Chapter Text
The first time, he goes for a Strider. These kinds of machines are easier to catch by surprise, and less dangerous than others. Once he has taken care of the Watchers circling the Striders it’s just a matter of getting closer without being noticed and then striking at the part where it’s joint give away to his inner belly.
It’s the part where they are more exposed and he stabs them without hesitation. The moment he does his focus activates, resonating with the chip in his blade.
They are synching and he watches as the color of the machine’s wiring changes slowly, from a vibrant purple to a deep red. The moment it finishes he draws back the blade and the machine turns towards him.
Keith’s breath gets stuck in his throat. He has never watched a machine from so close if not in the midst of battle, and his instinct tell him to attack, but he holds position.
The Strider watches him for a second and then he lowers his head, getting closer to Keith’s hand. It takes a moment, but he raises his hand and touches the machine’s snout, almost startling at the cold of the metal. The Strider is his.
All the other machines start to move around them, noticing that something is wrong, so Keith jumps on the Striders back and signals for it to go. He’s not sure how this work, if his focus is sending the machine the orders the moment he thinks them or if something else is at play, but this is exactly what he needed.
Keith starts to put this new power to good use. He tests around different machines, but he mostly sticks to the easier ones in the beginnings.
He doesn’t need anything bigger to take care of the few Galra encampments he finds, and he needs to test the limit of this little trick.
In the beginning the machines obey to him for an hour at most before they start to revert, so Keith has to be sure he doesn’t overstay his welcome.
He changes his prey quickly, sending the one that are slipping from his grasp as distraction for the Galra soldier he needs to attack.
But, slowly, his power grows. He uses all the parts of the machine he kills to create better weapons and, sometimes, his focus notifies him of some kind of interaction between some special parts and his blade. It’s like the weapons of the people of old could be upgraded indefinitely, and Keith discovers new powers.
His blade can now grow even bigger, and shock the machines to stun them. Little by little the time he has control of a machine grows, and his focus seems to register all the machines he can take control over and informs him when he analyzes them.
Keith grows bolder and more confident every kill. But as much as his powers grow so does his reputation and the plans his enemy have against him. Just as the prince had told him, most of the Galra military uses the focus in some way or another, and they seem to be able to talk with each other. They talk and strategize against him. They start keeping turned machines around, as to contrast his, and since Keith has stuck with the weaker of machines he can find, most of the time they don’t live until the end of the fight.
He sighs, looking at the wreck of his newest recruit and knows that he has to change his plan and chose a bigger target. He just doesn’t know what.
Keith hears the tale while he’s traversing one of the Galra cities. Not many people recognize him, thankfully, since only the military wears the focuses.
He’s sitting in a bar, using the last of the coins he has stolen from a group if bandits to buy some food. Months have passed now ever since he had left home, and Keith is starting to acclimatize to life in the wild. It’s not easy, and it lacks the routine of the Embrace, but he had always wanted to see the world. He regrets the circumstances, but when he can he stops to look around and think what Shiro would say.
Right now, he imagines what Shiro would think of what Keith is eating—he would probably find it disgusting—when he hears some people one table over, discussing a particular tough Sawtooth. He seems to be proving difficult for the town’s Hunters.
“He has killed the last three hunters we have sent after it,” someone says, gulping down his drink, “at this rate, he’ll just decimate everyone.”
“Why is it so special?” the other asks, curiously. “We’ve been killing Sawtooth since the beginning of time.”
“No one knows. It’s completely red, strange for a machine. It might be a different model,” the man finishes, shrugging it off.
Keith finishes his plate and rises, decided.
Trying to be safe isn’t an option that’s working out for him anymore, and while Keith had learnt patience from Kolivan and strategy from Shiro, he thinks he needs to pull a Keith this once.
It’s time to go hunting.
The red Sawtooth has been spotted about five miles from the city, and it seems that it’s the reason the city is experiencing a drought of goods. Keith will just do them a favor, really.
It doesn’t take much thanks to the machine he manages to hack and ride. Machines don’t get tired, they just keep going until you destroy them. It’s one of their most dangerous qualities, but right now also one of Keith’s better advantages.
His focus picks up the machine’s signature before Keith can see it, and there is something different in the way this Sawtooth is registered. Keith looks at it for a second before realizing that it seems to be a different model, more bulky and aggressive than the ones that roam the earth normally.
It’s perfect. The focus also alerts him of the fact that it doesn’t know if it’s able to take control of the machine, but it’s too late to turn back. Keith needs something strong, something he can ride and keep. He needs to be protected even while he’s not actively attacking a camp, and he needs something powerful.
The red Sawtooth, that Keith decides to call Red for convenience, is bigger than any other of his kind. It walks a little faster than what Keith is used to seeing, and his pattern of movement is more erratic. It seems to have more of a personality that other models, and that might be the reason why there aren’t as many around.
Keith grips his blade tighter and gets down from the Strider he has ridden until here. He needs to do this alone. It is a matter of principle now. If he doesn’t manage to defeat this alone, then he will never be able to avenge Shiro. He will never be able to destroy an entire empire.
Keith needs to be stronger than any single machine; he needs to be stronger than anything else in this world. He adjusts the grip on his blade and he sneaks forward. The high grass works as the perfect cover to remain unnoticed and he watches the beast. It’s snarling, like there is something making it go mad.
In a way it looks like a caged beast, unsure of its purpose. Keith feels for it, and wonders if machine really could have personalities like them.
In the end, he doesn’t have that much time to think about it.
He attacks when Red moves closer, snarling from his mouth. It has taken him a while to notices the weak point in his armor, but he attacks with precision, planting the blade exactly where the armor gives away.
Normally the focus activates immediately and the machine is too stunned to move, his entire being rewritten quickly and effectively; Red doesn’t work that way.
Keith’s focus starts his work, but the machine growls and moves away, dragging Keith with it. All he can do is grasp the blade tighter and hold on. He’s thankfully in a sport where none of the machine’s paws can reach, and all he needs to do is keep his grip while the beast tries to throw him off.
“Stop fighting,” he grits out, his arms growing tired by the second. It seems like there is something fundamentally resisting Keith inside the machine, a master command that is working against Keith’s own. Still, Keith won’t stop.
He pushes the blade deeper into the machine and he watches as it stops moving, slowly. For a moment Keith watches it, his circuits still purple and wonders if he hadn’t just slowly killed it. It would have been a waste. Such an incredible machine, one to remember, one to respect.
It takes a second before Red lights up again, getting up and towering over Keith before it lowers his head, much like the Strider had done that first time. Keith smiles at the sight, confident of his win.
“Good kitty,” he says petting the beast.
Now, now it’s time to destroy an empire.
Keith and Red become a legend among the whispers. Fearful murmurs in the night of a Garrison boy riding a beast made of flame. Keith likes it this way.
He attacks encampment after encampment, trying to find the correct strategy to storm the Galra empire city when, one day, one of the focus of a dead soldier speaks to him. It lights up with a green-ish color and Keith picks it up, curious.
In a second his focus synch up with it and an image flashes in front of Keith’s eyes.
It reminds him of that first message that he had found recorded in the focus, but it seems in lower quality. It’s a girl, one of the mechanical clan up in the north, if the way she dresses is any indicator.
“Hello, Keith. I think it’s time we talk,” she says and he jumps back, startled. He had never seen anyone else but the Galra use the focus as a way to communicate and didn’t know that his could do the same. She seems delighted at his surprise.
“You hacked into a Galra focus,” he tells her, a little in awe, and she just smiles cockily.
“Yeah, like it’s hard. They really don’t have any idea how this works. Nor do you, really,” she looks at him like she’s examining him, judging him. “But unlike them, we’re on the same team. What do you say?”
He doesn’t really know if he should trust her, but what does he have to lose exactly. He has Red on his side, and maybe this is the chance he needed to discover something more about the mystery of the attack at the proving.
“Fine,” Keith accepts in the end, “tell me where.”
“I’ll send the position to your focus,” her voice sounds pleased and a little excited, “and Keith? Bring that Sawtooth.”
The images disappear before Keith can ask for a name.
Keith arrives at the point of the map riding Red, and he looks surprised at the wreckage in front of him. It looks like the relic of the people of old, but bigger than the last one he was into.
The moment he steps near, his focus activates and the voice of the girl speaks loud in his years. “Good, you’re here. Step in, I’m meeting you outside. I need to see that machine.”
Still a little miffed he doesn’t move, looking at the entrance with a grimace. “Why should I trust you?”
“Isn’t it a bit late to ask that?” she asks, amused, “you’re already here. This could have been a trap.”
Red growls under him and Keith pats the metal with a fond look. “I think we could handle ourselves.” Truthfully, nothing the Galra have tried to throw at them had even scratches the paint on Red’s metal skin. Red was a thing of beauty, created for pure power.
“Yeah, but I mean…” and then a figure appears, riding a green Longleg, a bird machine that is most fearsome for its ability to call in reinforcements. “I think it would be better to talk.”
Pidge explains to him what has been happening, having studied the plans of the Galra ever since they killed her brother. She has been going deep into ancient history, combing through any information she could gather. Exploring ruins and studying the data in the devices they call focus.
It appears like machines where created to help humans and the earth sustain itself, having various uses from farming to actively terraforming. The more aggressive machines were once just there to destroy metals of machines that had stopped working. Five different machines were created to keep a look out for this, they worked in a different way: as protectors and guardians of the other machines.
Something had happened, a wild program in whatever it was that kept creating the machines, had taken control and started a self-destruct sequence for the entire world. The machines’ targets had switched, their main focus switching on eliminating humans.
“How is it possible?” Keith asks, and Pidge shrugs.
“The best I can tell, is that whatever required someone to build a terraforming sequence, was afraid of it failing and maybe ruining the earth more. A self-destruct clause made sense,” she tries to explain, “in case the machines’ work wasn’t enough.”
This program is called Quintessence, and it seams that it doesn’t have a body, but has slowly corrupted the focus of the King and Queen of Galra, that now obeyed every one of his commands.
Pidge reveals that she thinks their best bet would be to take control of the five guardian machines, who are immune to the program influence. The problem is, every focus can only control one machine.
“So we need to find someone who is already in possession of a focus and is not on the Galra side?” Keith summarizes, a little discouraged. It doesn’t seem like the easier of tasks.
“Don’t worry, I already know who,” Pidge says, smiling, “two stupid kids who had gone exploring the ruins on a dare and found two focuses. I’ve been talking to them, they went in search of the machines. A blue Snapmaw and a Yellow Trampler.”
Keith nods and wonders about the last of the machine. Pidge, reading his mind, brings up the information about the last machine. A Black Ravager.
“It is the stronger of the five,” she explains, looking concerned, “I don’t know who would be good for it. It wouldn’t be easy, taming it”
Keith doesn’t talk, doesn’t think about how Shiro would have looked on the back of a Ravager. He would have had the skills and the stubbornness. Yet, Shiro will never be able to.
Still, he looks at Pidge and the pure joy in her eyes. She seems to be happy to have finally found another member, and he doesn’t know how to break it to her.
“I can’t stay,” he hopes that he sounds as sorry as he feels, but Shiro had always told him that his emotions didn’t really shine through his words (‘your eyes, now those are expressive’). “There is something I need to do, someone I need to find.”
“The attack on the proving in your village, right?” Pidge interrupts him, looking at him. “I listened to it, after. I think I can help you find the Prince.”
Keith blink and sits back down. “Tell me.”
Pidge’s information brings him to an excavation site (“They are uncovering lost machines, those who were created before the terraforming and are stronger for it”) and he knows that he should be careful, Lance and Hunk are screaming in his ear enough, but it doesn’t matter.
They had offered to come with him, but he had refused. This was his fight.
Keith looks back at Red, ready to pounce behind him, and he takes a moment to remember Shiro’s skin against his; Shiro’s hand on Keith’s cheek. His smile, his voice. He doesn’t really care how far he has to go to avenge him, he will do it.
He attacks, Red hot on his heels, and he kills them up one by one while Red wreaks havoc of their own corrupted machines. He kills more soldiers than he can count until, in the end, only the Prince and his four generals are left alive.
The Prince doesn’t really seem perturbed by Keith’s prowess, but he eyes Red with a mild curiosity.
"I remember you," the Prince says, in the end, with a smile, "they searched for you that day. The Quintessence really wants you dead."
"Why?" Keith snarls, pointing the blade towards him, "tell me why I should listen to you and not kill you immediately."
And Lotor smiles. "Because I have information for you. I can tell you what you want to know about the Quintessence, and most importantly, I can tell you where your friend is."
Keith stops, frozen on the spot, while Red snarls beside him. Friend?
(“Don’t listen to him, Keith,” Pidge says in his year, he’s probably trying to confuse you.
“Yeah, I mean, he’s a lying dick!” Lance pipes in.
“But… what if he’s telling the truth?” Hunk’s more subdued answer arrives. And Keith removes the focus from his ear)
"What do you mean?" he asks, his own voice distant to his own ears. The metal of the focus weights in his hand, but the prospect of what Lotor is implying, the possibility that Shiro is still alive, makes his knees weak.
"He called your name a lot," Lotor continues, "while my mother and her croons operated on him. I wondered if maybe you knew each other."
"What are you talking about?" he screams, taking a step forwards, blade ready to strike. The generals get ready to intercept, but Red snarls at them again and forces them to stay in their place. Keith can’t really focus on anything else but Lotor and his smile, satisfied and wicked.
"Shiro," Lotor continues, "that was his name, wasn't it?"
For a second Keith doesn't breathe. The news he had wanted to hear since the moment of the explosion, that Shiro could be alive and well, renders him unable to properly think, his entire vision zeroing on Lotor.
"Where is he?" Keith asks, his voice barely a whisper.
"I'll tell you. That and everything you want to know, but in exchange you help me with my little problem..." Lotor smiles, fixing his own hair, "as crazy as it sounds I was never really that interested in working for a crazy voice. Help me kill my father and mother, and I will make sure you see your Shiro again."
"No," Keith snarls, "you tell me now. And then we'll do what you want."
"That's not..." Lotor starts, but Keith pushes forward one last time, stopping when his blade is mere inches from Lotor's throat.
"Now that I know he's alive I can just search the whole Galra land and I will find him. I don't need you. So tell me, or I will take care of you."
Lotor complies.
He storms the facility with even more brutality than even before and he feels satisfied when the bodies of the Galra Soldiers fall to ground, dead.
Lotor and his generals aren't participating in the mission. They had offered, but Keith still doesn't trust them and he prefers to do things on his own. Pidge, Lance and Hunk had offered too, but Keith knew he needed to do this on his own.
Shiro, from what he knows, is kept deep into the facility and Keith makes sure that nothing else survives his wrath. Every one of them had complied in keeping Shiro hidden, probably hurt. And Keith feels no remorse in killing them.
When he finally reaches the last room, he enters and sees a body strapped to one of the beds. It has to be Shiro, but Keith almost doesn't recognize him. He looks changed now, with a tuff of white hair and a scar on his nose. More than a year has passed since Shiro and Keith have seen each other, and Keith feels aged in ways he didn’t think possible.
Yet he looks at Shiro, and a part of him feels eight again, looking for the first time in the eyes of someone pleased to meet him.
On Shiro’s left arm there is a part of a machine, attached to something that looks like burnt skin. When he looks at it his focus identifies his arm as an Override, just like the one Keith has in his blade.
They had wanted to use him as they used the machines? Or had they wanted to use him for something else?
Keith has no intention to wait and find out.
He takes Shiro's body and drags him out. When Red sees him, he offers to take Shiro from him, but Keith shakes his head. This is a burden he'll gladly take.
When Shiro wakes up he's confused, and he looks at Keith like he doesn't believe he's real, but Keith just takes his face in his hand and holds it there.
While Shiro's body had changed, his eyes haven’t and they are still as deep as he remembers; he loses himself in them, and he fears for a second that this isn’t real.
"Talk to me," he begs Shiro, and the other, confused and dazed, still complies. Like he's unable to refuse Keith's wishes.
"Keith," he whispers, and then, a little more broken, "Keith."
Keith kisses him immediately, feeling like they have waited enough already.
It's a brief kiss, with Shiro as hurt as he is, but Keith tries to convey everything he can with it. It's something he hadn't believed he could ever have again, and the idea that he can, that this is something he gets to keep floors him.
Shiro is something he gets to keep.
When they separate, Shiro looks around at the little camp that Keith had built for them.
"They want," Shiro tries, but his head seems to be confused. Keith stops him, taking some of the water and making him drink.
"I know everything. I've been fighting them for more than a year. I'm sorry I didn't find you sooner," he says, fixing the boar pelt higher on Shiro's torso. It will keep him warm for the night, at least until they manage to reach Pidge’s hideout the next day.
"You have been fighting them? Alone?" Shiro asks, looking at him with a worried frown.
Keith smirks, looking at the red Sawtooth that was circling around them, keeping guard. "Not alone, that's Red."
"You have a pet Sawtooth," Shiro says, with an unbelieving laugh. Keith joins in, looking at Shiro’s new arm.
"I took him with something similar to your new arm. We'll get you one too," he promises.
Shiro laughs and shakes his head, "I don't want a Sawtooth, I'm taking a damn Ravager."
Keith laughs at his answer and closes his eyes, remembering the vision he had once, when Pidge had talked about the Black Ravager, the one they needed to complete the five guardians. He imagines Shiro now, leading them all on the assault to the Galra and smiles.
“Yeah, we can get you one,” he assures him, with a little smirk, but Shiro doesn’t get the joke. Keith thinks about the others meeting Shiro, how good it will be to finally feel whole again.
"You saved me," Shiro says, after a second, "and you're fighting an entire evil nation on your on."
He knows that tone in Shiro's eyes, the self-doubt that creeps in that maybe he's not important enough for this, that Keith shouldn't have done all this for him. Keith makes sure to look at Shiro in the eyes.
"You were the first real voice that spoke to me. The first one that tried not because I was entrusted to them, but because he saw me," he explains, shaking him slightly. "You, Shiro, are worth everything."