Chapter Text
The last thing Pidge remembers is her fellow Paladins calling out to her.
"Pidge, what are you doing?!"
"Pidge, no! Come back here!"
"You can't do this, we'll think of something else!"
"Pidge, fall back in line! That's an order!"
But Pidge didn't listen. How could she, when the main Galra ship had fired their ion cannon straight for the rebel ship that her brother Matt was piloting?
It was almost as if the Galra had known that the Green Paladin's brother was aboard that ship. That they had known the Green Paladin would throw herself in the path of the cannon without a second thought, just to ensure that Matt's ship would be safe from fire, even though the ion cannon would be charged up and ready for another blast within just minutes.
They should have had a better plan going into this battle. They were vastly outnumbered; the Galra had either severely damaged or obliterated several of the rebel fleet within one dobash of their arrival. And with so many enemy ships firing at them at once, they'd had no chance to form Voltron.
Which is exactly how and why Pidge seized her opportunity to save Matt and the rebels he was flying with. There was no other way Matt could have been safe from that situation. Pidge was the master of logic and formulating plans, and she knew that this had been the only way.
So why had the other Paladins so desperately tried to tell her otherwise?
Her mind continues to play this memory of the Paladins' voices on repeat. She can't help but think, numbly, how desperate they sounded. How even Keith, their leader, sounded pained. He must have known that he couldn't have stopped her, no matter what he tried.
There's a pulsing pain in Pidge's head, and static in front of her eyes. She realizes she isn't sitting upright, but rather, she's strapped into her chair, dangling nearly ninety degrees upside down.
Where am I? she thinks. Where am I?
No, wait, that's my second priority, she mentally corrects herself. Even her trained mental protocol is out of whack. She must be seriously out of it. My first priority is my state of health.
First she feels her head. Then she stretches her limbs-- at least as far as her seatbelt will allow her. There aren't any specific injuries she's suffered, but her entire body aches, like she's a ragdoll who's been thrown against a wall multiple times.
I might as well be, she thinks sarcastically.
She blinks rapidly to drive the static out of her eyes. When she can see again, the first thing she focuses on is the spiderweb crack in Green's windshield.
Pidge squints to make out what's beyond the shield, but all she sees is darkness.
The control panel in front of her crackles and spurts electric sparks, trying to bring itself to life but failing.
"Come on, come on," she says out loud, her voice jarringly raspy. She coughs. "I know there's still some life in you, girl. You can do it."
She reaches for the joysticks in front of her, but her straps are too tight. Green does nothing to aid her.
Pidge notices her hands shake as she unfastens her seatbelt. As soon as they come undone, she falls unceremoniously onto the ground, letting her shoulder take the brunt of the impact.
She lets out a small grunt. It echoes through the empty metal interior of the lion's head, accompanied with the clattering of her armor. Coughing, she pulls herself onto her feet, finding that it takes her much more effort than it should.
Now she stands on the ceiling of the interior of Green's head. Cautiously, she makes her way over to the windshield, and puts her hand against the crack. It spans nearly the entire width of Green's head.
"Don't worry, girl," she says softly. "We'll get you fixed up soon. We just need to find the others..."
She looks up at her control panel. Only now does she realize her third priority: her fellow paladins.
"Keith?" She calls out for the leader first. "Lance? Hunk, Allura, do any of you copy? Coran? Shiro?"
Nobody. She's alone out here.
Pidge huffs. She figures it's too early to freak out about her situation; after all, she's been stuck in a predicament like this a few times before.
She's about to call out her teammates' names again when she looks out beyond the cracks in the shield.
At first she thought it was pure darkness she was seeing. Looking closer, however, she now realizes that distant stars dot the darkness. Green floats through an empty expanse of space.
Strange, she thinks. The stars don't surround the lion. Nor are they easy to see. In fact, they're barely visible, and she can count all of them in her head within seconds. They appear in a cluster around each other, a little ways to the right of her field of view.
She tries to pull up her scanner from her upside-down position to get a reading on her location, but Green doesn't answer her. Her guess is that she's somehow been blasted into a faraway, uninhabited solar system. Pidge guesses she could be anywhere from a few to a few thousand galaxies away from the rest of Voltron.
Fourth priority? she thinks feebly.
Her mind comes up blank. Mentally she wanders back to the thought of Keith, and Lance, and Hunk and Allura and Coran and Shiro and the rebels and the Galra and-- and--
Matt.
A gasp escapes her mouth. "Matt!" she says out loud. Her brother, her whole world. Yes, her fourth priority.
She can just picture what he'd say to her now. "Fourth? I'm that far down on the list?" With a smirk and a brotherly nudge in the arm, of course.
Pidge misses that more than anything right now. Where is he now? Did she even save him?
God, I hope so.
Pidge reaches up, and with a great amount of strength, tries to pull herself back up into her seat. It proves to be harder than she thought; she's never had great upper body strength, and her body is too sore to do anything too strenuous at the moment.
She huffs again. Think, Katie, you're smart, she commands herself internally. There's a way out of every situation.
What would Matt do?
The thought renders her motionless for a second, and then she thinks of him again.
Matt. She feels a certain ache in her chest, like her heart is trying to reach out towards him. Her brother. She can't lose him again, not after literal years of searching for him. They've come too far and braved too much to be pushed apart again.
Gritting her teeth, Pidge pulls herself up again, and successfully gets back into her seat. She pulls the straps on and reaches for her joysticks again.
Come on, do it for Matt, she thinks, and her arms extend just enough. Her fingers curl around the joysticks.
"Come on, girl, I need you," Pidge pleads to her lion. "Please. I need you. I need Matt. I need to know he's okay."
She takes a deep breath, and closes her eyes. "Please," she says again, a little softer this time. She clears her mind, thinking only of two simple facts:
I am the Green Paladin.
Matthew Holt is my brother.
A third time: "Please." Her lips barely move at this point. "I need to find my brother again."
She feels the connection this time; it's as if a rope flies out of her chest and tethers her to a weight, grounding her. Pidge's grip around the joysticks grow stronger, and a buzz of energy surges through her body.
The screens and lights around Pidge wake up, showering a bright green glow on the Green Paladin's face.
And she feels the rumble in her chest as the Green Lion roars to life.