Lotor shouldn't have been able to win. That was the thought that had kept Pidge awake at night after the sudden victory of Prince Lotor. It was a battle that had destroyed Allura's castle and sent the lions running away once more to the four corners of the universe. The prince had taken them all prisoner and separated them. Since then, Pidge hadn't seen her friends. She had been taken to the fighting arena Matt and Shiro had been forced to compete in, except she wasn't here for sport. Pidge was here to clean up after the fights, the bodies and the gore left over from the brutal Galra sport.

It was another night that she was left sore and exhausted in the bed the robots had provided for her. Her basic needs had been attended to in exchange for her servitude and reluctant obedience. She was allowed one shower in the morning, a bed made from spare ship parts that she had been left to build herself, a blanket and pillow made from spare fabric, and a fresh set of clothes every week. Two meals a day were given to her, the same food the victorious gladiators got to ensure they were strong enough for the next fight - it tasted like earth.

Her first week in the arena, Pidge's clothes were destroyed. The white and green of her clothes were soaked through with red, black, and violet. She hadn't been able to tell what was blood, and what was... other. She was almost glad for them to be gone if they hadn't been her last ties to the new life she was leading, a life where she was part of a team she loved and she was close to finding... She hadn't thought about Matt in a long time. She hadn't wanted to. The fact that she had been so close to finding him and then suddenly all her progress striped away, her beloved lion abandoning her per Keith's request - it had been too much to bare.

Lotor himself visited her, checking in to make sure she was still subservient and well cared for enough that she wouldn't rebel. The first time she had met him, she had snapped at him, trying to land a hit or bite him, or anything, but his strong generals held her off, the blind reptilian woman Narti slapping her hard across the face with her tail. The impact had knocked her unconscious, and in the morning, Pidge had been forced to go back to work.

Now, when Lotor visited, Pidge remained in a silent rage, watching him with her analyzing green eyes. He would talk about how her friends were still alive, but never where they were - with the exception to one.

Lotor loved to talk about what he did to Allura.

Allura had been taken back to Lotor's castle, left to wander the halls of his palace like a pet, even given a bed in his personal bedroom - one fit for a Galran watchdog. He liked to laugh, describing how her beautiful white hair would get tangled in her bronze collar, mixed with flecks of what was left of the comet - a final insult to an already permanent injury. Once a proud and beautiful princess, almost an adult, was now a prisoner of war to a deranged prince born from undead parents.

Today was not one of the days he would visit. Pidge had begun to mark the days on her bedroom wall. Lotor's visits were always the first of the marks on her wall. A constant reminder of how her days were decided by him, how he changed and ruined everything. Pidge was alone, barred from even speaking to the other enslaved members of the arena. All she had was her desire for revenge and the twitch in her fingers that desired her keyboard, or really any ability to work on programs and computers.

When Pidge woke up the next morning, it was her hour of free time, before breakfast and her shower. She exited her room, walking barefoot on the cold sub floors of the Galran arena. None of the other slaves were awake yet, since none of them were allowed the same freedoms as a prisoner of war. As a paladin of Voltron.

She could hear the sound of the fights on the floor above already. She had learned quickly that the Galra liked to watch fights early in the morning, take a break to go about their business, and then return for more. It was like all they liked was fighting, but Pidge knew better. The Galra were greatly intelligent and used quintessence as a source for their newest weapons and technology. She knew they were capable of greatness and yet focused on the slaughtering of innocents to conquer the galaxy.

She climbed the stairs meant for her and the others to go out and clean, just beside the space where they held prisoners before their fights. This room was open and full of buckets for body parts from the night before. She shivered, seeing them and remembering the aliens they had belonged to. She remembered their screams, the way their eyes widened and begged for merc-. Pidge immediately shook the thought from her head before going up to the door, opened just a crack, like usual. She could barely see anything except for the reigning champion, Galrax.

Galrax was a half-blooded Galra warrior bred specifically for land war and the arena. He was three times the size of an average Galra warrior and even bulkier. He was missing his right eye, the left one glowing yellow and rageful. His body was covered in grey scars, stark against his purple skin. He was intimidating to say the least. He dressed in an almost Roman style with a single leather strap across his body holding up loose, worn shorts. He was barefoot, somehow able to stand atop the sand without sinking in, agile on ground that should be impossible to fight upon.

Pidge watched him swing an axe bigger than her body into a smaller alien, slicing his body cleanly in half. The Balmeran's blood spurt across the white sand, a color that was teal in hue, a color like river water, life giving and beautiful and - oh no, that was it's blood. She wanted to throw up. All she could think about was the Balmera, how Hunk and saved their people and defended the living planet. The moment Voltron was capture, the plant and had been the first to be taken back. Lotor had told her himself. They had taken the rebels and forced them into the fights, including Shay. No one knew what happened to Shay. Pidge backed away from the door, heading back down to her room to meet the robots or try not to think about Shay when she heard a voice. She stopped and turned back, running toward the crack into the horror that was Galran entertainment. Was that...

She could barely see between the doors and spotted... "Shiro," she breathed, spotting a white tuft of hair amongst black and a glowing violet arm. There was no way... Had he seriously been thrown back into the area? "No, no, no, no..." She didn't want to watch any longer, but her eyes were glue to her former leader, the man who was like a second father to her, who held her when she was worried about her family. That was Shiro in the arena.

A/N: Holy shit, its been literal years since I've uploaded anything... I've got to apologize for that, if I have any fans out there (I see ya mom ;)). Anyway, I hope to turn this into a full story with psychological/gore themes. Just be warned, I'm planning to be very descriptive in the future about this. I don't know what I want to do with it yet, but I know I want it to be dark. Likely, I'll get a few chapters in and then give up... Whelp, I hope you liked the taste of what's to come. - Raven