Chapter 14 – Subzero

"You have a basic understanding," Allura was commenting as she pushed open the door to a chamber inside the castle. "Today, we begin refining the details," she said, grinning over her shoulder at the spirited princess following right behind her.

"What in the…" Tarla trailed off as she stepped into the room, going ahead of Allura as she indicated. The queen walked in to stand behind her and looked around proudly at her stage.

"I've prepared five rooms in the castle, each focuses on a different element. It won't be impossible to use the others, as the energy comes from you, ultimately. But I wanted to encourage bonding with each aspect of the craft." Allura stepped around Tarla and strode gracefully into the center of the chamber that could only be described as a room of fire.

Sconces littered the walls, glittering with open incandescence. Flames danced in hearths in each of the corners of the room, and the couple walked on reinforced glass that appeared to have lava coursing underneath it. The heated breeze associated with bellows rolled lazily around the room as a deep heat radiated from the floor, the chamber pulsing in a deep orange hue.

"I thought we would start with the element that comes most naturally to you," she explained.

Tarla nodded mutely, her hair fluttering around her in the breeze generated by the heat current.

"What if the floor breaks?"

"It won't. It's made out of reinforced, high-grade particle glass. It could withstand ballistic strikes from Voltron. …I… I've even tested it. And even if it did – like I said, you don't need a source to use an element. Having it just makes it easier." Allura demonstrated her point by dropping to a knee suddenly, slamming her palm into the glassy floor. Ice rolled across the top of the clear base, chilling the room considerably as Allura channeled her strength to counteract the furious element surrounding them. She stood up gracefully and the ice instantly melted to water before evaporating without her energy to sustain its presence.

"I get it," the princess replied thoughtfully. "What would you like to see?"

"However it feels most natural," Allura began. She was dressed in an outfit Tarla had seen only once before on the woman – it was a pink jumpsuit, a white belt around her waist and matching boots on her feet. Her hands remained bare for ease of channeling the magic, and her hair was bundled up on top of her head. She pointed across the room, the ruffled sleeves falling against her wrists.

Tarla tore her eyes from the queen to see what appeared to be a heavily reinforced suit of armor. It had been filled with metal to weigh it down and the eyeless helmet glared across the room at the two women. It brandished a shield in its hand protectively in front of its body.

"I want to see how quickly you can take that to pieces – by any means necessary," she finished. Tarla glanced back to the blonde woman and Allura smiled gently at her.

"Where's Father?"

"I invited him to join us. I think he's catching up with your mother first. When you're ready, unless you'd prefer to wait for him," she nodded to the girl.

Tarla paused and glanced over to Allura, her silvery hair rustling in the heat current.

"You don't like her," she said flatly. Allura could only shrug noncommittally.

"Rather, I don't think she cares for me. I've never been opposed to a friendship with your parents, Tarla. Lotor was… interested in something else and I think Merla just wanted me out of the way. Neither were particularly inclined to become friendly in the truest sense of the word."

"From what I understand, Father very much wanted that," Tarla murmured playfully, eliciting a scowl from the queen.

"Just shoot the thing," she encouraged, gesturing toward the suit of armor. She quickly attributed the rising blush on her skin to the heat in the room. Tarla kept her gaze on the queen just long enough to make the slender woman shift uncomfortably beneath it. She granted the Arusian her reprieve and looked back to the armor.

"Could I just scream at it and see what happens?" She eyed all the fire around thoughtfully. Allura blinked.

"Yes, you could. Ultimately, though, we will need to refine the technique to control it better. But… that's as good of a starting place as any… I will sequester myself in the corner with a water shield if you decide to do so," she said with a laugh. "I would be curious to see what you can come up with." Allura turned and stepped back from the girl, placing herself in a corner.

"Could it really be that great?"

"Tarla, fire is your element; it is your inherent nature. You conjured a ball of it around you when there was no source. What do you think you could accomplish within a room like this?" Her hands outstretched from her torso, gesturing to the plentitude of the subject.

"Will it hurt me?"

"No, you will be fine. You are the conjurer," Allura reassured her.

"…could it hurt me?"

Allura began to answer her question quickly but paused to consider the true uncertainty behind the inquisition.

"It could. You would have to be very, very conscious with that directive. As it is an extension of your emotional shell, of, quite literally, that which is you – it will not, by nature, do harm to you. In much the same way we can break our own bones with a self-inflicted punch or draw our own blood, it would be an act of pure, focused intention. Not by chance, no. You will be safe." The queen smiled at the girl, folding her arms in front of her. Tarla stared at her in wonderment for a moment longer before nodding resolutely.

"I shall cry then, I wish to see what the limit is. Prepare your shields." The Drule turned to face the suit of armor and Allura could only smile faintly. The younger girl embodied so much of her father; it often left the Queen reeling. At her command, Allura brought forth a multi-layered protection field.

She bubbled herself inside a sphere of fire, the flames roaring around her, soaking up the oxygen. As it was her own fire, she was safe from harm and the flurry of flames consumed the fuel around her and would prevent more fire from spreading closer. Beneath the shell of heat, Allura draped herself in a cooling mist as a second layer of protection. Her skin, hair and clothing quickly became drenched to prevent inflammation on the chance Tarla's fire ripped through her own.

At her fingertips, a pool of energy formed, pressurized ice ready to entomb her as a last resort. She exhaled, preparing for the exertion that came from sustaining two counter-elements at once. This is unsafe, she cautioned herself. Standing in the crucible with her like this. She's beaten you once next to your own element. Why throw yourself into hers?

"I was weakened," she whispered with determination, watching as Tarla took a combative stance and stretched her arms out around her. She inhaled deeply, preparing her battlecry.

The queen braced.

A latch turned.

Time slowed as Allura turned to look over her shoulder.

Tarla's call to arms erupted from her lips the same instant the door swung open. On pure, adrenaline-filled instinct, the queen flung the pre-conjured frost at Lotor.

The room exploded into an inferno around her and the queen found herself in the magically-taxing position of holding only a sphere of fire around her with one hand and sustaining a wall of frost around Lotor with the other.

The ice barrier had been purely instinctive. The frost was by far the stronger of the two shields, and she had little concern that he would be unsafe as light, heat and flames conflagrated in the room, swirling violently around the slender woman in the center. The meager fire shell around the queen, however, left much to be desired. Fire was her antithesis and by that extension, her weakest point. Moreover, the very nature of fire against fire limited her ability to protect herself.

Within seconds, the temperature rose hot enough that the armor itself began to soften and deform. The water on Allura's body had long evaporated, and after a cursory check to make sure the wall of snow still stood strong, she pulled more energy into the shell swirling around her own body. While it protected her from the flames, it did not shield from the rising heat.

She winced as it became difficult to breathe in the volcano. She trembled and closed her eyes against the embers, unable to handle the drying effect of the temperature behind her eyelids. She focused everything she had on keeping the dome around her sustained as the thin veil of flame was the only thing protecting her from total incineration.

Without warning, the warsong on Tarla's lips stopped and the crucible died nearly as quickly as it began. Allura gasped for air as the temperature cooled and before the princess turned around, she defrosted the ice wall around the girl's father.

Lotor stood in the doorway looking struck at the sight before him. Tarla faced a near-liquid puddle of armor on the ground and Allura was doubled over in the corner, hands on her knees, her own flame-sphere still circling her body. It dissipated quickly and she struggled to catch her breath.

The princess turned to her mentor quickly.

"How was that? What did you – unholy dark gods, are you alright?" She moved to the woman as Allura righted herself.

"Of course, why?"

"Your… your hair…"

Allura reached up and touched her bun on her head, realizing quickly that the ends around her face were smoldering slightly, ignited purely by the high temperature.

"It's fine," she said gently. "That was magnificent, by the way. You show such strength. The hardest part, I believe, will be for you to learn to control the power. It will be hard, fire is… wild," she added. "It will resist your call to bind it. It is at its most powerful when it can freely consume and burn – but don't worry. It can be tamed and still unleashed."

Tarla nodded and reached forward, touching Allura's wrist. The queen glanced down and noticed as one of the frills on her sleeve had also burned.

"Do not worry about it."

Lotor strode into the room, watching his daughter with swelling pride, his eyes flitting over the queen's form in concern. She smiled warmly at them both.

"Is there a water room?" Tarla eyed Allura eagerly. "I want to see yours!"

Allura blinked at the familiar request.

"Yes, we can go there next if you like. Don't you want to practice more with fire?" she said. The princess shook her head once and bounded eagerly toward the door. Allura laughed quietly and followed behind her until Lotor stilled her with a touch to her elbow. She paused and looked at him curiously.

"You gave me the stronger of your shields," he murmured, out of earshot of Tarla. "I saw what you did."

"Yes," she acknowledged quietly.

"And you got hurt because you did not have it." He brushed his thumb over her reddened cheek and chapped bottom lip.

"Technically. Not badly, however. Do not tell her," she admonished. "This craft can be… inherently dangerous to those around us. You saw it firsthand when it initially manifested, it sounds like. She needs to know – to believe – that she is in total dominion over it without question. Otherwise she will never be able to control it. If she wavers and begins to become concerned about causing harm to people or things accidentally, she will second-guess herself. She needs that confidence to practice without worry. At least at first," she added. "Caution can come later. I took a calculated risk by staying in the room with her, but I wanted to see what she could do. …I didn't expect you to finish with Merla so quickly, or we would have waited. …I'm… I'm pleased that it didn't catch you."

"She… might be coming to visit," he hedged carefully. Allura quirked an eyebrow.

"Should I be worried?"

"No, she wants to see Tarla. At any rate, I'll protect you."

Allura frowned, eying him carefully.

"It's fine if she wants to visit. Just as long as she doesn't try to hurt anyone."

"She won't. Are we going to see your explosion next?"

"Fortunately, my raw strength isn't… violent," she said playfully. "Neither of you should need shields. Mine will likely manifest one around me, to be honest. Now come," she finished gently, lacing her arm though his and dragging him from the torch-lit room.

Tarla waited patiently in the hallway as Allura rounded the corner with the girl's father in tow.

"He was being difficult," she explained to the woman conspiratorially. Lotor grumbled in annoyance as his daughter giggled in response, falling into step beside the queen.

Lotor glanced over as they strode down the hallway, Allura's arms snaked through his with his daughter flanking her other side. A single word struck him in a way he never expected when Allura giggled at something Tarla had said. A word that bundled many others together – loyalty, pride, honor, integrity, blood… and affection; a word he never thought he would covet.

Family.

The foreign word left him feeling numb.

Tarla ran laps around the room, fascinated by the chamber Allura had created to represent her own natural element. Allura stood near Lotor just inside the door. The entryway housed an arched piece of floor tile from which the rest of the floor dropped away two inches. The decorative tile was the only piece of dry land in the room. Water was even with the landing, leaving a healthy depth nearly everywhere – save the very center. A bowl-shaped pit plunged several feet deep, lending itself to much larger volume. Where fireplaces graced each of the four walls in the fire room, waterfalls rolled down, creating light ripples and a soft noise.

Soft, calming blue light underlit the floor and backlit the falls, surrendering the room to a tranquil, relaxing setting.

Tarla came to a stop near them, pausing to catch her breath as she tired from kicking up the shallow water. Allura smiled gently and nodded to both of them, releasing Lotor's arm with a blush when she realized she was still holding it. He could only smirk at her appreciatively.

"Show me!" Tarla bounced up and down excitedly, but the command was not lost on the queen.

"Very well," she nodded before stepping into the water. With careful steps, she strode toward the pit in the center of the room and paused to stare down into it. She struggled for a moment, attempting to settle on an emotion to focus on to draw forth her power. The last demonstration beside the moat had been a cry of broken fury. It was a wild explosion of unleashed power. Allura decided to try something different in an effort to demonstrate the finer details of elemental manipulation. She took a chance.

Drawing her arms in close to her body, she opened her heart and allowed her pain to consume her. Memories filtered through, long-stored recollections that had been sequestered by time came flooding forward. A tortuous dichotomy flooded her chest without warning; Allura felt a warmth and happiness as time rolled backwards, coupled against the chilling coldness as she realized it was not hers to ever possess again. It was merely a ghost.

A memory.

A phantasm.

The stoic queen surprised both Drules with her reaction to the pain.

She did not scream nor cry.

Instead, she remained silent.

Allura's slender frame arched backward as her knees buckled before she crashed into the shallow water. Her palms rested on the ground as she sat, doubled over in the liquid-filled room. As ice flooded her veins and solidified her heart, the droplets from the basin that splashed up from her collapse froze mid-air as well. Her voice was silent and her head bowed over. She simply inhaled deeply and allowed the pain to consume her.

The temperature in the room dropped suddenly. Tarla stepped closer to her father as she frowned, his hand coming to rest on her shoulder.

"How can sorrow be so powerful," she whispered, looking up at the man. He shook his head once, a similar expression of concern on his face.

"I suppose it depends on the person who wields it."

"She hasn't even made a sound…"

She glanced around as a thin layer of frost formed on top of the water, even around Allura's legs. It crackled as it shifted and expanded, stretching out in snowflake-like patterns, until a thin sheet coated all of the room.

A single teardrop rolled from Allura's cheek and fell against the ice in front of her. As it struck, an explosion in another part of the room sounded, causing Tarla to jump. Lotor's palm on her shoulder tightened protectively at the noise. Water sprang from beneath the ice without warning and immediately froze into a haunting sculpture.

The queen slowly raised her head and stared at the waterfall across the room, her eyes vague and no longer of the present world. Droplets continued to form in the corner of her eyes before falling to the floor, unnoticed. Each drop created another spectacular display of frozen water somewhere in the room around her. Her bottom lip trembled and her skin grew paler. Allura still did not make a sound and her breathing began to slow. She did not gasp or weep or moan – the only noise in the silent room was the crack of ice expanding and forming.

"Father, look! The statues – they're not just splashes… they're… people!"

Lotor tore his eyes from the shattered woman before him to study her handiwork. Sure as the dawn over Arus, the frozen waterspouts had condensed in a way to make extremely realistic humanoid-like manifestations. The water coating the floor of the room had frozen all the way through and Tarla carefully made her way out onto the slick surface to investigate.

"They're beautiful," she murmured, pausing in front of one. The statue was of a young man in a battle-like pose, staring valiantly across the room with raw determination, his sword drawn in front of him. There were several other statues of different people, each formed from a unique tear.

Tarla stared at the most recent one; a plump, older woman dressed like a maid. Fear etched deep into the matron's eyes as her form physically recoiled away from something in front of her. The princess blinked and turned back to the swordsman, reaching up to touch his icy cheek in fascination.

"What are we looking at, Father?"

Lotor walked further into the room, his face carefully clouded as he looked over all the immaculate ghosts haunting the queen. Each form appeared to have been chiseled by a master from a single, solid block of ice with smooth perfection and life-like detail from the flutter of an eyelash to the strands of hair.

"The past," he said quietly as another sculpture sprang up behind the swordsman that had captivated Tarla's gaze. The princess recognized the most recent addition was a younger representation of the queen herself. Allura's likeness was watching the swordsman with fondness, but he did not see her as he looked out across an unseen battlefield.

"It's all one picture," she murmured breathlessly, turning in a circle. Tarla realized the sculptures were not singular entities that the queen created to demonstrate the finer power of mastery – they were simply smaller pieces of a singular whole. She reeled at the level of expertise required to craft such a display.

The last tear hit the ice and Tarla gasped when an illusion spawned behind the younger Allura: a tall man with a haunted gaze, his eyes locked on the then-princess as she looked forward. While her arms were openly reaching for the swordsman that did not see her, his in turn, were reaching out toward her.

"Father… that's… you!"

Allura blinked a few times, a clouded exhale leaving her lips as she came back to reality. The remaining liquid in the corners of her eyes solidified in the low temperature of the room.

"I miss them all," she whispered.

Lotor said nothing as he circled the frost replica of his younger self, frowning at the sadistic look on his own face. Steps forward brought him to gaze upon a wide-eyed and hopeful princess of the past as she stared longingly after her commander in combat.

He recognized the shadows of the rest of the space explorers surrounding the room. A moment in time, a single frame of a battle, preserved in ice and emblazoned in her memories. Lotor could almost picture where the lions were standing in the background as he remembered the day she had recalled so perfectly.

The littlest one – Pidge, was using his pistol to provide cover fire for Lance who was mid-stride to Keith's side. Off in the distance, there were robot soldiers advancing toward the Castle of Lions.

"Allura," Lotor began, but stopped, unsure what else to say. He glanced over to where she was still knelt in what was once water. He blinked. "You're freezing," he observed, striding over to her. The ice circled her body, freezing her legs and knees into it, binding her to the frozen lake of her own making. Her skin was near-white and her lips blue, her body trembling from the temperature.

"I'm fine," she whispered, her breath a mere cloud of condensation.

"No, you are not," he replied angrily.

"I don't actually feel a thing right now, Lotor," she murmured. "It's… kind of… nice."

Silence echoed in the room as Tarla tore her eyes from the human male who caught her attention. She looked over to Allura's back. Her eyes glanced between her father regarded the shivering queen and the ice-Lotor's pursuit of ice-Allura. She backpedalled slowly on the ice to see the larger picture.

"You loved him," Tarla whispered.

Allura's eyes widened, still locked on the frozen waterfall before her, and she released a pained noise from her throat.

"Keith and I are nothing." Her voice cracked the same way the ice did around her.

Tarla walked in slow circles around what she quickly recognized as a dangerous love triangle. A princess chasing a commander; and a prince reaching for a princess.

"And Father loved you," she continued to observe from the expressions on the faces around her. Tarla was quick to recognize that the facial expressions were so spectacularly detailed… not because they were imaginary, but because they were a memory.

"Disperse this all," Lotor commanded suddenly. Allura finally shifted her eyes to look at him as he knelt down next to her. His thumb touched her cheek, tracing over a frozen tear streak. She smiled weakly back.

"I…" Her lip trembled, an alarming shade of white in the cold room, much like the rest of her skin. He briefly reveled in just how blue her eyes appeared in contrast.

"Do it." He watched as her haunted, faraway gaze clouded over after moment and she glared at him in defiance. "This is history. Return it there."

Lotor couldn't even say that he minded when the ice beneath his knee vanished suddenly and he found his legs wet as he knelt in water. He heard Tarla's gasp as the statues returned to liquid, and the room became how it had been when they first entered.

Carefully, Allura pushed up from the water, droplets falling from her body with Lotor right behind her. Her legs trembled as her body began thawing and her muscles ached.

"I'm afraid I might need a moment before we continue, Tarla, I apologize," she said, reaching up to touch her forehead. "I think I've gone and done it again."

Lotor's arm was around her waist as he helped her back to the door.

"We're going to the fire room to warm you up," he instructed.

"No, that's not necessary," she insisted, though her body still shivered. "I need to keep working with Tarla, I just need-"

"-To go back where it's warm. At least until your temperature is normal," he argued. She frowned at him.

"No, I really- Lotor!" Her sentence as cut off with an indignant cry as his arm dropped from her waist to her hips, his other circling her back before lifting her into his arms effortlessly. Without another word, he kicked the door open and physically hauled the woman down the hallway to the chamber of fire.

"Put me down!"

"I will," he promised as she struggled.

"Right now!"

"We're almost there."

"Lotor, I swear…" She trailed off, her anger melting into a soft laugh as he nudged open the door and carefully eased her before one of the hearths. "You're incorrigible."

"I'll take that as a compliment," he said, glancing over as Tarla followed in behind them, watching the interaction between the two adults curiously.

"Allura," the girl began moving toward where she had settled onto the floor before the fireplace. The golden haired queen glanced over at the younger woman curiously.

"Yes, Tarla?"

"…When I was conjuring the fire, you promised it wouldn't hurt me. And it didn't."

Allura smiled darkly, sensing where the line of questioning was headed. Still, she waited patiently for her to articulate it.

"…why did the ice hurt you?"

The queen grinned at her sharpness.

"Because I wanted it to," she whispered in reply. Tarla's golden eyes widened in surprise. Allura looked away, already considering the answer to the questions the Drule didn't know how to ask. "Your… baseline…" she hedged the word carefully for lack of a better way to describe the fundamental level of power thrumming through them. "Is anger. Do you not think of something that makes you furious when you cry to conjure?"

"I… …I do," the princess murmured in realization. Allura cast her a gentle smile, unburdened by the fact she sat in the center of her own weakness. Kneeling before a fire, she warmed herself from her own actions and bared her deepest emotions before two people who arguably should never know of them.

"Mine is pain, Tarla. I hurt. My heart aches, my soul bleeds… Did you notice the first day, by the moat… some of the icicles pointed back at me? Part of my strength comes from my pain. I have seen… much. I have endured more. It is… in my case, natural and easy for my own magic to do me harm. It is… very likely the reason my magic didn't manifest until much later in my life, once I had lost everyone. Yours is very outward-focused, so please don't feel alarmed. You would have to completely alter your mindset to hurt yourself. You are safe, I promise you this."

"How many others have you promised that to?" Tarla's eyes narrowed on the queen warily. A shadow passed over Allura's eyes.

"Many."

"And how many were actually safe?"

The queen waited several, heavy seconds before answering her slowly with deep promise.

"All of them."

The Drule's eyes widened.

"How is that possible?"

"My word is my law," Allura explained gently. "If my oath means nothing, then what is my word as a ruler? I make very, very few promises because I keep every single one. If I promise you that you are safe, dear Tarla, you are safe. No force in any heaven or hell will harm you. I will take bullets, move mountains and cleave beasts in two to keep you from harm. That is my promise to you."

"Allura," Lotor's voice was deep and raspy as the ramifications of what she was saying settled on him. The details didn't slip by Tarla, either.

"And what if I attack you then?"

The queen flinched, confirming Tarla's belief that Allura had been concerned with the idea.

"You'll win," she replied simply. "I will fight you, but you… …you out match me in skill, predisposition and strength," the queen admitted to her at last.

"But you're so strong," Tarla commented, coming to sit beside the woman near the fireplace.

"And you are – or will be – stronger still," she promised back. "I have had the luxury of time to practice. Measuring myself at your age against you – I am nothing. This is the kind of skill that only strengthens with time, both with power and precision," she added.

Tarla remained quiet, sitting next to the magnificent queen as the firelight behind her threw her into a halo.

"You've survived so long."

"On pure determination. I did not win my wars with this magic. It came later to me when I had the time to breathe… to meditate... to hurt. I won my wars on pure adrenaline and determination. Nothing more," she smiled, her eyes flickering briefly to the chiseled, impassive face of the king before looking back to his daughter.

"And you'll teach me all of that?"

"If you like, yes."

"You're taking a risk with this all, aren't you?"

"Every decision has a risk, Tarla. With every decision, we pause. We weigh the consequences against the rewards. And then we choose."

"What are you choosing?" Her eyes met Allura's with unflinching determination.

"To take a chance," she said with a faint smile. "On the chance maybe we could be friends someday, Tarla. I daresay I've never had a friend from your planet before."

"You've had me," Lotor's voice thundered across the room and Allura's weary tolerance snapped.

"I had someone who saw something he wanted and did everything he could to take it. That is not a friend," she shot back dangerously. The man quieted and watched her carefully. Allura smiled, looking back to Tarla.

"I think good things could come of this, truly. But – I do not do this because I expect that in return. I expect nothing. And I know that without proper guidance, this… craft really, can destroy us. It can be violent, it can be painful, and it can be consuming. I would never have turned you away. I will always help someone if I am able to."

Lotor exhaled in the background, causing Allura to return her gaze up at him.

"I'm sorry, I was a bit cruel just then," she apologized. "You did something… unfathomable for me, and I had no idea. That was wrong of me to snap at you."

"No, you were correct," he grumbled, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers lightly. "You're exactly right – you had no idea. And… to be honest. I… was an ass," he admitted, reflecting on the dangerous look that haunted Allura's memories of his old self.

Allura erupted into a storm of giggles, utterly shattering the somber setting. Tarla stared at the woman in surprise as her laugher escalated, building on itself and the gnawing, nervous tension that had been flooding her veins.

Lotor rolled his eyes.

"It's not that funny," he muttered, but the relieved smirk on his lips didn't escape Tarla's observation.

As her fit calmed and she caught her breath, she flashed her warm expression to Tarla and smiled openly.

"Want to try another room? See what you can do with earth, for instance?" Her eyes twinkled brightly as the princess showed her first hint of doubt.

"I've never used that one before, even accidentally," she articulated.

"I know. It's brand new. Isn't that wonderful and exciting?" The queen pushed off the ground carefully, rising to her feet as her bones finished thawing. Lotor was quick to her side.

"Careful," he nearly commanded, catching her hip with his palm.

"I'm fine now," she muttered back at him.

"Can we… go outside instead?" Tarla shot Allura a curious look. "I… I'm rather fond of being outside on your planet," she admitted shyly. The Arusian clasped her hands together and nodded excitedly at her.

"Of course. There's plenty of earth to work with outside, too. Come, come," she gestured, leading the way out of the inferno room. Tarla was quick to follow, but Lotor lingered back, a concerned expression remaining on his face.

Don't worry, I haven't given up on this series! As always, I do love your comments, for better or for worse! More to come soon!