letting the glow of her quintmagic get even brighter. Coran watches her hesitantly for a few ticks but turns back to his controls a moment later.

“You heard the princess. Prepare everything for a wormhole jump, Maiko!”, Coran orders upon opening a visual transmission to their newest crewmember and mechanic. She salutes at him, and the communication ends.

Meanwhile, the resident pilot of the blue lion awakens with a gasp and sits up straight. He looks around in a panic, at first not recognizing his surroundings. He takes a deep breath, finally recognizing the med-bay of the castleship. “Leonardo!”, Matteo, who had been keeping watch on him up until now, exclaims in surprise, jumping up from his seat and dashing over to him. He insistently, but gently pushes Lance back down onto the medical bed Lance had been resting in up to that point.

“Please, stay down! You’ll aggravate your injuries!”, Matteo informs him, only to almost fall on top of Leonardo when another tremor goes through the castle.

“W-What’s going on…?”, Leonardo asks, feeling like he’s going to fall asleep again at any moment. His right shoulder hurts like hell, and when he turns his head, he realizes that there’s a thick bandage wrapping it up.

Matteo is about to explain, when the main lights go out, leaving only low, turquoise lighting to illuminate the medical bay. “Are we under attack?”, Leonardo asks in confusion.

(THE BEGINNING | LAST | NEXT)

#Quintmagic Chronicles #Quintmagic Chronicles 1 - The Battle Begins #QMC 1 #para-power-paladins-au #para power paladins au #vld #fanfiction

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ridiculous-in-action · 7 years ago

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Quintmagic Chronicles 1: Chapter 4

(THE BEGINNING | LAST | NEXT) -----------------------------------------------

Here’s some more Quintmagic Chronicles content for y’all! I’ve been holding this chapter hostage for a long while, haha.

The backstory of Allura and Priya continues this chapter, and Kolivan makes an important space-phonecall.

Like always, chapter under the cut~

Mystery Message

Kolivan huffs, staring down at the reports he had been sent earlier this quintant. He had received an urgent message concerning the druids’ newest experiments. Kolivan almost drops his data-pad when he finds out what is so urgent. Apparently, subjects of a secret project managed to escape their holding cells in-between experiments and now a group of them is on the loose.

“…Are those… Ulaz’ quinthybrids? He said he lost track of them after they were transferred to a more secure location”, he mumbles, frowning at the report. He exits his personal quarters and heads down the hallways of the HQ towards the command center. Upon his entry, he’s greeted by one lone agent supervising the incoming reports and the main systems.

“Leader”, she acknowledges him upon his entry into the room. She turns to him and nods, letting her mask dissolve to make herself known to him.

“Greetings, Airi”, Kolivan says, nodding at her with a brief smile. While the hybrid has only been briefly with them, she’s dead-set on serving the blade with enthusiasm and all she has. Her light-violet skin seems almost blue in the dim lighting of the room, and a row of three bioluminescent purple circles line the lower side of her eyes. Her eyes are pupil-less and of a vibrant yellow color, just like Kolivan’s own.

“What brings you here? Checking for an update on Kogane?”, Airi asks, leaning back in her seat and stretching out her arms and shoulders, implying that she’s been here for some time already, checking every incoming data and intel for any kind of unwanted extras, like a virus. It’s a boring, but very important job.

“No…I need to access some of Ulaz’ files. It might help me understand one of the reports I’ve received. Why, did you get something about him?”, Kolivan explains to the younger member of the blade.

Keith has been missing for quite some time now, disappearing during his recent solo-mission. Kolivan doubts that he’ll show up on his home. He probably got himself captured by someone.

A small chime sounds when another pack of data comes in. Airi huffs, starting the first scan.

“Sorry, but no. Not even one word… Can I be of any help?”, Airi asks, turning back towards Kolivan while she lets the scan run over the received transmission.

Kolivan is about to decline her offer, when he realizes that she’s one of the few agents at the HQ that must push themselves through lots of intel quintant after quintant. She might be able to help him progress with his small investigation.

“Thank you, I would appreciate it. I’m looking for our records on these quinthybrids Ulaz encountered”, Kolivan explains, accessing the terminal and logging himself in. Airi raises an eyebrow.

“I haven’t gotten anything about that in the time I’ve been stationed here. Check under Ulaz’ personal records, then. If you don’t find anything there, try the general main archive”, Airi recommends, turning back towards her station. She scoffed at the report from the program.

“Run inverse scan, same protocol”, she commands verbally, furrowing her eyebrows. Kolivan turns towards Ulaz’ files, skimming through the data. Just a moment later, when another chime indicates the scan finished, Airi hisses loudly.

Kolivan quirks an eyebrow, glancing over at the younger blade. “So, we’re playing that game, huh? Okay, it’s on! Isolate!”, Airi growls at the screen, typing in commands rapidly. So, there is something wrong with that incoming transmission.

“What is it, Airi?”, Kolivan asks, furrowing his eyebrows. The younger hybrid huffs.

“Nothing of importance, leader. I’ve just isolated a suspicious transmission. The date’s set as the next quintant, which is totally impossible”, Airi explains with a huff, resuming the scans to find out what kind of galra trickery that is.

Kolivan furrows his eyebrows, turning away from his terminal. He steps over to her, leaning over her chair and staring the transmission down, his thoughts racing. Something about the code on the screen seems awfully familiar.

That’s when Kolivan realizes why. A well-known string of numbers keeps repeating over and over, even though they make no sense. Kolivan sighs.

“Change the frequency, then invert. Then try running the decryption again”, Kolivan suggests, not taking his eyes off the screen for any tick. Airi raises her eyebrows, doubting that will work, but gives it a try anyways.

There’s a chime when the program’s done, and to Airi’s surprise, they have finally gotten the transmission decrypted. It’s an audio-file. “Huh, how’d you know this would work, leader?”, she asks Kolivan, looking at him over her shoulder.

“That was Keith’s method to decrypt data if our programs don’t work. It doesn’t often give a result, but when it does, it gives us priceless intel. Play the clip”, Kolivan states, stepping back from Airi’s chair.

Airi shakes her head. “I can’t. I’ve isolated it as it is a security risk. You can’t demand- “, she interjects, but Kolivan quickly interrupts her.

“We must take this risk. It might have crucial information. Go ahead and play it”, Kolivan insists, placing his hand on Airi’s shoulder. The hybrid hesitates, looking from Kolivan to the screen and then back. Eventually, she nods with a sigh.

“Yes, leader”, she responds, entering the command to release the file from the isolation. Upon pushing the enter button, the entire system shuts down, leaving the two in almost complete darkness.

Airi curses, trying to re-boot her systems in a haste, while Kolivan rumbles deeply in thought. He doesn’t seem concerned yet for some reason, but she can’t tell why.

That’s when a projector starts playing, and both are caught completely off-guard.

It’s Keith. He coughs. “Nora, this better work. I can’t stand leaving everyone in the dark”, he hisses towards someone outside of the view of the recording device he must have used.

“Don’t worry, they’ll get it, though it’ll probably get really messed up with your timeline… And it might mess up their systems a little. Okay, it’s recording. Go ahead, Keith”, a female voice responds from somewhere off-screen.

Keith sighs, shifting a bit to the side, before he looks back at the recording device with hesitation in his eyes.

“When you get this, it’s probably too late to stop me, but…”, Keith begins, scratching the back of his head and looking down at his feet. He takes a deep breath.

“I’m about to do something very risky and probably stupid”, he admits, sighing deeply afterwards. He raises his gaze again, and his eyes are full of regret.

< < < - > > >

Back in her own quarters, Allura changed into her marine-blue and white battle-suit, staring at her still slightly unfamiliar appearance in the mirror. Her now pink hair won’t turn back to its usual color until she could find time to wash it.

She huffed. The skin-tight suit wasn’t something she was used to wearing at all, and it had been resting in her wardrobe for quite some time and had already gathered a lot of dust. To her, it was a miracle it still fit her this perfectly. “I could have sworn that I’ve grown in all this time. How come this thing still fits? Never mind, we have a mission to carry out”, she mumbled to herself aloud, furrowing her eyebrows and forming a fist with her right hand.

“This is for our home. For our people”, she then whispered to herself, pulling open a drawer to her right and taking out a white hair-tie. She pulled her hair into a ponytail with a satisfied sigh.

“This should suffice”, she said, admiring herself in the mirror for a few more ticks before turning around and leaving her quarters.

She had expected her sister to be done already, but was surprised by the opposite. She knocked at the door opposite to her bedroom. “Priya, are you okay?”, she asked, waiting for a response. She doesn’t get one for a few ticks.

She was about to enter to check on her younger sibling, when said younger sister finally gave a response. “’Lura? I could use a little help…”, Priya responded. Her voice was slightly muffled by the door.

“I’m coming inside, okay?”, Allura informed her sister, before putting her hand on a scanner by the door.

“…Alright”, Priya responded in synch with a chime from the panel. The doors slid open.

Priyane was standing in front of her closet, tugging at her yellow and white suit, trying to reach the back and the zipper there. She was clearly frustrated at that point, tugging wildly at the fabric. Allura shook her head at that, smiling. She approached her younger sister.

“The mice tried helping me with the zipper, but it won’t budge what so ever! I think it’s stuck”, Priya explained, impatiently trying to force the suit into closing. Allura raised an eyebrow in amusement.

“…The mice?”, Allura questioned, kneeling behind her younger sister and being greeted by the sight of five mice hanging from a very stuck zipper.

“Yeah. Chuplachu and the other mice are my friends. Say Hi to my sister!”, she introduced the five colorful altean mice to her older sister Allura. The five mice greeted her with cheerful squeaks. They let go of the jammed zipper, landing on the floor with grace, right in front of Allura’s knees.

“Which one’s Chuplachu?”, Allura asked, while working to pull the yellow fabric out of the zipper. Priya didn’t have to respond that, as one of the mice climbed up into her lap. It had pastel-purple fur and blue eyes and squeaked cheerfully, doing something that Allura could only identify to be bowing. There’s a flower-shaped splotch of darker purple fur over it’s right eye.

“Well, Chuplachu, it’s an honor!”, Allura said, finally managing to pull the fabric free and closing the zipper of her sister’s suit. Allura got back up to her feet, making the purple mouse jump to the floor.

“Thanks, ‘Lura!”, the temporarily red-headed princess said, beginning to shift her skin-color to a paler color, looking again like any other altean. Allura raised her eyebrows at that, giving her sister a questioning look. Priya didn’t respond immediately, instead picking up the purple mouse from the floor and setting it down on her shoulder, before turning to her sister again.

“What? I like it this way. Looks better”, Priya defended herself, crossing her arms in front of her chest. Allura rolled her eyes.

“Don’t you want to tie your hair together, Priya?”, Allura asked, following her sister who was already leaving the room. The other princess shook her head.

“I need you to guard my bedroom. No one’s allowed in here besides mother and father. Understood?”, Priya said, turning around briefly to look at the mice. The four remaining mice nodded, giving tiny salutes at her. Priya smiled, saluting back.

“We’ll be back before you know it!”, she said, turning back towards the door and motioning for her older sister to follow her.

- - -

“So, these mice- “, Pidge realizes, pointing at the four space-mice sitting on Allura’s lap. The princess nods.

“Yeah, Platt, Plachu, Chuchule and Chulatt are the same mice as back then. I’ve only realized it recently myself”, Allura explains, pointing at each of the mice as she says their names.

“…and Chu- Chuplachu?”, Lance asks hesitantly, tilting his head with an uncertain expression. Allura’s own expression tuned somber at that. She formed her hands into fists, clutching at the fabric while trying to remain calm.

“Unfortunately, Chuplachu has been gone since before the destruction of Altea”, Coran explains, a similarly sad expression on his face.

He twirls his moustache. “The little fella died like a true hero”, he then adds with a fond sigh. The expressions of the paladins darken upon hearing that.

“Oh man”, Hunk whispers. Pidge’s glasses drop to the floor with a clattering noise, apologizing quietly and reaching down for it.

Lance stays silent. Looking at the mice, he is trying to decipher what they are thinking at that moment. He turns his gaze towards the princess, hoping to figure out what’s going on in the mice and her. Surprisingly, she has already managed to put up a mask. Lance suppresses a sigh.

The princess puts on a smile, and is about to continue her tale, when they receive an incoming transmission. The paladins jump to their feet and the princess yelps in surprise. They all head back to the bridge in a hurry, accepting the incoming call last tick. They’re greeted by the familiar face of Kolivan.

“Greetings, princess. Paladins, Coran”, he nods at each, before sighing.

“What is it, Kolivan? New intel?”, Pidge asks, sitting down in her own seat on the bridge. Lance doesn’t bother to – he has the feeling that he won’t have to.

“Yes. We’ve encountered a sudden burst of strange activity, as well as some information on Keith. We just have received a video-report from him, with… most unsettling content”, he explains, motioning for someone off-screen to do something. The image of Kolivan disappears and instead, there’s a recording of Keith. The paladins gasp in unison.

“Keith!”, Lance exclaims, his eyes widening. There their missing friend is, seeming alright and relatively unharmed aside from a few scratches.

“Nora, this better work. I can’t stand leaving everyone in the dark”, Keith hisses towards someone outside of the view of the recording device he must have used.

Keith sighs, shifting a bit to the side, before he looks back at the recording device with hesitation in his eyes.

“When you get this, it’s probably too late to stop me, but…”, Keith begins, scratching the back of his head and looking down at his feet. He takes a deep breath. The paladins follow each of his small movements with their gaze.

“I’m about to do something very risky and probably stupid”, he admits, sighing deeply afterwards. He raises his gaze again, and his eyes are full of regret. Hunk yelps in surprise at that.

“What?”, he shouts in disbelief, not quite sure how he could come up with something crazy like this. Pidge shushes him.

“I can’t really tell you much besides the fact that I’m going to leave the multiverse for this, attempting to get a very old and special book away from the wrong hands”, he explains. A human-like girl steps into view from the right, though only showing her back at first.

“Retrieving the book could turn the tide for all of the multiverse. The corruption has made its way too far already. Stopping the corruption means stopping two wars”, she explains with a sigh, turning towards the camera. Pidge’s jaw drops in recognition of her features.

“What the actual Quiznak…? What the actual hell is Nora doing in space?! This- This can’t be!”, she exclaims in surprise, making the other paladins turn their heads in her direction with various levels of confusion in their expressions.

“Who is Nora?”, Hunk asks.

----------------------------------------------- (THE BEGINNING | LAST | NEXT)

#Quintmagic Chronicles #Quintmagic Chronicles 1 - The Battle Begins #QMC 1 #para-power-paladins-au #para power paladins au #vld #fanfiction #now on ao3 too!

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