Chapter Text
The door slid shut behind Veronica as she yanked Lance into a supply closet in a different hall.
“Do those other people know you’re Altean?”
“Al-Altean?” Lance echoed, trying out the word.
Veronica sighed in either disappointment or impatience. It was a bit difficult to tell.
“Yeah, Lance. You know, glowy marks on your cheeks? Shapeshifting? Relatively strong compared to other alien species? Altean.”
Alien species. Lance was an alien. Well, he kind of already knew that, but now it was real.
“How do you know my name?” he asked, even though he suspected he already knew the answer.
“I guess Rachel was wrong about the memory-loss wearing off... Unless...?” Veronica muttered to herself, and Lance just stared at her in complete confusion. “How long were you on the planet with the Blue Lion?”
“Uh… my-- my whole life?"
"Okay... this isn't working. How about this -- when is your first memory of that planet from?"
Lance gulped, a feeling of unease settling in his stomach. He remembered cracking his eyes open, seeing a woman with beautiful brown hair staring at him. She had seemed afraid, yet willing to help him all the same. Allura.
"Around two years ago? Longer? Why does that matter?”
“I don’t know what a year is, but you look maybe a couple of decaphoebs older than the last time I saw you. Look, Lance--”
“You never answered my question,” Lance interrupted, glaring at the white-haired woman. “How do you know my name?”
Veronica looked him dead in the eye, meeting his heated gaze easily, and the slight tension felt all too familiar.
“I’m your sister.”
***
“Where’re they going?” Keith grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest.
Everything seemed to be about Lance lately, and frankly, it was getting annoying. Lance rescues Allura. Lance fakes Shiro’s death. Lance hangs out in random caves in the Nevada desert. Lance’s cheeks glow. Lance gets pulled aside by the crazy alien lady.
At least Keith was the pilot of the Blue Lion. That was something. He’d gotten them here, hadn’t he?
Or, possibly, he’d managed to strand himself and five of his friends in the far reaches of outer space, and they’d never see earth ever again.
Nobody acknowledged his question, but he supposed there were more important issues at hand, anyway.
“Zarkon needs Voltron because it’s the only thing that can defeat him! We need to find it before he does!” Coran said decisively as he exited the room with the sleeping pods.
“So are we just gonna… uh… breeze over the fact that your entire civilization was destroyed?” Katie asked, following the alien prince back into the hall.
Keith was about to follow when he heard some chittering coming from the dormant pod that Coran had been in. He went to take a closer look and was surprised when five mouse-like creatures tumbled out, looking like they had just woken from a nap. They quickly skittered off, and Keith turned to rejoin the group in the hall. It was more alien life than he could process, at the moment.
“Would you rather I dwell on such a fact..." Coran asked, trailing off when he realized he didn't know how to address Katie. "Wait, let me guess! You look like a... Romelle!” he said, snapping his fingers.
“Uh, Pidge. My name’s Pidge. And the big hunky one’s... Hunk, the two models are Shiro and Allura, and Keith’s the broody one in the back,” Katie supplied readily, unphased by the chorus of dissenting opinions that her descriptions were met with.
“Right, so we have no idea what a decaphoeb is,” Hunk cut in, speeding up to walk alongside the prince.
“There should be a ticker on the bridge! We’re almost there.”
***
“I was really hoping you’d have your memory back by now, but I guess I’ll just have to give you the crash course. Do you trust me?”
Do I trust her? Lance looked at Veronica. He knew her face. He thought back to the recently unearthed memory of him and his… sister. He had trusted her in that memory.
“Okay. Yeah, I trust you.”
Veronica smiled and Lance’s cheeks tingled again. He rather liked her smile.
“This planet, it’s not Altea. I’m not sure where we are, actually, but Coran will probably know. Um… wow, this is a lot harder than I thought it would be. We had pretty crazy lives, Lance,” Veronica said, the light smile that had been on her face falling. “We had a family. I don’t know if they made it…”
Lance could almost remember a happy family, but the faces were all fuzzy. They were running around in the waves.
“I remember a beach. And… there were lots of us, weren’t there?”
Another sad smile from Veronica.
“Yeah, there were. You really don’t remember much, huh?”
“I guess not.”
Lance’s head was beginning to ache again, an intense pounding in his skull. There was a pattern there, like every time he learned more about his past, his own body rebelled.
“You were a member of the Blade of Marmora, which was a…”
Veronica’s voice faded away into a dull buzz as Lance’s head exploded in pain. Not a Blade. I am not a Blade, I can’t-- Lance bit back a groan, doubling over and clutching at his head.
He was almost certain that Veronica was still there, saying something. It was like whatever had happened back in the Blue Lion all over again, but ten times more intense and with no accompanying memories. He shouldn’t be here, he was supposed to be… he was a… but he wasn’t...
“V-Veronica? What’s happening to me?” he wheezed out, clawing at his own skull.
“I think it… some kind of brain-washing… Rachel didn’t… conditioning,” Veronica’s voice was saying, fading in and out like a radio struggling to tune in to the right channel.
Lance didn’t understand, but his head hurt. He couldn’t hold onto a single thought, all of his memories falling through his fingers like the sand from the beach. The world was a muddled, confusing place, but he could hear a voice rising above the chaos. Not Veronica, someone else.
“Lance McClain, you will comply. You have betrayed Altea. You are the enemy. You will tell me what I want to know, or I will hurt you.”
The voice repeated the same words, over and over. He could remember things now, could remember the torture and the reason for the torture. He’d betrayed the crown, he was a disgrace, he needed to leave.
He tried to stand on shaky legs, using the wall for support and breathing harshly through his nose. He needed to go, he was the enemy. They were going to hurt him.
Lance panicked when he felt hands on him and tried to reach for the knife on his belt, but the grip that the person had on his wrists was too strong for him to break.
“--ance! Lance, look at me!”
Lance’s wide eyes zeroed in on the woman in front of him, someone he knew. But he didn’t belong here.
“No, you have to let me go! Please! I’m, I-- I betrayed Altea. I’m the enemy and I--”
“Shut up! Look at me! I’m Veronica, I’m your sister, and you are the strongest person I have ever met. Altea was corrupt. They were doing bad things, Lance. They tortured you!” she said desperately, still trying to make eye contact with him. “You were a hero. You were a Blade agent, and-- quiznak, you saved so many lives! You saved my life!”
There were hot tears spilling down Lance’s cheeks. He didn’t remember any of that. He remembered killing people, so many. Nameless and faceless, Alteans and fuzzy, purple people. He remembered the torture. He remembered a family that he had left behind. And he remembered Veronica staying by his side the entire time.
“Veronica…”
“Lance?”
“Thank you.”
***
Pidge had just finished shoveling a platter full of weird alien food into her mouth (which Keith thought was supremely ill-advised) when Lance and the other alien, Veronica, finally rejoined them on the bridge. Hunk, Allura, and Shiro had just established that a decaphoeb was basically the Altean equivalent (that's what the aliens were called, apparently) of an earth year.
He knew that if anyone got hurt by these aliens, he'd feel responsible. He was the one that had flown the literal cat robot with all of them packed inside. Thus, he was on self-appointed guard duty.
Lance’s eyes were red and puffy, like maybe he’d been crying. Veronica’s blue suit looked all wrinkled. Keith was immediately suspicious, but for some reason, everyone else seemed to be taking things in stride.
“Veronica, I’m glad you’re back. We appear to be on the planet Arus and I was wondering--”
Suddenly, the bridge was flooded with the sound of blaring klaxons and Coran moved to stand in front of the twin pedestals in the middle of the room. A large display lit up when he rested his hands on them.
A star chart came up on the screen with a blue dot that Keith assumed marked their own location. He wasn’t sure about the scale of the chart, but the blinking cluster of purple lights looked like they were too close for comfort.
Veronica rushed up to a different console at the front of the bridge, clicking through a few screens before she brought up a video feed of one of those purple ships that had attacked the Blue Lion near earth.
“A Galra battleship has locked onto our position!”
“How did they find us?” Coran yelled back, looking pointedly at the nearest human, who happened to be Allura.
“Galra...?” Lance murmured, sounding lost.
Keith glanced over at the boy who now had a vacant look in his eyes. Veronica had noticed too and quickly stood up, wrapping an arm around his shoulder.
“The Galra are an alien race that are at war with us. They destroyed Altea and my family along with it," she said, putting a strange emphasis on 'family.' "That ship won’t be here for a couple of days, though.”
“Good! Let them come! I’m sure you lot can get Voltron assembled in time, and then we’ll destroy Zarkon’s empire once and for all!”
“Voltron’s made of five lions,” Keith said, walking up to stand between Shiro and Lance. He told himself his position was merely coincidental. “There’s eight people total, and we only have one lion.”
Coran must’ve done something, because the star chart suddenly expanded into a 3-D rendering, surrounding the entire group in holographic stars.
“King Wimbleton connected the lions to Coran’s life force. He’ll be able to find them,” Veronica said by way of explanation, her arm still protectively wrapped around Lance’s shoulder for some reason.
Lance's eyes flickered over to Keith, and it took Keith a lot more effort than he would like to admit to tear his eyes away from the ocean blue ones. Four colored dots had appeared on the star chart.
There was a blue one, which probably represented the Blue Lion, and the black dot was right on top of it. The yellow and green dots were both a bit farther away from the blue one, in opposite directions.
“The Black Lion was locked in the Castle to keep it out of Zarkon’s hands,” Coran explained as everyone observed the map. “I can’t find the Red Lion for some reason, but we can deal with that in a moment.”
Coran gestured at everyone in the room, so they gathered in a circle around him before he continued talking.
“As you have found, the Lions choose their pilots. It’s a mystical bond and can’t be forced. The quintessence of the pilot is mirrored in their lion, and together they become something much more powerful than any mere warship.”
Keith had really been hoping to avoid magic. He didn’t like things that he couldn’t explain. Then again, magic was the only explanation for how he had felt the Blue Lion talking to him in his mind. Fuck.
“So, magic,” Hunk said, voicing Keith's own thoughts while frowning at the prospect of magical aliens.
“If that’s what you call advanced alchemy back on your home planet, then you’re right,” Veronica hissed, glaring at Hunk.
Coran’s eyes scanned the group, taking everyone in before his eyes landed on Allura and he nodded to himself. A hologram of a ship that looked like a larger version of the Blue Lion with a different paint job appeared, and with a swipe from Coran it floated lazily toward Allura.
“The Black Lion is the decisive head of Voltron. It will take a pilot who's a born leader and in control at all times, someone whose men will follow without hesitation. What’s your name again…?”
“Allura,” the woman in question huffed, giving the alien prince a very unimpressed look.
Keith remembered being on the receiving end of that look when he answered easy physics questions incorrectly back at the Garrison.
“Right, Allura, you’re the Black Paladin.”
Katie looked between the alien prince and her old teacher in confusion.
“Excuse me, uh, your highness? You don’t know anything about us, and you just said the lion chooses its paladin, right? I don’t really--”
“Silence!” Coran shouted, and Katie’s lowered the finger she had raised. “We’re in a bit of a time crunch if you haven’t noticed. And if you really must know how I know which of you will pilot a lion, I can sense your auras. To put it in words your primitive brains can comprehend, its magic,” he said, waving his arms around and rolling his eyes.
“As I was saying, Allura is the Black Paladin. The Green Lion has an inquisitive personality and needs a pilot of intellect and daring,” he continued, eyes landing on Hunk. “That’s you… Hunk?”
“Yeah, Hunk is me. I am Hunk,” Hunk babbled, distracted by the hologram of the Green Lion floating toward his face.
“Excellent! The Blue Lion needs a compassionate, analytical pilot who’s willing to put aside their own problems and support their fellow paladins. And…” Coran paused, glancing between the people gathered around him. His eyes flickered between Keith and Shiro a few times before he sighed. “Well, I supposed it’s already you, anyway,” he said, flicking the Blue Lion hologram over to Keith.
And Keith had no clue what that meant. Everyone else so far had gotten a very decisive position and he got an ‘I guess’? And where did that leave Shiro, anyway?
“Just like the Blue Lion, the pilot of the Yellow Lion must be willing to put the needs of others above their own. The Yellow and Blue Lions form the legs of Voltron, and while they both support everyone else, they must also be there for each other. Pidge, you will pilot the Yellow Lion.”
As the Yellow Lion hologram floated over to Katie, Keith couldn’t keep the smile off of his face. They’d done everything together so far, and now they were going to have each other's backs as the legs of Voltron, whatever that meant. Katie returned his grin.
“That leaves the Red Lion. It’s temperamental and the most difficult to master. While faster and more agile than the others, it’s much more unstable. The pilot must rely more on instincts than skill alone,” Coran said, looking between Shiro and Lance once again.
Keith secretly hoped it would be Shiro to pilot the lion. He didn’t want to have to work on a team with Lance anyway. For his part, Lance was staring at the ground, looking as if he was lost in his own thoughts, and that was annoying too because everyone else was in awe with the aliens and technology and Voltron, but Lance didn’t seem to be paying attention to any of it. Besides the panic attack in the lion and the mini freak out at the Castle entrance.
He supposed different people just processed encountering alien civilizations differently.
Coran was clearly deliberating for longer than he had with the other lions, and Keith held his breath.
“You,” Coran finally said, pointing at Lance, who slowly raised his head to stare back at the alien. “Your aura is… you must've ended so many li--”
“So who’ll be the Red Paladin?” Veronica asked, and if Keith hadn’t already been suspicious before he definitely was now.
He didn’t have a theory, exactly, but it seemed like they knew each other somehow. And Lance had the marks, Keith had the crumpled up photo in his pocket as evidence. But there was no way Lance was 10,000 years old, unless Alteans just had really long life-spans, and really, who was he to know? Maybe it was more magic.
“I don’t know your name, but…” Coran hesitated again, finally appearing to steal himself as the Red Lion floated toward Lance. “It's your lucky day. You’re the Red Paladin.”
Keith glanced over at Shiro, who was clearly struggling to school his facial expression into something neutral. Right, he hadn’t gotten a lion.
“Shiro, you’ll be with Veronica. She’ll show you the ropes around the Castle. We needed an extra hand on deck, even before all of this happened,” Coran said, and all of the tension seemed to bleed out of Shiro.
He was probably glad to have something to do. Keith knew how much Shiro hated feeling useless.
After Coran finished assigning everyone their roles, he turned back toward the holograms floating above their heads. With a swipe, the lions all converged and formed a giant mech -- the mechanical man from the cave paintings and the shared vision everyone had in the cave. They needed to combine the lions to form Voltron. Neat.
“Once all the Lions are united, you’ll form Voltron, the most powerful warrior ever known," Coran said, pausing for dramatic effect as he swept his arms out and the star map zoomed out, the dots becoming infinitesimally small, lost in a sea of stars. "Defender of the Altean people.”