Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

They weren’t many things Shiro regretted doing in his life.

Sure, he didn’t have an apple pie life with the lovable job, white picked fence house in a nice neighborhood but he still had a nice enough job, a good roof over his head, his mother and Keith.

His little brother had always been a constant, reassuring, presence in his life ever since Shiro's dad died and his mother (who had fallen ill) hadn't been able to work for the income the family needed, Keith had always been there for Shiro. It was in this circumstances that Shiro came in and landed a job and pulled the responsibility to care for his mother and brother. Despite her condition though, his mother did odd domestic jobs (knitting, teaching and baking for example) around their neighborhood to alleviate her child a bit and Keith had managed to get a part time job out at the local library. This helped Shiro continue on to college while working part time himself to pay for his and Keith’s schools’ tuition, plus a few house bills.

Shiro’s life carried a lot of burden, but for him it was just another phase, another small bump to overcome so he could find his own calling. His own happiness and that of his brother’s.

Keith was not an easy child to make happy. Sure, he had his moments where he laughed and smiled, and that little shine of child-like-wonder filled his dark eyes but it was so rare to bring them out. Keith had always been a bit shy and cautious, his experiences in foster care had carved into his personality faster than the Shiroganes could rescue him. At twelve Keith was already a lone wolf, a shadow in the background, rarely seeing outside of the house, rarely talking unless it was to snap at his teachers and classmates. He didn’t have friends in town, Shiro was well aware of his brother reputation as the “freak orphan kid” and his attempts at helping had been futile and met with angry resistance from Keith. His mother had stopped trying years ago in favor of having a good relationship with her youngest child.

His brother found refuge in online games not long after he turned 12.

Consoles, computer, or cellphone. Anything that helped Keith escape reality he was on board with. RPG’s and MORPG’s where his definite favorite and his absolute obsession too. He could tell you all the tricks and nicks to almost any fantasy game that existed. He had talent for strategy and quick thinking, his instincts were sharper than anyone Shiro had ever seeing in his life. He knew his little brother was smart but the bullying and the unfairness of his classmates and teachers still made Keith’s grades drop. He only shined truly online.

Shiro must admit he never pushed Keith enough to grow out of his shell but instead enable him to continue closing off most of the time. He did suggest other things for Keith to do and tried to entice him with the outside world, but he never pushed enough to break through Keith and instead bought him what the kid needed to keep on losing himself.

So, yeah, back to the first point. Shiro’s life didn’t had many things for him to regret about but that one sole regret he had was the biggest mistake of his life.

Because it almost caused him to lose his little brother.

It was the fall of Keith’s fifteen birthday, barely mid-October, but the air was already way too chilly to be outside without a jacket but Shiro had been, and stayed outside later than usual. When he came home that night, Keith dutifully had been waiting for him sitting at the base of the stairs while their mother cooked dinner (Keith’s favorite spicy chicken fried rice). It wasn’t yet the teen’s birthday but due to an issue with Shiro's work schedule they had to forward the date and celebrate early. That didn’t thwart Shiro’s plan though, he had promised Keith the new Nervegear after the boy had come home from testing the newest MMORPG coming on the market the next day.

Keith had been one of the 500 players chosen to test the beta of the game and he had been ecstatic after finishing the month-long testing. He hadn’t stopped talking about how good the game was and how he couldn’t wait to play it when it came online. Of course, the Daibazaal company had gifted Keith free access to the game once it came online but he had been lacking the gear to actually play it so Shiro had saved money for a month to buy his little brother his desired gift and now the day had come.

Shiro still remembers Keith’s face when he presented him with the box. His dark eyes turned an actual lighter blueish amethyst, wide enough and filled with a happiness he hadn’t seeing in years, color had filled his face and his posture had turned up, confident and relaxed. He had hugged Shiro for three minutes, muttering thank you’s under his breath while their mother watched them with her own smile.

They had installed the gear to Keith’s computer that same night and the next day Shiro had been there to help Keith log in for the first time.

They both had stared at each other for a minute. Keith’s wide smile contagious in a way Shiro missed to see. They had exchanged brief goodbyes bickering about dinner without knowing that it will be quite some time before either of them spoke to each other again.

It took a few hours afterwards for Shiro’s world to come crumbling down as the news of his brother current state filled the TV screen.

His last memory of that day is standing beside Keith’s bedside watching him with tear filled eyes, hearing his mother cry on the other room in agonizing sobs while Shiro stood as a statue watching the stillness on his brother features and making sure his chest still expanded and deflated with each careful even out breath.

A single thought filling him before everything blacked out.

“Please Keith, come back”

Chapter Text

Keith blink his eyes open the second he feels his body sway with a new lightness not unlike that felt outside of this world. A cacophony of sounds and smells so rich, colorful, strange and yet so familiar assault his nostrils and hearing placing a smile on his lips. The breeze feels warm on his cheeks, blowing longish strands of pure snow-white hair here and there. He turns his eyes downcast to examine his body feeling giddy when brown leather boots, black trousers hold up with a leather belt, a red long-sleeved tunic and a leather chest armor come into his vision. His fingers flex on the brown fingerless gloves getting clammy with the heat of the three suns above his head. He puts them at his waist, grasping the hilt of his sword that sits idly by his hip, trying to get use to the realness of his avatar once more.

Of been inside Voltron Force Online once more.

A startled laugh erupts from his lips and he is dashing down the well know cobbled streets of the market to the fields right the second he feels that well known freedom of Aincrad. He feels the excitement dim a little when he notices the Town of Beginnings been more packet than the last time he was here. Then again there is a great deal of difference between five hundred betas roaming around than ten thousand players in only one level.

He’s barely reaching the edge of the town when he’s already unsheathing his sword and jumping at the first monster that spawn in his path. It looks like a boar, except it has three eyes and it’s a dark bluish color. It is as large as a pony and its tusk seem as sharp as knives. Either way, is ugly and has enough low-level attack for Keith to confront it on his own.

With such thoughts in mind he swings, feeling energy build up on his arms to gather at the blade of his sword. A Red luminescence surging like fire from within in seconds before he trusts the point of it on the boar’s side. With a cry the boar buckles for a moment and then freezes completely before it erupts in crystal like particles, vanishing in the air. A pop-up white screen appears in front of Keith showing his rising exp, money and level.

The rest of the day passes pretty much the same. Hunting low level critters on his own to raise his level without risking his life bar. It’ll be a bother to respawn on the town of Beginnings and do the process all over again, or so he thinks. He has managed to reach level 5 with hours of hunting and perseverance but he did it without much damage to his avatar.

He’s thinking on facing another boar, this one of a higher level than the ones near the city, so he jogs to the grassy paths filled with small outcrops for his prey. The first boar he founds is a good catch, it’ll help him reach the next level and earn some coin, but he needs to jump it at the last second if he wants to avoid injury. This particular boar is bigger and obviously meaner than the rest of its kin.

He braces himself, a deep inhale before he’s launching over a boulder, sword at the ready to impale the back of the boar at the exact same time an arrow pierces it from the right side. The combined attack vanishing the creature with a last squeal of agony.

“Damn man, I thought it was free game, sorry” a voice calls out from up ahead, startling Keith from his brief musing of how he didn’t see the other player until the last moment. A second more an it could have probably hit him instead of the boar.

His eyes scan the fields until he comes up to a lanky figure standing at the top of an outcrop. A male by the looks of it, with a wooden recurve bow held in one hand while the other scratches at the back of his neck meekly. He has brown cropped hair styled in spikes and olive tanned skin; his eyes are a dark shade of silvery blue and his outfits matches Keith except he’s wearing a blue sleeveless tunic with khaki trousers.

“Oh, uhm…” Keith is glad he can’t actually blush as easily inside VFO as in real life or he’ll be redder than his tunic “That’s ok, I wasn’t paying attention either”

The boy smirks, just a small tilt on the left side of his lips as he clambers down to where Keith is standing.

“Name’s Pike, fastest archer you’ll find around here,” he bows curtly from the waist up, extending his arms to the side for more dramatic effect and as he straightens up he asks Keith for his name.

“Yorak, my name is Yorak, no title yet though”

“Yorak, huh? That’s an interesting name” Pike says arching an eyebrow in amusement, he seems to have trouble pronouncing the name, but his shame is not the same as Keith’s at hearing his middle name spoken out loud by someone else. Keith can’t deny the red that is covering his cheeks and the tip of his ears now. Damn Nervegear bringing his shyness up now.

Pike let’s out a few chuckles “That’s fine, it’s a cool name”

“Thanks…yours too”

They fall into silence, both struggling to think on what to say to keep the conversation flowing or how to bid each other a goodbye. There are the noises of more players lounging around doing their own hunting, cheers or yells reaching them lightly. Keith can see Pike’s mouth opening several times as if ready to say something before thinking better of it and closing it. He can relate, actually, as his muddle brain is fighting to speak but his anxiousness to say or do the wrong thing overpowers his desire to be friendly and frustrates him even more than normal. He’s pretty sure he’ll mess this up if he opens his mouth right now but the fight against his impulses is a hard one and impossible to win.

“So, if we’re done here. I’ll get going then. Bye”

Such a way with words, Keith, he berates himself as he starts to stomp -walk, he’s walking- away from the other player. His hands forming into fists at his side after he violently sheaths his sword back into its place.

Pike is, shockingly for Keith, scrambling right behind him, babbling indistinguishable words to try to regain his attention. When that doesn’t seem to work, he goes for physically stopping Keith by grabbing onto his bicep mid-stride so Keith  has to stumble back into a stop if he doesn’t want to face plant.

“Pike, what are y…?”

And suddenly another voice, distinguishable male, calls out from the same outcrop Pike had been standing earlier.

“Hey, you guys done here?” it is awfully familiar but impossible to discern from where. The new player makes Keith and Pike turn their heads upwards him. The familiarity hits Keith once more as he stares at the male dressed in grayish green and black. It is like a prick at the back of his skull that he can alleviate not matter what he does.

“Oh, yeah,” Pike answers with a bright friendly smile when he realizes Keith won’t answer “This side is all cleared, man, sorry.”

“It’s fine, there’s plenty more of places” the man waves at them in farewell, moving back towards the town “Might as well call it a night anyway, thanks”

Keith watches the guy retreating back with such intensity that Pike places a comforting hand on his shoulder, his eyes a bit concerned. “Everything ok?”

“Yeah. Everything is fine”

“Wanna head back to town to buy new equipment until these things respawn?”

“I was actually ready to log out for the day” Keith confesses as his screen shows up in front of his face, so he can gauge how much coin he has. Pike is doing the same on his own screen obviously happy for the amount they acquired.

“For the day?” Pike echoes surprised “Yorak, my buddy, my man, is the first day, we gotta enjoy it for as long as it lasts. Come on, lets tag along for a bit more”

Keith can help himself as he blinks astonished, lips parted just a tad enough to let air through but not to look dumbfounded. He isn’t really used to people aside from Shiro, his mom or Aubrey asking him to hang out with them, usually people tend to avoid him and try to kick him out of their proximity because they don’t want to be near the weird, hot headed, orphan kid. It’s part of the attitude that made him lose himself in online games, people barely judge you because they don’t actually know you, they know the story you chose to tell them.

Somehow Keith doesn’t want to tell a make-believe tale to Pike.

Keith rubs at his eyes with the back of his hand, in a clear sign of exhaustion “I’ll like too but is almost dinner time and my mom will have my head if I don’t log out soon.”

“Damn, okay, how about…” the archer huffs in defeat “We log back afterwards? Just for a little while more. We can meet at the center Plaza at 8pm, please?” Pike ask stashing his bow beside the leather quiver at his back.

Keith probably won’t have a problem logging in later. He knows his mom would just make him swear up and down that he would be up the next day on time and not to complain about exhaustion which he can actually accomplish been pretty adept at insomnia he has mastered the art of ignoring his sleepiness until night time the next day. Is just that there is still that nagging anxiety that makes him question how much he can agree to Pike without been hang up by the guy or mocked or tricked or played. There are a lot of variables and what ifs that make Keith hesitate in his decision.

Which is why he apparently takes too much time answering and is met by Pike’s confused gaze traveling up and down his rooted frame. The archer’s mouth is opening again to ask what is wrong when a bell tolls in the distance with an eerie cheer scaring a flock of pigeons. The noise dragging their attention to the horizon where the bell kept swinging in its tower, singing a warning to anyone who dare to hear it.

“What’s that?” Pike voice rings in the sudden silence that falls, and Keith is barely aware of his surroundings when he feels a tingle overflowing every inch of his skin and a warmth fill his veins. A white mist of light surrounds him, the light turning brighter in seconds until all he can see is white and is forced to cover his eyes or risk been blinded by it.

His eyes burn for a few seconds more until it dims down enough for him to dare open his eyes. Surprised Keith glances around him to find himself at the center of the town plaza surrounded by players that are slowly been transported from all around the area to his close proximity. Pike is right beside him also staring in shock, probably pondering the same things as the rest of them.

The plaza is soon full of confused players in a matter of seconds and the questions don’t made themselves wait as a murmur rose around Keith. Everyone wondering why they were there, what was happening, but the most important question doesn’t answer itself until a few seconds later when Keith turns at the shout of a girl pointing to the sky.

His eyes pick up a single red blinking spot way up over their heads in a slow but steady rhythm. Keith can tell there is something written in the middle although the distance makes it difficult to distinguish the letters properly. Not that he needs it because not a moment later the red rectangle becomes two, then four, then eight, then sixteen, so on and so fort until the sky turns a deep blood red with white words written around. A viscous substance of a very dark wine color starts dripping from the horizon forming a big bulb, that slowly starts to rise and takes form until it looks like a dark purple robbed figure with a white mask and purple clawed hands.

A light shiver runs down Keith’s spine. Unconsciously his hand closes around the hilt of his sword waiting for something to happen.

When it does, fear crawls up his insides and takes residence in his heart.

When the figure finally speaks, is with an icy voice and a dark echo.

“Welcome players, to my world” the figure lifts his arms and Keith can feel the face behind the mask turning into an amusing stare. A smile planted on his lips “And to your new home for the foreseeable future”

Keith didn’t like the sound of that at all.

Chapter Text

There is a panicked uproar seconds after the strange cloaked figure declaration. Screams of anger, shouts carrying questions to those confused by the statement, and murmurs of those who though all it to be some kind of prank introduction or a tasteless joke.

Keith could even hear the muttered “What?” from Pike and he felt his own lips make the same inquiry despite having a sudden cold realization of what that cloaked stranger was talking about. He had been having an odd feeling ever since he logged in that morning but he had attributed that to a combination of nerves and excitement. Now all vanished, replaced with icy dread.

All around him people had opened their menus trying to log out only to find out the needed button missing. In a bout of desperation and fear Keith opens his own menu with the fake hope of getting out of the game, that maybe by some miracle his own menu still has the log out button only coming up with the same results as the others. Empty handed and terrorized.

“No, no, no, no, this isn’t happening” he mutters looking around in a horrible daze once more. He can feel the panic slowly trying to set in, his breathing is coming a bit louder to his own ears, a rising staccato that barely brings air to his starved lungs, his hands are fisted and sweaty, shaking at his sides in a very visible fashion and he has that forebonding feeling of danger looming over his head that makes his legs lock in place despite the urge to run.

“This wasn’t in the Beta. They never said anything about this. Why are they doing this? This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“You were part of the Beta?” Pike asks clasping a hand on Keith’s bicep to stop his sudden frantic movements.

Keith nods, barely paying attention to Pike as the cloaked figure opens several screens around them, each one of them with different news feed of different parts of the world but all of them showing the remarkably similar titles on the front line with massive images of grieving faces and kids of different ages as if will be shown in an obituary newspaper.

“Voltron Force Online: The Death Game”

“Deaths number rising in Newest MMORPG”

“Daibazaal charged for massive kidnapping and murder”

The number mentioned in most articles, Keith assumes, is the current players in the game plus the ones that have already been logged of VFO. Although there was the oddity of the numbers rising up slowly every few minutes, he can quite comprehend how players are able to log off, but that’s something he has the distinct feeling the cloaked figure will tell them.

“You may have noticed now that there is an item missing from your main menu” the cloaked figure starts with that eerie cold voice, not quite male, not quite female. Almost robotic. “The log out button. This is not a bug or a problem from the server the game is programmed to be that way.”

“What is going on here?” a few players yelled, the most agitated ones reacting with violence while others kept to themselves trying to will the nightmare away. Disappointed as Keith when the horrors just kept coming, when the blurry pieces of the puzzle started to click together to form a more morbid picture.

All around the world players had fallen into Daibazaal’s hands and were trapped in this game with no chance of escape. What the company wanted or why did they do this is still unclear to Keith at the moment, to everyone actually.

As a game adept, Keith had read all about the company, the game, the beta progress. But most of all he had read about it’s CEO Zarkon Daibazaal, a man claimed to be the leading authority of the MORPG and RPG games world-wide speaking. He has done and created the best the market has to offer in those areas and his millionaire company is one of the most powerful there is around the globe only followed by the Altea Industries.

There is just nothing that could have pointed out to the current catastrophe.

It was just not possible.

The game had been a set-up, a twisted ploy of Daibazaal to bring forth some fantasy he had about been some sort of Deity in his own world and watch people flit about and try to achieve something only he could possess. He seem to revel on their fear, on their anger, their sadness, their weaknesses. It was just a sick show of power, a thirst to be all powerful and have control over others.

Keith assumed Daibazaal was hungry for blood and he loved the feeling of having 10,000 lives at his mercy.

The cloaked figure, which had introduced himself as Druid, kept explaining how things were going to work on the new Aincrad. No way out of the game except by clearing all 100 floors, which sounded easy enough if not for the fact that to climb to the next floor you needed to clear the current floor dungeon alongside its boss. But as any other game, for each level they climbed up the bosses got stronger and smarter making it an arduous task to reach the top, not to mention nearly impossible. There were the added issues that revival was no existent in the VFO anymore. If your HP dropped to zero, that was it, you were out of the game forever and the NerveGear would send a lethal shock to their brains killing the player in the real world too.

Suddenly, Keith realized that Voltron Force Online wasn’t a game anymore but a fight for survival.

The Druid finish his “tutorial” as he so kindly pointed out but didn’t vanish, not yet anyway. He opened his own menu again and signaled to the players to open their item storage. Apparently there was still one last surprise left for the 9,700 or so players still left in the game (251 passed away due to recklessness and ignorance of family members).

Begrudgingly Keith opened his own item storage per Pike’s insistence to find that indeed there was a single item there.

“A mirror” he thinks as he selects it on opens his palm to accept the object. It’s light, barely large enough to cover and allow him to see the face of his avatar frowning back at him for a second before another sudden warmth and a tingle fills his skin, the telltale sign that comes before a bright light engulfs him and all of the players around him.

“Yorak!”

“Pike!” he hears himself call out, stretching his arm to reach the other one before everything turns blinding white.

The flash last barely a second but it leaves him disoriented none the less and feeling quite odd, like his skin fits differently despite looking exactly the same if not a bit smaller. Looking down at himself a lock of ink black hair falls into his line of sight and he brushes it away with mild annoyance before startling and pulling it back in front of his eyes.

His avatar doesn’t have black hair.

“What the…?”

“Yorak?” Pike’s voice calls to his left. It forces his attention to his newly made friend and away from the bubbling panic churning in his gut.

Shockingly is not Pike standing there anymore, but a tin, long limbed and broad-shouldered boy about his age with chocolate brown hair and copper skin. His eyes are the shiniest ocean blue Keith has ever seeing, despite his pupils been on the smaller side, they still add that touch of handsomeness to the sharp features on his face. He also has that friendly openness spark in his face that says he’s good at making friends and keeping them.

“Pike, is that you?”

The boy nods as astounded as Keith feels, lifting his arms awkwardly like testing the new limbs, turning his body to look behind him. Prompted by his friend, Keith turns his arms around, pulls at the black locks of hair and finally dares to lift the mirror back into his eyesight.

Bluish violet eyes stared back at him under tick dark eyebrows and long lashes, his skin is a tad darker than that of his previous avatar but still on the pale side and his features had softened a bit but still show sharp cheekbones and an upturned nose. The more he stares the more he realizes he’s actually looking at his real life self and not an avatar anymore.

The Druid makes a mocking about how they now are truly in the game and then vanishes into thin air alongside the red sky as if they had never been there to begin with. A final “Good luck” to all of the players is the last thing Keith hears from him, leaving the plaza in a cold stifling silence.

His lungs feel constricted once more, and there’s that sensation of lead settling in his gut that makes nausea arise, sweat is coating his skin in soft icing drops that involuntary makes shivers run down his spine adding to the shakiness of his limbs. His arms are filling with goosebumps from to the tip of his trembling fingers up to his tense shoulders. The words ‘is not a game anymore’ keep running around in his head creating a chaos that threaten to crumble the thin walls holding him together. His breath is getting rugger and he can recognize the lump in his throat as impeding panic. Tears gather at the corner of his eyes despite his best effort to try and calm himself.

He promised Shiro he’ll be careful.

He promised his mother he’ll be quick.

He had broken both promises.

He was going to never seeing them again. He was going to die in the game and there was nothing they could do to help him. No more Shiro to clean up his messes and hold him when the horror crashed on him.

“Yorak?” Pike’s hand on his shoulder snaps him back to reality -or their version of reality now- with a startling clarity that overlaps the chaos and lets him gain control once more. A single tear slid down his cheek, out of his control as he swallows the saliva he manages to gather despite the dryness of his mouth and push the lump away.

He was once a Beta. He knows how to survive. He can get back home. HE CAN DO THIS.

He wipes the tear with the back of his hand.

“Come on” Keith is surprised by the strength of his voice as he turns back towards the closest street, making a grab for Pike’s hand and dashing into it without a second thought. The other players are starting to move, coming out of their stupor. Keith knows his time is dwindling.

“Yorak, what are we going to do now?” Pike asked once they reached one of the empty alleyways near the exit of the town.

From where they were standing, they couldn’t hear more than the murmur of panicked players down the center plaza. Keith assumed they had a few more minutes before the streets are filled with rampaging people trying to get out or beat the others to the best hunting spots. Betas were surely already on the way to the next best town over and if Keith wanted a chance at staying alive, he needed to take a page out of their books and get on his way too, he just couldn’t leave Pike behind.

“There is a town a few hours away that has an easy enough quest with a hefty price” Keith opened up the world map to show Pike, including the highlight of the route he attempted to take “It will help us level up and get some nicer gear for the harder towns”

Pike expression seemed to have a hard time settling into one emotion; going from fear, to confusion, to astonishment, and finally an apologetic resignation which was something Keith didn’t like at all. Much less wanted to hear about it when Pike opened his mouth to reply “I can’t go with you”

“Why not?” glad that his voice came out steady despite de turmoil in his heart, Keith tried to appear nonchalant as he closed the map and fought the urge to avoid eye contact with Pike.

“You are a Beta, Yorak, surely you have experience and knowledge on how to survive and I can force you to keep me safe, to protect me all the time. I won’t make you give your life for me” Pike replied calmly, overly so that it made anger flood into Keith’s veins. This was not the time to play knight in shinning armor. Keith was no damsel in distress either, this was about life and death.

Keith sighed “I can help you, Pike. I don’t mind you tagging along, I can teach you my tricks. I can keep you safe until you learn to defend yourself and then we can protect each other. Alone we won’t be able to survive past level 5”

There was a deep longing in Keith’s heart at hearing Pike laying his life down like it wasn’t any better than Keith’s own. So, what if Keith was in the Beta? Sure, that gave him an advantage over the other players, but he wouldn’t keep that information to himself if he could help it. They were all in the same ditch, the best and logical thing to do was work together to win the game, something he was sure not many of the other Beta players shared. Surely, they were already mobbing the best hunting spots and exchanging “valuable” information for a hefty prize instead of sharing the information to everyone’s benefit. Once upon a time Keith would have done the same if he didn’t know how difficult VFO was and how suicidal was not to have partners for the advance levels.

He needed Pike to understand that too.

“I don’t want to hold you back Yorak. I can’t do that to you”

“You won’t. Pike, I promise you won’t.” Keith fist his hands aware of the time cutting short “I trust you, I don’t know why or how but I know we have a better chance at this if he stick together, besides, part of the schematics of the game is the guild feature, this game was designed to be won by multiple parties not just one player.” He offers his hand for a handshake “Let’s make sure we are part of that raid”

Pike seems to ponder his decision for far more time than Keith is comfortable but he surprisingly manages to keep his impatience reign and wait for his companion to make a choice. It is not an easy feat and there is a lot to lose as it is to gain.

But it seems like Pike rather lose with Keith by his side than alone.

He clasp his hand with Keith’s, squeezing just barely. “Fine Yorak, I’ll play along with you. Let’s kick some Daibazaal ass”

“Keith”

Pike retreats his hand in surprise, confusion written on his face.

“It’s my name, you can call me Keith”

“Only if you call me Lance”

A smile formed on Keith’s lips. This was the beginning of an interesting partnership.

Chapter Text

Lance was getting kind of worried and a bit dumb standing there in the middle of Arus central plaza waiting for someone during the most bustling hours. Apparently despite all that was going on players still have time to eye Lance and mumble jokes or pitying comments on the poor soul that probably had been dumped. Which no, damn, maybe his puppy pout was not helping his situation but why did people instantly assumed he was moping for some lover and not his dumbass partner.

Keith may had been a former Beta but his information had run as dry as that of the others Beta testers faster than anyone had anticipated. Two months of fighting and moving around and no one had ever come close to finding the dungeon.

Lance could tell it had begun to frustrate Keith. It shows in the furrow of his brow, in his clipped responses he gives to the archer and other players (even the NPC have suffered his anger), it shows in the insomnia that had begun plaguing him a few days ago, in his recklessness into battle and his careless on looking after his basic needs. Lance had envied Keith’s natural ability to move forward without a fear nor an injury, his avatar was astounding in the way any born and hard trained warrior was but with the passing weeks and the lack of results that fire that had burned on Keith’s violet irises had diminished to burning ambers.

So, to give his partner a respite, Lance had suggested using Keith’s former informant to see if there was anything going on behind the curtains that was kept from the green and even the orange players.

Which led him to the current point in which Keith had yet to come back from talking to his contact, whose identity escaped Lance. It had passed two hours already and Keith hasn’t PM him nor give a signal of his condition of whereabouts. Lance can’t deny he’s getting slightly worried.

He decides to give Keith ten more minutes before he goes hunting down for that temperamental swordsman that he calls partner.

To distract himself Lance scans de crowds around him making sure there are no suspicious individuals or any red player near his location. Inside the town he is safe from been killed but he’s not about to take any chances nor is he in the mood to battle someone just for laughs. Keith asked him to stay safe and he’s going to keep that promise more so to be able to protect Keith than to save himself.

Thankfully is not a minute later that he sees Keith silhouette walking down the road in his direction. He has a dead white grip on the hilt of his sword and there is another player walking close behind him.

“Hey Samurai” Lance greets with a wave when he’s within hearing distance.

“Samurai, huh?” the girl -now Lance can see her features clearly- repeats with amusement, one light brown eyebrow lifting as she stares at Keith’s blushing face. Her hair is pulled up on a side tail and is a nice sandy brown color. She’s very short considering she only reaches about Keith’s chest (and man Keith is short too), it is a funny contrast. She’s wearing a green long-sleeved tunic that reaches mid tight tapering off into a plated skirt, white high-rise leggings with silver breast armor and brown booties.

it doesn’t take long for Lance lover boy attitude to come to the surface.

“And who’s this lovely lady?” he bows courtly offering a charming smile to the girl who stares at him suddenly serious, a hand on her right hip.

“Lance” Keith warns knowing what his partner is doing. “Just… stop that. This is Pidge, my contact, Pidge this is my partner Lance”

“At your service”

“Uh hu” Pidge tuts unconvinced and unaffected by Lance’s charm. She graces him with a second more of her attention before turning belatedly to an amused looking Keith “So, this is the guy you’re bringing to our dungeon party?”

“Unfortunately,” Keith deadpans at the same time Lance asks, “What dungeon party?”

“Not here” Pidge replies walking away from them towards the closest alleyway, leaving the two males baffled for a minute before they both scrambling to follow her. The trio ambling and dodging between different alleyways and streets that spill further and further away from the center of Arus and the most concurred areas.

It occurs to Lance that Pidge might be taking them to a trap or an ambush, she might be after their coins and items, but he discards the idea as soon as it arrives, with Keith’s inability to trust -or interact with- anybody it is ridiculous that they’ll fall into such situation when it comes to the swordsman friends or acquaintances, not that Keith cannot make mistakes because his bluntness had made them run out of towns before they can do any actual investigation but the younger boy seems to have a sixth sense when it comes to people and Lance is willing to trust it this one time too.

So when they reach a dead end on the most secluded area of Arus, Pidge whirls around on both of them, leaning back against the brick wall while Keith and Lance stand in front of her, the former with his arms crossed over his chest and the latter with his hands behind his head.

“So, dungeon party?”

Pidge sighs “About three hours ago someone revealed the location of the Dungeon and people went crazy, most had already started forming raid groups but the leaders of them decided to send scouts to confirm that it was indeed the first level dungeon. All evidence points out that the damn thing is located at the base of Dashmol Hills, it’s apparently deep within the mountain, the whole dungeon is a maze of caves but apparently someone has a map to the Boss room”

“How accurate is this info?” Lance asks, the need to make sure and not get his hopes up overloading his brain, two months of looking for the dungeon and finally someone found it, or stumble into it, it sounds a bit odd for Lance since people, (himself and Keith included) had cruised those hills several times looking for that dungeon.

“A group of former Beta testers came back an hour ago. They were part of the scouts send to investigate this” Keith replies mournfully “two parties of six players each and only four people returned… barely alive. I’ll say that’s pretty good proof that there is something big inside those Hills even if is not the Dungeon there might be something to help find it.”

“Definitely something big if it went through former Betas like that” Lance agrees with a shiver. He had this concept of the Betas been natural warriors and players, leading the whole excursion for freedom from VFO. Heck, Keith is at least seven levels above Lance himself and he wasn’t one of the top Betas back when the game wasn’t a deadly trap.

“Exactly why we are going over there to finish that thing off” Keith settles with a glint in his eyes. He’s more than ready for some action having been inactive for a good hunt since they arrived at Arus central.

Lance understand his frustration, surprisingly so, despite taking a whole month to break the outer walls that cover the true Keith inside this hot-headed swordsman, in the few weeks that they had been knowing each other and fighting together Lance has noticed the fire that runs inside Keith. He is a ball of action and movement. Keith can stand still and be patient when the situation requires it, but he’ll complain about it afterwards because he needs to be doing something, he needs to be useful (his words not Lance’s).

At the beginning Lance noticed that his partner had troubles verbally expressing himself, his interactions were cut, short but he had a bit of trouble getting his point across and it wasn’t because he rambled about until he reached his conclusion like most people did but more so that he spoke the first word or fragment on the sentence and then was left mumbling so low it looked like he was just moving his lips for a few minutes before he became frustrated and either tell Lance to forget it or finally snap his sentence in yell that made Lance snap his own mouth shut and focus on calming his agitated friend down before going back to their conversation.

It is surprising how far has Keith gone from that to this, a young warrior who has no fear of facing anything and thanks to Lance has learned to speak his mind up without exploding (most of the time) on anyone, specially his enthusiastic partner.

Unfortunately, that personality improvement leads Lance to very troublesome situations like the current one.

Of course, Keith wants to jump right into the mouth of the lion with a stick as a weapon and no knowledge of what awaits him there.

“Whoa, whoa, Keith, my buddy, think it up a bit” Lance sputters, arms flailing dramatically making the arrows on his back rattle loudly. “You just said a dozen players, Betas included, went into that Dungeon and four came back barely alive and you want to go there, just the three of us, guns blazing? Are you insane!”

“They didn’t have the information we have now” is the rebuttal he gets. Keith is wearing his confused angry pout, the one he makes when Lance is acting like a parent and ruining his fun. “We have a better chance at taking the boss, and it’s a level one boss Lance, I took it on my own during the Beta trials”

“May I remind you that during Beta if you die, you respawn at the town of Beginnings in full health, not damage to your RL body or your Avatar and could go on with your life like normal, which means obviously Daibazaal wasn’t putting any effort on his bosses cause you could try a million times with no danger but this is life and dead now Keith, and this is that first taste to what Voltron Online really is, no way can we take the monster down ourselves even with that information”

“But Lance…”

“As much as it pains me, Lance is right” Pidge interrupts, a hand on her hip loosely grasping the handle of her whip, she has correctly assumed that Keith was going to go full on her if his glare jumping instantly to meet hers is anything to go by. “Keith, I know what you’re capable off, we don’t interact much, but I know you, and this is one of those instances where you have to step back and think. You are smart and your instincts haven’t failed so far, so you know this is a suicidal mission. We need more people and time to prepare…”

“People are dying while we discuss this!”

“And you will die if we don’t!” Lance yells back standing in front of the irate teen, to which Pidge steps forward ready to intervene if they fall into a fist fight. “Is that what you want? To die? Have you no care for your mother and brother at all?!”

Keith blanches, stumbling back as if struck, he’s pale now, all the color drained from his face when he realizes he did forget about them, is not just something Lance threw at him to hurt him, is the actual truth.

Lance knows the first week was harsh for both of them, they spend the first few nights comforting each other when the nightmares of their families and the despair became too much but while Lance still struggles to fight off his homesickness, Keith moved on -or buried- his own feelings until they became something of a dream and VFO the only reality he knew. Having the memory brought up so harshly might have made more damage than good, Lance just dig up something that was better left buried.

When Keith turns around without a word and fast walk out of the alley, Lance really knows he screwed up.

Pidge pinches the bridge of her nose with a sigh “Man, I knew I should’ve waited before telling him that. He needs to learn to wait and think”

“He would’ve found anyway and go on his own rather than try to talk us or anyone else into going with him” Lance mumbles staring at the entrance of the alley where Keith disappeared “Pidge, do you have any buddies we can bring up to this party?”

“I have some people who are willing to team up for the raid, they’re trustworthy but it’ll take me about an hour to round them up here. Rumor says that’s when the raid will start so the more parties that go the better chance we have to win and not die horribly”

“Ok” Lance opens his menu, tapping into the friend icon and then adding Pidge ID to the search bar. With a flick of her fingers Pidge accepts the friend request wondering what the boy is up to “There, an hour is more than enough time, hopefully, to convince Keith to come to the raid with the rest of us, message me when you have the party ready and I’ll see you at the foot of the Hill right where the trail from the town ends.”

“You go it” Pidge closes her own menu and with a smirk on her face she moves towards the opposite road Keith took to get on with her task while Lance walks back into town. A loud sigh leaving his lips as he imagines the headache he is going to get soon and how much work he has ahead of him.

In the minutes it took for them to talk the information about the dungeon must have spread because now Lance can see people bustling into shops, arming themselves with different helpful crystals, leveling up as best as they can and enhancing their weaponry and armor, so they stand a chance. Keith is not among them, not a spot of red can be seeing in the ocean of people, not many chose that color to wear, Red and Black were instantly taken over by killer guilds like the Galra.

But Keith been the little rebel he often tended to be, had chosen red as his colors, despite he and Lance been in a partnership together it was funny that they both had such opposite colors in contrast to the rest of the players who often chose a color and a design that represented their unity.

Lance was sure Keith will never let anyone change his decision on anything, well only his big brother, the fondness that came over the younger boy every time Shiro was mentioned made Lance realize how close the two siblings were and feel even worse for bringing him up so suddenly into their conversation.

That’s why he send Pidge to do most of the work, his top priority right now is the impulsive ball of anxiousness he calls friend, who happens to have vanished from the world since he’s not at the Central Plaza, or their Hotel room, nor any store nearby, the fields outside town are filled with players so Keith is in his current mood is most definitely avoiding any crowded place, which leaves two options and Lance prays to all deities out there that Keith is in option one or this would be one hell of a disaster.

Lance ducks into the forest avoiding all the good hunting grounds and getting into the direction between the Dashmol hills and the next town roadside. But keeping himself hidden between the foliage. The noises of the city and fake animal chirps vanish the deeper he gets into the forest but there are no sounds to replace the silence and that definitely amps his worry ten times.

The clearing that opens up ahead is surrounded by very old sycamores trees, with sun light filtering through branches in dimming the quiet atmosphere. The clearing is spacious enough for the dummies and other rudimentary equipment he and Keith set up for training the same day they arrived in Arus. This is a go spot for Keith, something they set out on every town, when he’s frustrated or overwhelmed (which is most of the time honestly) to get rid of that anxious energy and keep his anger in check. It is the spot Lance was praying his irate teammate to be but as it appears, there is no spot or object touched since yesterday morning when they visited last.

“Okay, time for plan B, then” Lance mutters, he walks out of the clearing in the same instance he opens up his menu and once more taps into his friend list. He remembers the first time he discovered the tracking capacity within his avatar, but Keith hadn’t been too happy when Lance had interrupted his morning walk after they had had a fight and the archer had panicked by the lack of answer from his partner. They had promised each other not to use the tracker unless a true emergency which Lance was calling it up on this situation.

“Please, Samurai, don’t be when I suspect you are going to be” he prays as he waits for the map to load Keith’s location.

A bright red spot moving at a steady pace around the Hills area had Lance cursing in Spanish a litany of words his mother would be ashamed to hear but he has no time to feel remorseful as furiously taps a quick message to Pidge letting her know where he and Keith will be and then picking up his weapons in a rush to catch up to the other boy before he does something stupid.

Chapter Text

Keith knew storming off hadn’t been the mature way to deal with the situation, despite Lance knowing and still touching a delicate subject, there could’ve been better ways, mature ways to let the archer know he overstepped a sensitive boundary. Right now, Keith can hear Shiro chastising him for his reaction and telling him to not take things so personally, probably remind him of those anger lessons he took.

Those went down the drain two months ago.

The path to Dashmol is empty, which is not surprising, it makes the walk better for clearing his head and prepare for the fight ahead. He’s suddenly aware of how lonely he is and how awful it feels to be, he hasn’t been away from Lance in a while, they are usually tied by the hip barely leaving each other’s side to do personal things but they don’t take enough time to let the static in Keith’s head to return. Most people will probably comment on how unhealthy his relationship with Lance has become, but then again, they haven’t spent ten years of their lives surviving on your own and then suddenly been thrown into a partnership with a boy who unfortunately spends a lot of time talking his ear off and helping him keep his sanity intact at the same time.

His relationship with Lance is really complicated in a don’t want to get into too much deep about it way.

Keith lets out a soft sigh as he walks, his menu is open on his item list as he does an inventory of all his stuff to make sure he’s as prepared as he can be. Physically speaking he is strong enough to fight the boss, at least hold on enough to tired it out and then deliver a final blow, he’s level 28 and for the first dungeon that’s enough he supposes, but mentally speaking he can feel the anxiety bubbling in the pit of his stomach, a mix of nausea and adrenaline is dancing inside him. A jittery feeling of doom looming over him, it’s like he forgot to do something of the utmost importance but can’t put his finger on what it is and as such the awful feeling covers him, leaving his skin prickling, buzzing with unwanted energy even if his bones feel weary. He feels overly heated, like he has been standing on the sun for too long but he’s not that sweaty, his hands are clammy, and his bangs are sticking to his forehead but aside from that he can tell his body is as cold as ice, goosebumps on his arms and legs concealed by the leather of his outfit. His left hand is shaking, very subtlety, but the more worked up he gets the worse the trembling will become until it spreads, he knows it will at some point.

He's not unfamiliar to these feelings but he hates them, and he hates his inability to not feel this way, the lack of control over his own emotions is infuriating. Not matter what he does, what he takes, what he tries, who he talks to, it just won’t go away. Lance has been helping him with it; how he knew about it, Keith will never know, but it has done a whole lot of difference in his mental health, he feels more in control than when he started the game.

Is something only his mother and Shiro had been able to make him feel.

He shouldn’t be having these thoughts right now, not when he’s about to fight some boss he has barely any information about. Pidge really knew him at least enough to withhold vital information in the attempt at stopping him from doing something stupidly impulsive (like right now). Although the little he got was more than enough to recognize the boss as the same one during Beta, he hoped that the patterns of battle stayed the same or he will have a hard time beating this.

The entrance to the dungeon was right where the raid teams said, underneath a rock formation, covered by moss and roots in a way that no one would suspect it wasn’t just a hole left by a missing boulder but an actual cave opening. The size was barely a meter in diameter, not a good space for him to pass walking, but he had enough space to crawl on his hands and knees for about ten feet before the space opened to the actual entrance.

Easy.

He switches his training sword for his newly acquired double edge sword, courtesy of their last quest, is the best equipment he has at the moment, his shoulder and chest plates are enhanced to the max allowed for his level and even his boots have a thin layer of metal on the underside and the tip of his toes. He’s pretty sure even his tunic has some sort of exp and resistance but he’s not sure if he’s at max on them or not. He’ll figure it out later.

He hacks at the roots a bit to widen the opening, placing his sword on the scabbard resting at the belt in his waist moving it so it dangles more on his back and out of the way.

With one final sigh, he drops to his knees, adjust his gloves and starts the journey inside.

It’s ironic how much thought they put into the game to make it the closest to reality as possible while still giving that feeling of fantasy. Keith was acutely aware of the insanity that was a dungeon inside a mountain but the packet dirt in his fingertips and the roots that crunched under his body weight made it felt real, bugs crawled here and there and there was even the feeling of stuffed, old and dirty air in the cramped space gently blowing on his face. It reminds him of his childhood on that desert house with his father, they used to play hide-and-seek in the backyard and Keith had found a nice alcove inside the shack, a corner of the place topped with boxes away from the door, there’s a window on the wall behind him but is so high up it dimly lights the space, he could breath in fine on the closed air and he could hear bugs crawling on the rickety wood, his father voice echoing in the distance calling his name in that amusing heavy Texan accent.

“Now is not the time” he reminds himself harshly as he finally crawls to the other end.

He stands up, dusting his trousers and gloves. He takes a second to check everything is in order and adjust his sword back to his right hip placing the hilt in a way that’s easy for him to access.

Traversing the dungeon is uncomfortably easy and it doesn’t help set his nerves. He forgoes sheathing his sword since five monsters ago. He almost got decapitated turning a corner assuming he was free of any more of those creepy lizard things, only his quick reflexes and his enhanced speed saved him from that outcome, but it had taken him four slashes of his sword to get rid of that monster.

The map indicates he’s one turn away from the boss room. Thankfully the map Pidge provided was spot on and he managed to arrive with a good health bar despite been a bit slower in his journey for safety measures.

The boss room is marked with a huge stone double door the width of the corridor and taller than a village house, it had strange carvings all along the sides, like swirling patterns that weren’t finished, it looked like someone tried to make them stretch to the center but got tired of it and left it halfway done. There was a small carving of a bipedal creature on both doors, he was taller than any human Keith had ever seeing, and had legs as big as an elephant, his arms were the size of Keith’s own torso and as large as Pidge, the left one was carrying what looked like a torch with a strange orb atop replacing the flame, no ears on their head, small hollowed eyes and a large mouth filled with fangs.

Keith place his hand on the strange image “Myzax the Champion, huh? You don’t look like much”

“Neither do you but here you are, you absolute shit!” an awfully familiar voice yelled behind him.

Keith whirled around facing a very irate and sweaty Lance. His tunic was rumple and his hair sticking in every direction as if he had run his hand over it time and time again. His bow was held in his right hand in a white-knuckle grip that Keith was afraid he might break it and the constant shifting of the arrows on their quiver was enough indication of the angry shaking that covered Lance’s body. He’s way beyond any anger Keith had seeing in the archer before, it was actually pretty terrifying to watch and he has to fight the first instinct that tells him to bow his head and make himself smaller, like he had been taught too.

He takes a step back, he’s so focused on Lance he doesn’t realize he tangled his own legs and soon finds himself stumbling backwards into the door with a startled gasp, his shoulder blades taking the brunt of the impact and he’s scrambling to get his balance back when Lance’s hand snatches his wrist. Fear takes over, his first instinct is to try and rip his hand away from Lance which forces the archer to fall forwards in his own surprise and adding weight to the momentum it sends them both against the door. The impact is enough to push it open and they both fall into the room with equal yells of surprise.

“Ow” unfortunately Keith ended up in the bottom of their pile with Lance weight heavy on his chest “Lance, What. The. Hell.”

“I should be the one saying that, what were you thinking, Keith?!”

“I…”

There is a creaking noise that cuts Keith off, he lifts his head when he feels something brush his ankle, over Lance shoulder he can see the door painfully closing…

… with them still inside.

“Crap!” they both yell, once again scrambling in blind panic to reach the door to no avail.

A second too late the door closes firmly with a last puff of air, it locks on them, leaving them in darkness.

“I can’t believe you thought taking the boss on your own was a good idea and now we are trapped!” Lance yells banging on the door uselessly. He knows the door won’t budge an inch but it’s better than standing awaiting death like the dumb asshole who got them in this mess.

“No one forced you to follow me and you shouldn’t have surprised me!” Keith retaliates as he keeps an eye on the darkness ahead waiting for the boss to appear. He knows it won’t immediately attack them, this particular boss loves the surprise element if his memory serves him correct and although he doesn’t like the idea of putting Lance in danger, facing the boss is a better option that waiting in the dark for someone to come open the door for them, if that is even possible, Keith really doesn’t want to know how boss rooms work right at this moment.

He does regret not learning that beforehand.

“Lance, I don’t think we can get out without fighting the boss” Keith turns to his partner with an awfully soft expression on his face, something not quite fit for the situation but that helps Lance maintain eye contact without feeling like straggling the swordsman. “The only way out is forward”

“And why is that, huh?! This is all your fault mullet, we could’ve waited for Pidge and her friends and the rest of the raid parties but no, you didn’t want to risk anyone life but yours, yours is ok to throw away like that, right?” he doesn’t even let Keith answer as he keeps on his angry speech “And now, thanks to you we are both stuck here awaiting DEATH!! I hope you are really happy with yourself Keith!”

Lance is on the brink of hysteria, his voice is an octave higher, skin pallor paler except for the pink dust on his cheeks that show his frustration, arms flailing with each of his words in overexaggerated movements and eyes blown wide.

“Lance keep it down” Keith hissed back turning to stare at the darkness, he swears he heard something moving to his right, it’s heavy, probably due to its large size, he remembers that most of the bosses are awfully taller than any human adult, but despite that the noise was just one barely there thud that he would have missed had he not been on high alert for something like that. His left hand is going to the hilt of his sword and the other ready to pull Lance away from danger “Something is out there”

“Of course, something is out there” Lance hisses loudly “We are in the boss room!”

Not to soon the last word left his mouth a roar breaks from the darkness and the barely lit lanterns exploded into bigger purplish flames that lit the whole room to reveal a giant beast with eerie yellow eyes, purple skin that looked exactly like the engraving on the door holding a large baton like weapon with a purple orb on the top that flashed with lighting as if a storm was trapped inside it, sparks flew from time to time leaving the air around it crackling with electricity. The boss had three health lines, each one as green as the spring grass during the day.

“shit!” they murmur in unison, Keith pulls his sword out, placing himself in front of Lance while the other is unfolding his bow out of it’s quiver and attaching the first arrow he can get his hand on.

Lance is regretting right now his decision to follow Keith without asking Pidge for the information on the boss. He will have to trust that the hot head samurai has the information needed to defeat this thing. Still he can help himself praying in his mind to all the divine deities he knows to help them and his mom too.

Myzax lets out another deafening roar bringing his weapon upwards. Keith, not waiting for it to swing that thing at them, is already pushing Lance sideways and rolling away, barely avoiding the electric ball smashing against the wall where his head had been a second ago.

“Damn, he’s fast” Keith has to swing his own sword to hit the orb away from himself feeling the impact of both objects reverberate on his bones. The thing was the size of a soccer ball, but its weight was fourth times heavier. This was not going to be an easy fight.

Myzax attacks in a combination of its own arm strength when swinging the baton and the orb that seem to move on its own accord. For every swing Keith made the orb was there to either counter it or take one of its on, leaving him busy enough to not be able to protect himself should Myzax attack. Thankfully the boss was busy trying to pommel Lance to the ground.

“Lance, we need a plan” Keith yells after another bare miss of the orb. They had only managed to hack at one of the Champion’s health’s bars and the more they lower them the faster and harder the fight became. Keith had been hit with that electric orb to many times to count and he felt sore all over, if he could he would be already filled with bruises. Lance had a cut on his cheek and a large gash on his thigh from Myzax claws, both their health bars at half their fill after using four healing crystals. The battle was not looking good for their side.

“What do you suggest?” Lance called using his bow to intercept a hit from Myzax baton, holding it in there with shaking limbs. “I’m almost out of trick arrows and healing crystals!”

Keith’s eyes flashed every where in the room, there had to be something that could work on their favor.

A buzz growing in strength made him duck a second before the orb flew pass him, doing a sudden U turn midair to return to its base on the baton, the buzzing growing in intensity as the spikes atop stopped spinning. That buzz was only now registering in his head, it wasn’t always there, it seems to have a pattern, one that had started to become apparent the more Myzax lost health and that only happened when the orb was in the baton and they attacked Myzax directly.

“It’s using his own energy to recharge it” he muttered to himself in utter surprise as he pieced everything together. “Lance, the orb! That’s the opening we need”

“Care to explain” Lance yells back rolling under Myzax arm, notching an arrow and letting it fly towards the creature’s shoulder eliciting a cry of pain. Keith didn’t wait and charged, ducking between Myzax legs and trusting the edge of his sword on the soft flesh behind its knees.

“The orb needs to recharge, every time it does it leaves him open, his defense lowers” another swipe, this time at the boss arm before the orb left the baton with incredible speed knocking Lance’s aim off and making the arrow he had ready fly upwards and away from its target. “Pay attention to the orb pattern!”

Lance flips backwards, letting the energy build in his weapon. His eyes follow the trajectory of the orb, dodging around it. He’s glad for the statistics of his avatar, he is fast and flexible enough to hold his own in a fight. Keith is having an easier time since his avatar is designed to be lighter and faster despite the more bulk in his armor. Although neither can deny the skip on their hearts every time the other loses a bit of their health.

It is a relief when they see Myzax lose another bar and fall into one knee right after Lance arrow hits it. Not too soon he lets out a deafening roar and his eyes gain on a red shine; the orb grows turning the same red as Myzax eyes and letting lighting bolts hit the ground around them.

“Shit” Keith recognizes the last stage from the Beta trials. Rage mode is the last level on a Boss and the most difficult to defeat, the monster becomes unpredictable with its attacks, increasing the critical hit chance on whatever weapon it is carrying, it also depends on the player stats if the Boss becomes harder to hit and take damage or if there is no change at all in that regard.

For them, there is still a chance to win.

He doesn’t need to tell Lance anything, the archer already has an arrow nocked and it’s letting it go above Myzax head. Keith ducks his head the moment the arrow explodes into a bright light forcing the boss to roar once more as it stumbles backwards right into Keith’s path. The swordsman brings his sword into a series of vertical swipes, one after the other, centered at Myzax limbs, the last one right at its bicep. It is a second to late for him to notice the other arm came up to attack, catching him right at his chest, knocking the air out of his lungs and sending him crashing into the wall with a cry of surprise.

Keith crumbles to the ground, unable to breath all the sudden as his health reaches the line between yellow and red.

“KEITH!” in a flash, Lance is there, forcefully rolling him out of the way. Myzax baton hitting the ground they had been in a second before with another deafening roar. “I’ll distract it, get a healing crystal on you ASAP”

“Lance, wait!” Keith tries to grab him, but his hand brushes the back of the blue tunic as Lance is already intercepting Myzax.

Keith scrambles to grab a healing crystal at the same time he gets a better grip on his sword; he hasn’t finished saying the words to get the crystal working when he’s already up and running to help Lance.

Arrows fly, sword slashes can be hear echoing in the chamber and the massive weight of the baton when it impacts makes the ground shake beneath their feet but there is still not leeway on the battle, they can’t break through Myzax strong defense and his attacks are so aggressive it’s hard for Keith to get close to deliver his own attacks so they had to rely on Lance’s bow mostly and hope for the best.

It is harder than Keith could had imagine. He’s selfishly glad that Lance is with him because he’s sure he will have died before hitting Myzax second health bar. Now he’s a few hits close to the red part on his last health bar and he knows is bad luck celebrating ahead but he cannot stop the relief that flows through his veins.

It is almost over.

They might survive this yet.

One well place arrow has Myzax falling to one knee using the baton to hold himself up, several more arrows follow the motion. Keith doesn’t waste a second of the distraction his partner provided him, taking a running leap to trust half his sword into Myzax right eye, flipping backwards without letting go of the hilt of his sword to painfully pull it off the boss and land stumbling on his feet. He feels weary despite the game stats preventing pain, discomfort or soreness to all players. His anxiety toped with his mental exhaustion are not helping his energy levels which in returns and surprisingly affects the stamina of his avatar.

“Damn, just a bit longer”

Myxaz’s injured eye is a dark orange, the same color all their wounds take but it doesn’t seem to affect his vision which sucks. His bar is finally a little over the three-quarter red mark. A share look with Lance shows Keith they’re thinking the same thing one last hit from them will finish this, but they don’t have time to move when the orb erupts into a lightning storm, hitting them both. Their screams of surprise as the current flows through them seem to please Myzax, who lets out a roar of content as both players fall to their knees gasping for breath.

The shards of the orb are littered around them, still sparking sporadically, covering the ground around Myzax like traps waiting to be set off, which probably happen once they step on them. Lance has two arrows ready and aimed at the hand holding the baton, that is rising in front of him.

One more hit.

Keith’s stamina bar is barely full enough for one more attack.

Lance’s arrows are nothing but toothpicks against Myzax baton, without any stamina left, Lance is open to attack and he seems to realize it when the baton crushes his arrows and keeps on its heavy speed towards his head, ready to smash it into a pulp. He closes his eyes on instinct, dropping his weapon and pulling his arms up to protect his face, his health bar is not filled enough to survive the hit and he knows it. His only consolation is that Keith still has a big chance to survive.

It’s a split second, but it feels like an eternity when Lance feels the warmth of a body fill the space in front of him, something presses against his chest and subconsciously he lowers his arms to hold onto what he guesses are thin shoulders, metal clashing echoes in his ears as a red glow filters behind his closed eyelids, there is a cry and wind rushing around him before Myzax roar fills the cavernous room with one final wail of agony.

Lance opens his eyes to see the behemoth creature vanish into multicolored shards.

“Holy sweet Jesus” he mutters when he processes the presence of Keith in front of him, arm still stretched forward with the tip of his sword dimming of the energy of that last attack that had finally did the job on finishing the boss off.

They had done it.

“Oh my God”

They both fall to their knees, exhausted but happy that they manage to survive that. Their pants are the only thing they can hear. Lance swallows painfully watching as Keith drops his sword to stare at the menu that suddenly pops in front of them alongside a ‘VICTORY’ sign.

“Whoa, that’s one hefty amount of coin and exp” Lance can believe that he just level up twice for defeating one boss, then again, with only Keith to share the reward is was not surprising at all. His bow also raised gained up a few levels meaning better chances at critical attacks and stronger trick arrows in his quiver. “Oh hey, what was the surprise last attack bonus?”

He remembers hearing something about special items been rewarded to the person who delivers the final killing blow to the Bosses. In this case, Keith.

The swordsman taps his menu, closing the reward window and opening his item storage. All the sudden his tunic changes colors from red to a white one that Lance bought for him the first week into the game. But before he can ask what he’s doing a maroon red leather coat materializes on Keith’s body, the sleeves are ¾ long and the hem brushes against his thighs, there is a gold line running in the middle simulating a zipper line with four golden buttons, the cuffs and hem are a white color.

“Is that the Sun Coat?” Lance ask poking Keith’s side. The younger boy nods as he eyes the coat himself. It’s not that big of an item but it gives Keith cold resistance, increases his defense and makes him sort of fireproof, which Lance hopes they don’t need because that means they’ll be near dragons or other fire creatures. “If someone was going to get a fire item will be you, you hot headed samurai”

Keith let’s out a chuckle, shaking his head “Whatever, we survived, didn’t we?”

“I can’t believe you unlocked the next level”

“No,” Keith is standing up, turning around to face Lance with that soft smile on his face. He offers a hand to the archer “We did it together”

Lance chuckles too, taking the offered hand to haul himself up, without letting go of Keith’s hand, he turns, to stare at the younger boy with an equal soft genuine smile.

“You’re right” Lance concedes squeezing Keith’s hand “We do make a good team”

Chapter Text

After opening the pathway to the next level and sending a message to Pidge in apology for their disappearance alongside assuring the young girl that they were both still alive. They agreed to meet her the next day after a good night rest and once they were ready to deal with the fame of defeating the boss because as Lance had described they were now ‘fucking badass gods’ or something like that, Keith had been too tired to argue or actually pay full attention.

Pidge had given them a whole angry speech on how not to be dumbasses and try to kill themselves again, hero acts wouldn’t work on VFO always and she wasn’t ready to add friends to her mourning list. No one knows what else the girl went on about, but eventually even Lance joined in and they both corralled Keith into promising no more stupid stunts like that.

Keith bought Pidge a nice steel dagger with a forest green wooden handle that had its blade coated in poison and dark brown arm guards that upped her poison resistance by +2. Pidge had stared at him for a total of 3 minutes with an unimpressed glare and an arched eyebrow before plucking the objects from his hands with an “Apology accepted” and hopping on her merry way.

The rest of the day had been spend doing some resupply shopping and working as sort of bodyguards for Pidge (as payment for worrying her). She left them at sundown since she needed to meet up with her group, but they did arrange to daily PM her to let her know they were still kicking.

They stayed in that town for about a week before moving on to the next one to restart the search for the next dungeon and get their levels up more.

Another month flew by and luckily a raid had successfully opened the next level -they hadn’t been there for that particular raid– and now they were finally up to explore Level three, which looked kind of dark and eerie but it probably was due to nighttime so Lance suggested clocking in for the night and start exploring early the next morning.

The downtown was a bit crowded already but Keith with his frowny glare opened a path for them as if it was nothing.

They had seen a sign near the center of the plaza that had the name of the level on it ‘BALMERA’ written in a luminous ink that made it look like the letters were made of some sort of crystal, which know that he thought about it seem to be the theme of this level since crystal of different sizes seem to have replaced the flora of the area and the cavernous appearance of the level was a huge highlight on that theme too. He wasn’t sure from where Daibazaal was getting these names from or if they meant anything related to the levels but whatever.

The place had a very soft torch light that despite the cavern walls and dark ceiling it gave a cozy little feeling to the town. Despite the danger of the game, towns were a definite safe zone but honestly neither of them get that full vibe of not having to look over their shoulders every second anywhere on VFO but Balmera was the closest level they had ever encounter so far without the danger sense going on high mode.

Once they arrived at the hotel Lance had intended to crash as soon as possible but despite being in a virtual world, habits were hard to kill and so he took possession of the bathroom -after Keith passed out on his own bed- to shower and keep his beauty routine as far as he was allowed which wasn’t much beside washing his face with a lotion and cream he had bought from an NPC and styling his hair which still took him like thirty or so minutes. He unlocked the door and pushed it open as silently as he could to avoid waking Keith.

A small cry made him abort his mission when it was followed by the rapid breathing of his companion coming in short burst from inside the room.

“Keith, hey, hey, look at me” Lance had dashed to his partner side forgetting all about been silent. He climbed onto his partner bed; hands outstretched over Keith’s shaking shoulders but not touching yet. Keith seemed to be halfway through a panic attack probably woken up by a nightmare. He was sitting up in bed, legs pulled to his chest and his hands grasping handfuls of his black hair and pulling at it from time to time, his forehead was pressed against his raised knees and what visible skin was there was covered in goosebumps. He didn’t seem to notice Lance was in the room yet.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, oh god” his voice came out raspy and slow, product of screaming himself awake which surprised Lance since he didn’t hear him.

Keith didn’t seem to be present in the moment, probably still in the grasp of whatever dark scene his mind was plaguing him with.

“Oh Keith. It’s ok buddy. Listen to me, it’s ok. I’m here, shh”

Lance leaned down, trying to peer at the other’s face from under his bangs. Keith’s eyes were half lidded; pupils blown wide but with a hazed dull look on it. They were red rimmed, and tears seem to be gathered at the edge of them but had yet to fall over the ghostly pale skin.

The archer should’ve expected something like this to happen, it wasn’t like it was something new or out of the blue. Keith had been having nightmares on and off since the battle with Myzax, prior to it he tended to have one a week, maybe every two weeks and none were as bad as the ones he started to have after the boss room. The only good thing that came out of that fight was that Lance now knew how to deal with a panicking Keith.

“Keith, I’m going to touch ok? Is just me, just Lance, please don’t lash out” the last part was muttered to himself. A bad experience with an anxious Keith had cost them a healing crystal for Lance and Keith to forego sleep for three days straight out of fear of hurting Lance again.

As soon as Lance placed his hands on top of Keith’s, the other boy flinched violently forcing himself away from Lance and to make eye contact with the older boy. Whoever it proved to be a good move despite the startling reaction since the haze seem to lift from Keith’s eyes.

“L-Lance?” a pale hand reached upwards to rest on Lance’s warm and unstained skin, there were no marks of slashes or electric burns on his body. His other hand slapping over his chest as he swallows the lump in his throat heavily “You’re alive”

“What? Of course I am!” a shiver runs down Keith’s spine and Lance can feel it on his cheek where his hand rest “You were just dreaming Keith”

“It felt so real… I w-woke up and you weren’t t-there. I… I t-thought… shit, I’m s-sorry”

Lance sighed moving his hands to rest on Keith’s shoulder as the other one worked on easing his breathing. Lance could feel guilt settled in the pit of his stomach but also and surprising even him, anger. He hadn’t even left the room and that had made his partner panic which was something he had never wanted to cause but at the same time, he couldn’t be waiting living on the alert of anything bad plaguing Keith, not at least for whatever traumas the games brought them after Myzax since it was Keith’s own fault. It was the same anger that had bubbled up when he had discovered that his partner had decided to go fight the boss on his own almost getting them both killed and the same one that surfaced when Keith refused to join the raid party for the second level dungeon, they had a small fight over that one when Keith had implied he didn’t think Lance could survive that raid and wasn’t going to tempt fate.

“I’m sorry Keith. You shouldn’t have woken up alone”

“Is not your fault, my head got the best of me” Keith murmurs reluctantly pushing himself away from Lance, he swipes his hand over his hair getting rid of sweat and the bird nest of a hair he’s sporting. He takes one deep inhale before looking back up at Lance “I thought you were tired, why weren’t you in bed?”

“I got untired enough to manage a shower. Something you should’ve done after that lizard thing battle”

“I don’t think you’re using the correct word there” a small smile showed on Keith’s face ruining the whole stoic mask he was trying to build. “Untired isn’t a word, Lance”

Lance pushed at his chest, earning a chuckle for it “Shut up, Keith, what would you know?”

Instead of answering Keith rolled off the bed, falling lightly into his feet, his way of ending the conversation most likely because he didn’t want to talk about his dream. Lance supposed they could let it rest for now and deal with it after they both had a goodnight rest.

Keith was about to walk into the bathroom when a scream rang off right outside their room followed by several surprised gasps.

Like pulled by the same strings they both dashed towards the door. Lance barely getting a grip on his bow while Keith equipped himself with his sword and boots. Benefits of virtual reality that he could do that while still running down the stairs barely avoiding the other players who came out to investigate.

Right outside the door, across the small plaza where the hotel was placed, a small crowd had already started to gather around what would be a crime scene later. None of the other players seem too keen to take the lead on what was happening, so it fell to the two of them to reign the chaos in.

“Come on, people, make way. Important people coming through” Lance was pushing his way as best as he could with little success until Keith pulled on his collar to set him behind him, walking ahead with confident strides. He cleared his throat loudly and all heads turned around to meet his steely glare which was enough to open a path for them.

In the middle of the circle a single player was kneeling, her frame shaking as she held a knife over an empty spot on the cobblestone street. Her free hand was held over her mouth as she let out soft whines and apologies under her breath. Lance moved to the player’s side kneeling at her side while Keith rounded on the gathered players.

“Did anyone see what happened?” he asked, his voice echoing around the silent plaza.

Many players shook their heads, stepping backwards when Keith’s eye made contact, seizing the true in their answer before moving to the next person. Lance was trying similarly unsuccessful to pry and answer from the shocked player who’s only response to the gentle question made by the archer was to drop the knife and curl in on herself.

“No one saw anything? Seriously?!” Keith did a 180 on all the players, his glare intensifying to a point that won’t be helpful for them if they wanted to get answer.

Surprisingly a player stepped up before Keith lost his temper.

“Haven’t you seeing her cursor? Is obvious what happened here”

Keith turned confused eyes first onto Lance and then as if deciding on it, they turned to the sobbing girl focusing their stare on the small cursor above her head.

Bright red.

“Lance!” Keith pulled his partner up by his bicep with enough force to successfully get him away from the girl who dropped forward with a wail of despair not a second later. “A red player, she’s a red player. What did you do? Did you know the player? Why did you kill them?! ANSWER ME!”

The girl only continued crying, ignorant of the people around her and the scene she found herself stuck in the middle of it. Keith stepped forward to try and shake her, but Lance stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

“Keith, stop it. She’s terrified out of her mind. Try to be a bit more sensitive”

“Sensitive? She killed someone!” the girl flinched at the loud voice. Several other players following on Keith statement and some suggesting what to do with the sobbing girl.

It infuriated Lance that no one was suggesting letting the player explain herself but they were all set on killing her too, although no one wanted to be the one to do it. Quick to judge a player for killing without knowing the motive but cowards enough to do it for what they thought were a good reason.

“SILENCE!” the roar cut through the gathered crowd managing to calm the rising chaos. Several metallic footsteps could be hear coming closer, a small group of people, probably an arriving party. Lance moved in front of the girl at the same time Keith unsheathed his own sword and took a stand covering Lance.

The players parted to allow the new arrivals to get closer to the scene. Keith’s grip on his sword tightens when he sees the emblem on their armor. A hexagon with 2 G’s in the center; one small orange and one large brown. Five players total were the ones in this particular group, one wearing an olive-green tunic with an axe strapped to his back. He was an older guy, probably on his way to his sixties, skin darker than Lance’s and with a build that rivaled Shiro’s own, he stood a full head over most players. His underlings all wore bright orange tunics with white designs, they seem to be around Lance’s and Keith’s age. Two girls and two guys, who much to Keith’s misfortune, were a bit taller than him. The tallest guy had dark skin and thick black hair, his face was stoic, and he was built as a professional boxer. The other guy stood at Lance’s height, with light colored skin and chocolate brown hair, to Lance’s surprise he seemed to share Keith’s same weird eye color trait since the guy had lilac pupils. On the other hand, the girls were about the same height, barely above Keith’s own. One had dark copper skin and a black bluish tonality to her hair, she wore a light brown headband on it, and had it pulled up in a high ponytail with fringes framing her smiling face. The last girl had fairly short blonde hair with cream like skin, freckles dotted her cheekbones and the bridge of her nose, and she seem bored the most out of her teammates.

Despite the very little time that the game had been online, there were several Guilds that already were becoming quite heard of, and one of them that had been taking over slowly as some sort of police force had been the Galaxy Garrison Army. They mostly roamed the first level, option to maintain order more than actively participating in boss raids but they had grown steadily in numbers since the Red Players or Galra as they had been prone to be called also became more popular in a twisted horrifying sort of way.

Personally, neither Lance nor Keith had come across either guild, they rarely stumble into any big guilds often clashing with small parties. It was something that Keith’s nature had rubbed off on Lance to avoid other players or join any more people. To be honest aside from Pidge, there was no one on their friend list or even other contacts, since it was unusual for them to talk to other players more than once. But they had heard enough about most of the guilds to know how to act around them.

No all news were good when the Garrison was involved.

“Step aside boys, this is Galaxy Garrison business” the man in command wave his hands at Keith in the distinct sign of pushing him away without actually touching him.

Keith’s mouth twisted into a snarl as his only answer, letting Lance (which was the more sociable and level-headed of the two) to take over this argument.

“Actually, is not. This girl is into our custody”

“And you are?” the man arched an eyebrow, accentuating the scar over his right closed eyelid.

“Not letting you take this girl” Lance informed dutifully with an edge of mockery in his tone. “We got here first, buddy, which means this is our business”

“You are not Galaxy Garrison cadets. You have no right”

“And you do?” Keith butted in angrily “This is a game, not real life. I don’t care what sort of legal big pompous job you have RL but in here Guilds are just groups of peoples, you only have real power if you are leveled up enough to be stronger than your opponent and in three months’ time that is unlikely for most players”

“Except the Betas” the blonde girl said taking a step forward “Their advantage on knowledge of this world allows them to be ahead of the rest of the players thus granting them easier and faster access to leveling up which in return will made them the most efficient fighters in Voltron Force Online add that to the aid they have provided to the general public it has given them enough support that they have actual power above everyone else, they stand in a position where people see them as leaders”

The leader of the party huffed, clearly annoyed to having his own underlings speaking out of consent.

“Really?” Lance’s grin had widened enough to be named a Cheshire grin. “And this applies to all Betas?”

To their surprise, most players along the young GGA players nodded or agreed to that statement, also adding that they hadn’t seen a Beta in quite sometime since they all battle in the frontlines rarely mingling on towns unless it was necessary or to pass some sort of new information found by them.

“Does it matter? We came here on the issue that a Red player managed to break the laws of the safe zones and killed another player. As Galaxy Garrison members it is our right to handle this situation since no one is on a level to be able to lead this, we are entitled to take over this investigation” the leading man said stepping forward until he was towering over the smirking duo.

“Well you see buddy, it so happens that there is someone with much more authority here than yours and he agrees with the fact that this situation is not yours to handle” Lance cheekily said shrugging his right shoulder as he hugged the girl to his side strongly at the man confused expression, he pointed at Keith’s tensed figure mouthing beta before addressing the dark haired teen himself. “Keithy, my dear, escort this big pompous man and his friends out of my investigation”

“Gladly” Keith lifted up his sword, widening his stance so he was in a position to swipe at the man should he tried to attack “Now, we can do this the easy way or the hard way”

The man seems to seethe at that pulling his axe out of the strap to threaten them. “You don’t scare me. We all know all high-level Betas fight on the frontlines, you are not one”

Keith shrugged his shoulders “I got bored. Turns out the front lines aren’t as entertaining as I was promised”

The circle of players around them moved backwards, chanting and urging them to fight it off. That was fine for Keith, he itched to get the bad energy and anxiety of this nightmare out of his system and a duel seem like the healthiest way to do it. Lance apparently agreed as he coaxed, with soothing mumbles, the girl away from the two duelists as the other four members of the Galaxy Garrison moved to do the same.

The man stared at the gathered players before turning his angry scowl at Keith. “Let’s settle this then”

A pop-up menu materialized in front of both, a single question of consent to the normal dueling rules inside safe zones that stated the first player to drop to red or yield will be declared loser. After agreeing, the screen change to a small window asking for the reward of the battle which both left blank since no coins nor objects were being exchanged.

A larger screen appeared above them for all gathered to see: a rectangle box with the inscription ‘C. Iverson vs. Yorak” with two light green squares that indicated levels ‘29’ and ‘55’ respectively. In the middle of the screen was a circular screen that announce the countdown coming down from 5…

4…

3…

2…

1…

Not one to waste a second, Keith is already moving before the clock finishes vanishing. He aims high, trusting his arm forward in a large arch that forces Iverson to stumble backwards lifting his axe with both hands to meet the edge of Keith’s blade with a resonating clank of metal. Keith twist his arm downwards hooking his weapon on the enemy axe to force him to lose his grip and drop it down a bit so he cannot use it to stop the punch aimed to his cheek. Iverson staggers back obviously surprised by the strength on such small body. He thought that since the kid wielded a sword there couldn’t be too much EXP on his strength bar but apparently, he was wrong.

None the less, Iverson swung his axe with an angry yell, forcing Keith to parry it with a swing of his own before deftly moving away from the next swing. The battle continues in an exchange of swings and trust, both weapons clashing with metallics hisses. They pair exchanged cries of pain and anger, cuts adorning their bodies when the other got a lucky shot but there was an obvious sign that one of them was getting closer to victory despite both their health bars been almost even.

“For a Beta, you fight like an amateur” Iverson taunted after one of those times they stopped to catch their breathes.

“As if, I’m going easy on you, old man”

Lance wanted to be so proud of the sarcastic responses falling of Keith’s smirking lips, but he couldn’t, despite his former title as Beta, Keith wasn’t as proficient fighter as many of the former Betas. Of course he could hold himself pretty well during battles but Keith had an issue with control, he could do strategy, he had a brain for it and god could he make a plan out of nowhere but it all was useless after a few minutes when his impulses took over and out the window went their easy victory.

Iverson seemed like an efficient fighter; he already had been able to hold fifteen minutes against Keith with his health bar barely endangered. But Lance could tell the battle was coming to an end and he had a vague idea of who the winner will be, although he wasn’t the only one seems bets were being placed all around him, the brunette Garrison soldier even put a bet that surprised everyone when he put it against Iverson.

The fight continued evenly matched for a few more minutes, people had begun to chant the name of who they thought would win.

Iverson risk an injury by holding onto his axe with one hand making sure to keep Keith’s sword trapped by pressing it to the ground. He grabs at Keith’s jacket collar and pulls him forward and into his head ramming it with a vicious headbutt that earns a startle cry from Keith as he falls backwards on his rear. The axe wilder was moving in the next second lifting the heavy weapon to bring it down onto Keith’s head. With a yelp, Keith rolled to the side feeling the tail end of his coat rip when it got caught in the edge of the axe.

“Come on Keith!” Lance yells prompting his partner to jump to his feet. Iverson swings to deflect Keith’s sudden attack, their weapons clash and stay locked as the two use all their strength to push their own weapon against the other to cause damage. Both light up slowly, green for Iverson and red for Keith, the hiss becoming louder as the two fighters keep pushing and making their weapons meet. The light picks up and there’s a point that everyone gasps in surprise and must duck their heads to avoid been blinded by the charged weapons.

There’s a bigger clank between the two metals and a cry of anger.

“KEITH!”

The light dissolved and the view of the two fighters left everyone speechless.

Keith was kneeling on the ground, his sword poised at Iverson’s chest while the man’s own weapon was broken in half a few feet away. Both breathing heavily and loudly. Suddenly a new screen pops up above their heads with Keith’s face and username alongside a green flag that read ‘WINNER’.

Among the silence that had befallen the plaza, Keith’s whispered words carried out clear to all the present players.

“My partner and I will handle this situation now.” He stood up swiftly, pushing his sword back into his hip scabbard “The Galaxy Garrison Army has no authority in here”

The Garrison cadets walked to their leader, the tall guy offering a hand to Iverson while the other one walked closer to Keith. He seems to be analyzing the swordsman for a few seconds as if deciding how to tell Keith to shove it because this was still their business despite the ravenette’s Beta status been already proven.

Keith stared astonished as a hand was offered to him to take and a friendly smile filled the other boy’s face. Apparently there wasn’t going to be a round two with this people.

“Good match” he said in a light tone “If you ever need our help, our resources are at your disposal, like Leifsdottir said, we follow your command”

“Thanks” Keith says clearly confused, looking back at Lance then at the other boy when his partner shrugs confused too.

The boy squeezes Keith hand one last time before turning to his team “Kinkade, take the commander back to HQ. Razavi help Leifsdottir clear the area of this players for …uhm…”

“Keith” Lance buttes in “and I’m Lance”

“Keith and Lance, okay. Well it seems like you have this situation under control. We’ll take our leave now”

As the two girls get into action and the two males walk with the Commander still fighting them on the right to stay there. Keith turns back to Lance, the confusion turning to a glare in his stare when he catches the girl, not openly sobbing but still letting a few silent tears roll.

“Lance” he makes a little sign with his head pointing at the girl and the situation that got them into all of this. It is uncomfortable and dangerous for Lance to be embracing her like that given what she just did, and Keith is not against openly showing his discomfort.

“Maybe we should take this somewhere else” Lance glares back at Keith daring him to say something mean to the poor clearly distraught player. “Come on, let’s take you somewhere safe” he mutters to the girl gently pulling her along with him towards their hotel, Keith grumpily following behind.