Well it has been a Long Ass Time folks. All i can say is that pretty much every excuse in the book applies, a busy senior year of high school, writers block, doubts, changing fandoms, busy summer, busy college, etc.

But, starting in Nov. I've been going to a 4 day a week writing group and that's really helping me dedicate time to this so I really think the next chapter will be only in a month or smth. That's about as much as I can promise.

I will never let it go this long again.

Idea created by me Thecityofthefireflies and Tchailla on tumblr

VLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLD

VLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLD

The hand they gave him was so intimate a weapon.

A sword, though a close-quarters weapon that made him watch the light fade from his opponents' eyes and left him splattered with blood, was at least impersonal. It was a detachable item that had transferred only vibrations up his arm and across his shoulder. He could at least physically cast off that brutal role of warrior at the end of every fight.

The arm was personal. Cutting through flesh, even with the hand alit, had a horrible sensation. There was a microsecond of resistance, before, like crushing a grape, the flesh gave and was sheared like paper. He could smell meat charring, feel the pulse of body systems, taste the rancid breath of last exhales.

The arm felt like an extension of himself in so many ways, but it was impossible to forget it was artificial. The Galra technology was extremely advanced, it had a smoother and greater range of motion than the joints on a real hand would, but the sensations were subtly different. It had temperature and pressure and texture sensors that were more than adequate. But flesh has a give to it. Even the most taut musculature has squishy skin over it and feels organic. The arm was solid and hard metal, there was no molding slightly to a surface, it either touched or it didn't. Texture was another jarring change. Instead of the grooves of a fingerprint and the pad of a finger feeling out a surface, it was a staccato vibration of metal finger clipping a surface.

The reality of what the Galra had done to him settled in again with each fight. And with it came the reality of the life he was living.

Sometimes he considered just letting himself die. It would be absurdly easy to let himself lose a fight. Battling to a win was strenuous and unpleasant. If he so wished, he could just pick an opponent and weapon trajectory that would kill him so swiftly after he thudded to the sandy floor that he would not even have to hear the roar of the crowd.

But each time faced with that choice he did not pursue it. Each time he clung with desperate claws to life.

During a fight, his flesh arm had been cut - a messy snag of talons shearing out a groove of bicep. The pain was a dangerous distraction and Shiro had danced backwards, staggering away to gain distance and a moment's respite.

He needed space and time to think.

Shiro sprinted across the sand and leaned against a pillar with his back to the focus of the action. Judging by the crowd and the grunts and wet slurps combined with suddens rips, the alien was occupied goring a fallen gladiator, another red tally in Shiro's ledger of failure.

And he was at a crossroads. This wound could kill him. The bleeding was heavy and not slowing, and this fight was far from over. It was not the worst injury he had sustained, but usually the bloodiest gashes came in the desperate close attacks that ended a match and returned him to the callous care of the medical facilities. He needed something immediate to survive the rest of this fight.

A horrid idea struck him and he stared at his foreign, bloodstained palm.

He used the hand to shoddily cauterize the injury, the pain enough that the addition of searing and the stench of charred flesh did not outweigh the benefit of stopped blood flow. Using the Galra hand to save his life left a foul taste in his mouth.

But he did it regardless.

He told himself he was living for Earth, to warn them. For Solaan, whose eyes softened the few chances they had to meet gazes and would send reassuring nods in his direction. For the weaker prisoners, the untested, untried who had never held a weapon before and were sent into the arena to be slaughtered as blood fodder to rile up the crowd before the real fights.

He was not living for himself.

VLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLD

Despite being in a family and lifestyle of vigilantes, Shiro did not have a consistent codename. He'd tried out Nightjar, and had stuck with Starling for years, but none had truly clicked. His siblings ended up calling him variations of spaceman and space themed jokes. Nothing had become a second identity the way Batman was for Bruce or Oracle was for Barbara.

Until now. The whispers of "Champion" had spread after those early fights, echoing from cells in the corridors and jeered by opponents, and now it was notorious.

He had always understood the theoreticals behind creating a separate persona for vigilantism, but never before had he truly understood the inherent power in a dual identity. It was equal parts blessing and curse.

It helped in the arena, because it was not space cadet Shiro fighting, it was not brother or son Shiro fighting, it was not pilot Shiro, it was The Champion. And as The Champion he could be brutal, he could spill blood, he could growl in pain and rage and then slink back to his cell and weep as Shiro.

However there were times when he felt the liberation of his role as The Champion could be too consuming. It made it easier to use tactics with the intent to kill.

His technique had changed as he rose in the ranks, his opponents more and more often other vicious victors and now rarely helpless blood-fodder. And so he was employing lessons taught to him less by Bruce or Diana or Dinah, but more by Solaan.

His crash-course in alien anatomy had been shallow because of the sheer variety he might face. Solaan had instead drilled into him the strategy of going for the neck. They had explained that nearly all species have some form of head or brain encasement and targeting its attachment to the body is a safe bet for conquering any unknown alien.

Shiro had received this advice early in his days as a gladiator, but had not the stomach to implement it for many weeks.

And now, with his Galra hand that split keratin plates like butter, he could attack with deadly force.

He couldn't help but keep up a count of the outcomes of his fights. Both the deaths he did not prevent, and the ones he caused. And as the blood spilled and numbers grew he could little help but notice that he was far beyond the realm of most criminals.

There were people serving life sentences who had snuffed far fewer flames than he, - cells in Arkham filled by those who had never used their own hand to end a life, - mug-shots of faces who had never felt the spray of blood from a torn jugular. He was on par with the monsters.

VLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLD

Shiro sat up from the microscope he had been looking into. Bruce had asked him to compare the weave and wear of two pieces of cloth from crime scenes and he needed to sit back and think about it.

Shiro could hear grunts from the out-of-site training floor where Cass and Jason were sparring and the rattle of Dick's gymnastic equipment.

Tim and Steph were monopolizing an empty table with a sprawl of homework.

It was a good day in the cave. Shiro smiled as the thought came accompanied with new inspiration for examining fiber fraying and hunched back over, adjusting a lense.

"Hey English Question. Need an example of extended allusion or metaphor in something I read this semester." Stephanie broke the silence. Shiro felt satisfied pride that she was comfortable to ask. When she had first switched to Gotham Academy on a Wayne Scholarship, she had pushed herself, determined not to let Bruce down and certain that meant independency. Actually, Bruce encouraged teamwork and consultation in the family.

A perk of most of them going through the same school, one with tenure and established curriculum meant that the chances of someone having previously done an assignment was high.

Shiro looked up from his microscope again.

" Old Man and the Sea . Santiago is Jesus. He gets hand injuries, he makes 'a noise similar to that of a man having nails driven through his hands'. At the end, he collapses on his bed and he's lying with his hands out like a cross." Shiro remembered doing that same outline.

"Thanks Captain Kirk" Steph called. Shiro groaned, anticipating the oncoming chorus.

"Actually, since he's a pilot isn't he more Sulu?" Dick commented helpfully, dropping down from his set of parallel bars and walking over, wiping sweat from his brow onto his faded Gotham Knights shirt.

Tim snorted. "He strikes me as more Travis Mayweather."

Shiro smiled around the cave fondly. His eyes catching with Stephanie's gaze. She was grinning at him, smile shining beneath a plain domino mask. Batman was the only one in the cave in full regalia - the rest just wore dominoes. Bruce didn't want to risk a bare-face showing up in the background of a video call.

Stephanie faltered and in her place was Haggar, a feral smirk stretching her features. She was there just long enough for Shiro to register and then it was back to Steph, rolling her eyes and shoving Tim with her shoulder.

Shiro slowly pushed his chair back from the table, the screech of the base on the floor ringing louder than the rest of the sounds of the cave. He felt something cold and heavy settle in his core. He stood up, the banter continuing with Jason and Cass entering the main area, hair equally mussed and matching towels over their necks.

Shiro walked over to Haggar-Stephanie. She was flickering more frequently now. He looked around again. No one else seemed to be noticing this.

"Is Scarecrow in Arkham?" He asked cautiously. For once he prayed this was fear toxin. He needed to know now though, before he took action.

He only had experienced the effects once, in his youth, when the Batmobile had rolled into the cave where he was waiting, after watching an intense and dramatic showdown between Scarecrow and Batman and Robin and Nightwing that had culminated unsatisfactorily in Scarecrow's escape.

He had been overwrought and ran to the returned trio, and embraced them in turn, clinging and unknowingly inhaling residual Fear Toxin.

Everyone had been exhausted and Shiro already upset enough that the preliminary signs went unnoted and he, and everyone else, had gone to bed.

They were woken later by him screaming, eyes open but unseeing, awake in a nightmare. Bruce had administered the antidote and stayed with him for the rest of the night.

That raw, unbridled terror at things that had seemed real was not something he wanted to re-experience, nor did he want to act on unfounded and strange visions. If this was a hallucination he did not want to hurt his family.

"He is. And his rehabilitation reports are showing progress." Bruce answered from the Batcomputer. He was still facing Oracle. Good. Shiro didn't want him watching.

Haggar was there long enough to let out a laugh and then it was back to Stephanie, smiling up at him. She looked trusting. He lit his arm up.

Shiro put his glowing Galra appendage through his little sister's heart and it hurt in a way no weapon could.

Stephanie burst into a puff of mist with a brightness that momentarily disoriented Shiro from his stricken state.

The others were continuing with their conversation, ignoring the absence of Stephanie.

Now Dick was the one flickering to a shorter, white haired frame and then back to himself. Shiro strode towards him on steadier legs than he thought he ought to have.

"Do you want a sweaty hug, sweat-ie?" Dick said, laughing with arms spread, showing the mottled dark patches on his shirt. It flashed to Haggar with spread robes.

"Please no. Don't do this." Shiro muttered, and chopped Dick in half. He too burst out of existence.

Shiro swiveled around, watching each of the rest of the family, dreading any of the options of who could be next.

Jason sputtered-his eyes glowing yellow. He had a shit-eating grin. "Actually I think you're more Wesley."

He was still laughing when Shiro dispersed him. It was perhaps worse that they did not react, merely acting as if everything was normal until they disappeared. Shiro was the only one shaking, the only one wracked with guilty choked sobs.

Shiro was in the middle of the triangle of Tim, Cass, and Bruce. A bolt of gratitude struck him that Alfred wasn't present in this hellscape.

Cass, with her typical understated delivery, placed a hand on his chest.

"R2-D2." She said decisively. He smiled. Even as another sister turned to Haggar and the hand resting on his pectoral gained sharp nails and dug into his flesh painfully.

After he did away with Cass, Tim was next. Shiro went through the motions quickly and with as little thought as possible. It pained him how practiced this was already becoming.

And then Bruce. Destroying even an image of Bruce would only drive home more solidly how far he had deviated from the principles his adoptive father had instilled in him.

Bruce was smiling at him - the little curve of his closed lips that could slip past the seriousness of the batcave and the cowl.

Shiro stared at his own eyes reflected in the lenses of the mask and hated himself. The face looking back could not be his own now, because the rip across his nose was missing and those eyes did not burn with the haunted exhaustion he ached with.

Shiro searched Bruce's visage for an apology he did not deserve and with the destruction of Batman, the Batcave melted into darkness.

VLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLD

There was a heavy anticipation of pain and gore, a speculation of whether this would be a fight uphill against a savage opponent or a fight of restraint against some helpless victim.

He often forced himself to push past his lack of desire to watch the match before his - the inability to help a weak competitor despite being only meters away was intensely disheartening - but frequently he knew he was to fight the victor of a match and that strategically he must bring himself witness whatever bloodbath played out.

He was focusing on the hissing, bipedal bird-esque alien that was had an iridescent covering that was intermediary scales and feathers that ended in wickedly sharp points. It had used a serrated beak to rip the still-twitching circulatory system from the screaming form of its last opponent. Shiro hoped it would be defeated by whatever poor creature faced it before him, getting close enough to put his hand through the feather-scales would be difficult and he was not sure how thick they were, -If he would have to hack away to create an opening to even injure. The likelihood of him ending a fight of that kind anything close to unscathed was scant.

The figure that was shoved out onto the sand next was not some defenseless waif, nor was it some brawler. It was the six limbed hulking form of Solaan.

Shiro watched, wide-eyed, his parched eyes drinking in the sight of the friend he had been treated to only infrequent glimpses of in months. They looked little changed, fur perhaps a hint duller and thinner and something in their face held a deep weariness.

They rolled both sets of shoulders, limbering up their joints and sending ripples rustling through their purplish fur.

They stepped into the central area of the arena and evaluated the bird-like opponent with a calm resignation. Shiro knew Solaan's methodology in trying to create an initial strategy.

With a sudden burst of motion the bird-alien darted and jabbed for Solaan's thigh, Solaan pivoted, planting their lower arms and used their body as a lever to deliver a bucking kick that sent the alien staggering feet away.

The attack and dodge continued. Solaan was the bulkier and slower of the two, and they relied on their endurance and powerful blows to retaliate against the vicious speed. The bird was in constant motion, dodging and leaping like a ricocheting shuttlecock in a volley.

The fight came to a head with a graphic collision between the beak of the bird-alien and the broad palm of Solaan's upper right hand.

Shiro's gasp was matched by the crowd and the wet puncturing sound of the action. Everything froze for part of a moment and then Solaan flexed and raised the injured arm, heaving their opponent up, the beak still driven completely through their flesh.

The alien thrashed as its feet left the ground, and with its spindly taloned legs flashing and goring deep gouges across Solaan's chest and thighs.

Shiro flinched with each strike. He was pressed as close to the force field as he dared, watching desperately.

Solaan stayed stoic and clamped a hand around one leg, the other foot's talons scored first that wrist, and then they ripped into the other arm that came to seize the free leg. Solaan gripped the legs and with their remaining unoccupied hand, reached for the neck of the bird.

The beady eye of the alien widened and then its neck oscillated with a writhing yank, it pulled free its beak and drove it pointedly into one of Solaan's eyes.

They bellowed, this injury finally snapping their control. Solaan's limbs jerked spasmodically and with a lurch, their arms jolted in opposite directions and tore the legs off the bird-like alien.

Solaan, brownish coat now patchy with blood, had managed to end the fight in better condition than their hemorrhaging opponent.

The wave of relief that Shiro felt at their survival was quickly followed by a tsunami of dread.

He was to fight the victor of the match he had just witnessed. He was going to have to face Solaan.

He was churning with scenarios. Would Solaan and he fake some sham of a fight that ended with a mutual loss? Or would he sacrifice himself for Solaan or the other way around? He doubted that Solaan would engage him in true combat like a bonafide opponent. Could Solaan even survive long enough to put on a show satisfactory to the merciless voyeurs?

His gate was opened and his feet felt so heavy in the sand. The matching dull thuds of his heart and his steps carried him across the floor. The stadium was roaring with the fervor his appearance always provoked, but that was all a negligible rush in Shiro's ears. The only sound he heard was the rasp of Solaan's labored breaths.

Solaan tried to plant their arms and heave themself up to standing, but their limbs trembled with strain and nearly gave out with the attempt. So they stayed kneeling.

Shiro stood before Solaan, feeling odd and awful being the taller one. He reached out a gentle hand and trailed his fingertips tenderly over the soaking of blood. Solaan's blood was morbidly beautiful. It disgusted and pained Shiro for what it was - the life of his friend pulsing out over his fingers - but it was fascinatingly different from most hemoglobin-based bloods. Solaan's blood was a teal blue and shimmered with a golden metallic sheen. And it was painted over both of them.

Solaan shifted their weight and freed a hand from holding themself up and covered Shiro's. Somehow, through the likely-crippling pain of their bleeding eye, through the damage to their body, through their fear, they managed to soften their gaze and smile at Shiro.

It was Shiro whose breath shuddered in a sob as if he were the one nearly gutted. Solaan slid Shiro's prosthetic hand down to cup their chin and throat, and Shiro felt the rumble of their speech resonate up it.

"It is good to see you. And to see that you have not lost yourself to let the fight become easier."

Shiro was momentarily taken aback, he expected an immediate addressal of the matter of the fight at hand.

"I… No, of course not." He paused. There were so many things he suddenly needed to say. They were not living a situation with allowances for regrets or ignoring opportunities. "I didn't want to let you down."

Solaan met his honesty with equal gravity. "You could not have let me down."

"I've tried to do as you said, to save people by getting them sent off and to only kill the-" His rush of words was interrupted.

"I know. I know and you have done well." Solaan's smile, still battling against the tightness of a grimace of pain, grew a little. Now they were interrupted.

The crowd had not been content to sit idle as they caught up. The baying for blood grew in fervor and suddenly Shiro noticed a Galra with a handheld control panel standing at one of the arena's entrances and staring at him. The second Shiro made eye-contact with him, the Galra's countenance turned smug and he manipulated something.

Shiro staggered, a shout leaving him, as his body was wracked with electric pain. It was not a lengthy sensation, he was left gasping after only a moment and a cold and clear voice ordered him to "Fight!".

He tried to muster himself, staring at Solaan, but found he could only refuse.

He was shocked again, this time leaving him crouched in the sand with a hand planted to support himself. Now it was Solaan giving orders.

"Shiro, you have to do something. They'll do that until you pass out or die and then I'll face whomever comes after you."

"What would you have me do?" Shiro didn't like either option.

"You have to kill me."

"NO!" That got Shiro up off the sand and back to his previous position before Solaan.

"I will not survive these wounds much longer. If not you, then the next competitor will kill me. And I would rather it was you than something brutal." Solaan was so serious. Shiro was running his options through his mind and did not like any of them. He had no desire to see Solaan torn apart by someone else, but to kill them himself was a nightmarish prospect.

He placed his prosthetic hand to their throat, and they met his gaze with a composed readiness. Shiro lit his hand and found himself frozen in incapacity.

This was the scenario he was tortured with, this was his terror, putting his hand through a loved one. He had performed this act countless times in hallucinations to dozens of people, but he knew this was real. This was not Haggar pulling the strings this was his own volition.

The glow of his hand turned off and he dropped it limply.

"I can't. Solaan I'm sorry but I can't." His voice sounded breathy and whiny to his own ears.

"I understand. I should not have asked." Solaan did not sound accusative. Shiro felt even lower with that. Solaan had trusted him to do one basic thing he had done so many times before, he had killed so many except the one person who had actually wanted him to do it.

Inspiration struck him, because he could not just abandon Solaan to the blade of another. He had a third option.

He stood tall and stared around the crowd, garnering their attention and his own voice declaring an ultimatum with his own alit hand held to his throat. Either Solaan was taken to a work colony or he, the titular Champion, would never fight again.

It took a staredown of conviction and sheer stubbornness cultivated out of the Wayne household, but it apparently worked.

Solaan was removed from the arena with breath still in their chest. And Shiro was left with nothing of them but hopes and doubts.

For all he knew, all his supposed leverage of popularity was a sham and worthless and he was merely condemning Solaan to a future death behind shut doors. There was no guarantee, he had no rights and no real say on what they did.

But he had been an incapable coward when faced with the surer solution.

Were these benevolent acts of violence against people he loved his curse? How many times must he use the sharp side of a sword to save? And was it really more merciful than death? His knowledge of the work colonies was limited and fragmentary, combinations of hopeful imaginings, Galra propaganda, and threats from guards.

They might be simply worked to death, a slow and painful dragged out process. Or they could be kept alive and tortured in worse ways in colonies far from any regulatory supervision of the mainstream Empire.

The injuries he inflicted may just be the first in an endless onslaught of suffering.

VLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLD

Shiro had little chance to see other prisoners outside of gladiator matches or passing by others surrounded by an equal number of sentry robots in the corridors. He was kept in a solitary cell, he was fed in that cell, and after his fights he was now often the only survivor being healed in the medical facilities. Or he was being taken to Haggar's chamber of horrors or some other lab for experimentation. There was little socialization, and with Solaan gone, there was no one to seek out if he had been allowed in a crowd.

But anomalies in any surety could crop up, and Shiro was being escorted after an exhausting match, bruised and stumbling and desperate for the horizontal surface in his cell that was at least mostly safe to collapse on, when the screeching blare of an alarm went filled the corridor. Shiro had pieced together an observation of the severity scale of various Galra alarms and this one was blaring with importance. He had little else to do with his downtime. When he was too exhausted to exercise he could only listen to the ambient noise - the hydraulics of doors, the ringing clip of sentry steps, the occasional scream.

His escorts this time were a mix of flesh and metal. The two Galra guards exchanged glances over his head, looking through him as a ragged prisoner, a non-entity, and both shrugged and frowned. Rapidly, they growled orders to the two robots and those sprinted down the corridor, presumably towards the commotion.

Suddenly Shiro was grabbed around the bicep and hauled bodily around a corner and stopped in front of a closed cell door. It was a larger cell, like the one he had shared with Solaan and others in those early weeks.

The guard not holding him partially off the floor slapped her hand against the door control and as soon as it opened he was rudely tossed in. He stumbled as the door shut behind him and heard a muttered "That counts as temporarily securing any in-transit prisoners right?" between the guards.

His eyes adjusted to the darkened light and he was met with five sets of eyes. Three were species he had seen or fought before, two were tall vermiform beings that swayed hypnotically and twined around each other in an embrace. It would have been almost cute but for the fear in their eyes.

In fact, all of the beings in the room were ones he would have immediately decided to try to get sent to the labor colony if he faced them on the sand.

He turned to the most calm looking person in the room, a slender but humanoid being with brightly colored segments of color, and raised his hands in a peaceful, beseeching gesture. He was desperate to assure his harmlessness to all present as swiftly as possible.

He had little chance.

There was a movement behind him - he had not attentively tracked the motion of every person in the room and let one get behind him. He fought down his combat instincts, determined to show his friendly intent, to show that he was just another helpless prisoner trapped in this situation and thus akin to them, and was wholly unprepared for the sudden punching pain to the back of his lower left rib cage.

He gasped and dropped to his knees, breathing suddenly laborious, and groped behind himself, the motion of his shoulders pulling and twisting the painful flesh. He felt a rough edged piece of hard material, plastic or bone, it was difficult to say, that was wrapped in a layered strip of frayed and greasy fabric.

He left the weapon in his flesh, it was keeping at least some of the blood on this inside and he did not feel like contorting and cauterizing himself when he knew there was at least some chance the guards would return and take him to a proper facility with a far less painful repair tactic.

The other inhabitants of the cell, even the bold one who had stabbed him, were keeping their distance now, huddled against the walls. He little blamed them. They likely thought him some wounded animal, burning to lash out at anything that dared come close.

And he felt little better than that.

It was an agonizing wait after that. Shiro lying on the ground in a twisted pose that relieved the most pain from his injury and focusing on breathing. In the back of his mind there was a countdown going, there was only so long he dared wait for guards to return before he lost too much blood. Before that threshold he would have to take matters into his own hands and close the wound. But until then he would wait.

The guards, only the female the same as before, returned before he had to take measures of self preservation and collected him off the floor with a scoff of disgust. He was healed by the apathetic infirmary and with little ceremony returned to his cell for his usual solitary rumination.

He had been shanked. In prison. The absurdity of this being the prison cliche he got to experience, despite being in deep space, was not lost on him. He tried to focus on that near-amusement, trying to think about how much Jason would laugh at that, at the face Dick would have made, at how Keith would have scoffed. His brain kept slipping down the alternative train of thought.

This was painful evidence that he was no hero. He was seen as something to be feared and put down by a makeshift weapon by a prisoner his instinct was to save. He was not viewed as a savior or a Champion of these common folk. He was seen as the enemy, - the one to be struck down, - to be feared.

It rankled and rotted in his heart. Was this how superheroes whose populace disliked them felt? Or worse, was this how villians saw themselves? A hero working against the actual wishes of the people for some grander scheme that he thought he understood?

He had been shanked and it felt like a betrayal to all of the efforts he thought he had been making on behalf of the weaker.

VLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLD

The arena was becoming a preferable destination. This was not an opinion Shiro had ever anticipated harboring, but as his escort of uncaring Galra robot drones turned more and more often to the right instead of the left at the crossroads of the main corridor and led him away from the arena and towards either a scientist or Haggar's workroom, he found himself wishing for the crowds and sand.

At least when he was fighting he had some facsimile of control. He may not be there by choice and his opponents were never of his own selection, but he picked which moment to lunge, where to strike, how to move and feel. It was the only time he felt truly alive and present in the moment.

Time in his lilac-lit cell droned in the monotony of echoed robotic footsteps clanking past in a clockwork rhythm broken only by the delivery of food. But in the arena it was a series of heartbeats pulsing fast and roaring with his blood and the crowd.

And there he picked which blows to give and take. And the pain, for there was often pain, was natural - in that it came from injury and was localized at a source rather than from some inflicted cruelty.

When he was strapped to a table, or forced into a tank of fluid, or scanned or prodded, he had no control. When they alit every nerve in his body at once, or worked through them systematically, the pain was the kind that writhed under his skin and churned his gut. A seemingly endless discomfort made worse by the callous interest of the scientists.

Time with Haggar was foul beyond that. When she was not using her powers to wrack his body with agony, she invaded his mind with distorted visions of his loved ones that grew more disturbing and detailed with each session.

Sometimes they were memories, nights in the Batcave with his siblings, or gatherings with the Justice League, or cadets he had grown up with in the Garrison, other times they were new creations. Being pitted against Solaan, or Bruce, or Dick, or Jason, or Keith or someone, in the arena and forced to fight desperately to the death.

The fights against Bruce were the worst.

Haggar's Batman grew more and more lifelike and now vocalized scorn and disappointment just as often as it did gruff affection.

Lingering doubts about his actions were dragged into the light in the most painful way.

It was one thing to think on the darkest of nights about the way he was betraying nearly every doctrine his adoptive father had ever instilled a belief in. - But to hear him say it. To look into Bruce's eyes, for now Batman was just as often a maskless Bruce Wayne in training clothes, and see disapproval, to see the disappointment, to see the resignation to failure, cut Shiro to the quick.

For Shiro was not breaking the "no killing" rule in some questionable accident. Irregardless of the utter lack of pleasure he took in killing, he deliberately went for lethal blows and no circumstantial justification he offered in pleading gasps from beseeching lips could undo the intent behind each bloody victory.

LDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLD

It was not that escape had never occurred to Shiro, but rather that it had been a pipedream of impracticality. Even if he made it out of his cell or out of his bonds, he would still have to make it through a maze of patrolled corridors, and even if he made it that far, he was in space, which created an even greater complication of transportation.

But he was a scion of Batman, so despite his misgivings he was prepared to leap at any opportunity. And Ulaz was offering a chance that accounted for many of the potential problems Shiro had been most daunted by. He had mapped every corridor he had had the privilege of being forced down, and kept a mental count of steps and shift changes. He could handle navigating the corridors and there was a spacecraft waiting at the end.

The plan as soon as he was out of Galra range was to contact the Green Lantern Corps and through them one of the Earth Lanterns and the Justice League and his father. He was mentally prepared for complications in this, without Galra translation technology he was likely going to be reduced to pointing at something green and at a ring or his finger and hoping the Corps had widespread awareness in that area.

Instead, to his shock, he was met with familiar constellations and passing by planets he was intimately familiar with. He was in the Solar System. The Galra were in the Solar System. Relief was warring with panic in him. On the one hand, he could directly land on Earth, but on the other the Galra would see one of their own hijacked ships landing there.

He would have to hope he created enough of a warning for the Watchtower and other interplanetary defenses to prepare.

Some part of him was even hopeful that he would be hailed by the Watchtower or met halfway by J'onn or Superman.

Instead, he was greeted with nothing. He had little capacity to dwell on that rather concerning fact. His descent and landing were dangerous and difficult enough that it took much of his piloting expertise to make it survivable. He had spent a lot of time in simulators learning how to crash ships in ways that kept the cabin intact, but this was an unfamiliar ship and simulations could never quite capture the desperation of how badly he wanted to live.

He was rather proud of himself for landing not only on the same continent as the Garrison, but in the same desert as the headquarters. It would be hard for either the League or military to miss the smoke and flames of a crashing spaceship, he knew he would not be left waiting long. He smiled at the sandstone filling the viewport and gave into the unconsciousness his throbbing temple begged for.

VLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLD

VLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLDVLD

A/N So that's the end of Shiro's imprisonment. Ik this is a lot of build up without actual Batfam interaction, but the way I want to tell this story is going through how Shiro's outlook on the canon story would be different with a Batfam background. SO we've got next chapter which is like Bruce and Batfam hearing about shit on earth, then a chapter of Shiro with the Voltron squad and honestly like the actual Shiro and DC characters present interactions will happen in a few chapters but the like pacing of this fic is more rushed at the start because I want the exposition to build up to the like last 5 chapters which will be slower paced.

Honestly I had about 4 different voltron fic ideas, and bc i know myself and that I would only have the dedication to do one long fic, I combined them so like Solaan was created for a different story and I really liked them and they fill in some plot holes so.

ALso! Duke Thomas! introduced next chapter!