Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Shiro was not fond of visiting the Garrison library. It was too big. Too quiet. Too… empty. Besides, almost every book was available to be read on his holopad anyway. However, Shiro couldn’t deny, there was some sort of satisfaction from holding and reading the reference book about quantum physics. And Adam was borrowing his holopad for the day until Adam's recently damaged one was fixed.

Shiro had just finished his reading on the third floor and was on his way to the back exit when something in the corner of his eye made him do a double take.

See, the Garrison had a dress code for students and staff during a certain period of the day and at certain facilities. It was a strictly enhanced policy that no one dared to break in fear of the disciplinary consequences. So yes, seeing a teen wearing a red hoodie in the library, sitting cross-legged at the end of one of the aisles rang all sorts of alarms in Shiro’s head.

He glanced around and noticed there was no one but the two of them on that floor. Technically, the third floor only had reference materials and students usually had the textbooks downloaded on their own devices. Maybe Adam wasn’t the only one with a broken device…? The teen gave no indication of whether or not he was bothered by Shiro’s scrutiny.

Shiro began to slowly approach the teen and took note of the mountains of books on the floor surrounding the teen. He stopped right in front of the teen but was still ignored. He opted to clear his throat to gain attention.

“What?” asked an annoyed voice. The teen had the audacity to not even look at him!

Before Shiro could say anything, the teen glanced up at him with a raised eyebrow. “If you want this book, there’s three more copies on the third shelf, second row from the bottom. Call number QC18312. Z49F. 2050. V12.”

Shiro wasn’t sure what was more confusing; the fact that the teen had recited the book’s call number without looking at the spine or the fact that the teen casually assumed Shiro wanted the book at all.

“Um.. What are you.. Why are you here dressed like that, cadet?”

The teen frowned. “Cadet?”

Shiro frowned back. “You’re not a cadet?”

“…No, I’m just reading,” said the teen waving his hand towards the books around him, like it was the most obvious statement.

“…” Shiro stared at the teen, trying to comprehend the situation.

“Library’s public, ain’t it?”

Slowly, Shiro shook his head. “No. No, it’s not. Not this one. How’d you get pass the sliding doors at the main entrance?”

The teen looked genuinely surprised. “There’s a main entrance?”

“What entrance have you been using?” Shiro asked incredulously.

A lot could be said about the Galaxy Garrison’s security when Shiro was led to the faulty staff exit on the third floor of the library. Which just so happened to be connected to the empty ground space outside. And had a completely climbable fence leading out to a barren desert where civilization should have been non-existent.

Except for Keith “I’ve-been-reading-here-for-a-year” Kogane.

Matt was sitting on the couch when he heard the door open and knowing it was his roommate, called out, “Found what you needed, Shiro?” He turned to face Shiro and immediately froze when he also saw a casually dressed teen at the doorway. “… I don’t recall you looking for a-…” Matt shrugged. “-test subject?”

Shiro sighed. “Matt. Meet Keith.”

‘Keith’ nodded. “Hi.”

“Hi…” Matt responded unsurely. He gave an accusatory gaze at his roommate. “Shiro?”

“Found him in the library.”

Matt gave Shiro a disbelieving look.

“He’s not a cadet, Matt.”

“Oh.” Well that changed things. Matt got off the couch and motioned for a handshake with Keith. “Congratulations! How’d you infiltrate us?”

Shiro’s shoulders sagged. “Matt, really?”

Keith returned the handshake though. “I didn’t know the library was off-limits.”

Matt stared at Keith. And when he realized Keith was telling the truth, Matt laughed. He laughed until he was wheezing and clutching the back of the couch, trying to keep himself from rolling on the ground.

“It’s not that funny," Shiro deadpanned.  

Matt’s face was red as he tried to breathe properly. He was still giggling and wiping his teary eyes when he finally stood upright again. “It’s hilarious. Why’d you bring him here, then?”

“I can’t just let him go!”

Matt and Keith echoed the same question simultaneously, “Why not?”

“He infiltrated the main base of a private military organization!"

“Nuh-uh.” Matt wiggled his finger authoritatively. “Infiltrating means he was on a mission to break in. Keith here just wanted to read.”

Shiro stared at Matt like he was an alien species. “Whose side are you on?”

“Book readers gotta stay united, sorry Shiro.” He turned to Keith with an excited glint. “Ever read original sci-fi books? I have a whole collection from the 90’s!” Matt was already pulling Keith towards his compartment, leaving Shiro dumbfounded.

Eventually, Shiro just sighed yet again, walked out of the room and proceeded to report about the faulty library staff exit. And maybe also suggest opening the library to the public. If not, he could probably help Keith gain access to some of the books. The third floor was just filled with normal reference materials anyway. There was no harm in seeking knowledge.

By the time he got back, Matt and Keith were at the dining table and papers were scattered as they sat across each other. Matt was frowning as he looked over some of the papers and Keith was… writing?

“Hey Shiro?” Matt called without looking at him. “Remember those mock exam papers you printed last week and you gave me the answer sheet so that I could check your answers later?”

“Yeah, why?”

Matt didn’t answer him.

Curious, Shiro joined them at the table. Matt handed Shiro two of the exam papers he had printed – only it was already filled and marked. The scores were almost perfect; a 96 and a 98. Shiro put two and two together and slowly turned to Keith. The mock exam papers covered every single topic ever taught at the Galaxy Garrison; from basic physics to advance materials and knowledge required by any future astroexplorers in the form of 100 short-answer questions. And here was a teen who lived in the desert, answering the mock exam papers like it was a piece of cake.

“He’s doing the third one,” Matt whispered. “And he’s got almost every question right so far.”

Shiro inhaled sharply. He stared at Keith, long enough till Keith finally stared back. Holding up the two marked exam papers, Shiro had to ask, “You really did all these questions?”

Keith’s lips twitched. He almost looked smug as he responded, “What, like it’s hard?”

Shiro laughed. “How do you feel about playing with a flight simulator, Keith?”

This time, Keith grinned.

“RISE AND SHINE KEITH!!!”

Keith tried to block Matt’s cheery wake-up call but it was futile as he was practically dragged away from the pillow on his bunk.

“The Sun is up! C’mon sleepy head!”

“Matt,” Keith groaned. “The Sun doesn’t even set in space. It’s always up.”

“Semantics, young padawan!” Matt announced regally. He then proceeded to shove a water pack in Keith’s hand and made sure Keith stayed upright on his bunk. “Wake up before Shiro eats all of today’s rationed breakfast eggs!”

“One time," Shiro whispered vehemently. “That was one time.” He was balancing two plates of food and he handed one to a groggy Keith. Matt had skedaddled to probably get Sam from wherever he was.

“Thanks.” Keith placed the plate on his lap and uncapped his water pack for a quick gulp.

Shiro sat on his bunk right beside Keith’s and they both ate comfortably.

“Good dreams?”

Keith looked up at his co-pilot. He shrugged playfully. “Just about that one time someone disturbed me in the library.”

Shiro scoffed, “Brat.”

They both shared a smile before Matt burst into the crew quarters with Sam. The little crew basked in idle chat, carrying easy conversations from the quarters to the bridge. When they reported back to the garrison with a live video feed, Matt and Keith were seen to be idly bouncing off each other in zero gravity – Matt was laughing, Keith looked annoyed. Sam was float-reading on his tab despite being Mission Commander. He was this close to a new breakthrough in his side research. And Shiro was busy explaining how productive they all were.

“How is floating around productive?” asked the exasperated voice of Commander Iverson.

Keith smoothly replied, “We’re assimilating ourselves to all possible gravitational pull and centrifugal force from the planet Pluto, sir.”

“Nice.” Matt grinned and they not so subtly shared a high-five at the completely bullshit reason of floating around in the spacecraft. Everyone knew they already underwent the necessary gravity training back at the Galaxy Garrison.

Shiro looked absolutely done. And so did Commander Iverson. It was no better than the previous video feed of them playing Monopoly – Space Edition and having to explain how they even snuck it on board. It was, surprisingly, Sam who did it because his daughter gifted it to him. Keith, Shiro and the Galaxy Garrison refused to believe it. Matt was just happy to build ‘space stations’ (houses) at every ‘planet or moon’ (property) he landed on.

It was day 84 of the Kerberos Mission.

Pilots - Takashi Shirogane and Keith Kogane.

Senior Science Officer and Chief Engineer - Samuel Holt.

Junior Science Officer and Communication Specialist - Matthew Holt.

ETA to Kerberos: 65 days

Chapter Text

Day 149 of the Kerberos Mission.

Shiro entered the bridge and watched as Keith gave the latest report to Commander Iverson.  

“Any internal damages?”

“No, sir. Only minor material stress due to thermal contraction. I’ll be doing some repairs after landing. George also needs to reboot before we take off again.”

“Very good. Safe landing, you two.” Commander Iverson looked to Shiro as well.

Both Keith and Shiro nodded in respect. “Yes sir.”

Once the video feed was disconnected, Shiro took his seat beside Keith. “Subsystems?”

“Fully functioning. All chutes and legs waiting for deployment. Descent engine is ready.”

They both stared at Kerberos. They had first spotted their destination a few weeks ago. Currently, it was right in front of them. They could see the wafting waves of cold air. Their spacecraft was designed to cater to the moon’s atmosphere but CASSIE was still shocked by the sheer cold ambient temperature.

“We’re finally here, huh.”

“Mm," Keith answered, distracted by one of the manuals he had opened on his tablet.

Shiro took a peek at the virtual page and smiled. “Fault protection?”

“Yeah.”

The seriousness in Keith’s tone worried Shiro a little. “Hey. It’ll be fine. Nothing’s gonna happen. Nothing has happened so far. Except for those thermal contractions you said. But that’s nothing compared to what we’re fully trained for.”

Keith closed the manual on his tablet and sighed with his eyes closed. Shiro was right but he had an awful nagging feeling that something would go wrong. When Keith opened his eyes, he took a deep breath to calm himself. “Are those two ready yet?”

It had been a few hours and Matt and Sam were busy prepping their gear for sample extraction. It was kind of adorable at how excited those two were for a few blocks of ice.

“Heck yeah we are!” Matt exclaimed as he had entered the bridge the exact moment Keith had asked.

Shiro and Keith waited for Sam to arrive and for the Holts to strap in their seats before the pilots disengaged the autopilot system and took manual control of the spacecraft.

“Mission control room.”

Matt ensured they had a fully established connection with those on Earth. “CASSIE to mission control room. Connected.”

“Good.” Shiro nodded to Keith. “Prepare for descent.”

Keith turned a dial and activated their thrusters. “Descent engine fully powered. Thrust power ready.”

Sam calculated the distance to their landing zone and announced. “0.9 miles out.”

“Begin descent.”

Timing was everything. The two pilots had trained their coordination endlessly back at the Galaxy Garrison. They worked like a well-oiled machine; Shiro’s skilled technicalities with the controls complimented by Keith’s instinctive timing and maneuvering.

Matt was just grinning from his seat. He loved watching Keith and Shiro’s duo-piloting skills. There was something about the fluidity of their control that made them both mesmerizing.

“Altitude 300 meters,” Keith called out. A moment later, he continued, “200 meters. Legs deployed. Thrust power 35%.”

Still, as they approached the surface of Kerberos, Matt couldn’t help but gulp.

Sam was in no better shape. Shakily, the elder Holt had asked, “What happens if we don’t land properly?”

Almost like an innate response, Matt shrugged with a downturn of his lips and raised eyebrows. “Guess we’ll die.”

Keith and Shiro, even while they were flipping switches and turning dials, shrugged as well, almost as though in agreement with Matt’s statement.

Sam stared at his son and his pilots in horror-induced awe. “The morbid humour of your generation never ceases to scare me.”

“80 meters... 50 meters…” Keith’s voice was almost pained with how pressurized the bridge felt.

Sam announced when his screen flashed in neon green, “Touchdown velocity reached!”

“20 meters…”

It was at that moment the spacecraft shook violently as it finally landed. They suffered a minor whiplash from the rough plop but despite it all, Keith and Shiro slowly looked to each other with weary expressions before their faces broke out into matching goofy grins. They glanced back to Matt (who whooped and shouted “TOUCHDOWN!”) and Sam (who looked immensely grateful to still be alive). The four crew members shared a good, relieved laugh.

“You sure you'll be okay?” Shiro asked one more time.

Keith didn’t bother to give Shiro a verbal response, just an eye-roll.

Shiro huffed. “Fine fine. Tell me when the comms are back up. Can’t believe they missed the landing.”

“Me neither. I’ll send them a recording when we’re back online.”

Halfway through their descent, communications with Earth were suddenly cut off. So while Shiro accompanied the science officers to collect samples, Keith would stay behind to manage some repairs and attempt to reestablish the connection. The spacecraft was temporarily undergoing a reboot so it would be awhile before the subsystems were ready to fully function.

At the forward hatch, a ladder was deployed and the crew made their way outside. Matt was singing and humming “Ice ice baby~” as he trailed after Sam. Shiro gave Keith a two finger salute before he followed suit.

"Make good choices, Matt," Keith called out.

Matt turned and started walking backwards. "Excuse me, I make great choices." He firmly lifted a fist. "And to prove that, I'll bring back the prettiest ice for you, Keith!"

"Looking forward to it," humoured Keith. "Stay safe, Sam. Look after these two."

There were some indignant sputtering noises from Shiro and Matt, while Sam laughed and responded, "Be careful with those repairs, Keith!"

"Yes sir," Keith answered softly, more to himself than an actual reply. He smiled and watched his team explore Kerberos’ surface for awhile. Then, he extracted a tool kit and began to manually assess the mechanical damage to the spacecraft. Keith climbed up the spacecraft and expertly navigated to the damaged sites. He had spent a great amount of time with Sam back on Earth, studying the spacecraft inside and out. Keith may not be a specialist or an engineer but he knew this spacecraft like the back of his hand for the sole purpose of being able to fix it as best as Sam could.

Which was why Keith became puzzled as to why the comms went off. After some minor fixing, Keith went back inside the bridge. The subsystems had finished rebooting, so Keith ran various diagnostics to check on all of the systems. There was nothing wrong with the communication device or sensors. If it wasn’t an internal issue… something had to be blocking their communication line.

As Keith tried to contact the mission control room again, something beeped on their radar. Keith’s eyes widened at the mere size of the blip. Something… something big was coming their way.

Keith immediately contacted the three short-ranged devices distributed to Sam, Matt and Shiro earlier. “GUYS THERE’S SOMETHING OUT THERE! GET BACK TO CASSIE NOW!”

Shiro sounded worried, “Keith, what’s-“

“Oh my god..” cut off Matt.

“What… is that?” Sam questioned, fear lacing his voice.

Fault protection. Keith launched a Code White signal to the mission control room, hoping that their communications would be back online soon. Then, he ran.

Sam, Matt and Shiro were shouting and screaming incoherently through the devices. His crew was in danger.

Keith hastily put on his own space suit and ran out the forward hatch. What he saw would forever be ingrained in his mind. A huge spaceship floated right above him. And a laser beam of light was licking the surface of Kerberos. Keith watched helplessly, still running towards his crew, as they were bodily lifted and sucked by the beam of light. The biting cold that seeped into the gaps of his unfastened suit had nothing against the sheer panic growing inside him.

Keith gritted his teeth and ran faster. He let himself be absorbed by the light as well, not knowing the full consequences. But as he was lifted, he quickly unstrapped his suit; made easy by how sloppily he had put it on earlier. He didn’t know what was going to happen or where his crew was. However, Keith gripped the handle of the blade he always hid under his shirt, right on his lower back. It took months of getting used to in order to hide it there.

Sam wasn’t the only one who illegally snuck in something into the spacecraft.

As Keith neared the source of the beam, he got into stance.

Fault protection. Keith had various methods and strategies memorized - both for the untimely danger posed on his spacecraft that was written on a manual and a personal manual in his mind he had created for the safety of his crew.

When Keith materialized in the ship’s landing space, he was met with the unconscious forms of his crew and a dozen or so strange-looking humanoid creatures.

They aimed their firearms at Keith, clearly shocked that he was aware and standing.

Keith jumped over his crew’s ('Unconscious. Please just be unconscious.') bodies and bared his teeth. He began swinging his weapon.

Chaos erupted.

Fault protection. Keith would defend his crew and keep them safe. Especially against gun-wielding humanoid extraterrestrials. No matter what it took, he would protect them.

Chapter Text

“Matt,” Shiro deadpanned. “Pick up your staff.”

Matt was sprawled on the training mats; chest heaving as he panted out, “What’s the point? Both of you are gonna kill me again anyway.”

Keith crouched down next to Matt and playfully poked him as though he was dead. Matt went along and theatrically flopped his arms before becoming limp with his tongue out. It was worth it because Keith laughed. Rare occurrence. A treasure. Matt and Shiro kept a mental record of all of Keith’s laughs.

“Why are we training so hard? I passed the combat training, isn’t that enough?”

“Contingency,” Shiro replied. Keith nodded.

“For what?”

Shiro looked up to the partially transparent roof of the Garrison Training Facility, urging Keith and Matt to do the same. They watched the stars for a while before Shiro finally answered ominously, “For whatever’s out there.”

Waking up was like resurfacing from a water surface. Shiro sat up with noise and light bombarding him like a storm. There was something red beeping from his HUD and subconsciously, he understood that he had to unclasp his helmet. After doing so, he realized he could finally breathe properly and the noise was so much worse.

Shiro looked up to his side and saw something that he had trouble comprehending. Keith was quite literally slicing his way through humanoid robot-creatures with guns. It felt like a whole minute for Shiro to process what was happening but in reality it was just two seconds. He saw one of the robots aim its weapon to Keith’s back. Shiro didn’t hesitate to get up and threw his helmet across the room, hitting the creature right on the head which made it drop its laser gun (Shiro mentally laughed).

Shiro raced to kick the creature before he picked up the dropped weapon. As he was aiming it, Keith shouted, “Wrong end!”

“Oh.” Shiro fixed his hold of the laser gun. “Thanks.” And started shooting.

After the room was cleared, Shiro and Keith looked to each other with the most bizarre expression, both not entirely sure what had happened.

“Are we… Were those… aliens?”

Keith awkwardly gestured around the room. “You think?”

Shiro dropped his gun and looked at the sharp weapon in Keith’s hand. “You brought your knife…?!”

Keith inwardly sighed. They were on an alien spaceship and that was what Shiro was worried about?   

Shiro realized how miniscule the issue was when he looked at Keith’s expression. “Right. Totally irrelevant.”

They hurried to Matt and Sam’s unconscious bodies. Shiro explained how his HUD had warned about a sudden lack of oxygen and imminent limited supply; that was what had knocked them out. Something about the beam that transported them probably messed up their suits. Once they removed the helmets, the father and son were quick to sit up and gasp in much needed air.

“What happened?” Sam asked.

“Giant beam. I remember a giant beam,” Matt whispered. He turned his alarmed eyes to Shiro. “Are we on that thing we saw?”

Shiro nodded gravely.

Keith tapped Sam’s helmet that he had helped unclasp. “Your suits malfunctioned. Knocked you out.”

“Why not you? Wait.” Matt frowned. “How the heck did you get on?! You were in- Oh god what happened to CASSIE?”

Keith looked away as he explained, “I… I ran out to you guys. My suit was loose when they beamed me too. I pulled out of it.” He turned to Matt. “I sent a Code White before I left CASSIE. I don’t know what’s happening down there. I don’t know if the comms are back on. I don’t know if-”

Sam clapped Keith’s back and smiled at him. “We’re okay. That’s what’s important.” But Sam frowned when he took note of the gashes on Keith’s face and some cuts on his arms and torso. He released a portable first aid kit from his suit, ignoring the widened eyes of his crew as he filled up a jet injector with the necessary cartridges.

Shiro was impressed. “I didn’t know our suits had those.”

Sam chuckled. “Only mine does. Personal request.” He then urged Keith, “Tilt your head.”

Keith did so reluctantly and pulled down the neck of his shirt. He felt the smooth cool surface of the jet injector against his skin before feeling a slight pressure as the contents were released into him. He heard Sam say very softly, “Just because you were trained for this, doesn’t mean you have to suffer more than necessary.”

Keith nodded and appreciated that Sam didn’t say it loud enough for either Shiro or Matt to overhear. The analgesics was a relief and Keith was able to relax for a moment.

Meanwhile, Matt had taken a good look around at the carnage left by Shiro and Keith. He glanced at Keith’s blade, wildly gestured to it and whisper-shouted, “You brought your knife?!”

Keith took in a very deep breath while looking upwards. He ignored Shiro’s “I know right?!” and opted to help Sam stand up and get out of his suit instead.

Shiro helped Matt with his suit and announced, “We need to find a way out of here. And we gotta make it quick before more of them-“

One of the walls slid open and a squad of those humanoid robot creatures came swarming in with more laser guns.

Matt deadpanned to Shiro, “You had to jinx it.”

“GO!” Keith ushered his crew to a different wall that had opened earlier during his solo fight.

Shiro swiftly grabbed a gun and hung back, shooting at the aliens while running backwards. Once the door closed, he turned and started running in earnest with his crew.

“Can someone get me a pole so that I can actually fight back?” Matt asked no one in particular.

Keith grunted a reply before jamming his blade into what looked to be a pipeline. It wasn’t exactly metal but it was sturdy enough. Keith cut the other end off and pulled the piece out. He ignored the whistling white smoke emitted from both cut ends and simply offered the pipe piece to Matt.

Matt took it with a shrug. “Good enough.” He tested it by doing some offensive practice moves. “Hey guys, if any of them lay eggs in me, kill me before they hatch, okay?”

Keith nodded with such solemn intensity that Shiro laughed from the ridiculousness of it. Sam was understandably disturbed.

The traumatized are unpredictable because they know they can survive.

Sam witnessed this statement before his very eyes as he watched Shiro, Matt and Keith quite literally fight their way through an alien spaceship. An hour ago, they were celebrating their successful landing. An hour ago, aliens were just myths. An hour ago, they weren’t running for their lives.

And yet, his crew kept making space movie references, quipping at each other and laughing at times. A lot of things scared Sam. He has an ever-changing list of things that he’s afraid of. Currently on top was ‘My son and his friends are laughing about the inaccuracy of alien movies on Earth while fighting real aliens’. Sam was surprised that ‘Running from killer aliens’ came second on his list.

They eventually find the main control room. There was only one alien there and it didn’t look like any of the sentries (“We can’t keep calling them ‘robot-aliens-with-laser-guns’, Shiro!”) they had destroyed along the way. There was a big glass-like window where they could see the surface of Kerberos and their small ship, still rooted on the moon’s surface.

The alien spoke gibberish words. Then it stared at them with a sinister smile before pulling a lever on one of the control panels.

“What-?” Shiro started to say before they all felt an incredible force push them backwards, flinging their bodies and causing them to land harshly against one of the walls.

Keith did his best to cushion Sam as the pressure kept them glued to the wall. It was a few seconds before they all fell forward with pained grunts.

“..what…was that…?” Matt groaned.

Keith braced himself on one knee and looked up. The alien was still standing in the same spot with the same expression. The only difference was that the glass-like window no longer showed Kerberos. Instead, there was a bigger ship looming ahead and a whole fleet of smaller ships surrounding it.

The Kerberos crew was stunned into silence. Some part inside of them knew that the enemy ship had teleported or 'jumped' to their home-ground.

The alien at the panel spoke and cackled at the fallen humans. Keith didn’t need to understand the alien’s words to know how screwed they were.

All of a sudden, out of nowhere, a much larger alien creature dressed in extravagant red armor and a long cape, materialized at the center of the control room. Its yellow eyes glared down at the Kerberos crew as though they were pathetic creatures. There was an energy that radiated from the creature that screamed ‘danger’. It induced an unshakable fear and a desperate need to run. It was almost suffocating. 

Matt was shaking slightly. Shiro was bracing his fifth laser gun closer to his chest. Sam was barely breathing from sheer dread.  

Keith held his blade in a death grip. The panic was back again as he met the gaze of the newcomer. Something... something about that alien made the blood in Keith's vein tremble with unadulterated terror. Keith could feel how dry his throat was as he swallowed nervously. When Keith's hot glare was met with a cruel amused smirk, his grip on the handle of his blade almost faltered. 

'Dangerous...' his mind reminded him.

This time, Keith wasn’t sure what he could do to keep his crew safe anymore.

Chapter Text

Commander Iverson entered the office with an opening statement that baffled Admiral Sanda.

“He surpassed the Sleep Simulator.”

“…” Admiral Sanda frowned from where she sat on her chair. She twined her fingers together. “Who are you referring to specifically, commander? And what do you mean by ‘surpassed’? The simulator was not designed to be overcome.”

“Kogane.” Commander Iverson placed a file on the admiral’s desk. “And by surpassed, I mean he beat the 10 days maximum trial simulation.”

The admiral’s interest was piqued. She opened the file of the unruly cadet.

Keith Kogane.

A thorn in her side but a useful thorn. Keith Kogane’s admission was initially based on recommendation by Officer Samuel Holt but it wasn’t long before Keith made a name for himself, being on par with Takashi Shirogane himself. Once Shiro was made into an officer, he and Samuel Holt both saw to it that Keith was kept in check. It helped that both officers adored Keith (for what reasons, the admiral had no idea). In a few months, she would likely (and reluctantly) approve the notion of promoting him to a higher position. Keith Kogane was one of their best pilots and he was capable of everything Takashi Shirogane could do (except teach, of course).

The admiral flipped the file to the latest page, taking note that there was nothing remarked for the latest Sleep Simulator test. “What was his status after the simulation? Any hallucinations or paranoia?”

Commander Iverson nervously answered, “The simulation hasn’t ended.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“We restarted the trial but kept the time going. He’s on his 11^th day right now. And he’s been lucid every time we initiated a random ambush.”

"Does he rest at all?" the admiral couldn't help but ask sceptically.

"Short naps. But even when we attack while he's asleep, he'll be up and kicking in a blink of an eye."

Cogs and gears began turning in the admiral's head. The Galaxy Garrison had trained plenty in the art of dissociation from pain and sleep deprivation but never one with such a natural talent for it. To be able to last 10 days while maintaining clarity and cognitive function without prior training was inhuman. But it was a trait sought by many, especially astroexplorers who were expected to survive in any given condition out there in deep space.

Admiral Sanda slowly smiled. She closed the file and stared at the solemn picture of one, Keith Kogane. Definitely a useful thorn. She stood up from her desk and ordered her commander, “Show me.”

The human race.

He’d heard of them before, a species from Terra. A primitive planet; still unaware and ignorant of the vast universe and all its other living creatures. He had no interest in taking over such a small planet on a barren galaxy. He couldn’t care less about mere humans.

Which was why, when the report came in about four humans nearly destroying a whole ship of sentries, he was… mildly intrigued. He had to see the progress of such species first-hand. Zarkon transported onto the newly arrived ship and assessed the humans. At first glance, he concluded that humans were such crude creatures. It was evident by their weapons of choice. One was fighting with a crooked pole, one had stolen a galra-issued firearm, and one was using a mere blade. The fourth was protected from the fights perhaps due to its visible aged appearance. Despite their unrefined methods, Zarkon could not deny their victory in battle against hundreds of sentries.

Watching all but one wither under his gaze made him smile. It had been a long time since something interesting occurred.

The resultant battle was not even worthy of being deemed a ‘battle’. However, what the humans lacked in strength, they more than made up for it with their persistence and… questionable loyalty.

When the human with the blade charged at him, Zarkon admitted to being a little disappointed but was immediately taken by surprise when the human threw the blade at him instead of going for a close-range attack, as all swordsmen usually do. This was followed by a barrage of beams from the firearm shot by the other human.

A genuinely impressive tactic, for what was supposed to be from mere primitive beings.

In three steps, Zarkon deflected the thrown blade with a wave of his hand and avoided all of the projectiles. The human swordsman only managed to retrieve his weapon again before Zarkon seized him by the head and lifted him off the ground. Humans were such small and pathetic creatures. Zarkon squeezed the human’s neck for good measure, reveling in the sharp intake of breath and groan of pain. How pitiful it was for humans to only have one airflow for respiration.

Just the sight of the human swordsman being held in his hand was enough to make the rest of the humans shout in alarm. Instantly, weapons were dropped and they cautiously went down on their knees. Zarkon was perplexed at the display; loyalty given so freely, without question. Placating words were offered for the freedom of their fellow human but there was nothing of worth they could truly offer.

That is, until Zarkon felt a sting in his arm that was holding the barely breathing human.

Zarkon could see blood beginning to trickle from where the human had weakly stabbed his wrist. For a moment, there was only the soft sounds of Zarkon’s blood dripping onto the floor echoing inside the room. He had not suffered any injury or felt such a stinging pain in a very long time. What a strange sight and feeling it was. He looked at the human in his hand and gazed into one of the hardest glares he had ever received.

It was a look that promised pain and revenge. Words could not convey the length that particular human would go through for the sake of whomever he chose to protect or die for. It resembled the very essence of the galras; ‘Victory or Death’.

Suddenly, the humans did not seem so… pathetic any longer.

Realization was belated but Zarkon also admired the humans’ control of fear and confusion. While he could understand the humans due to the universal linguistic implant, they could not and did not understand the galran language, nor were they capable of comprehending their full situation. And yet, they braved through a ship of armed sentries and one human even had the nerve to draw his blood.

Zarkon smirked once again, more impressed than amused. Perhaps his advisor would have a grand time exploring the human's eccentric characteristics. The witch would be excited to have new test subjects for their future models. Even the arena would benefit greatly from the humans’ participation.

After the order was given, druids appeared to whisk the humans away, except for the one losing consciousness in Zarkon’s hand. The three humans shouted for their companion, reaching out for him, desperation in their cries, loyalty everlasting. They knew their attempts were futile but it did not stop them from trying before they dematerialized with the druids.

Persistence seemed to be in abundance when it came to humans. It irked him somewhat. Zarkon returned the glare directed at him and completely cut off the human’s airways, watching it flail weakly. One part of him was interested to see how long the human would actually last without air. Another part of him wanted to see the light die in those eyes. As expected, the heat of the human’s gaze lasted till the very last tick of its consciousness.

Once the human body dangled limply from Zarkon’s hand, he pulled out the small blade sticking out of his wrist and dropped it carelessly to the ground. Then, he called upon the witch to return to the flagship. He would see to it that the human was delivered personally to his advisor.

Scouting the Milky Way proved to be a good decision after all.

Thace continued to thoroughly scout the ship of dead sentries as ordered. Commander Prorok had been given instructions to investigate the ‘human traces’ on the abandoned ship Thace was on, as well as on the moon of an ice planet in the Milky Way galaxy by Emperor Zarkon himself.

The mission status requested was urgent, thus Thace, being the most diligent, was sent alone to scout the abandoned ship while his commander made haste towards the Milky Way.

There was not much to be scavenged but Thace took note of the incredible damage done by 4 mere humans. He was especially interested in the marks left on the sentries by the swordsman or swordsmen. He was not aware that humans were capable of such well-trained swordsmanship. The sentries made by the witch, Haggar, was built from a resilient material with incredible hardness and the lowest friability. For it to be destroyed, the swordsman must have either had incredible strength or the right weapon to-

That was when Thace saw it, lying innocently on the ground – a luxite blade.

His outer appearance remained calm but the blood in his vein pulsed with a deafening rush as he crouched down to reach for it. He examined the blade as he browsed through his memory. No blade members were stationed in that ship or assigned to scout the Milky Way. And the blade he was holding was too familiar for it to belong to anyone else. Thace tried to recall Krolia’s last whereabouts. He was certain she was infiltrating the base of Warlord Ranveig and had been doing so for quite some time. She would not have been anywhere near humans or the Milky Way galaxy.

Thace stood up and made his way to the control panel. He entered the necessary coding to replay the security feed. He watched the humans rise in battle against the sentries and their inevitable fall against the Galran emperor.

There were four humans that were captured. And one of them, the seemingly new owner of the luxite blade in Thace’s hand, had an uncanny resemblance with a senior member of the Blade of Marmora.

Chapter Text

Sam burst through the doors of Admiral Sanda’s office and let his wrath bleed into his voice, “Have you not had enough with Keith?!”

The admiral’s eyebrows were raised in a challenge. “You’d do well to remember your place, Officer Holt.”

Sam knew where the conversation was going. He’s had it before. Twice. “You have conducted unorthodox tests that were not even authoriz-”

“Officer Holt, have you forgotten the exact reason as to why we are training him?“

“He. Is. A child!”

“He is not your charge and he happens to be a consenting adul-“

“He’s my son’s age! You are literally torturing-!”

Admiral Sanda slammed her palms on her desk as she stood up to face Sam. “The only reason why cadet Keith Kogane is allowed on the Kerberos Mission in the first place is because he is currently being trained for every possible scenario, with or without encountering extraterrestrials. So in the event that something were to happen on your mission, at least one of you will live to tell the tale.”

Sam held his glare for about ten seconds before his shoulders deflated. He rubbed his temple and exhaled slowly. “He wasn’t responsive again. Found him standing still in the middle of the room.”

“It’s part of his training.”

Some of the anger returned.

“Training?" Sam had whispered in disbelief. His voice steadily rose, "You call him spacing out with that blank look in his eyes, training?! How is it that you’re still enforcing this just two weeks before our launch?! Hasn’t he been through enough?!”

 “We cannot risk sending an unprepared soldier into deep space.”

And that was all it came down to. Sam knew how much the higher-ups despised Keith. But even they could not deny how versatile and talented Keith was. Sam may have caught Keith acting like a zombie but what he didn’t say was that Keith had done it intentionally in a room full of distracted people at his own going-away party. He had been training in the midst of a celebration because he hated socializing. What better way to pass time than by spacing out?

Sam had purposely attacked Admiral Sanda because he knew the only reason Keith had continued his ‘training’ was because he was still under orders to 'dissociate' at random times.

After a few more minutes of futile arguments, Sam left with the final word that he would not allow Keith out of his sight. Keith had already completed the special training and he’d be damned if Keith trained for one more minute while they were still on Earth.

And he said so as much when he ran into Keith the next morning.

Keith was quiet and stunned at first by Sam's fierce outburst. Then his face softened and Keith gave Sam a small smile and a promise Sam knew he couldn’t keep.

“I’ll be alright, Sam.”

Keith was being suffocated at least three feet off the ground. And the last thing Sam saw before he felt like being forcefully vacuumed into a tube was Keith’s pale panicked face and outstretched hand.

Sam landed on his back in a new room, staring at a plain ceiling. He sat up and saw Shiro and Matt on the ground with him. All their weapons were gone.

And so was Keith.

Sam was… numb. They had lost Keith. Whether it was intentional or not, Sam didn’t know. He knew Keith had separate orders, several ‘protocols’ designed only for him. Was this part of it? Was Keith ordered to gather intel If he came across extraterrestrials? At the risk of his own life? At the risk of theirs?

“DAMN IT!” Matt had shouted as he slammed his fists into the ground of their new prison cell. He had tried to find cracks, anything that can be exploited as a potential escape route but there was nothing. There were no metal bars, no cement cracks, only walls. “We have to go back.”

“We can’t,” Shiro reasoned.

Matt’s head whipped so fast, Shiro flinched.

“So you’re just gonna wait here and let them kill Keith?!”

Shiro grabbed Matt’s right shoulder and sternly let out, “We don't even know where he is! And there’s a reason we’re still here, Matt! Why do you think we're still alive?! They had every chance to kill us but they didn’t.” He allowed those words to sink in first before he continued, “I can’t promise you but I think Keith’s alive. They wouldn’t kill him. Not after what he did.”

“Shiro’s right,” Sam added. “You boys destroyed a whole ship of their soldiers. What’s more, if they find my research on CASSIE-“

“We won't just be prisoners anymore,” Matt exhaled in realization.

Shiro closed his eyes to think. “What are the chances they’ll invade Earth?”

“I’m not certain,” Sam sighed. “Code White has never been used. And none of us were there to confirm the status either.”

The mention of Code White reminded them of Keith again. They had all shouted for him. They had all seen him, so small in the hands of the large alien and yet still so strong. Keith had stabbed the alien despite being at death’s door. And there was nothing any of them could do about it anymore.

Shiro counted the hours to at least a day before the weird cloaked aliens suddenly appeared in their cell. When they immediately took Sam and teleported away, Shiro knew they had searched CASSIE and had found something useful. If they knew how to handle human tech, they would have easily found out who among them had crafted the blueprints that were left lying around in CASSIE's data systems.

What Shiro didn’t expect was for him and Matt to be forced to change clothes. Matt put up quite a fuss and for a few minutes, he was pulled into another room. Shiro was alarmed at first but it was short-lived as his friend returned with changed clothes and a harsh glare. They were later dragged a few floors down until they reached a group of prisoners who were queuing up for… something.

It was a bit dusty due to the more earth-like floor. And the noise was deafening. The place was filled with cheers and groans and the rumbling of some sort of collateral damage in the distance, past the stairs where the prisoner line originated from. It took a while for Shiro and Matt to get close enough to look at a panel-like window that showed the place where all the noise was coming from. And when they did, their hearts almost stopped.

It was a battle arena.

And they were fodder for the lone standing alien, roaring with its bloodied weapon raised in its hand. The crowds cheered for the alien as it delivered a killing blow to a fierce-looking creature on the ground. The creature died with an ugly splat.

Matt could hear his heart beating wildly in his ears. His arms trembled and he felt his knees wobble. He was going to puke or fall down, whichever came first. He let out a shaky breath. The whole arena was practically a slaughterhouse.

Shiro could feel sweat stinging his eyes. He wiped his face nervously with the front of his prison shirt. His eyes were closed but he could still see the way the viscera splattered and flew in chunks.

At that moment, both humans shared the same morbid thought: they were going to die in that arena.

But for Shiro, something else came into his mind as well. On their last night before the launch, Keith had sparred with Shiro and the result was a draw after they exchanged blows non-stop for an unknown amount of time. The spar ended when Shiro pinned Keith in a one-handed front choke but Keith’s blade was pushed against Shiro’s neck. As they panted and cooled down in that position, Keith had said something.

“We’ll protect them. Sam and Matt.”

Shiro had nodded that night because he understood what Keith meant. ‘They can’t fight like we can.’

Shiro opened his eyes and looked at Matt's trembling shoulders. He knew right then and there, what he had to do. After all, Keith wouldn't have hesitated. Shiro clenched his fists and gained a steel look in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Matt.”

Matt looked to Shiro with a perplexed look. He had never seen Shiro so serious before. He was so surprised, he didn’t even react when Shiro suddenly attacked him. Heck, Matt didn’t even feel the pain. He didn’t even know what Shiro had done. He was just so confused.

The guards were quick to dissuade Shiro’s temper before his rage spread, potentially causing an unwanted prison riot.

In the commotion of other aliens pulling Shiro from pummeling his friend into the ground, Shiro grinned at Matt briefly. It was the same type of grin Matt would see after Shiro burned their lunch on the stove or after Shiro accidentally spilled water on Matt’s research paper or the time Matt caught both Shiro and Keith stealing his cupcakes.

It was the grin of his best friend and softly, a promise was whispered. If anything, it was all Matt could hear through the shouts around him.

“I’ll find Keith. I promise. Take care of Sam. And don’t do anything stupid.”

By the time Matt regained any sense of composure, he had been carried away from the arena waiting area. He was sent back to their original cell and was probably deemed unfit to participate in the slaughter show. He knew he was injured but the pain didn’t matter. Shiro and Keith were self-sacrificing idiots. And it’d be a cold day in hell if Matt would let them get away with it.

Matt thought of Shiro and mentally reserved a punch or two for his friend. He thought of his dad and swore to find him the moment he got out. Matt thought of Keith. He pulled out the small luminescent ice shard he had slid into the sleeve of his apparel. The stone had been snuck from his old uniform as he was changing and shouting at the alien that kept watch. He had caused a commotion just to ensure he could sneak the treasure he handpicked from Kerberos.

“Make good choices, Matt.”

Matt closed his fist around the shard. Shiro wasn’t the only one with a promise.

Chapter Text

Krolia’s mission under Ranveig’s command was meant to be an infiltration mission after the discovery of a single container of potent quintessence. To gain access to all information of the concentrated quintessence, Krolia worked her way up the command chain for many years. She eventually found out its possible source while Ranveig was busy experimenting with the quintessence, trying to create and nurture powerful hybrids. Krolia had avoided any contact with other blades to gain Ranveig’s trust.

It had been years since she last saw Kolivan or even spoke to him. And she didn’t expect to see him the first time in a long time on the account of an accusation of mutiny either. She had returned to base to defend Thace and Ulaz’s efforts of locating her son. Krolia could hardly believe they had kept quiet for four months before informing her about her progeny’s capture. They had searched for him, digging everything to find exactly where he was imprisoned. Only then, Thace personally confronted her about her blade and ‘Keith Kogane’.

Krolia did not waste a single moment after Thace gave her every info Ulaz had gained. She went straight to the leader of the Blade of Marmora.

As it was, Kolivan’s arms were crossed as he stood menacingly in front of her. He had listened patiently but with a growing frown on his face as she explained her decisions. He eyed the blade that was returned to Krolia by Thace. “All this time, you left your blade with a human.”

Krolia’s eyes hardened and she met Kolivan’s eyes straight on. “I left my blade to protect my son.” She left it at that, turned around and started walking away. Krolia only came to report about her next course of action which she would initiate with or without permission.

“And now you’re abandoning your cover and your mission for a child you did not even raise,” Kolivan reproved.

Krolia paused her steps. That was true. She did not raise Keith. She didn’t even know what her son looked like but- Krolia looked back to Kolivan.

Softly but with conviction, she took her stand, “I left him once. I’m not leaving him again.” Krolia turned and took long quick strides as she whispered fiercely to herself, “Especially not with that witch.”

The laboratory was hidden in an asteroid field.

Krolia had taken a small ship from the Marmora base and charted a course towards her son’s location. She was surprised that the ship was specifically equipped with an advanced armor-like space suit, exactly her size, with powerful built-in thrusters for sustained singular flight.  

Perhaps Kolivan wasn’t entirely vexed by her decision to leave her post.

Krolia suited up and prepared to infiltrate Haggar’s lab. Ulaz had passed on an exceptionally detailed visualization of the lab’s security measures. It took weeks to find the right sentry to hack in order to extract the correct info. It took even longer for Ulaz to pinpoint where Keith was and how to get to him.

It was evident that Haggar had other projects. Even though Keith was her latest acquisition, she occasionally left the laboratory to cater to her other experiments elsewhere.

Thace had given Krolia a 15-hour timeframe for her to extract her son. It was the shortest amount of time Haggar had left Keith alone in the past month since Ulaz first discovered the laboratory and implanted a monitoring device. If Krolia infiltrated at the right time and place, none of the occupants of the laboratory would even be alerted of her presence.

After jumping and flying from asteroid to asteroid, Krolia only had 5 hours left. The laboratory was partially built around a huge asteroid, out of plain sight. There were no guards. The witch never needed any because her location was so well hidden. Krolia used the entryway Ulaz had marked in the info chip Thace had given her. True to their words, the lab was mostly empty near where the prisoners were kept.

Because there was only one prisoner.

Krolia jumped from the vent and into the only occupied cell.

She immediately activated her blade on instinct when she was attacked with a surprisingly powerful kick. She had blocked it and was met with a glare that matched her own.

“Who the heck are you?”

For a moment, time stopped for Krolia.

This was her son. And he looked so much like her. Although his skin was pale, his eyes were sunken and it burned with hatred, Krolia could almost imagine what Keith would have looked like smiling under the Sun that shone on Earth.

Snapping back into reality, Krolia took note of the threadbare clothing on her son, the obvious shock collar around his neck and the marks around his wrists and ankles that suggested some form of restraint. She saw the repetitive marks on the wall, probably a method for Keith to keep check of the days he was imprisoned. She admired his ability to keep himself sane but it crushed her that he had to go through it at all.

“I’m here to get you out,” Krolia spoke with determination.

Her son took a step back and frowned at her. His eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Why?”

Something did not sit right with how Keith was both ready to fight her but greatly feared her as well. She had to convince him to believe her somehow. Krolia supposed it was as good a time as any to tell him everything.

“I’ll explain. Almost two decades ago, I was sent to scout Earth for the lions of Voltron.”

“What-“ Keith looked at her with the most bizarre expression, “-are you talking about?! How are you even speaking English?!”

Krolia continued without paying heed to her son’s confusion, “I crash landed and was saved by a human. I stayed to protect the Blue Lion. When it got too dangerous and the Galra Empire began to invade Earth, I left.”

Keith was massaging his temples. Almost too softly, Krolia heard him whisper, “Blue lions? This is by far, the weirdest illusion.” Then, he continued in a louder voice, “What’s the point of you telling me all this? I don’t understand-“

“I gave a weapon to the man that rescued me. The man I fell in love with. I gave him a blade before I left Earth.” She deactivated her blade and it returned to its regular size. Krolia looked at Keith and remembered the day she last kissed his cheek, the day she left Earth. In a quiet, gentle voice, she said, “I told him our son might need it someday.”

She watched Keith’s confusion slowly ebb away as he stared at the weapon in her hand, a weapon that was no doubt familiar. Keith started to stare at nothing, with a far-away look in his eyes. He seemed to reminisce something and recited under his breath, as though repeating what was once said to him, “…she came from the stars…”

He then stared at Krolia and truly looked at her. It was visible when everything clicked; Keith’s muscles loosened, he lost the tenseness in both his body and expression, and his eyes gradually widened.

Krolia’s heart warmed at hearing Keith ask in a hopeful whisper, “…Mom?”

She could not hold back the endearing smile directed to her only son. “Hello, Keith.”

Chapter Text

Every other day or if he's lucky, every other week, he'd be escorted out of his prison. Each step from his cell was heavy as he approached the arena. No matter how many times he had to do it, Shiro felt his hands go cold right before he was forcibly pushed into the arena. The crowd had a name for him and they chanted it again and again and again. He had no weapons, only his fists and legs but it was enough. There were a few close calls; evident by the permanent scar across his nose, but Shiro had taken down every alien he was forced to fight. They were always either too arrogant or too big for their own good.

This time, when he entered the ring, there was no bloodthirsty alien waiting for him. Instead, there was a single glowing sword sticking out from the rubble a few meters in front of him. It glowed an eerie violet colour and reminded Shiro of some of the alien weapons he had seen. The sword was probably a laser blade. Shiro was confused. They had never given him any weapons. He would usually steal his enemy’s weapon or use any stray pieces of stone and rubble if necessary.

Suddenly, the opposite portcullis grated open and Shiro’s eyes widened slowly. The crowd’s chants died into static and all he could hear was his heart beating erratically. His arms and knees were locked from shock and disbelief. The sweat trailing down his nape felt cold as chills went up his spine. Shiro could feel how his brain struggled to comprehend the person walking into the arena.

“…Keith?”

Unlike Shiro’s black suit and purple crop-top, Keith wore a form-fitting dark grey suit that covered his entire body except his head. Keith held one blade that resembled a kukri. And his eyes… Keith glowered at Shiro and hunched his shoulders; a clear indication that he was about to strike. Shiro knew Keith recognized him but there was so much raw hate in those once friendly eyes. Without hesitation, Keith charged.

“Keith, wait!”

But Keith kept running towards him.

Shiro ignored the sword in the ground and took Keith head on. He braced both feet, lowered his body, used Keith's momentum and effectively threw Keith over his shoulder. Which, of course, Keith landed on his feet because Shiro himself taught him how to.

“KEITH!” Shiro lifted his hands in a placating gesture. “Snap out of it!”

“SHUT UP!” Keith outright snarled at him and charged with his kukri.

As Shiro was avoiding Keith’s sharp swings, he used his feet to try and throw Keith off balance. Despite the immediate danger he was in, Shiro couldn’t help but reminisce about their usual spars back at the Galaxy Garrison. Shiro never had a more formidable foe who could keep up back then.

“Look-“ Shiro ducked. “-I don’t want to hurt you!”

“Pfft.” Keith was still glaring at him as he sidestepped Shiro’s kick. “Yeah right,” he growled.

After a few more futile attempts at coaxing Keith to “Wake up!”, Shiro had had enough. “Okay, that’s it.” He ran for the sword in the ground and pulled it out in time to brace it against Keith’s kukri.

For a split second, when their swords clanged loudly from impact, Shiro saw Keith’s eyes widen in fear. Was it the sword? Or Shiro finally attacking him? Either way, Shiro took advantage of that moment and initiated a quick return thrust. Keith grunted and took a few steps back after the counterattack. They both ended up standing and panting while staring at each other.

“Keith,” Shiro spoke again, hoping Keith would listen this time. “I don’t know what’s going on but you have to stop. We’re on the same side, remember? They took us from Kerberos. They separated you from us! I looked everywhere for you in this place!”

Keith didn’t answer him but his eyes showed how little Shiro’s words meant to him. And if that wasn’t obvious enough, Keith running menacingly towards him again certainly was.

“DAMN IT, KEITH!” Shiro groaned with a roll of his eyes before he was blocking Keith’s swings again.

He didn’t want to hurt Keith but the kukri had grazed him quite a few times and there were one too many times when Keith almost stabbed him.

Shiro finally decided to treat their battle like any of their other competitive spars. He parried Keith’s blows, took chances at every opening and strike. One particular blow gave Shiro the opportunity to topple and straddle Keith. He managed to pin Keith to the ground as their blades locked together. Shiro gritted his teeth and pushed. He was gaining the upper hand as Keith was trapped against the arena floor.

“Yield!” Shiro growled.

But Keith was relentless and didn’t say a word.

“Keith-!” Shiro’s grip was faltering because he saw how close his blade was getting to Keith’s face. And it being a laser blade meant it emitted heat. Shiro completely pulled himself back when he saw a burn mark begin to form on Keith’s cheek.

Keith didn’t waste any time and pulled his legs out from under Shiro to kick his torso. Shiro gasped as the air was knocked out of him.

Both of them were up in seconds after that ordeal. And Keith finally spoke.

“Why didn’t you just stab me, huh?!”

“What kind of question is that?! 'Cause that would hurt, you idiot!”

That response seemed to have caught Keith off guard but again, his face pulled back into a snarl and then they were back to their sword dance.

“Keith, c’mon-“ Shiro panted out. Instinctively, he bent his knees to avoid a particularly wide swing, barrel-rolled once and swept Keith’s feet from behind. It was a move he had pulled numerous times on Keith. “Did you seriously fall for that one again?” he couldn’t help but ask with a fond smile.

Keith remained on the ground and looked genuinely shocked. He stared at Shiro with such recognition that Shiro thought it was finally over. Shiro dropped his laser blade and sighed. Just then, Keith's face morphed into a hateful expression and he stood up slowly, like a crouching tiger waiting to attack. Shiro raised his arms in surrender because he had already discarded his weapon. He took a few steps back and braced himself to make a break for it around the arena again.

When Keith moved, Shiro took off. After a few steps, Shiro looked back and yelped when he suddenly saw the kukri fly towards him. He ducked in time but it was a near-freaking-miss and he noted how Keith had barely taken two steps! Keith actually tricked him into making a run for it. That little shit. And what's worse--

Shiro's head snapped towards Keith and he spontaneously let out, “Are you insane?! What did I say about throwing stuff?! Throw it at anyone but me and Matt and Sam, remember?!”

Those questions seemed to break something in Keith.

Shiro watched as Keith’s face crumbled and his knees buckled onto the arena floor. Keith held his head tightly, grabbing fistfuls of his own hair as he shouted towards the ground, “STOP SOUNDING LIKE HIM!”

It was such a desperate cry that it pained Shiro to hear. He didn’t understand but he knew something was wrong. Those aliens did something to Keith somehow. Keith was treating Shiro like an alternate being instead of the real Shiro.

Shiro slowly approached Keith and softly called out, “…Keith… I'm real.”

“…please stop…”

Shiro heard the soft plea, how Keith’s voice was breaking as though he was on the verge of crying.

When Shiro got close enough, he crouched in front of Keith and reached out his hand. "I'm right here, Keith-"

“…get out of my head...!” Then, Keith shouted all of a sudden, “STOP IT!”

Shiro was too late to react as Keith grabbed the laser blade Shiro had dropped earlier and took a swing at him. It all happened too fast. One moment Shiro was crouching in front of Keith, the next, there was fire coursing through his arm. Shiro screamed as he fell onto his back. He gripped his right arm- or what was left of it. Through the haze of pain and the sound of his ragged breathing, Shiro looked to Keith.

“…this wasn’t… wasn’t supposed to be real…” Keith looked confused and so scared. It hurt Shiro to see him so vulnerable. Keith slowly stared at the detached limb and then turned to Shiro. Keith’s whole body seemed to shake and his pupils dilated in growing fear. Then he asked in a broken whisper, “…Shiro…?”

Shiro would laugh if he could because finally. He thought he had lost his Keith there.

Keith’s breathing seemed to pick up and in a few seconds, he was close to hyperventilating.

Shiro tried to calm him down and even called out to him but Keith wasn’t listening and he was staggering backwards, away from Shiro. That was when Keith’s body jolted as though his nerves were attached to a live wire and an awful cry spilled from his lips. Shiro pinpointed the source when Keith seemingly grabbed something at his neck. It wasn’t there before but a piece of metal had suddenly materialized around Keith’s neck and was efficiently shocking him into compliance. Finally, when it ended, Keith’s eyes turned glassy and his body fell like a puppet that had just gotten its strings cut.  

Pure anger coursed through Shiro as he pulled himself up. However, he was quickly held down by alien guards as Keith’s body fell to the arena floor. He watched helplessly yet again as Keith was approached by those weird cloaked aliens that had once teleported Shiro, Sam and Matt into their first cell.

“GET AWAY FROM HIM!” Shiro shouted with all his might. His arm (or absence of it) was killing him but he was not going to let Keith slip away from him again. Shiro struggled to get to Keith. He smashed the back of his head against one guard and kicked another. But there was only so much Shiro could do against a dozen of them with the trauma of recently losing a limb. He was losing sight of Keith. It was happening all over again.

“LET HIM GO DAMN IT!” Shiro shouted and fought again and again but he was eventually dragged away from the arena. “KEITH!”

Shiro only reached full clarity maybe a day later when he was sent back to his cell. He sat near the back wall and stared at the numerous hash marks. Another mark was etched on the wall using the sharp rubble piece he’d stashed after his third fight. There were a few blackout days due to some head injuries that were left out but Shiro believed he wasn’t too far off the mark.

313 days.

That’s how long he had been held captive at the mercy of the aliens. That’s how long they had Keith and did whatever the heck they were doing to him. Shiro could not forget the unadulterated fear from Keith’s eyes at the end of their fight. Keith had said that their fight ‘wasn’t supposed to be real’.

After he was carried out of the arena, Shiro remembered things in snippets. They had knocked him out and dragged him to a place that had been previously unoccupied. Shiro knew because he had been there before on escape plan #3 and #5. It was a set of rooms built like a laboratory but was seemingly unused if the dimmed lights were any indication.

Shiro remembered lying somewhere flat in the second or third room. There was a needle that had poked him and it made everything seem... slow. As they drugged him, he remembered looking through a glass-like window. His eyes had felt heavy but he knew what he saw - Keith strapped to an examination table, with some cloaked person hovering over Keith's face. There were more of those cloaked aliens but the one touching Keith seemed different. That one had long white hair and glowing hands. That alien was gripping Keith's head and Keith was struggling to free himself. Shiro may not have clearly seen what they were doing but only one thing came to thought; they were messing with Keith's mind.

When Shiro woke up, he had a new robotic prosthetic right arm, no Keith and he was back in his cell.

Shiro suddenly winced and realized he had clenched his human fist so hard that his fingernails pierced the skin of his palm. He was pissed off but anger would not help him rescue Keith. Shiro took a calming breath and instead imagined and recreated the steps to where he was held for his ‘arm replacement’ surgery, a room right next to where he had seen Keith. Shiro scrambled his head and repeated his perfected escape route, this time adding Keith to the equation. He had waited a long time to finally find Keith.  

There was no time to lose. It was now or never.

Chapter Text

Shiro could hear the faint sounds of synchronized footsteps. He closed his eyes. ‘You got this…’

He tapped his forefinger gently on his thigh, counting the seconds. 1… 2… 3… 4…

‘Just like escape plan #6.’

5… 6… 7…

The sentries were reaching the end of the corridor. One would turn left and one would turn right.

8… 9… 10… 11… 12…

Shiro opened his eyes, took position and aimed. The sharp rubble in his grip was smashed into the wall of his cell where the control box was located. Unfortunately, he underestimated the strength of his robot arm and kind of overkilled it. He turned part of the wall into rubble instead of just jamming the sharp piece through the control box. The cell door had opened promptly though. Luckily, the alarms were not triggered and the two sentries had not returned. With a huff, Shiro sprinted down the corridor and started mentally tracking his way towards Keith.

All the while, he was counting in his head. He had memorized the rotation sequence of the alien robots. And it helped that their metal-like body created heavy footsteps, alerting him of their incoming approach prematurely. Shiro ducked into niches appropriately and avoided being spotted rather easily. He had a rough 30-minute window before the next rotation discovered the destroyed control box outside his cell.

‘Hang in there, Keith!’

Shiro didn’t run into any hiccups until he reached the laboratory where Keith was detained. He didn’t expect it to be so heavily guarded. It was the only hitch in his plan and he had no weapons to fight with. He was hiding behind the wall that led to the corridor of the laboratory, crouched and frustrated. He was already running out of time.

In midst that anger and desire to fight, he realized his robotic hand was starting to glow – the same colour as the blade he was gifted with to fight Keith in the arena. Putting two and two together, Shiro was actually grateful towards the aliens for once. Shiro willed his glowing hand to actually stay glowing as he stood up and bolted towards the guards.

They didn’t even see him coming.

And neither did the rest waiting inside.

Under different circumstances, his new robotic arm would have been so cool. The Holts would have a field day picking that thing apart. Shapeshifting glowy arm? Awesomest thing ever.

Still, Shiro was new to it. So when he found the room he remembered seeing Keith in, he wasn’t too proud of the weird shape he had cut out of the door using his laser arm. The imperfect circle Shiro had carved on the door fell forward with a heavy thump and Shiro awkwardly stepped through.

He was greeted by Keith’s tired and frowning face from the examination table he was still strapped on to the last time Shiro saw him.

Before doing anything else, Shiro lifted both his arms in a placating manner and asked, “What can I do to prove to you that I’m real? I mean, not real real, of course I'm real, but like real Shiro real."

Keith looked incredulously at the ridiculous state of the door and then back to Shiro’s deer-caught-in-a-headlight expression. Illusion-Shiro always looked and sounded… too perfect. Keith finally sighed because not even Illusion-Shiro could pull off that face or that Shiro-esque sentence. Keith looked at the crooked fallen piece of wall and croaked harshly but honestly, “You already did.”

Immediately catching what Keith meant because he followed where Keith was looking, Shiro deadpanned to his new robotic arm, “Hey, it’s a start.”

Shiro used his glowing hand to carefully cut through the straps around Keith’s wrists, ankles and torso before helping him sit up. He noticed that the collar he had seen in the arena at the end of their fight was no longer there. Without delay, Shiro turned while holding one of Keith’s arms and prompted Keith to get on his back.

Keith huffed defiantly so Shiro looked over his shoulder and said, “Either this or I knock you out. You choose.”

Keith made his choice obvious by winding his arms around Shiro’s neck and letting Shiro lift his thighs securely.

Once Shiro had a good grip and Keith’s head was resting on his shoulder, Shiro stepped out of the carved door. “It’s gonna be a bumpy ride. Hang on, okay? We’re getting out of here.”

Shiro began to dash out of the laboratory and counted about 10 minutes before the aliens would notice the rubble outside his cell.

“…How do you know the way…?” Keith whispered.

Shiro smirked. “Planned it for months. Made a few attempts and mapped out the whole place. Memorized all their rotations too.”

Keith chuckled. “You could have left anytime, you know that?”

“Too bad I promised someone I’d find you first.”

Keith was quiet for a while as Shiro turned a few corridors. Then he spoke again, his voice stronger and firmer, “They’re okay. Matt and Sam.”

Shiro almost stopped. Almost. “You’ve seen them?”

Keith’s head lolled a little to the side, as though he had shrugged. “Sort of.”

“We’re having words later. Lots of words about that later.”

Keith chuckled again. “Mm.”

All of a sudden, one of the purple aliens appeared as Shiro turned another corridor. Shiro came to an abrupt stop and glared at the obstacle. No one was supposed to be in that route. On the contrary, the alien didn’t seem alarmed to have caught them and it spoke to them in a calm, even tone.  

Shiro assumed they would be fighting so he lowered himself. “Keith, I’m putting you down-“

“He’s friendly…!” Keith said urgently.

“What-“

Keith’s eyes were on the alien as he semi-shouted, “He doesn’t have a chip! He can’t understand you!”

Shiro looked between Keith and the alien as they conversed. Keith explained how Shiro had escaped and had rescued him from the lab. The alien spoke a few words in between Keith's explanation. Finally, the alien nodded towards them both.

“Shiro, this is Ulaz. He’s helping us… get to the pods. He'll launch it to Earth." Keith exhaled tiredly. “You planned for us... to use the escape pods… right?”

Shiro nodded back to the alien and answered Keith simultaneously, “Yeah, we are.”

Shiro didn’t really have any complaints. Any friend of Keith was a friend of his. Besides, in Shiro’s opinion, Keith wasn’t feeling too good. His body was beginning to warm up the longer Shiro was holding him and Shiro could feel a thin layer of sweat forming between their bodies. Any help they could get to hasten their escape was a golden opportunity Shiro would greedily take.

The alien opened up one of the sealed doors and beckoned Shiro to follow. Suddenly, the alarms began to blare. Shiro winced. “Looks like they already found my empty cell.” Which was surprising because it was earlier than Shiro had counted for the next rotation. Maybe his mental clock was a little off. Shiro adjusted Keith on his back and tracked after Keith's supposed friend.

“Shiro." Keith softly spoke over the sound of the alarm, “We have to find… Voltron.”

“What?”

“…on Earth. We have to find Voltron.”

“Keith, what are yo-“

“Somewhere in the desert… where we used to race… where I used to live...”

Shiro decided to humour Keith in his delusional state. “Okay. Find Voltron in the desert. Got it.” But how delusional could Keith be? Shiro filed away ‘Voltron’ for later.

The alien ‘Ulaz’ led them to the pods in a much shorter way than the path Shiro had originally mapped out. Shiro put Keith down and was surprised when Keith remained standing. He still looked a little pale but he was much steadier on his feet. Meanwhile, Ulaz was at the control panel nearby, keying in certain codes as Shiro investigated the first pod to ensure its safety.

He waved Keith over to the pod entrance once he was done. “Coast is clear. C’mon! Ulaz has the coordinates to Earth, right?”

Ulaz then said something to Keith, to which Keith only nodded. Keith walked towards Shiro with a solemn expression. “Shiro, I…” He looked down at Shiro’s new arm.

And Shiro was not having any of that shit. Better to address the issue immediately even if the timing and venue were inappropriate.

“Keith. Look at me.” Shiro clasped Keith’s shoulders. He looked into Keith’s pained guilt-filled eyes. He looked at the burn mark he had made on Keith’s face. He looked at his friend who had been through a hell Shiro did not know about (yet). “It. Wasn’t. Your. Fault. And for what it’s worth-" Shiro smiled kindly at Keith and ruffled his hair. "-I forgive you.”

It wasn’t much but it was something. Shiro could see the effect of his words from Keith's posture; a little weight was taken off from his heavy shoulders. Unexpectedly, Keith took Shiro’s hand and guided it so that Shiro's palm rested against the red mark on his face.

Shiro’s hand twitched and he wanted to pull it away because ‘youdidthistohim-‘ but Keith held it still.

With a firm look in his eyes, Keith tersely said, “This-” He squeezed Shiro’s hand, emphasizing the stark burn mark. “-wasn’t your fault either.”

“Keith-“

“Not your fault.” Keith repeated softly but determinedly.

Shiro gulped. He breathed in slowly. And breathed out. His stiff hand relaxed and it cupped Keith’s cheek instead, accepting the mark and his mistake (or lack thereof according to Keith).

“…okay," Shiro finally responded weakly.

Keith nodded. “Find Voltron. Remember that Shiro.”

Shiro rolled his eyes. “Why would I forget that when you’ll be there reminding me the whole time?” he joked but then it hit him. Why was Keith ‘instructing’ him to find Voltron over and over-

Shiro felt himself being roughly shoved into the escape pod. Was it stupid of him to not have seen it coming? Why else would Keith repeat himself again and again? Shiro scrambled to get up but the door had already slid close.

He tried to get the door to open from the inside but it kept making that stupid ‘rejected’ sound. Shiro banged on it in resentment and… betrayal. “…why?”

“I can’t go yet.” Keith said through the door.

“Keit-“

The pod resounded with a ticking sound and a flashing green light at the control panel, heightening Shiro’s sense of urgency. Shiro banged on the door again. “KEITH!”

“Shut up and trust me!”

And then softly, Shiro heard Keith say, “We’ll be okay. I promise.”

Weakly, Shiro punched the door in defeat. He leaned his forehead against the cool surface and sighed. “Find Voltron. Got it.”

“You better strap in, captain.”

Shiro smiled fondly at the familiar teasing tone. “Shut up, brat.”

With a heavy heart, they stepped away from both sides of the escape pod. It launched soon enough, with its course set to Earth. Once again, Shiro and Keith parted ways but this time, somewhat willingly.

“Be careful…” Keith whispered to himself, the same moment Shiro swore, “I’ll come back for you.”

(On Earth)

A nurse was conducting her hourly routine of checking on all of her coma patients. All patients had just undergone the treatment for muscle strength and all she had to do was ensure their readings were normal. Seemingly, it was a night like any other. She only had 5 patients in a long-term vegetative state. Five was a small number thus, it was hard to miss an empty bed.

With a gasp, the nurse ran out to alert everyone on the missing coma patient. When they reviewed the security tape, they saw the patient on Bed 3 quite literally wake up and then walked out of his bed.

The doctors who were present simply shook their heads and one asked, “Which one is this…?”

“His only relative was announced dead a few months ago. A son I think? Died in space.”

“Ah that one.”

“Tragic… Perhaps it would be better to leave him be. His whole treatment is still covered by that one company, right?”

“The fire department wasn’t it?”

There were murmurs of agreement from all around.

In a few hours, far away from the hospital, in a dusty old house somewhere in the desert, someone was finally home.

Chapter Text

Keith had just been announced as the co-pilot of the Kerberos mission about a few hours ago. And because Matt had personally seen the obvious envy and disagreement from almost everyone, he had opted to follow Keith around, much to Keith’s annoyance. It was not Matt’s presence that annoyed Keith. No. It was the fact that Matt literally did not stop talking. Half the time, Keith didn’t even know what Matt was talking about.

There were a lot of things Keith knew nothing about apparently - like an old TV series about a giant robot fighting other giant robots which Matt said defied all laws of physics but was fascinating as heck to watch on lazy weekend mornings. Matt then proceeded to go on a tangent about the next ‘movie-cation’ he would educate Keith on.

Keith didn’t bother stopping Matt because no one could stop Matt from talking, especially not Keith. And Keith refrained from asking why Matt was suddenly so chatty because Shiro was just teaching Keith about ‘tact’ and ‘subtlety’ a few nights ago. However, once the two of them were in the library, Keith finally knew why.

While the Garrison library did not have the typical strict librarian to keep things in order and its occupants quiet, most of the cadets had the courtesy to converse softly or not at all. There was an unspoken rule of the level of noise in the library.

Thus, as Matt and Keith were enjoying some quiet time (“I like to call it ‘Keith’s recharge mode’!”), one cadet was being very vocal about his thoughts of Keith being the co-pilot of one of the biggest missions of the Galaxy Garrison.

“Urgh..! Seriously! How’d a guy like Kogane get a recommendation from both Officer Holt and the legendary Takashi Shirogane?! He just got lucky with the simulator last week! And now he’s suddenly a co-pilot?! Makes no sense. Like. AT ALL. I could fly better than him.”

Keith had been keeping his head down because he had already expected the backlash from the announcement. Sam and Shiro had done nothing but drill in his head about not beating anyone up. Matt had then pointed out that they didn’t have anything to worry about because Keith would never defend his own honor. He only beat people up when he was defending the Holts’ or Shiro’s honor. Sam had nodded with raised eyebrows at his son and said, “Huh. You’re right.”

Keith wasn’t stupid. And he didn’t care about being badmouthed. Besides, his peers didn’t need to know that he had already been training for the mission for months prior to the announcement. And the simulation last week? That was just Keith being dared to beat Shiro’s highscore because Matt wanted to prove Keith was the better pilot and that Shiro was a ‘sore loser’.

A small smile started to appear on his face when he remembered winning the dare and he looked up to reminisce the memory with Matt. The humor vanished from Keith’s thoughts as he saw the dark look Matt was giving over Keith’s shoulder - right at the cadet who was whining about Keith.

If looks could kill, that cadet would have vaporized on the spot. Why was Keith the one being advised not to punch other people when Matt looked like he was this close to losing it? Keith had seen glimpses of that expression on Matt all day but it was directed at random groups of cadets. Suddenly, everything clicked.

Matt had been shielding him from all the negative talk going around by literally talking Keith’s ears off. Keith’s chest suddenly felt tight, an emotion he had yet to comprehend completely but it happened every other day when he was with Shiro and the Holts.

It wasn’t like Keith would die from a few scathing remarks. And yet Matt was there, distracting Keith to make sure he didn’t have to hear those remarks at all. It was difficult still to accept that Matt was and always will be in Keith’s corner.

When Matt turned his attention to Keith, he smiled deviously. ‘Play along’ he mouthed at Keith.

“How could Keith not get a recommendation from my father and Shiro?” Matt questioned loudly and purposefully.

The whiny cadet from earlier jerked harshly from his chair and turned with a panicked look towards Matt.

“I mean-” Matt continued, expression perfectly serious, “-we did kidnap him from the desert. Shiro and I found him wandering around and decided to brainwash him with the garrison’s library books. His memory is like a hard disk with unlimited space. Shiro and I were roommates you see, and we kept Keith inside our room for oh, what, two years?”

“Two and a half,” Keith offhandedly corrected.

“Right, of course, my bad. Two and a half years.”

He could see how hard Matt was trying not to lose composure from the bullshit cover story.

“And since we were both already selected for the Kerberos mission, Shiro and I just trained Keith to be able to fly a space shuttle so that we could take him with us. Admiral Sanda was very supportive of this notion. But this is all like, top secret stuff though, so don’t go snitching on me.”

The whole library was in dead silence and remained that way even after Keith and Matt had left the premises.

Later that evening, when Shiro tiredly asked them, “Why has everyone been asking me if we kidnapped Keith from the desert and had him locked in our room for two years?”, Keith and Matt simultaneously responded with “Two and a half.” before they completely broke into a fit of laughter.

Sam entered the room to see his son on the floor clutching his stomach, Keith laughing more reservedly on his chair but just as badly affected as Matt and Shiro looking more bone tired than Sam even knew he was capable of. “Do I even want to know?”

Keith watched the escape pod deploy with a melancholic expression. He wanted nothing more than to go with Shiro. But he still had Matt and Sam to get to. He had told his mom as much when she tried to break him out of Haggar’s research facility the first time. He firmly stood his ground and said he would not leave without first knowing that Shiro, Matt and Sam were safe. It was not confirmed if they would have been affected had Keith went with his mom but Keith would not jeopardize their lives by escaping alone.

His mom had simply smiled and said how he had his father’s stubbornness and strong heart. She had promised to find them so that Keith could finally leave. At the same time, she never quite left him. There had been more than a few visits and she had been the one that had kept Keith sane throughout the remaining months he was held captive and being mindfucked by that damn witch.

Keith knew he was still not in the right mindset to actually be with Shiro or to be back on Earth anyway. There was no telling when a relapse would happen or when Keith would lose his grip on reality again. The garrison would just be ecstatic to dissect his brain if he returned in his unstable state - something they had strive and failed to achieve was to push Keith to his breaking point after all.

Besides, Shiro could deal with Voltron. He’d find a way. Keith strongly believed he would.

“You must go now, Keith,” Ulaz spoke from behind him.

“I know. Is Krolia here already?”

Ulaz nodded. He took out a familiar looking blade and held it up.

Keith took it with ease and a nostalgic sense of familiarity. He had not touched his blade in almost a year. Keith looked up to Ulaz and bowed his head slightly. “Thank you.”

Ulaz merely inclined his head before a nearby explosion shook the room they were in and pieces of rubble crumbled around them. A large gaping hole could be seen on the floor where it led to one of the hangars on the massive ship. It was perfectly orchestrated to look as though the galras had been ambushed. Honestly, Shiro's execution of his well-thought-out escape plan just so happened to coincide with the day Krolia decided it was time her son got the heck off that ship.

“Go,” Ulaz urged Keith more urgently.

Without anything except for the clothes on his back and the blade in his hand, Keith jumped.

Chapter Text

It'd been exactly one year, two months and three days since the Galaxy Garrison lost all contact with CASSIE - the space shuttle bound for Kerberos. The last known transmission was with the pilots of the ship reporting the condition of the shuttle as they prepared for landing. The landing, that ultimately failed due to a pilot error.

But Pidge knew that wasn’t the truth. At least, not the entire truth.

It was true that Shiro and Keith spoke with Commander Iverson before they initiated the landing sequence but there was more than that. Pidge had hacked the garrison system using Commander Iverson's desktop and managed to pull out a well-encrypted transmission file received by the Galaxy Garrison’s Mission Control three days after they lost com with CASSIE.

The file was a live feed of CASSIE’s bridge after it had safely landed.

All her life, Pidge knew Keith as the hot-headed goth nerd that Matt was somehow fixated on adopting. She had never heard Keith sound so… afraid as he tried to warn his crew about an unknown anomaly he had caught through the ship’s sensors. Then, Pidge heard her brother and father’s voice screaming. And she knew something horrible had happened.

The last few seconds of the video caught Keith’s silhouette as he ran out of the room and the screen beeping with a small white indicator at the bottom right which meant a Code White signal had been sent. Even in midst panic and fear, Keith had alerted mission control of what occurred. The live feed cut off shortly after the screams died out.

Code White; a code for ‘Hostile Extraterrestrial Contact’, a code that had never been used by any space shuttle explorer. And the Garrison Galaxy was keeping it under lock and key.

They announced the unfortunate deaths of Takashi Shirogane, Matthew Holt, Samuel Holt and Keith Kogane; the honorable crew members of the failed Kerberos mission.

Pidge had never been more pissed than she was the night she decrypted the video file. CASSIE had landed safely. Her brother and father were alive. She knew they were. And Shiro and Keith were the best pilots the Galaxy Garrison had ever seen. Did they really think everyone would believe a lame excuse like ‘pilot error’ with those two at the bridge?

After she was officially banned from the Galaxy Garrison for breaking and entering, she kept to herself and slowly built a different persona to enroll Pidge Gunderson into a garrison program. It was a piece of cake and admittedly, quite boring. The study lessons were redundant and there wasn’t anything they taught that she hadn’t learned from Matt or her dad. Her only challenge was the practical aspect of the program. After the failed Kerberos mission, most of the simulators were programmed to mimic the mission's intense and crucial 'final moments' which just pissed her off more than usual.

That night, after another failed simulation with Hunk and Lance, she climbed onto the roof of her dorm and set up her space listening device. She looked up to the stars and imagined what her brother and father could be doing.

“Dude! What’re you doing up here again?!”

Pidge turned to see Lance and Hunk already walking towards her to join her at her spot on the roof.

“Just listening to the stars.”

Lance gave her an unimpressed look. “Sure you are.”

“Any new updates?” Hunk asked curiously.

Pidge tinkered around her device and adjusted its frequency range. “It’s been making this weird whirring sound since last night.” She frowned as the static-like noise got louder. “Kinda getting worse.”

Hunk shrugged. “Interference, maybe?”

That jogged something in her memory. Matt had said something about that when they had built their first device together to catch shooting stars.

“You wanna know how to tell if something’s coming close?” Matt had asked her on the roof as they waited for the meteor shower.

“…whirring noises…” Pidge softly said to herself in realization. The static-like noise rose alarmingly. “Something’s coming...! Shit! How did I not realize that?!”

“What? What’s coming?”

Before Pidge could say any more, something shot through the night sky above them at breakneck speed.

The three watched in awed silence as the meteor-like object landed somewhere in the Galaxy Garrison. They scrambled to the edge of the roof to catch sight of what was going on.

“Pidge!” Lance whisper-shouted, “Think you can get us a close-up?”

Pidge hurriedly adjusted her listening device towards the crash site and pulled out the auxiliary cord so that everyone could hear what was happening. She adjusted the frequency range and waited.

“…-don’t understand…! …fine… There’s no time! Keith-!... -danger!”

“Keith? Keith Kogane?” Hunk asked incredulously.

“Pfft! No way.” Lance did an 'X' motion with his arms. “Why the heck would it be that Keith? He's dead and gone!”

Pidge was frozen stiff though. Because she knew that voice.

“Shiro… That’s Shiro’s voice.”

“Takashi Shirogane? The Kerberos pilot? You mean he’s not dead?!”

Pidge tapped on her laptop tirelessly to get the live feed of whatever facility was nearby the crash site. After what felt like hours but was probably just a minute, the feed opened and matched the voices coming through her listening device. They watched as 3 fully dressed medical staff escorted Shiro who was strapped on a gurney.

“Calm down Shiro.”

“I am calm, damn it! Get me out of this thing! Keith Kogane is alive! I’ve seen him! Matt and Sam Holt are alive too! Are you listening to me?!”

“You’re delusional at the momen-“

“Oh god.” Shiro groaned. “Can we please skip the quarantine process-“

“Subject is lucid but could be suffering from-“

Suddenly, multiple explosions resounded near the crash site. Panicked voices could be heard as more detonations went off.

Lance suddenly stood up. “It’s a distraction!”

“How’d you know?” Hunk asked.

“Can’t you see?! It’s patterned! Someone is setting this up!”

Pidge squinted at the crash site and quickly agreed with Lance’s assessment. “He’s right. We’re not the only ones who know about Shiro’s return apparently.”

Lance frowned. “That someone is probably trying to help! We gotta help Shiro too! They’re probably gonna lock him up and cover this up like they did last time! Come on!”

Pidge and Hunk had no qualms about that as they jumped off the roof and ran down the emergency staircase at the side of their dorm building.

By the time they got to the facility, someone was already there at the blown-up entrance and was assisting Shiro to walk with Shiro’s arm over the person’s neck.

Lance’s face scrunched up dubiously at the strange person. “Who the heck are you?!”

“Well. I wasn’t expecting company so soon but you seem like good kids. Wanna help me with this one?” the person asked while gesturing at Shiro. “He’s still a ‘lil weak in the knees. Space’ll do that to ya sometimes.”

The three cadets just stared in disbelief at the man. Even Shiro was looking dazedly at the man, like he couldn't believe what was happening either.

“Anyone? Need to get my keys or we ain’t ever leavin’ this place.”

Hunk numbly accepted his new duty when the man pointedly looked at Hunk before he relinquished his hold on Shiro.

The man took out a set of keys from his back pocket and pressed a button. A loud revving sound approached and soon, a distinct red hoverbike slowed in front of them.

The man casually got up onto the hoverbike and turned to the group with a thumb pointed towards his back. “You kids coming?”

Despite their initial gobsmacked reaction, the four of them internally shrugged and climbed onto the vehicle. The engine revved once more as the man accelerated away from the Galaxy Garrison.

After a heart-stopping ride across the desert terrain ("HAVE YOU LOST YOUR GODDAMN MIND?! WE COULD HAVE DIED FROM THAT DIVE!" Lance had shouted while the man laughed out loud), they arrived at an old-looking house.

Shiro had his suspicions of the man’s identity when he first saw him but the house and the hovercraft practically sealed it.

As the man got down from the vehicle, he offered Shiro a hand. “Need help getting down from there, Shiro?”

“How’d you know my name?” Shiro accepted the help anyway. He waited with bated breath for the confirmation of his theory as the man smiled jovially.

“Figured my son would’ve talked your ears off ‘bout me! Guess I was wrong.”

Hunk got down next. “Your son?”

Pidge paled for a second as she got off next. “No way…” she exhaled under her breath because she finally got to take a good look at the man and the similarities finally hit.

Said man inclined his head. “Kenneth Kogane at your service. Call me ‘Ken’ though. Kenneth’s just a mouthful! Now, who might you good folks be? ‘Cept for Shiro of course ‘cuz Keith would not stop talking ‘bout you. I swear I know more ‘bout you than I even know my own son. How was Kerberos by the way? Pretty ‘lil thing ain’t it?”

Lance promptly fell off the hover bike in shock.   

Chapter Text

After a change of clothes (for Shiro), some soothing chamomile tea (for the garrison trio) and introductions (for… Ken), the group huddled up in the living room of the shack.

Lance squeezed his cup of tea. “So let me get this straight. You’re Keith’s dad. You were in a coma but now you’re up. And you just saved Shiro’s life from a top secret base because you predicted something would crash land on Earth last night.”

“Got it in one.”

“And you’re not, at all, panicked about your dead or missing son.”

Shiro (and Pidge) visibly flinched and Shiro opened his mouth to retort but Ken beat him to it.

“Nah, that boy’s fine.”

The room drowned in silence at the optimistic reply.

Ken continued as he looked to Shiro, “He still got that blade with him?”

Shiro nodded slowly; half of him was so used to keeping it a secret and the other half didn’t want to lie to Keith’s dad. Which was still a weird concept because Keith never said anythi-

“Then he’s fine. You though." Ken turned in earnest towards Shiro. “Need a little debrief?”

Shiro startled.

“We might not be qualified but might as well, yeah?”

Pidge held up a hand. “Wait, you know nothing about the Kerberos missi-“

“Space shuttle CASSIE, bounded for Kerberos exactly 577 days ago, 10 am launch on a beautiful Sunday.” Ken went off listing minor and even some major details of the Kerberos Mission much to everyone’s surprise. Even Pidge didn’t know as much as Ken did.

Finally, he listed down the crew members. “Senior Science Officer and Chief Engineer, Samuel “Sam” Holt. Junior Science Officer and Communication Specialist, Matthew “Matt” Holt. Chief pilot Takashi Shirogane. Assisted by co-pilot Keith Kogane. Reached Kerberos on day 149. Before my son saw something on the radar.” Ken pointedly looked at Shiro. “You saw it too.”

Everyone turned to Shiro.

Shiro looked back to that fateful day on that icy wasteland. It had been… so long ago. Without prompt, Shiro started to tell the story of his crew starting from the day they were forcibly transported onto a foreign ship. It wasn’t that long of a story after he was separated from Matt and Sam but it was… a surprisingly difficult topic to talk about. He skipped out most of the details of his reunion with Keith (especially their battle) and ended his explanation with him passing out in the escape pod upon entry into the Earth’s atmosphere.

When a large hand patted him on the back, Shiro looked up at his side to a warm-smiling Ken. Shiro suddenly realized how light he felt. A big weight had seemingly lifted from his shoulders.

“Don’t worry so much ‘bout Keith, you hear?”

Shiro reveled in the strength and confidence of Ken’s voice. Keith was fine. He wouldn’t have pushed Shiro (and Shiro alone) into that escape pod without reason.

“Did my son say ‘nything else?”

Shiro’s eyes widened. “Voltron,” he blurted out in alarm. “He told me to find Voltron.”

The cadets finally found their voices after Shiro’s mention of an unfamiliar term.

Hunk asked first, “What the heck is ‘Voltron’? Is it like a secret alien treasure buried in our deepest oceans? ‘Cause that’d be cool.”

Lance already had his face buried in his palms. “That’s it, he’s lost his mind. First, he tells us that Keith talks to aliens. And now, Shiro’s lost his mind.”

Meanwhile, Pidge was inquiring forcefully to Shiro, “What about Matt? And Sam? Did you ever see them again?”

Ken lifted his hands in a placating gesture and calmed everyone down so that Shiro was not too overwhelmed.

Shiro, though, was staring intently at the smallest cadet. Pidge Gunderson.

But no. Looking closer, he knew exactly who that cadet was. Shiro, for all that he loved Matt, could never compare to Katie’s pure dedication and love for her brother. Matt was her rock, the only person that helped her push through the sneers of her peers. Shiro could not imagine what Katie had to go through the past year. She didn’t seem all that surprised by Shiro’s story so she must have already known some details of what happened.

Shiro could already see it. Katie hacking into the garrison and being convinced that Matt and Sam were still alive. Katie being given a restraint order by the Galaxy Garrison. Katie changing her appearance to be enrolled under a different male persona. In a split second, Shiro saw how far Katie had already gone.

Quietly, Shiro bent down and forward, closer to Pidge, and said, “Keith said they’re alright.” He watched her eyes bulge with a glimmer of hope shining through. “I don’t know the details but… Before he pushed me into that escape pod, he told me they’re okay. And you know him-”

“-honest as the day is long,” they both chorused together.

“Except when Matt’s with him.” Pidge grinned.

Shiro sighed. “That’s right. I’ll always rue the day I introduced them.”

Pidge knew she had given herself away but there was no way Shiro didn’t already know who she was. The Holts only have two children after all. And she resembled Matt too much when she was in her Pidge Gunderson persona.

“Thanks, Shiro.”

Shiro smiled.

Meanwhile, Ken had gotten up from the couch and was moving to the coat rack. “Well, what you kids waitin’ for? Let’s hop to it.”

Everyone stared at Ken with a flat look. Pidge voiced their collective inner thoughts, “Hop to… what?”

Ken was putting his arm through his biker jacket as he responded, “Voltron.”

After twenty minutes of convincing the cadets that Ken knew exactly what Shiro was talking about, and that he knew where it was, they trekked a trail through the windy dessert and uneven rocky terrain. Ken eventually led them into a large cave.

Pidge hummed to herself as she checked her GPS. “I knew there was something fishy out here… Thought it’d be another secret facility.”

“Well it sort’o is. But not from your garrison, that’s for sure.” Ken strolled past her and into the cave.

“Haven’t been ‘ere since that damn ceiling fell on top of my head. Just like that-” Ken blew a raspberry while playfully knocking himself on the head. “-shutdown for 'bout 5 years.”

The cadets had nothing to say to that somewhat morbid background story of how the man had ended up in a coma. Ken didn’t seem fazed by their lack of response as he reminisced memories in the weird cave with weird markings.

“Used to bring ‘im here with me… He loved this odd little place.”

Lance took a closer look at one particularly weird-looking marking. He reached out a hand and started to rub at it.

Ken offhandedly commented, “Oh yeah, he touched that one too when I was carrying him and then-“

All the markings in the cave started to glow an eerie bluish colour. Shiro and the cadets became alarmed, but Ken was just calmly commentating, “Yeah the glow! And then this happens.”

Part of the cave floor beneath them began to glow as well and crumbled without warning. Everyone screamed and shouted as they were swallowed into the ground. Ken just laughed though.

As they were falling, Ken gleefully shouted out loud, “You kids need to lighten up more!”

Once they all landed (without any broken bones surprisingly) and stood up on shaky legs, Lance whispered to Hunk, “He’s crazy.”

Hunk emotionally patted his friend’s back. “I know, man. I know.”

“Welp!” Ken exclaimed. “There she is!”

The group turned to where Ken was heading and they were all awestruck by a large glowy egg-shaped dome that was housing… a robotic… lion?

“What… on earth… is that?” Pidge asked slowly.

“Voltron,” Ken answered easily. “Well, a part of it at least.”

He walked up to the lion, up to about a meter distance, with a soft smile. “Hey girl… Sorry it’s been awhile.”

“You’ve been down here before?! With that thing?!!” Lance whisper-shouted, somewhat afraid it was going to come to life or something.

“Yeah. Keith learned to walk down here.” Ken turned to face a corner with a fond look. “Couldn’t bring ‘im here much after that though.”

“Why not?” Shiro asked with a frown.

“That energy ain’t good for a growin’ kid.” Ken gestured to the glowing dome.

The group stood in a silence that Hunk eventually broke, “So what now?”

Ken shrugged. “I dunno. Why’d he ask you ‘bout Voltron?”

Shiro returned the shrug.

“Lance?” Pidge called out when she noticed Lance’s slow staggering towards the dome.

“Don’t you guys feel that?”

“Umm…” Hunk gave his friend a weird look. “Feel what?”

Lance reached out his hand when he got close enough and touched the dome. The whole cave suddenly shook – tremors that Lance felt in his nerves, felt in the core of his soul. Something was talking to him, embracing him, climbing inside his mind and making a home for itself in there. For the first time in centuries, the dome surrounding the Blue Lion collapsed.

Ken smiled proudly from the side.

The Blue Lion had finally found its new paladin.

Chapter Text

Once the egg-shaped dome collapsed around the robotic lion, its eyes and parts of its body started to light up. The lion came to life right in front of their eyes. Lance whooped when the lion bent its head down to reveal an entrance into its cockpit.

“This is the awesomest thing ever.”

Ignoring everyone’s light protest (except Ken, who was still smiling), Lance climbed aboard. The party eventually followed along.

Lance sat at the pilot seat and excitedly perused the controls.

“Give it a go!” Ken encouraged.

“No, don’t give it a go! We don’t even know what this thing is capable of!” Pidge protested.

Lance looked back and shared a knowing look with Ken. Lance smirked as he faced the controls again. “Only one way to find out!”

He let his instincts guide him as he tested the mental connection he had made with the lion. In under a minute, the lion reared back and destroyed the cave as it flew out of the ground to the surface of the desert terrain.

While Lance’s piloting skills could definitely use a little brushing up, Ken’s ability to manipulate Lance’s decision on where to fly the thing, was most definitely terrifying.

They went from flying circles around the desert, to literally, flying out to space. All because one man had said, “Why not?”

And so, in under 5 minutes of Lance ‘punching it’, the party in the Blue Lion found themselves passing by an icy moon that Shiro was very familiar with.

“Shit…” Pidge cursed softly.

They could still see CASSIE being rooted to Kerberos’ surface. The landing site seemed untouched.

Shiro felt numb as he did the math. “It took us half a year to get there with CASSIE… But only five minutes in this thing...”

“Uhhh.. Guys? What’s that?” Hunk asked as he pointed to the lion’s visual screen.

They all turned to see some sort of circular portal floating right ahead of them. It was alarming because it definitely wasn’t there before.

Pidge grabbed the pilot seat and pulled herself to talk face-to-face with Lance. “Joke’s over. I draw the line here. We are not going through that. Until we know more-”

“Don’t think its listening to me anymore, Pidge!” Lance helplessly confessed as he tried to nudge the control levers but the lion refused to budge under his command.

The three cadets and Shiro shouted and argued in panic as the Blue Lion flew itself into the portal and into a new location.

As they cruised in the skies of what seemed to be another planet, Lance felt a wave of sadness hit him that made him blurt out, “I think it’s flying home.”

“Why am I not surprised that the robot-lion-space-thing took us to a big abandoned castle, stranded on a deserted planet that surprisingly has a good balance of gases for us to breathe?” Pidge muttered in one breath.

Hunk worriedly fidgeted and stared at his surroundings. “You don’t think our heads will explode or anything, right?”

“Do you have anything I can use to test the air composition with?” Pidge asked with a flat look.

“No.”

“Then, yes.”

While Hunk quietly had a mini anxiety attack, Shiro looked to Lance, “Wait. Where’s Ken?”

“Y’know Shiro, when it comes to that man, if you ask me anything about him? My automatic answer will be ‘I don’t know’.” Lance walked away mumbling questions and answers to himself; “Is he sane? I don’t know. Is he really Keith’s dad? I don’t know. Is he-“ till Shiro could no longer hear what Lance was saying.

They explored the lonely castle in groups of two and eventually reconvened in one of the rooms that had a big lounging area. Before someone could ask “What now?”, a cryochamber emerged with cold wisps of air from one of the circular platforms near the lounging area.

It was not long before another cryochamber appeared beside the first one. Shiro and the cadets gathered around and waited till the first chamber suddenly cleared up. A beautiful humanoid woman with long wavy white hair seemed to have awakened and she promptly fell out of her opened cryochamber. Her legs must’ve been weakened due to an unknown period of cryo-sleep.

Lance, being the closest, caught her easily in his arms.

“Who are you? Where am I?” she asked as she frowned up at him.

“I’m Lance.” Lance smirked. “And you’re right here in my arms~”

“Your ears…” She suddenly commented with thinly-veiled disgust, “They’re hideous.”

Lance gaped in shock as the other cryochamber opened and out jumped a humanoid male with orange hair, ready for a fight.

About 10 minutes later, after basic introductions and the tragic reveal that Allura and Coran had been asleep for over 10,000 years, the six of them moved to the main deck of the castle; the bridge.

Allura explained in detail about the lions and being the paladins of Voltron. To answer one of Pidge’s first questions “Wait, how are you speaking English?”, Allura and Coran deduced that their possible ‘paladin’ status may have granted them the implanted universal translator ability of the lions. All lions shared a bond with their paladins that would be strengthened upon first contact. So, it wasn’t so much that the Alteans were speaking English but more of both species hearing the other speak in a language each were familiar with.

Allura and Coran had their own self-updating universal translator implants that were linked to all the lions. And since the blue lion was found on Earth, it was no surprise that it had absorbed the most basic spoken language, English.

As Allura was showing them where each lion was located, Ken suddenly showed up. He casually strolled into the room with a plate of green goo and a spoon.

“Hey, there you guys are! Did I miss ‘nything?” he asked before eating a spoon of the green goo. “You guys should try this stuff!”

They all stared at him in awkward silence. Lance softly clapped his hands together in a prayer-like motion. “Please don’t tell me he’s the red paladin.”

Ken cocked his head slightly with a puzzled smile when he spotted the Alteans. Then, he beamed, “You must be the owners! Nice place you got ‘ere, real homey. And this stuff?” He gestured to his plate of goo. “Awesome.”

Coran proudly puffed his chest. “Well, yes! It was my great-nan-nan’s recipe! Took a few deca-phoebs to get it replicated right!”

Ken looked so surprised at Coran’s comment, it was almost unwarranted, given that they had never spoken before and Ken shouldn’t know what deca-phoeb even was.

“Wow. I haven’t spoken in that for years. Sorry if I’m a lil’ rusty!” Ken smiled sheepishly before his dialect changed to a more formal one. “My name is Kenneth Kogane. It is an honour to be in your lovely domain,” he finished with a slight bow.

Coran looked absolutely delighted. “Oh! A traditional greeting! I haven’t heard that in… well in over 10,000 deca-phoebs!”

“You sounded different…” Hunk squinted at Ken.

“Yeah… more formal-ish,” Lance added with his right hand held up and rocked slightly like a ‘so-so’ gesture.

Ken stared at the humans with another puzzled smile. His dialect returned as he spoke, “Have y’all just been conversing in two languages?”

Pidge looked slightly horrified at the man as she inferred the situation. “How many languages are you hearing right now?”

“Two?”

“One is English and one is… whatever language they-“ Pidge gestured to the Alteans. “-are speaking, right?”

“Yup.”

“… Then how were you speaking to Coran?!”

Ken answered easily with a shrug, “Well since my wife learned English for me, figured I should learn her language back! Took a year just for speakin’ it and knowin’ the ABC’s. Never got around to teaching it to Keith though. I lost the paper she wrote all the alphabets on and couldn't remember 'alf of it a year later.” He turned back to Coran and spoke more formally, “Your language has too many characters.”

Coran nodded empathetically. “That is true.”

Shiro turned to Pidge. “So every time he speaks the umm.. alien language, he sounds more formal because our… lion-linked brain is translating it that way?”

Hunk nervously and halfheartedly lifted his hand to point out, “Are we all just ignoring the part about his wife? His possible alien wife?”

Lance exasperatedly gestured at Ken. “What does it matter?! He’s. Speaking. ALIEN!”

They all turned to where Coran and Ken had already moved on and were having a lengthy discussion about the consistency of the food goo.

Allura edged closer to the paladins and inquired, “Isn’t he one of you? From Earth?”

Lance theatrically flailed his arms and whisper-shouted, “I don’t know!”

Chapter Text

Once Ken caught up with all there was to know about the paladins and Voltron, the Altean princess urged the paladins to go on a search for their respective lions except for the Black Lion that was safely stowed in the castle and the Red Lion whose location was still unknown.

However, Ken intervened and proposed to let Shiro and the cadets to rest for awhile since Shiro had only just crash-landed Earth a few hours ago and it was already way past the cadets’ bedtime.

Allura was reluctant to allow a single tick to go to waste but Ken was very convincing with his knowledge of the human body that required rest to ease fatigue and energize the brain. If she wanted her paladins in their best shape to ensure success of recovering their lions (especially since they had no knowledge of their enemies’ whereabouts), she should allow all of them to sleep for at least 5 hours.

The princess finally agreed with Ken's suggestion. After all, the cadets had no complaints about a good night’s sleep. 

The paladins of Voltron were each shown to their designated rooms. The red paladin’s room was lent temporarily to Ken.

In less than an hour, the cadets were asleep but Shiro remained awake. Something about earlier kept niggling at the back of his mind. Ken knew of and spoke the language of the Alteans. While Shiro knew he heard them speak in English, there were some words that slipped untranslated because Shiro had heard it enough times to know the alien word by heart.

“Shiro here is an escaped prisoner," Ken had briefly explained to the Alteans earlier.

That lone word remained in its original language to Shiro’s ears because he knew that word. It was what the guards had addressed him as in that ship followed by a few other words which were probably his prisoner I.D.

Thus, if Shiro were to get perspective, Ken and the Alteans spoke the same language as the galra. Which meant Ken’s wife was possibly Altean or Galran. But if Allura was right and she and Coran were the only two Alteans to have survived the attack on her home planet, that meant Keith was-

Unable to sit still, Shiro stood up from his bed and took quick strides out his door, only to be startled by Ken who had been heading left.

“Woah there! Where you goin’ so fast?”

Shiro dry swallowed. It was as good a time as any. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure! Hit me.” Ken smiled and turned his body to give Shiro his full attention.

Not wanting to be tactless, Shiro first asked the meaning of the word the crowds always chanted when he won his battles in the arena.

“Oh, that’s an easy one. I guess you could say it’s somethin’ like ‘Winner’ or ‘Champion’.”

That made sense. So they had been calling him 'The Champion' or something. Shiro mentally cursed in regards to how fucked up his whole situation on that ship had been.

Then, Shiro asked Ken the meaning of the word he had heard being chanted while Keith was standing over him; when Keith looked petrified and lost, and Shiro was painfully gripping what was left of his arm. He would never forget that moment for the rest of his life.

Instantaneously, a dark, closed expression appeared on Ken’s face. Instead of answering Shiro’s question, Ken asked in return, “Was there more to your debrief earlier, Shiro? Something you didn’t want the kids to hear?”

Shiro looked down to his right arm. He inhaled and exhaled slowly. Slowly, he faced Ken and started spilling all the details he had intentionally left out back in the shack on Earth. Out there in the corridor of the paladins’ quarters, Shiro told the truth about what led to his alien robotic arm and finally learned the galran equivalent of the word ‘half-breed’. Although Ken did not flat out say what race his wife was, Shiro had enough info to put the pieces together.  

Escaping from the Galra Empire turned out to be surprisingly easy once the decoy had distracted the main fleet. Keith didn't know what Krolia did exactly but obviously it had worked. About an hour of flying later, Keith was staring at a meteor-like station. Krolia had already explained where they were heading to.

“That’s the place? A rock in space?” Keith asked incredulously.

“No better place than in hindsight.”

Keith looked out the transparent head-up display of the spacecraft with a flat look. “You call this hindsight out here?”

“A floating asteroid, Keith. In space,” Krolia emphasized.

Keith acquiesced with a nod. It seemed logical that a completely unknown group of galran rebels’ hideout was in a meteor that was probably the most difficult to access if the bumpy ride earlier was any indication.

The Blade of Marmora.

From Krolia’s sporadic visits, Keith had learned enough about them to know that they were an incredible group of spies that had worked hard to infiltrate wherever they could in the Galra Empire so that when the time came for them to strike, they would be ready. Keith had been furious when he knew his mother had jeopardized her own mission to save him. She had sternly shut him down and said when it came to choosing between her son or her mission, she would never even consider her mission.

In a short moment of weakness, Keith had held onto his mother for dear life after her declaration that day during one of her visits to Keith's prison cell. Krolia’s fierce protectiveness over him was so reminiscent of Keith’s found family - the Holt’s and Shiro. It was something Keith thought he had lost forever when he did not receive any news of his crew after he was separated from them.

After a rough landing on the meteor, Krolia led Keith inside the base.

It was incredible how sophisticated and huge the base was. Keith would have pegged the Blade of Marmora’s facilities to be slightly less fortunate since the group had to keep a low profile and most active members were probably playing their designated roles at various stations and ranks in the Galra Empire. The years must have been kind to the rebel group to have so much equipment and technology.

Finally, they arrived in front of a large door.

As Krolia was keying in the pass code, Keith suddenly sensed danger.

The door had just slid open when Keith grabbed his mother and pushed her to the floor while shouting, “GET DOWN!”

Various blades and laser projectiles flew past them. Keith barely had time to comprehend the situation before he was pulled away from Krolia. Something large was holding his arms to his back and was forcing him to his feet.

“Don’t fight, Keith!”

Keith may not have known his mother long, but he trusted Krolia nonetheless. He resisted fighting against the harsh hold and watched as his mother was held captive in a similar way by a much larger masked alien wearing the same uniform as Krolia. The Blade was treating them like a threat.

Krolia glared at one of the galras standing a few feet away from her. “What’s the meaning of this, Kolivan?”

The galra, however, ignored Krolia’s fierce face and was glaring straight at Keith instead as he answered, “Your son-“ he said it as though that fact offended him, “-is compromised. And I will not have him run around freely when he is still under the witch’s control. For all we know, she has trained him for this exact purpose.”

Krolia growled out, “He is not-“

“Mom," Keith softly called out. There was no truer logic than what the galra had hypothesized. “He’s right. I shouldn’t even be here.”

“No. You shouldn’t,” the galra agreed.  

With a gesture of his head, the galra holding Keith started to drag him away. From the corner of his eye, Keith saw his mother fight off her captor. And when the captor struck at Krolia enough to draw blood, Keith saw red. To hell with not fighting back.

Keith stiffened his arm and roughly tried to jerk them out of the galra’s hold. When that didn’t work, he braced forward before he forcefully flipped his body backwards to smash his head against his captor – hard enough to loosen the grip on Keith’s arms. Then, without hesitation, Keith withdrew his blade and kicked his captor away. 

Keith snarled at the incoming group of enraged galras and ran towards them. He had not even realized that his blade had glowed and increased in size and length. Keith simply changed his grip to adjust to the new weight and viciously fought his way through to get to Krolia.

Once his mother was finally safe at his back, Keith hunched with his blade held in front of him. He declared to the Blade of Marmora with a blazing look in his eyes, “Do what you want with me but touch her like that again? And I’ll show you exactly what that witch trained me to do.”

The room quietened; some unmasked blade members were even staring at Keith in what he assumed was shock. Then, a lone sound of slow clapping was heard.

Someone was approaching Keith and Krolia from one corner of the room, a blade member with long white hair and a smug face.

“I can see why Haggar was so interested in you. You even activated the blade without any proper training,” the galra spoke aloud.

From behind Keith, he heard his mother ask suspiciously, “What are you doing here?”

The galra lifted a single eyebrow and gestured to Keith. “Well, don’t you want that collar off your son? I can see it, don’t you know?”

Keith’s eyes widened. That damn shock collar that was never there unless it was triggered. Keith could never even touch it when it was deactivated. It was like it was never there until the time came for a ‘necessary’ electrocution.

The white-haired galra continued, “The witch made it with her blood so it is only logical that only her bloodline can utilize it.”

Before his battle with Shiro, Keith had heard rumors about the white-haired Galra prince on the capital ship from the other prisoners. A galra with white hair - Keith had only seen one alien with white hair throughout his captivity under the Galra Empire. It wasn’t difficult to deduce who the blade member was after the galra's final statement. Keith was looking straight at the infamous, wayward, half-breed prince of the Galra Empire; Prince Lotor. Keith could hardly comprehend that Lotor was Haggar's son. And that the prince was part of the Blade of Marmora.

Chapter Text

Allura and Coran were pinpointing the lions' exact location to ease the paladins’ journeys when the doors slid open and Ken strolled in.

“Aren’t you supposed to be asleep?”

Ken smiled a little sadly. “I’ve been asleep for more than four deca-phoebs, princess. And that’s quite some time for a human.”

The Alteans nodded in understanding. Allura then asked, “So, what can we do for you?”

“Is there any chance that you can access the Blue Lion’s memories?”

“Its memories? Why?”

“I’d like you to meet someone and-“ Ken shrugged. “-catch up on a few things.”

Allura’s eyes hardened. “Your wife.”

If Shiro had figured it out, it was impossible the Alteans didn’t. So, Ken nodded and smiled. “I think you would like her.”

The Altean princess looked warily at Ken.

“If-“ Ken approached the Alteans with careful steps. “-you can see past one’s race.”

“Ken-“

“Just let Blue show you, okay? I promise everything will be alright.”

Allura turned to Coran with a frown. They had a quiet conversation with their eyes before Allura returned her attention to Ken. “When is this memory?”

Smoothly, Ken answered, “21 deca-phoebs, 11 phoebs, and about 16 vargas? Give or take.”

On the platform, Allura shut her eyes and seemed to glow in a light blue hue. The lions retained memories throughout its life but only ‘moving’ ones caught by the lions’ eyes could be projected. Coran and Ken watched Allura for a few moments before she finally opened her eyes.

“There is a memory… from its time on Earth…” she whispered softly. She lifted her right hand to project the memory she was viewing in her mind.

From the eyes of the Blue Lion, it watched as a galra woman conversed with a younger-looking Ken about where she came from and vague details about the robotic lion.

“That’s… impossible…” Allura’s voice quivered. “How can the Blue Lion still be on Earth if they’ve already discovered it…?”

Ken spoke out, “There’s more than just two sides in this war of yours, princess. That, I assure you. How about the next memory?”

And so, for the next two hours or so, they viewed snippets of memory after memory of a galra and a human having conversations or defending the Blue Lion the best they could from its enemies.

The last memory Ken allowed Allura to project was when Krolia confessed that it was better if she returned. Ken remembered that night. They had fought off the largest group yet. And the intruders had been so close to alerting the Galra Empire about the Blue Lion. It was what ultimately pushed Krolia to return to her post.

“Our son was just a few phoebs old when she left…” Ken commented wistfully.

Allura was slowly shaking her head in denial but the proof was in front of her and it was from one of her lions. There were so little chances of the memories being tempered with. Especially since the shields protecting the lion was still up. What’s more, that galra woman had murdered her own kind and abandoned her Earth family to return as a secret agent in order to fool the galras into believing that Earth had no signs of Voltron. And for the next 16 deca-phoebs, the Blue Lion remained safe in its cave, untouched and undiscovered until its chosen paladin arrived.

Whatever she did, it helped keep the Blue Lion out of the Galra Empire’s radar.

Perhaps… the world was not so black and white. Allura would never forgive or forget the day Zarkon took everything from her but… The Blue Lion had been kept safe for deca-phoebs because of just one galra rebel and a human. What if there were more just like her and Ken? What if that was the reason the other lions had remained relatively safe as well? How many more of these rebels were out there? Guarding? Waiting? How many still had hope that Voltron would return?

Allura looked to Ken. “May I ask you? About her?”

After Ken nodded, she started with, “What’s her name?”

“Krolia,” Ken answered with a smile. “I saved her from her ship when she crashed Earth. First thing she did when she woke up was kick my ass.”

Allura, understandably, burst out laughing.

“We’re almost there. You ready?” Olia asked from the cockpit.

Matt put on his mask and lifted up his hood. “Yup.”

“You’re on your own for at least 12 vargas.”

“I know, Olia. If I’m not at the drop-off point when you swing back, go ahead without me, okay?”

Matt pressed the button to open the side door hatch.

“Good luck, Matt.”

With one last look at Olia, Matt jumped out of their shuttle and activated his jetpack.

After a sudden ambush and prison break at the main ship of the Galra Empire, the security at other prison bases had started to grow slack due to all the leaders being called back for ‘assessment’. The rebels Matt was with decided to take the golden opportunity for what it was and dispatched parties everywhere to rescue all hostages and prisoners they could from the clutches of the galra.

The particular base Matt was flying to was said to be empty, but he had to check and make sure. He still had not found Sam and Keith yet. There was only one human on record for the main ship prison break, which was no doubt, Shiro. While Matt was insanely happy that Shiro had escaped, he was frustrated that there was still not a single clue of Sam and Keith’s whereabouts.

As he landed, he took note of how old and abandoned the base seemed. Maybe Olia was right and there was nothing there. But Matt needed to-

Just as he approached the main doors, it suddenly slid open and something jumped towards Matt. Instinctively, Matt made a grab for his pole and activated it just in time to deflect a punch followed by a kick.

It was another masked person, smaller than Matt, but limber like a damn fighting-style pokemon or something. Matt had a hard time blocking blow after blow and was constantly being pushed back by the other masked person. Matt had trained for weeks and while he was nowhere near weak, this guy was just too quick. Matt lost his momentum soon enough and paid for it with a heavy blow to his chin, forcing him to fall to his back with his mask knocked off him.

Matt gasped as the other masked person straddled him and saw the glimpse of a glowing blade before he shut his eyes and braced himself for the kill. He felt the blade barely touching his neck and… nothing more.

“…Matt…?”

Even though the voice was muffled by the mask, Matt would know that voice anywhere. With his heartbeat reverberating through his chest, Matt opened his eyes. “Keith?”

The mask hovering above Matt's face dematerialized and Matt met familiar eyes. The blade from his neck was dropped and Matt slowly sat up as he and that person stared at one another.

“Keith?” Matt asked again with his voice full of disbelieving hope.

Keith nodded, slowly.

Matt reached out his right hand. He settled his palm on Keith’s shoulder before he tugged him forward. Matt hugged Keith in a firm hold, laughing wetly and squeezing as hard as he could. For a moment, Keith didn’t respond but Matt soon found himself in a similar desperate hug.

As Matt pulled back, he excitedly said, “You’re alive! And still kicking my ass!”

Keith let out a small laugh as he stood up and helped Matt to stand as well. “You’re not so bad yourself with that new pole.”

“So, where have you been?”

“I don’t really know where I was but I escaped from the main ship about a week ago.”

“You were part of the prison break?!”

Keith shrugged one shoulder. “I guess.”

“Wait…” Matt frowned. “They said only one human escaped! I thought it was Shiro! Are you telling me Shiro is still on-“

“Matt!” Keith intervened. “Shiro did escape. I sent him in a pod to Earth.”

“Oh… So he’s safe?”

“Yeah…” Keith averted his eyes and looked to the ground.

It was funny to Matt, how after all this time, Keith’s mannerisms remained the same. Keith only looked down when he was nervous and contemplating whether he should or shouldn’t say something. And as usual, Matt waited for him to decide.

Finally, Keith met Matt’s eyes and said, “I’m not… all human. I guess that's why you only heard about one human escaping.”

That seriously wasn’t as bad as Matt thought it’d be or too far-fetched. Keith was always a little inhuman in the gymnastics department. Who the heck does aerial kicks without a running start?

“Dude. That is awesome, what are you?”

Keith warily and softly said, “…I’m half galra...”

“That explains so much, you have no idea!” Matt did a gesture with his hands to show how mind-blowing Keith’s revelation was.

But Keith still looked unsure as he asked, “…you’re not…?”

Matt hated how insecure Keith sounded. What? Did he think Matt was going to think any less of him?

“Hey.” Matt grasped Keith’s shoulder. “You’re from Earth, okay? I don’t want to think about how your parents got together but you were raised on Earth. I mean, you’re practically an honorary human! Besides-“ Matt smiled at his friend. “-the Keith I know would never do what the galras do. Except kick other people’s asses of course.”

"Also," Keith intoned. "I screwed up."

Matt just gave Keith a disbelieving face. "Considering the fact that aliens kidnapped us and are the reason why we're stuck in space in the first place, you need to be more specific, Keith. I'm pretty sure you couldn't have done anything that big even if you aren't fully huma-"

"I fought Shiro in the arena and cut off his arm, Matt," Keith blurted out in one breath.

"Well." Matt's smile was a little shaky as his eyebrows shot up. "That escalated quickly."

Keith tossed his head back and looked to the sky. He was almost groaning, "Please don't meme right now."  

"The correct term is 'meme speak'," Matt proudly educated Keith. Inside, his mind was still whirling. Keith cut off Shiro's arm? He couldn't have done it on purpose. Not like that at least. Matt inquired kindly, "Did you know what you were doing?"

"No- I-" Keith inhaled frustratingly. "I didn't know I was really fighting him. He was... always just a simulation. I didn't realize that battle was happening for real." 

Matt couldn't even begin to imagine what Keith must be feeling. There was more to the story, he was sure - like why did Keith refer to fighting Shiro in a simulation? But Matt knew that if Keith didn't hurt Shiro on purpose, Shiro would be nowhere near upset. And neither was Matt for that matter. Best way Matt could think of to deal with a guilt-ridden Keith was just to... accept him.

"That settles it then. You didn't consciously cut his arm off. Wasn't your fault, Keith."

"How could you say tha-" 

"Was it his right arm at least?"

"Yes...?" 

"He got a replacement for it? I've seen some prosthetics the rescued prisoners got."

Keith nodded, dumbfounded by Matt's reaction and probing. "His new arm glows and can cut metal now."

Matt nodded with a smug smile. "That's cool. We've been planning to cut his arm off ever since he was diagnosed remember? Just couldn't find the right prosthetic yet." Matt shrugged. "Guess we don't have to now."

Keith let out a huff, but he was smiling a little. "Nothing's gonna change your mind about me, is there?"

"Nope!" Matt then pulled Keith into another hug.

To Keith’s ear, Matt spoke, “No matter what blood runs through your veins, you’ll always be my brother. And on behalf of Shiro, no matter what you did, we're just so happy you're alive.”  

Matt felt more than he heard Keith's shaky inhale from the slight tremors of his chest and throat. 

They shared a quiet moment and basked in their reunion. It was eventually spoiled when Keith’s muffled voice asked from where it was buried in Matt's clothes, “Why are you so tall now?”

They both laughed and ignored how hard Keith was holding onto Matt, ignored the slight dampness on Matt’s shoulder where Keith’s face was tucked, and ignored the crack in Keith’s voice. Matt squeezed Keith tightly, one more time, to reassure him that his blood made no difference to Matt.

Keith would always be Matt’s little brother who could kick his ass in a drop of a hat.

Matt broke off the hug with an “OH!” and promptly took out a glowing ice shard from his pocket. He wiggled his eyebrows and offered the Kerberos souvenir to a deadpan Keith.

“Are you kidding me? You kept it all this time?”

“I promised you the prettiest ice, didn't I?”

Keith rolled his eyes and shook his head fondly. He accepted the gift and shoved Matt's annoying face away when Keith was busy admiring the shard. After they both admitted to looking for Sam at the same abandoned base, they then started to walk and exchange stories; Matt with the rebels and Keith with his mother.

Mentally, they both ticked off a list in their heads; three down, one more to go.

Chapter Text

“Isn’t it weird to any of you that Lotor left right before that big prison break at the mothership?” Zethrid asked as she shot down three sentries with one shot.

Ezor, who had been strangling one guard with her thighs, turned to Zethrid with a lit-up face. “Yeah! You’d think he planned a heist without us!”

“…”

“Exactly, Narti!” Ezor exclaimed just before she jumped to avoid a shot and landed gracefully with a kick to the sentry that shot at her. “He’d tell us if he was doing a heist, right Acxa?”

Acxa sighed into her communicator as she slashed through a barrage of sentries herself. “Can you three shut up? Lotor already said he left to meet back with Kolivan.”

“…”

Acxa sighed again. “You don’t need to talk to be loud Narti. Look, can we just get this over with?”

Ezor giggled gleefully. “Relax, Acxa. We’re done here on our side~ You just gotta extract the prisoners and we’ll be done with lucky base 30!”

Acxa made sure her surroundings were clear before she approached the security pad that locked the main prison base. The prison break Zethrid mentioned earlier had resulted in a temporary mass recall of all base leaders. If their intel was correct, they had only a few vargas before the leaders were re-stationed at their respective bases. Just before the prison break, Lotor had asked the four of them to liberate as many bases as they could while he met up with Kolivan. Lucky base number 30 indeed. It was the last base they had time to infiltrate before risking fighting a general.

Acxa deactivated the security system and opened the door. She was met with the many confused faces of prisoners who were mainly utilized for their intellect. Base 30 was where all the potentially brainy captives were forced to feed the Galra Empire with innovative ideas to further their goals. If no contribution was given, the prisoner would simply be 'removed' from the face of the universe.

It had to be one of the more submissive bases since these prisoners were not very violent. Like everyone else, all they wanted was to live. Acxa went through the basic explanation of 'You're free now.' and requested that those who wished to follow her to a refugee camp, were welcome to step forward. Most if not all of the prisoners stepped forward and she accessed them hastily to ensure they didn't have any heinous motives. When she met the eyes of one particular prisoner however, she suddenly recalled what Lotor had asked of them just before he left.

“There has been a discreet inquiry about human prisoners among the blades. If you find one, report to me immediately.”

“Acxa?” Ezor’s voice asked through the communicator.

“Ezor, contact Lotor. Now.”

Allura wistfully stared at where the lions’ locations were glowing on her map. Lance, Pidge, Hunk and Shiro had left just over a varga ago and there had been no reports from them since.

“They’ll be fine, princess.”

Allura turned to look at Ken at the bottom step of her platform. “You’re right. They’re probably having.. what was it you said? The.. ‘time of their lives’?”

“LANCE, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”

“I’M SHOOTING AT THE THINGS THAT ARE CHASING US HUNK, WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE I’M DOING?!”

Hunk looked at all the missile-like projectiles hitting the ships chasing them but did nothing to it, not even a dent. “WELL IT DOESN’T SEEM TO BE WORKING!”

Lance had a crazed look in his eyes as he swerved the Blue Lion. “DO I LOOK LIKE I DON’T KNOW THAT?!”

Ken smiled. “Yup. Those kids are born to fly. I can’t wait to see them with their own lions.”

Suddenly, something else appeared on the map surrounding the room. Ken and Allura piqued and looked at the new red symbol.

“The Red Lion?” Ken asked in shock. “I thought you couldn’t find it.”

Allura agreed softly, “No… I couldn’t…”

Ken squinted. “It’s close. It’s-“

“-coming here...” Allura intoned gravely, "On an enemy ship..."

She looked down and ran a few theories in her head. The castle. It was possible that the castle's unique energy had alerted the galras of their position. She knew not of the galra's modern technology or their positions. There could be a galran outpost in the current galaxy and Allura had re-activated the castle. Furthermore, the castle's energy resembled the lions and if the galras were as persistent as they were with the Blue Lion, they wouldn't miss such a massive hint as the resurgence of the castle's energy.

“They know we’re here. They’re after the lions.” Allura turned to Ken. “You must find Coran and seal yourselves near the ship’s core. It will mask your bio feed and throw off any heat sensors.”

“But-“

The number of beeps intensified as the glow of three more symbols intensified.

“They did it. The kids are ready to return," Ken noted out loud as the icons of the blue, green and yellow lions continued to beep.

“I’ll open a pathway on the other side of this planet. You and Coran prepare to initiate contact with them and inform them of the ambush. Have Shiro take the Black Lion out of the castl-“

“What about you?”

Allura met Ken’s stern eyes. “I’ll buy us some time.”

Ken took hold of Allura’s hand and squeezed it. “You’re not alone, princess. We can still think things through. Together.”

Allura’s weary face broke into a relieved expression. Ken was right. She wasn’t alone.

“Yo Lance! Nice ride, Hunk!”

Lance just grunted an affirmative at Pidge’s chipper tone. He was totally not in the mood after getting chased around and shot by killer jets with their killer pilots and killer laser-beam-missile thing. Hunk’s lion was pretty cool to see, though - with its dramatic burst from the ground but Lance was this close to being done for the day.

“Is it just me or are we like, super far away from the castle?” Lance squinted as he realized they were nowhere near the surface of the planet. "Weird."

Pidge managed to share coordinates of the castle after a few minutes. With a leisure pace, the three lions soared above the planet's atmosphere, taking in the beautiful sight they missed when they first arrived on the Blue Lion.

"Maybe Allura wanted us to patrol? That makes sense right?" Lance asked his teammates whose faces were visible in square-shaped windows on the lion's interface.

"It's kinda weird that she didn't tell us herself though." Hunk pointed out.

"Anyone tried hailing the castle?"

Pidge was quick to reply with, "Looks like no one's home at the moment."

After a few minutes, they finally received an incoming transmission from the castle. When Coran’s grave face popped up instead of Allura's (like Lance had hoped to see) on the left corner of his screen in a new square window, Lance perked up on his seat in alert. “Coran? What’s wrong?”

Pidge added, “Yeah and why are we like… on the other side of the planet? The castle is literally on the other side.”

“You must make your way to the castle fast! Discreetly!”

Hunk’s incredulous voice popped up along with his face on the screen. “Discreetly? No offense Coran, but we’re in like-“ He gestured to his surroundings. “-gigantic lion spaceships.”

“I’d say they’re moderately-sized lions, though.” Pidge added.

Lance dryly asked, “Have you seen Hunk’s lion, Pidge? Not to mention Shiro's back at the castle?”

“Okay, let’s save this conversation for later.” Shiro cut in from beside Pidge before they could derail any further. “What happened, Coran?”

“And why is there something else on my radar where the castle is? Did we get ambushed?” Pidge asked with a frown.

Lance internally began to panic. “Coran. Where’s Allura?”

“Allura is…”

“I hope you’ll find the cell accommodating, princess.”

Allura didn’t spare her captor a glance and simply walked into the cell with all the grace she was taught since young. She hoped her paladins were safe. She had opened two wormholes for them just before the castle was hailed by the galra ship; far away enough so that they wouldn’t be immediately detected.

She hoped Ken’s idea would work. Allura wasn’t entirely sure why she chose to trust the man but his plans had merit and even Coran agreed that it was as good as they were going to get with a lack of pilot for the Red Lion. Voltron would be no use with one less pilot but it would be impossible with one less lion.

While it was true that the galra had found all the lions by finding the castle, Ken had also pointed out that the galra had brought the Red Lion to them.

If they could pull it off, the Castle of Lions could leave the planet with all 5 lions and lay low for the time being while they searched for the last paladin.  

Once Ken and Coran rendezvoused with the paladins, they’d be able to counter the incoming search party with their own attack at the castle as Allura tried her best to locate the Red Lion on the ship.

She knew her paladins were safe when the communicator Coran had fixed into her ear began to sound with various concerned voices. Coran was able to calm most of them before he said, “Alright, Allura. They’re coming here. Don’t worry, we’ll be ready!”

Allura made sure her surroundings were clear before she looked for her cell’s weak spots. Perhaps it was the many many years of her planet's destruction that the galra have forgotten the versatility and strength of Alteans. Allura was soon able to escape without much fuss and began making her way through the ship to look for the Red Lion. She could feel its presence. It was close and yet so far. She didn’t exactly have a lot of time to search every room and risk alerting the captain early of their diversion tactic.

Allura paused in one of the hallways of the ship. She didn’t have any weapons either. And stealth was never her best skill.

Even without trying to feel out the ship, she knew she would be up against tens if not hundreds of soldiers.

As Allura debated what she should do to proceed, she heard commotion from a nearby room. She approached it slowly and the sound of firing weapons began to deafen her. There were some muted explosions thrown in and a few shouts before… complete and utter silence.

The door opened and Allura experienced the odd sensation of utter disbelief and confusion. It felt like the longest of ticks as her brain tried to make sense of the person that was glaring in a defensive stance in front of her. How could Allura not recognize the woman she owed for the safety of the Blue Lion?

“She could probably kick my ass even when she’s asleep and drugged to the gills with pop-pop’s finely aged wine…” Ken looked like the exact image of what the humans say ‘starstruck’ when he spoke of his wife. That's how her paladins had put it. Ken even sounded less formal than he usually was as he added some human sayings in his sentences. “…I’d give anything if I could just hold and see her one more time…”

What were the odds?

“…Krolia?” Allura heard herself ask, just above a whisper.

Krolia’s glare meanwhile, morphed into incredulity before her eyes widened as she took in Allura’s features.

From their proximity, Allura realized that something, perhaps Krolia’s communicator, was making some odd noises whereby someone was saying something but there was too much static for Allura to decipher. Krolia must have heard it just fine because next thing Allura knew, Krolia was saying, “Change of plans. We have two extractions.”

Chapter Text

Allura let herself be led around the ship after Krolia said, “Stay behind me and follow my lead.” Because honestly? Allura was still a little ‘mindblown’, as how the humans would say. Occasionally, Krolia would exchange comments and layouts of the ship with whoever was on the other line of her communicator.

Being close enough, Allura could see the small device and eventually picked up the tone and sound of a male voice.

As Krolia ambushed and took over the control room of the ship’s hangar, Allura piqued in alarm at Krolia’s words.

“We have two extractions now, Keith. Just get the lion out first in any way you can. I’ll meet you at the extraction point.”

Allura rushed into Krolia’s line of sight. “The Red Lion? You’ve found the Red Lion?”

Before Krolia could respond, her eyes widened at something from behind Allura.

“LOOK OUT!”

Allura felt herself be roughly manhandled to the floor as a barrage of lasers resounded. Allura barely had time to reorient herself before Krolia was kicking a nearby object as a makeshift shield and was taking cover with a gun-like weapon in her hands. Allura quickly moved to help by grabbing pieces of heavy objects and throwing it across with all her strength.

“You got quite an arm there,” Allura heard Krolia tease. She could say the same to Krolia’s killer instincts and reflexes too.

Unfortunately, one of the soldiers that went down accidentally shot multiple rounds at the ceiling. It instantly collapsed and Allura lost consciousness with a heavy hit to her head.

Allura woke up with a static-like noise in her ear. As her mind focused, she realized that she recognized that noise. It was Krolia’s earpiece.

With her eyes finally opened, Allura saw Krolia sitting up against the wall next to her and she had been using Krolia’s shoulder as a pillow. The control room was in front of them - its collapsed ceiling was still visible from the rubble.

Krolia must have pulled them both out but had passed out. Allura’s head snapped to Krolia’s earpiece that suddenly blew up with enraged noises.

“We’re okay!” Allura almost shouted, hoping that whoever was on the other side of that earpiece could hear her. “Krolia’s okay but unconscious! She must have had a concussion. A ceiling fell on top of us earlier.”

The earpiece went quiet.

Encouraged, Allura continued, “We’re near the control room of the hangar.”

The person still did not respond. Allura hoped that was a good sign. She sat straighter and reached out to check Krolia’s head. The telltale bump confirmed her theory of a concussion. But at least Krolia was still breathing. Allura suddenly felt a huge wave of guilt hit her. What if Ken never got to see and speak to his wife again just because of her? They were so close to meeting each oth-

Suddenly, a devastating sound reverberated through the walls as the hangar was literally blown up. The heavy blow combined with the poor condition of the control room caused the whole upper level to collapse. With the new gaping hole of the ship sucking everything out into space, Allura could only take hold of Krolia and brace herself.

She barely had time to think of her next move when a familiar and nostalgic lion came into view and was moving at a rapid speed towards her with its mouth open.

Allura landed in the lion with her heart beating out of her chest. They came so close to dying, again.

The door that led to the cockpit opened and Allura found herself stunned for the second time in less than a varga. One look was all it took for her to deduce who that person was.

“Are you guys okay?”

He may look human but Allura could see Krolia’s features mixed in with Ken’s genes. Krolia had called him ‘Keith’.

Numbly (and still in shock), Allura nodded. “She’ll be alright.”

Keith knelt beside Allura to inspect Krolia himself. Once he was certain she was still alive, he turned to Allura and asked, “Do you know if this thing can fly manually?”

“You… weren’t flying it?”

“No, it woke up and just sucked me in when I busted the airlock and got blown out the ship. Then it flew off on its own after you told me where you guys were.”

Instinct. The lion was clearly already bonded to Keith if it responded to Keith’s distress of his mother’s safety. That was why Krolia’s earpiece went haywire. Keith was probably shouting at it in panic, helplessly thinking of the worst possibilities.

“So, can it fly?” Keith asked once more, distracting Allura from her thoughts.

Weakly, Allura responded, “It needs its pilot.”

Keith just gave her a dry look. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

Allura wanted to say that Keith didn’t quite understand what she was trying to say. Not ‘any pilot’ could fly the Red Lion or any of the lions for that matter. But she was a little exhausted from all the revelations of the past varga. She was perfectly fine with watching, now that she knew all her lions and paladins were secure.

As Keith stood up, Allura had a glance of a similar earpiece in his ear. Keith was speaking into it and sending his coordinates to someone as he reported what had occurred. This must be the faction Ken was trying to tell her about when he introduced Krolia through Blue’s memories.

Allura watched with bated breath as Keith took his place in the pilot seat and examined the panel, controls, and levers. With skills and confidence that mirrored Allura’s father, Keith jerked the levers and flew the Red Lion like he was born to do it.

Pidge had mapped out a path through the forest of ‘Arus’ (she couldn't believe the planet actually had a name but okay). They were using it as a cover to ‘discreetly’ make their way to the castle. After crossing through the planet, Pidge hailed the castle, “Okay Coran, we’re reaching the castle soon.”

“Oh, that’s good!”

Hunk frowned as he said, “You sound suspiciously happy for someone who was ambushed.”

“Ken’s got it covered!”

Lance muttered grouchily, “Of course he does…”

“He took pop-pop’s aged mead and turned every bottle into these little…” Coran seemed to squint at the weird green elastic ball in his hand before he excitedly continued, “-‘Swamp Bombs’! Ingenious creation! He made it in less than three doboshes! We have two enemy ships glued to the castle platform!”

“What about the princess, Coran?” Shiro, like always, the most sensible one. Pidge will forever be grateful that Shiro was one of the paladins.

“She hasn’t contacted me yet, but I am confident that Allura’s alright! In fact, I think you should make your way up to the main enemy ship!”

Pidge pursed her lips. Were they ready for that? They didn’t even have the Red Lion. Either way, they still needed to rescue Allura. Shiro must have thought the same because he said to Lance and Hunk, “You guys go ahead. Pidge will drop me off and I’ll go get the Black Lion.”

“Okay.”

“Roger that.”

The Blue Lion and Yellow Lion flew upwards as the Green Lion headed on to the Castle of Lions.

And Coran was not even exaggerating when he said they had two enemy ships glued to the castle platform. It looked like the honey-trap some people still use to trap flies; but this honey was green and icky and traps enemy ships instead.

As the Green Lion landed on a safe spot and Shiro hurried to exit the lion, Hunk popped up on Pidge’s screen.

“Um… Guys? I think the mothership’s already blowing up.”

They all looked up and indeed, the enemy ship was occasionally exploding from all sides.

“What about Allura?!” Lance shouted in panic.

“She’s still alive!” Coran announced in shock from the castle bridge. “Her vitals are healthy according to the castle. Oh! And the Red Lion is mobile!”

Even Pidge couldn’t help the joy she felt as she nearly jumped from her seat. “She did it!”

“Wait, does this mean she’s the pilot?” Hunk asked.

Lance scoffed. “Of course it does!”

Pidge raised an eyebrow. “Wanna bet?”

“No betting in space!” Shiro reprimanded from the mouth of the Green Lion.

Lance gave Pidge a haughty look nonetheless and offered, “20 bucks when we get back on Earth.”

“Done.”

Shiro could only look up and tiredly ask, “Really guys? Really?”

Hunk’s effort of comforting Shiro was abysmal at the very least as he said, “Don’t worry Shiro, Lance always loses to Pidge anyway.”

“Thanks for the support, buddy,” Lance deadpanned.

“The Red Lion seems to be approaching the planet's surface.” Coran smiled. “And Allura’s on it!”

“Prepare to eat your words, Gunderson,” Lance mocked as he gestured his arms in a ‘tough guy’ manner.

Pidge just smirked in response. “We’ll see.”

Shiro, who had climbed back into the Green Lion cockpit, exasperatedly instructed, “Just get back to the castle, Lance. You too, Hunk.”

“Time to roll out the welcome wagon~” Pidge smiled.

As they all stood outside the castle (except Ken because even Coran had no idea where that man disappeared to), the Red Lion slowly descended.

Pidge scrunched up her face as she voiced her thoughts, “Why didn’t we just hail the Red Lion earlier?”

Coran grunted agreeably. “You’re correct, Pidge! Why didn’t we do that?”

Hunk’s eyes bulged in alarm. “Are you telling me someone hostile might be piloting the Red Lion?”

Lance continued with an even higher tone, “And they’ve got Allura captive?! Oh god, what if this is a hostage situation?!”

“Too late,” Pidge noted as the Red Lion landed in front of them.

Shiro took a defensive stance with his arm glowing and ready for battle. “Everyone, hold out your bayards!”

“Hey Coran, what’s going on out there?” Ken’s voice spoke from... somewhere.

Coran exclaimed a happy sound as he detached a circular device from his hip. “Almost forgot I gave him that device!” He held it up to his mouth and reported, “Just a possible hostage situation with the princess in the Red Lion but I have the paladins with me!”

“… Okay. I’ll prep the big ones then!”

Pidge pointed to the extremely thoroughly glued enemy spacecrafts behind them. “Like these?”

Coran waved his hand in a negative manner. “No, no, these were the tiny balls you saw earlier! The big ones are as big as yourself!”

“Are you fuc-“

“Guys, can we get back to the possible hostage situation here?!” Lance whisper-shouted as the Red Lion lowered its head and its mouth opened.

The paladins followed Shiro’s approach and braced themselves for someone walking out with a blade to Allura’s throat or some sort of gun to her head.

Their hearts felt light as Allura stepped out looking worse for wear but smiling in relief. Lance whooped and smirked knowingly at Pidge.

Meanwhile, Allura must have noted their defensive stance as she clarified, “It’s alright. The pilot’s friendly.”

“I knew it was you all alo-“ Lance stopped halfway and his tone changed from smug to disbelief, “THE pilot?”

Allura turned her head and someone else walked up beside her.

Keith had to endure and process a very short explanation of Voltron, the Castle of Lions and being a paladin in less than 10 minutes as he shot down and was shot at in freaking space. After taking considerable damage from the main enemy ship, the Red Lion’s communication line became unreliable and the visuals blacked out. Thus, neither Keith nor Allura could hail the other lions or the castle. Keith was literally flying blind except for the manual vision from the lion’s ‘windows’. Krolia was injured and he just ruined the very thing he was trying to protect. It's been a long day.

Enough said, Keith wasn’t exactly in the mood to meet his new ‘team’ now that he was part of Voltron. Princess Allura had assured him that the paladins were normal and young like he was. Though there was one eccentric human from Earth who tagged along with the paladins.

Truthfully, Keith was just happy Shiro managed to pass the intel about the Blue Lion in the desert.

And one eccentric human?

Keith had to deal with his father for years. He liked to believe that he could handle and tolerate being with someone who was… a little wild and loud.

He told himself he was prepared to meet the team. And he really was, but when he walked out of the Red Lion and stood next to Allura - when he met those eyes, when he heard his name spoken softly, just like Matt did when they found each other - Keith mentally sighed.

He was so not ready for this.

Chapter Text

There was a very short moment of complete and utter silence.

Before Lance started to whine, “You have got to be joking. He’s the red paladin?!”

Suddenly, there was a war cry coming from above them. All of them were immediately on alert but Coran frantically waved his arms and shouted, “STOP! THEY’RE FRIENDLY!!”

Ken dramatically landed with a huge green slime-like ball in his arms. He was partially covered in what looked like dirt as he beamed at Coran. “OH! Well that’s good then!”

“Uh-oh,” Pidge said ominously.

Ken turned around to meet the newcomers and he froze as he met his son’s face.

Hunk excitedly trembled as he expected the teary reunion between the long-lost father and son.

However, Keith simply stared as his father. Then he looked down with a frown before he scowled and looked back to Shiro. “You brought my dad into space?”

Shiro had the decency to grimace.

Ken cut in with, “Actually, I took them to the Blue Lion in the cave.”

Keith stared incredulously at his father, then he turned to the Blue Lion in the background, then to Shiro and the other humans, and finally, back to Ken. “You brought them into space?!”

Lance chose that moment to pipe in with a smug face, “Technically, I’m the pilot of the Blue Lion, so-“

“Who even are you?” Keith asked in confusion.

Lance gaped in an affronted manner.

To which, Keith added a monotone, “No offense.”

It did little to appease as Lance sputtered and shouted, “FULL OFFENSE!” Lance gestured with his arms as he elaborated, “You were in my class! Repeating Quantum Physics 203!”

It was Shiro who frowned at that. “He wasn’t repeating it. Keith snuck in that class because the curricular changed and he didn’t want to miss anything.”

Lance looked so pissed for a moment before he deflated with a deadpan, “Of course he did.”

Meanwhile, Pidge was eyeing Keith with a disinterested look and vice versa.

Coolly, Keith greeted first, “Short-stack.”

“Sunshine," Pidge replied nonchalantly. Ignoring Lance’s bitter, “You know Gunderson, but not me, wow”, Pidge continued, “How’s it going in Gloomville?”

“I’d ask you to see for yourself but I don’t think you’re tall enough.”

“Ooooo, sick burn,” Hunk intoned softly.

That was when a new foreign fighter jet resounded in the sky. They all looked up as it was coming in hot. Shiro got back into defensive stance and everyone except Ken and Keith followed suit.

Pidge groaned out loud, “What now?!”

“They’re friendly,” Keith clarified.

Shiro put faith in Keith and the others put faith in him. The bayards and their guards were lowered as the ramp of the jet descended with three people making their way down; one clearly alien or galran and two humans.

Pidge was the first to react, her heart beating loudly in her ears as her brain registered her most treasured goal. “…Dad?” She ignored how broken she sounded as she willed her legs to move damn it.

“Katie?” Both humans responded in shock.

Pidge didn’t even realize she had tears streaming down her eyes as she recognized the taller human as her brother – he looked so different but after taking a good look, she thought of course it was Matt. She ran harder and rammed into both of them with a wet laugh. Her legs felt weak but her heart was light. She was holding on to her father and brother. They said Matt and Sam Holt had died. But here they were, alive and breathing and-

All those months of thinking maybe they were dead-

Pidge sobbed and brought both men to their knees with her. The three Holts hugged each other for dear life, all happily crying at finally being reunited.

Hunk even teared up at the sight. “This is so beautiful.”

Matt broke off first with a head pat to his sister and let Pidge and Sam hug it out some more. He calmly approached the group, smiling at Keith, then at Shiro.

Hunk clasped his hands and cheered, “Another reunion!”

Lance looked skeptically at Matt though and said, “I dunno, buddy. That doesn’t really seem like a friendly look.”

Shiro met Matt halfway with a fond smile. He expected a hug or a handshake at least. He was not expecting Matt’s right hook going straight for his face. Shiro landed on his back with one hand nursing his slowly bruising cheek.

Matt intoned mockingly, “Take care of Sam. And don’t do anything stupid.” There was fire in Matt’s eyes as he looked down at Shiro and continued, “What in the world made you even think they would have sent me to where Sam was?! You think they were dumb enough to put the humans together after we practically swept one of their ships clean?! You stupid, hypocritical little-“ Matt inhaled sharply as he looked up towards the sky, clearly holding back from another punch or two.

But he was not done yet. Matt venomously told Shiro off, “Of all the dumbest things you’ve ever done, separating us by making sure I was injured enough to be sent to a damn labour camp for the next six months was the most idiotic thing you’ve ever done.” Then his face softened, and his voice lowered instantly, “But it also saved my life.”

Shiro looked up to Matt smiling sadly at him. “I would never have survived in that arena.” And with that, Matt reached out a hand to offer Shiro some help getting up.

Hunk sighed. “Not exactly a happy reunion but I’ll take it.”

“There’s a lot going on here!” Coran beamed all of a sudden.

Lance actually jumped because he’d forgotten about the Alteans. He looked to where Allura was standing but saw that she had moved to the other alien that had arrived with the Holts. Huh. Maybe they knew each other. Lance’s attention was dragged away when he saw Ken and Keith hugging.

Well. More like Ken hugging Keith who was still just… emotionless at the moment.

“Dude. Your dad was in a coma for like 5 years and you can’t even hug him back?”

Keith looked Lance in the eye. “He’s not hugging me.”

“I’m not hugging him!” Ken exclaimed, “Yet!”

“What?!”

“Look at you!” Ken positively radiated as he patted Keith’s shoulders. "My boy's all grown up!"

Keith let out a sigh with a put-upon expression as Ken continued to admire how much his son had grown in the past 5 years.

“You’d know if he was hugging me,” Keith said out loud without looking at Lance.

Ken chose that exact second to literally hug his son at the waist before hoisting him up and just… generally hugging the life out of Keith.

When the hug was done (after about two minutes of flinging Keith in the air), Lance asked Keith, “You’re really not surprised your dad is here, are you?”

Feeling somewhat indulgent, Keith said, “When you’ve lived your whole life with him, nothing surprises you anymore.”

Both Lance and Hunk, followed by Shiro and Matt, either patted him on the back or gave him an understanding look. Matt didn’t even know the guy but could immediately judge Ken for himself when Coran answered Matt's question about the green slime thing a minute ago while the father-son hug was ongoing.

"Heeeeey." Matt squinted at Keith. "You've never said anything about your dad!"

Ken defended his son with, "That's my fault. 5-year coma victim. Not much to say when your dad's practically a vegetable. But 'nough about me, you must be Matthew 'Matt' Holt! Keith's said a lot about you!"

Matt shook hands with Ken while side-eyeing Keith that clearly meant 'We will be talking about this later'.

On the other hand, Allura had felt… strangely drawn towards the man that Keith had probably given their coordinates to. She now understood that Keith had done so without even knowing how it would benefit her paladins. To reunite families, even unintentionally, was a noble cause. She felt endeared towards her new red paladin already.

The man however… His hair resembled the royal Altean bloodline, but his features were clearly galran. The man saw her and like Krolia, immediately recognized her.

He bowed politely and dropped on one knee. “Princess Allura, daughter of King Alfor and Queen Melenor from the planet Altea. It is an honor to see you alive and well, your highness.”

Unperturbed by his knowledge of her royal bloodline, she in turn questioned him, “And you are?”

The man hesitated for a moment.

Allura quickly said, “I know about your…faction. The Blade of Marmora.”

The man nodded and answered her previous inquiry. “Then I am nothing more than another blade.”

“But you’re not just a blade.” Allura gestured to him to rise.

He did so and replied, “To most, no, I am not. I am Prince Lotor, son of Emperor Zarkon and… let us just say my bearer was anonymous but…”

“…she was Altean, wasn’t she?”

“Very much so, your highness.”

So Coran and her were not the only Alteans left!

Lotor must’ve seen her reaction, for he immediately said, “Please do not concern yourself with my… bearer. She is no Altean. Not anymore. She lost that right when she turned her back against her own kind. In fact, I am certain that you were ambushed because of her. I have no references to compare but I do know that she is powerful in her own right.”

Allura felt saddened. Betrayal from kin? When there were so few of them or none of them left?

She felt a hand grasp her arm in warm comfort.

“Fret not, princess. Not all hope is lost.”

Funny, Krolia had said something similar when she noticed Allura’s frown as they were navigating through the enemy ship earlier. “Do all you blades make it a point of knowing who I am and telling me not to worry about anything?”

“No, that’s just Krolia being the mother hen that she is.”

All thoughts stopped as Allura suddenly remembered about the unconscious body in the Red Lion. Keith’s mother. Ken’s wife.

“Krolia!” she shouted in alarm.

Allura’s sudden shout of Krolia’s name made Keith and Ken turn their heads. They didn’t even manage to look at the Altean princess because someone else was slowly walking out of the Red Lion.

Time stopped at that moment for one Kenneth Kogane. He felt himself staring. And staring. And staring.

They never promised to meet when they parted. Because for some reason, they never believed they would. Ken always felt it was poetic; one was destined for travelling the universe and one was chained to Earth. And they would die and pass on without ever hearing or seeing each other again.

Which was why Ken was just… staring.

His mouth moved subconsciously as he breathed out reverently, “…Lia… Oh, Lia.”

Ken found himself moving mechanically as he took her in. She looked exactly the same as the day she had left – beautiful as the Milky Way on the darkest nights.

“Ken?”

Heck, even her voice was the same. And god, not a day went by where Ken didn’t force himself to remember that lovely voice.

When he finally had his arms around her, Ken treasured it, every second, every careful caress, as though afraid the other would disappear the moment he let go. Ken didn’t know if he ever wanted to let go.

“I must be dreaming," Ken heard Krolia mumble.

And he’d be lying if he didn’t feel that way either because there were many nights over the years when Ken would see Krolia just lounging on the couch with Keith. He blinked and she wasn’t there anymore. So yes, Ken knew what it was like.

But this time, for once in both their lives, reality was so much sweeter than the illusion of their minds.

Ken whispered, “No darl’. Not this time.” He pulled back, just enough to gently cup Krolia’s cheek as their foreheads touched. “I’m here. Right here. Not goin’ nowhere ‘ny time soon, Lia.”

Krolia accepted his words and wrapped her arms around his neck. Ken had zero complaints with another hug, anything to feel her so close to him again.

“Is that your mother?!” Lance was literally pulling his own hair, too mindblown for any rational reactions.

“Wow. No wonder your parents hit it off.” Matt whistled.

Shiro slapped the back of Matt’s head while Keith kicked him in the shin. Matt groaned at the double attack. “Not fair…”

After formal introductions were made, Krolia went with Ken and Coran to the infirmary for a healing pod, Lotor and Allura left to discuss what to do with the still-occupied ‘swamped’ enemy jets, and the paladins decided to give a tour to Sam, Matt and Keith.

Along the way, Matt had grown cold towards Shiro once more and his ire was palpable. He walked furthest away from Shiro and made it obvious that he was giving Shiro the cold shoulder when he moved away or stopped talking if Shiro hovered too close. The Holt siblings were always a little… vindictive with those they considered had wronged them.

Shiro would rather let the whole thing go, so he bravely made the first move, making the whole group pause the tour. “Look Matt, I’m sorry, okay? It wasn’t my best moment. I just really wanted you out of there before I lost you too.”

Matt regarded Shiro with a passive expression. “Alright.”

With a mental sigh, Shiro asked tentatively, “So… are we okay?”

“No, Shiro. We’re not.” Matt crossed his arms. “Not until you get it through that thick skull of yours that it’s better to inform others and share your thoughts before making a decision. Or… Tell it to him, Keith.”

Shiro turned to Keith with a confused look. What did Keith have anything to do with it?

“Shiro," Keith started. “You’re my brother. I love you-”

“Awww-“ Hunk cooed but he was cut off by Matt's terse, “He’s not done yet.”

“-but if you ever do something like this again, I will make sure that your robot arm will be surgically removed and then I'll make Pidge replace it with an arm that doesn’t even match your body. You’ll have your Greek god physique and then you’ll have a noodle arm prosthetic.”

Pidge raised her hands placatingly. “I’d rather stay out of this conversation but for that imagery alone-“ She smirked with absolute delight. “-I’m totally down with Keith’s suggestion.”

Keith pinned Shiro with a hard stare. “Understood?”

“Yup," Shiro popped the 'p' as he conceded.

Matt finally looked satisfied and gladly allowed the tour to continue.

Shiro hung back with Keith and whispered, “Did he give you a script or something?”

“A bullet point draft, yesterday. He told me to prepare before we went back to Earth to see you and send Sam off. I improvised most of it but the noodle arm was all Matt.”

Shiro shook his head from Matt's predictable antics. Then he realized. “Hey, how come you got away with that thing you pulled with shoving me into an escape pod?”

Keith smiled playfully, a painfully nostalgic image that had Shiro’s heart aching with how much he truly missed Keith.

“Because you’re not mad at me like Matt is with you.”

Shiro laughed because it was true as heck.  

Chapter Text

After the tour, everyone except Ken and Krolia reconvened in the main lounge of the castle. Allura, Coran and Lotor were already seated as they waited for the paladins and humans to finish their tour around the castle. The doors finally slid open for them to hear the chatters.

“When we get back to Earth, I’m gonna have a restraining order against you.” Lance pointed at Keith.

Keith had the look of someone that clearly stated, ‘I don’t even want to be near you’.

Pidge hummed in thought before she asked, “How are you gonna get a restraining order when Keith’s not even fully human?”

Lance scoffed. “Pfft, please. By the time this whole thing is over, we’ll probably have like an alien coalition and then all the aliens will move into Earth or something. And then we’ll have some sort of human-alien authority department for crimes between species. Which means my restraining order for the mullet can hold.”

Hunk turned to Allura and Coran with curious eyes. “Is there like a universal authority that gives out restraining orders in space?”

Lotor, however, was the one who graciously answered, “I believe my estranged father once tried to pass a law similar to your order of restraint but it was voted down when they concluded that both parties would simply eradicate each other out of spite to prove the law’s worthlessness.”

“…” The room stared at Lotor in silence.

“Okay!” Lance clapped his hands. “We’ll try to do better on Earth later.”

Matt cleared his throat to gain everyone’s attention before he casually sized up Lotor. “So. Your father, right? I know you’re part of Keith’s group but how do we know we can really trust you?”

“You don’t," Lotor replied succinctly.

Shiro saw Matt’s hands twitching to grab his extendable pole so he stepped forward and grasped Matt’s arm. “C’mon, he’s not even armed.”

Lotor simply smirked and crossed his arms. “Bold of you to assume I need a weapon to kill any of you.”

That did it. Matt drew out his pole as Keith got in between his friend and Lotor. To Matt, he said calmly, “Stop. If you can’t trust him, then you can’t trust me.”

Matt flinched at the statement and backed down easily enough.

To Lotor, Keith deadpanned, “Do yourself a favour and stop threatening to kill anyone.”

A snort from the human cadets had everyone’s head swerving to Lance.

Lance raised his arms up placatingly and said with giggles in his voice, “Not sure if you’re familiar with Earth memes or your formality just translates to a meme.” Lance imitated Lotor’s earlier expression and voice as he continued, “Bold of you to assume I need a weapon to kill any of you-“ He laughed to himself but then sobered up instantly at Keith’s flat look. “-but yeah okay, noted. Purple prince can kick our asses without weapons.”

Allura stood up then and addressed the room, "We currently have enemies stranded in their ships that are glued to the castle’s platform. I will need all of your help to detain them.”

Before they reached the glued ships, Hunk nervously pointed to a crowd of small creatures and almost shouted, “Oh my god, what are those things?!”

Allura laughed and calmed him down. “Those are the arusians. This is their planet and they have come out to greet us.”

The arusians were friendly enough and gladly welcomed them all. Some had even climbed the paladins and attached themselves all over. Hunk had fallen over from a giant arusian puppy pile. Matt was trying to cuddle and hug at least 5 of them in one big hug. Meanwhile, Sam was too busy admiring the tensile strength of Ken’s swamp bombs to even care about the arusian hanging on to his head.

Shiro, Lotor and Keith approached the first enemy ship and nodded to each other. Keith withdrew his blade and surprisingly, materialized the red paladin bayard, before he activated both into matching kukris. He then dual-slashed the green slime from the ship’s main hatch.

Lotor promptly kicked the hatch open and both he and Shiro ran into the ship to disarm whoever was inside. They had taken the enemies by surprise, so the three sentries were easily taken down.

One of the galras found inside, however, was someone that Lotor knew and vice versa. Shiro had delivered a flying kick which knocked the galra off his feet long enough for Keith to pin the alien's left leg and its enlarged left arm with both the luxite blade and the red bayard. The alien let out an enraged shout and before he could do anything to Keith, Shiro expertly put him in a choke-hold while pinning the alien's right arm, rendering three out four limbs useless. 

“You…!” Lotor growled vehemently. “Sendak.”

“If it isn’t the bastard prince, himself. So you've finally stooped so low as to work with these... primitive beings," Sendak responded through gritted teeth. 

Lotor’s face closed off and he activated his own blade just as Allura rushed in with, “Wait! The arusians don’t condone bloodshed on their lands!”

The other paladins had hurried inside after hearing all the commotion. They watched as Lotor glared at the smug galra still pinned by Shiro and Keith.

“Had it not been for the laws of these lands, I would’ve driven my blade through your abdomen-“

Lotor’s threat was cut off by Pidge, Lance, Hunk and Matt’s hysterical laughter.

“Seriously…!” Lance wheezed while clutching his stomach. “This guy is a walking meme and he’s not even trying!”

Everyone else was bewildered except Keith and Shiro who were, in every sense of the word, done.

By the time Sendak had been put into cryosleep for his extermination (once they leave Arus) and all the enemy ships had been emptied of threats, Krolia awakened from the castle's healing pod. Ken had waited for her and was there to catch her when she was released. They shared another intimate moment of reunion before joining the others.

Krolia took one look at Lotor and simply patted his shoulder. “You’ll get used to them.”

Lotor looked to her almost desperately. “Are they always this easily amused?”

“Yes.”

The humans had left their home planet, some quite recently and some of them for at least one deca-phoeb, and still had it in them to laugh at meaningless little things that amused them, even from a deadly alien. Frankly, Lotor found the humans absolutely terrifying.

While Hunk didn’t know alien ingredients, he could judge it well enough. And although the castle food goo was good, he was craving something heartier. Thus, with a few produces from Arus' forests - provided by the generous arusians, Hunk managed to whip up a big bowl of delicious stew; enough to serve everyone on board the castle for now.

“As long as you don’t question the protein, you’re good!” Hunk advised as he poured out the stew into bowls and passed them around.

Pidge scoffed. “That doesn’t sound dodgy at all.” She still ate her portion without any complaints though.  

Sat in the dining room and enjoying their first meal together, Keith eyed Matt’s giddiness with suspicion. Matt was staring at Allura and waited till she was done conversing with Ken and Krolia to ask his question.

“Okay, so! Strictly for scientific reasons-“ Matt inhaled and then exhaled along with the question, “Can the bayard change into anything?”

“Well…” Allura paused in thought. “It must suit the paladin’s needs.“

Matt turned excitedly to his sister who easily said “No.” before he could even ask her.

“What if I called in that favour from the rooftop for your science fair exhibition?”

Pidge raised one eyebrow at her brother. “You really wanna call that one in for this?”

Matt looked up in thought before shaking his head. “Nah, maybe not.”

He then turned to Shiro but quickly deflated with “You’re never gonna need it enough.” And ignored Shiro’s indignant look.

Finally, Matt turned to Keith with hope shimmering in his eyes.

Keith rolled his eyes. “Why do I get the feeling I know what you’re asking for?”

Matt was practically vibrating with excitement. “Because I’ve mentioned it a thousand times how cool it would be to have two blades of plasma contained by a magnetic field as a real-life energy weapon?”

Still staring blankly at Matt, Keith materialized his bayard once more and activated it into Matt’s dream weapon; an energy sword.

While Matt almost cried himself at the sight of his dream weapon, Lance choked and spitted out his water as he cried out, “Is that from Halo?!”

The aliens and adults were, understandably, confused yet supportive of their weird charges.

There’s laughter around him at the dining table. Funny. At one point, Keith didn’t know if he would ever be surrounded by the light sound of laughter again.

The last time he was, he’d been with his crew. Headed for Kerberos.

And then there was nothing but his cell. And the collar. And the table.

And those hallucinations.

Shiro hating him and wanting to kill him.

Matt and Sam leaving him. Or dying. Or dead.

Everyone he loved either hated him and was actively trying to stab him or was dead and staring at him with blank eyes.

And yet.

There he was. Eating stew of all things. He looked up to Sam, Matt and Shiro sitting across him.

And there they were. Laughing.

They don’t hate him (maybe).

And they’re not dead (yet).

“… Keith?”

Keith blinked.

The corridor outside the paladin quarters swam back into focus in a gush of colours and silence. The lights were dimmed to imitate Earth’s night sky because they had been ordered to rest. Keith was not at the dining table anymore. He was standing stiffly by himself, but he knew that Matt, Sam and Shiro were still alive. He had seen them. The dining room was real. Hunk’s stew was real. It was his crews’ laughter that he heard. Krolia was there too. With his father. They were smiling.

‘They’re not dead.’ Keith’s mind repeated frantically, his heart beating wildly in his ribcage. ‘They’re not dead.’

“Keith?”

Keith looked up at Shiro who was standing across him. His eyes were kind. They always were. The real Shiro always had kind eyes. This was not an illusion. Keith didn’t know how he got to where he was because he barely remembered anything from the time they were all eating Hunk’s stew. He had lost time again. But Keith was finally conscious. And Keith knew that Shiro knew that as well.

“Matt and I were about to take a shower. You wanna come with? You haven’t been out of that uniform since like, yesterday at least.”

Keith felt strangely disoriented as he looked down to his Marmora uniform. Maybe a shower would be nice. He willed himself to nod at Shiro and allowed Shiro to guide him to the bathrooms.

The castle bathrooms near the paladin quarters had 6 open showers, a huge bathtub that could fit at least 4 human-sized adults and 3 private shower cubicles.

Matt was already there and complaining to Shiro, “What took you so long?!”

Keith didn’t hear Shiro’s response. He still felt disconnected from his body, so he hardly reacted when both Shiro and Matt started to strip him and then themselves before heading to the open showers. Keith was distantly surprised by how easily they had figured out the mechanism of opening the Blade of Marmora suit though. Maybe it was easier when you were not doing it yourself.

Keith could vaguely feel Shiro’s hand on his upper back from his right, ushering him to one of the showers but it was swatted away by Matt from his left.

“I’m tall enough to wash his head now so it’s my turn," Keith heard Matt proudly declare to Shiro.

Shiro simply shrugged and turned on Keith’s shower before turning on his own.

Keith knew there was water running from the top of his head, but it still felt… like nothing. Matt soon maneuvered him so that they were facing each other. Keith finally spoke out loud, “I can shower myself, y’know.”

Matt snorted as he squirted a dollop of shampoo into his hand. “And let you stare at the wall for three hours before you remember to turn off the shower? I don’t think so.” He tilted Keith’s head forward, away from the spray of water and started to lather the shampoo gently into Keith’s hair.

Keith didn’t rebut Matt’s accusation. Keith probably would have stared at the wall before remembering to even start showering. Because he still felt off. He needed to feel again, like his body was actually his own. Keith closed his eyes and listened intently while allowing himself to feel the lukewarm water running down his skin. He focused on the little things; like the pitter-patter of the water dripping off him, Shiro’s off-tune humming of a vaguely familiar song and Matt’s nimble fingers rubbing on his scalp.

On his sides, Keith’s fingers twitched and started to move in time with Matt’s, as though he had been lathering his own hair. Already, Keith started to feel a semblance of normality. It was… nice. And oddly nostalgic. It took Keith back to a time when he and Matt were just cadets and Shiro and Sam were the overbearing worrywarts they always were.

Matt tilted Keith’s head back again to rinse off the shampoo.

With his eyes still closed, Keith asked softly, “Do you ever regret it?”

“What?”

“Kerberos.”

Matt’s fingers that had been carding through Keith’s hair, froze minutely. Even Shiro had suddenly stopped humming.

Then Matt’s hand was moving again, and Keith opened his eyes.

Keith caught Matt smiling sadly at his own scars, then at Keith’s. When he met Keith’s eyes though, Matt gave Keith a lopsided grin as he answered, “Not in a long time.”

Matt ruffled Keith’s wet hair. “What about you?” Matt asked.

For a moment, Keith felt overwhelmed. Those early days when he had been convinced that his crew was dead? Keith had regretted everything – from his first step on Kerberos to impulsively stabbing the damn galra emperor with his blade. But looking at Matt’s face, hearing his answer and knowing that all the Kerberos crew were alive made Keith falter. Did Keith really regret everything?

Luckily, he was saved from answering when a new voice spoke.  

“Y’know,” Lance purposely called out from somewhere behind them. “Not that I’m against this sort of bro-thing you guys got going on, but does it have to be in the showers?”

Matt quirked up a smug smile. “Jealous?” he asked slyly as he continued to bathe Keith while Shiro turned off his own shower and went off to towel himself dry.

Lance neither denied nor admitted his jealousy but his pursed lips and narrowed eyes spoke volumes. He continued watching as Matt finally deemed Keith done and pushed Keith to where Shiro was so that Matt could shower himself.

Hunk nudged Lance and said, “I can do your hair and you can do mine if you want to.”

With a huff, Lance eventually shrugged. “Yeah, fine. Why not?”

On the available bench between the open showers and the bathtub, Keith had been seated by Shiro who was standing behind him. With a towel over Keith's head, Shiro started to aggressively towel-dry Keith’s hair like he was trying to get rid of the most stubborn stain. Even Keith was grunting from the treatment but he didn't make an effort at stopping Shiro.

Lance pointed at them and asked Hunk, “Can we do that too?”

When Shiro lifted the towel from Keith's head, they all burst out laughing at seeing Keith's messy mane-like hair. Keith looked up grumpily at Shiro who cupped Keith's face upside down with both hands. Matt caught the small smile Keith gave Shiro before his scowl returned.

Beds were a luxury that the Kerberos crew had not tasted ever since they were abducted by the Galra Empire. And it wasn’t even a luxury they would appreciate since it felt… wrong in all sorts of ways.

So, it wasn’t unusual that Sam was found napping in an awkward position at one of the tables in the castle workshop where he had been working on redrawing his blueprints. Pidge didn't try to move her father, she just draped a blanket over him. It also wasn’t unusual that the other three crew members found themselves throwing a blanket to the hard floor of one of the paladin rooms and simply lied down with the lights dimmed.

Matt was out like a light, the easiest out of all them to fall asleep no matter where he was. On the other hand, sleep for Keith and Shiro was a nightmare waiting to happen. Shiro was always woken up for another round at the arena and Keith always woke up to a different illusion. Therefore, both of them weren’t keen on sleeping much. Still, they enjoyed the peace that the room and Matt’s snores brought them.

In the comfort of each other, Shiro boldly said to Keith, “I don’t regret it.”

Keith looked to his side and could almost make out the smile on Shiro’s face.

“Not one bit," Shiro continued without a hint of doubt.

Maybe, Keith could slowly let go of his own regret if neither of them felt the same way he did. The pros outweigh the cons after all. Kerberos brought his crew and parents together. Heck, it brought all of them together. They were all alive. And that was what mattered most to Keith.

Keith slowly, but surely, quirked his lips and smiled back at Shiro.

Matt's arm suddenly shot out and hit Keith in the face. Shiro laughed when Keith tried pushing Matt's arm away but instead it caught Keith around the waist. Keith let out an embarrassing sound of surprise at suddenly being pulled for a snuggle. It had been months since he was subjected to such a gesture. He also remembered that there was no escape when Matt Holt chose his bolster. How could Keith forget that Matt was a cuddle monster? He used to battle with Shiro on who would sleep next to Matt to avoid Matt's tentacle arms and legs. 

When Shiro's laughter escalated at Keith's predicament, Keith purposely flung his arm till it hit Shiro in the face. Shiro swore as Keith laughed. 

In the darkness of their room, Shiro and Matt (who awoke when Keith squeaked earlier) basked in their friend's rare sound of joy. 

Lotor eyed Krolia’s… human mate warily. What was he even doing at an intel meeting as important as this?

Lotor had approached Princess Allura earlier and offered to educate her on the current hierarchy of the Galra Empire since his stay at the castle was only temporary. She had agreed, of course, and it wasn’t a surprise that her royal advisor had tagged along. It was a surprise when Krolia and Ken joined them, and the princess didn’t even bat an eyelash at the human’s presence!

Ignoring the human, Lotor worked his way up from the galra bases, to the generals throughout the galaxies, and finally, to the emperor himself. Lastly, he introduced them to someone who was not on the hierarchy but had a powerful sway on the emperor's decisions and was someone to be feared - the witch.

After Lotor explained about her role as inquisitor, advisor, and executioner, Ken raised his hand and asked, “So she’s both his right hand and his left hand?”

Lotor paused and then sneered. “Is that supposed to be one of your human lingo that I’m supposed to understand?”

Ken smiled sheepishly. “Forgive me. I meant that she supports the emperor with advice and builds whatever he needs. But she also does the dirty job of torturing info out of traitors and quite literally, taking out the trash.”

“… I suppose that is one way to put it.”

“So, if we take her out, then he’s vulnerable.”

Lotor looked at Ken as though the man was crazy and not quite right in the head. “Did you not hear a word I just said about her?”

Ken shrugged casually. “She may be dangerous, but I have a bone to pick with her.”

“…why would you go bone-picking with-“

Krolia cut in Lotor’s question with an explanation, “He meant that he has a grudge to settle with the witch.”

Lotor scoffed at the absurdity and ego of the insignificant human. “You want to go after the witch? You are either incredibly stupid or stupidly incredible. You're only human. I reckon, you couldn’t even take me on without passing ou-“

Before Lotor could finish, he flinched backwards when he saw the human move his arm. He also saw Krolia’s panicked face and how she jumped forward to catch the tiny sharp projectile that suddenly came close to Lotor’s face. He barely even saw the human throw the thing.

Krolia sighed in relief as she took the needle-like object. Before she returned to her mate, she spoke authoritatively to Lotor, “If this thing so much as pricks us, we’d be dead in less than a dobosh. Don’t stand in our way.”

“…you invented something so sinister behind Kolivan’s back?”

“No.” She gestured her head to Ken. “He did.”

Lotor watched Krolia return the object to the human who deftly stored it in his back pocket or something. The man still smiled jovially even when his words and tone carried the threat of an enraged parent. “No one messes with our son and gets away with it.”

Chapter Text

Ken may have missed at least 5 years of Keith’s life. But he knew his son. The moment Keith’s eyes glazed over and he began to mechanically eat the stew from the bowl in front of him, Ken knew something was wrong. Keith had habits that were almost impossible to break – one of them being the way he ate his food. When eating stew, or any kind of soup, Ken noticed that Keith liked to eat the chunky contents first and then he would chug the whole bowl clean.

At first, Keith had done like he always did, purposely eating all the questionable protein and veggies in the stew. But that changed when his eyes lost focus. Instead, Keith was just eating the stew one spoonful at a time, with and without chunks.

And Ken wasn’t the only one who noticed apparently.

Krolia, Matt and Shiro were just a few seconds behind him. Krolia made a move to stand up but Ken stopped her. He leaned in and whispered, “They can handle it.”

Krolia looked at Ken with a frown before Matt and Shiro made a show of wanting to take a bath. They got up and politely adjusted their chairs.

Pidge looked disgruntled at her brother. “You really wanna take a shower now? Like during a meal?”

Matt smoothly reasoned, “Nature calls, Pidge. I might as well clean up after doing my business.”

“Ew.” Pidge turned to Shiro. “What about you?”

Shiro shrugged. “Can’t have Matt getting lost, right Keith?”

Ken almost snorted into his cup. These kids were good at covering up.

Almost automatically, Keith looked up at Shiro.

“C’mon, let’s hit the showers.” Shiro touched Keith’s shoulders.

Keith dropped his spoon in his bowl and got up quietly. His usual deadpan demeanor made his disconnected self seem normal.

“Hunk, can you keep our portions for us? We’ll work on them later. It was superb by the way!” Matt smiled as he expertly balanced three bowls and passed them over to their chef.

“Umm.. sure?” Hunk shrugged.

The three left the dining room, leaving the rest bewildered by the trio’s random desire to bathe.

Lotor broke the silence by inquiring, “What is with you humans and your desire to bathe with water?”

Allura suggested, “Perhaps because the Earth’s surface is covered with 70% water?”

Pidge just stared at them both and shrugged indifferently. “Eh.”

Lance looked calculatingly at the doorway. “They’re up to something… C’mon Hunk, we should investigate.”

“Eat your soup first, detective," Pidge intoned seriously.

“Why?” Lance asked back almost angrily.

“Because Matt is as picky as a koala. When he says Hunk’s soup is superb and that he’ll ‘work on it later’, he literally meant he will ‘work on it later’ till it’s gone.”

Lance made some irritated noises before he scooped up more of Hunk’s stew and chewed the weird protein with vengeance.

Meanwhile, Krolia was still a little anxious beside Ken. She didn’t show it but he knew his wife too well too.

“He’ll be fine," Ken assured her. He knew that for a fact because getting Keith to talk about someone was almost impossible. But getting Keith to talk about someone for 5 hours straight without pause? That could only mean one thing.

“They seemed so used to it," Krolia confessed quietly.

From her other side, Sam Holt replied just as softly, “They are.”

Ken and Sam turned to look at each other. There was a story there that Ken didn’t fully know about. At Sam’s nod, Ken nodded back. He’ll know soon enough.

To make Krolia feel better, they stopped by the paladins’ quarters about two hours later. They didn’t have to stay long before they heard the unmistakable laughter of their son. Krolia had never even heard it before but she knew it was Keith’s.

Having finally assured his wife that their son was in good hands, they both joined the intel meeting.

Krolia had only briefly told Ken about Haggar and what the witch had been doing to their son the past year. Ken was usually a cool-headed person. He liked to see the good in everyone before passing judgement onto them. The witch would just have to be his first exception it seemed.

After (unintentionally) scaring the shit out of Lotor, Ken had approached Coran and Allura, and asked if they would assist him in his project to create biological weapons against the witch. There had to be similarities among the Altean species after all. The two Alteans were agreeable, especially after Krolia’s explanation to Lotor regarding the effect of Ken’s invention that could easily take down galras. As long as Ken didn’t plan on using his future inventions against them, Coran and Allura were on board.

Ken would later take their blood samples, bodily fluids and whatever study materials they had on Altean anatomy. On the other hand, Krolia had gone with Lotor for a private virtual meeting with their leader.

While everyone was either resting or sleeping, Ken happily went around the castle and collected all the necessary equipment and seemingly useless tech he could use and brought them to the castle workshop. Despite his effort to keep quiet, dumping dozens of techs on a worktable that was too small to occupy the load was bound to make some noises.

Which inadvertently startled Sam Holt from a few tables away.

Sam woke up to Ken looking at him like a startled prey.

“I am so sorry.”

Sam laughed. “Better you than some alien demanding you draw faster.”

“They really did that?”

“Yup.” Sam adjusted his glasses and made a surprised, pleased sound at the blanket falling off his back. “They couldn’t understand why we humans needed to sleep.”

That, Ken could understand. “Aliens, am I right?”

Sam laughed once more in agreement. “What do you have there?”

“Oh, just some junk from this big ‘ol place.”

For a few minutes, Sam watched Ken reorganize four tables and turned them into a viable workstation. He then expertly navigated the workshop to find tools that he needed and rearranged the junk into separate piles.

Sam must have dozed off for a few minutes or maybe an hour because in just one blink, Sam swore he saw a rough model of a hoverbike hanging by ropes tied to somewhere on the ceiling at Ken’s workstation; it was oddly shaped because it was quite stunningly, put together using junk of all things. It took a few seconds for Sam to realize that Ken made a hoverbike. From scratch.

Sam stood up on wobbly legs, half his body still asleep, and walked towards the unbelievable creation.

Ken was humming as he worked on the other side of the thing.

On the floor just off Ken’s workstation were rough drawings of the hoverbike’s components. Sam picked the papers up and studied them with a critical eye. On Earth, about 20 years ago, the novel hoverbike technology was revolutionary and the original garrison-issued hoverbikes were patented by its inventor before Galaxy Garrison obtained an improvement patent to make their own elevated versions. The original inventor remained anonymous and no matter how hard Sam scoured the data system, he never found the inventor’s identity.

Looking at the extremely detailed drawings and description of Ken’s hoverbike, however, made Sam look at Ken reverently as he connected the dots.

Ken looked back to Sam and winked knowingly. “Knew I’d heard the name Holt from somewhere. Wanna show me those improvements you made? I think the kids could use something to let themselves loose around here.”

After Sam joined Ken in making their first prototype hoverbike in space, things started pouring out more easily as they worked.

Sam recollected his son’s stories of how they adopted Keith from the desert via an accidental confrontation between Keith and Shiro in the library. Ken had laughed at that. It was so like Keith to unknowingly bust into a military-level library just so that he could read a few interesting books and then get inducted into the cadet program due to circumstantial reasons.

And then things got progressively darker. Sam didn’t sugarcoat things. He told Ken everything - the special training, Keith’s coping mechanism, the Kerberos mission and everything Matt managed to squeeze in during their trip in Lotor's ship before all of them were reunited.

Ken had stopped working on the hoverbike by then. He might accidentally destroy the whole thing if he continued. Anger was not a foreign emotion, but Ken knew how explosive he could get. He was actually surprised by his son’s dissociative tendencies. Keith had always been an angry little spitball that Ken loved with all his heart.

But by the way Sam was telling it, it was as though Keith had forgotten about the fire inside him.

Something suddenly connected in Ken’s head.

Keith hadn’t forgotten. He just learned to smother it and then doused it with water every time it so much as sparks. Because that was all he could do when Ken spiritually left him; a teenager, alone with nothing but himself talking to a comatose father.

At that moment, Ken knew what he had to do.

Keith woke up a little disoriented because he didn’t even realize when he had fallen asleep. For the first time, in a long time, Keith woke up warm; Matt’s limp arm still around his waist, Shiro’s legs entwined with his, their body heat like a furnace compared to the cold blanket-covered floor.

Expertly, Keith crawled out of their hold and blearily made his way to the door. He felt like he had slept for a whole week.

The whole castle was still quiet. He must have woken up too soon. Then again, they might have went to bed early, Keith didn’t exactly keep track of time. There was an odd distant sound of… something…

Keith followed the noise and found himself deep in the castle, standing outside of what could only be described as a garage. There were various junk scattered on the floor and the sound of someone possibly welding something. He peeked inside and saw someone’s lower half body under an ugly hoverbike and Sam at another table working on a large piece of paper.

Keith knocked politely on the wall.

Sam looked up just as Ken rolled out from under the hoverbike on a self-made mechanic's creeper.

“Keith! Is it that early already?” Sam asked as he stood up.

“I don’t really know what the time is but everyone’s still asleep.”

Keith watched Ken and Sam exchange a look before Sam made his way to the door.

“Better hit the showers before you youngsters crowd it up!”

Keith watched Sam go with a perplexed look on his face. That was odd.

He turned to his father with a raised eyebrow. “A hoverbike? Really?”

Ken laughed. “Gotta do something ‘round here before I go crazy bored.”

“You? Bored?” Keith snorted.

He made his way inside the workshop, sidestepping all the mess.

Ken stretched his arms. “Remember the hoverbike back at home? I like what you did to it.”

Keith deadpanned, “I didn’t even do anything to it ‘cept maintenance, dad.”

“Don’t think I didn’t notice the extra fuel tanks.” Ken gave Keith a skeptical look as he wagged his finger.

Keith shrugged. “Needed the boost to race.”

He joined his father by sitting on the floor. Keith sat with his legs crossed and quietly looked at his father as Ken went back under the hoverbike with a makeshift welding mask in place.

“How’d you know ‘bout the fuel tanks?” Keith asked over the welding sparks.

“Well, I needed to pop the hood ‘fore I went to rescue Shiro from your garrison base.”

Keith frowned. Shiro didn’t say anything about that. “Did they do anything to him?”

Ken paused. “No, I don’t think they did. Got there in time.”

“Thanks, dad.”

Ken looked at his son from under the hoverbike. “Had to do somethin’ didn’t I? After all those hours of me listenin' to nothin' but you goin’ on and on ‘bout Shiro this and Matt that-“

Keith flushed unintentionally. “You heard me the entire time?!”

“What d’ya think I was doing, kid? Sleeping?”

Keith sputtered, “That’s what a coma is, dad, so yes.”

“Could hear you from day 1, son.”

Keith’s body stiffened. He didn’t want to go there. Back to that day.

Ken seemed oblivious or maybe he was just ignoring Keith’s discomfort as he went on. “I was early when I went to pick you up that day, y’know.”

Oh, heck no. They were not going there. Not ever, if Keith could help it. Thinking of no other way to get out of the topic, Keith immediately stood up and turned to leave.

Ken halted his welding and hurriedly rolled out from under the hoverbike, throwing his mask off. “Keith! I’m tryin’a have a serious conversation with you!”

“And I’m trying to avoid it!” Keith shouted just a little too heatedly.

“Keith," Ken called out gently.

Keith paused and slowly took a deep breath. He turned back to look at his father and slumped his shoulders. “What?”

“You’re angry.”

Keith gritted his teeth. “Yeah, I’m pissed that this conversation isn’t over yet.”

Ken just smiled kindly. “It’s okay to be angry, son.”

“Thanks for that input, dad, let me file it away in my brain. Great life lesson, dad. Can you please just let this go?”

Ken calmly stood up and dropped his tools on the worktable. “I know you’re angry and it’s okay.”

Keith angrily tapped his foot and crossed his arms. “Are you just going to repeat the same sentence over and over again?”

Shrugging nonchalantly, Ken said, “If that’s what it takes for you to forgive me.”

Keith could feel his mouth twitch, could feel his heart beating wildly as an ugly raw emotion threatened to burst from inside him. All those years of repressing how angry and scared he was; seeing their stupid hoverbike parked at the school gates with his dad gone and the telltale smoke of a burning building two blocks away. How hard he ran, begging to whatever being there was that his dad was okay. Keith was starting to see red and he wasn’t sure what he could do to stop himself.

With solemn eyes, Ken stared down at his son. “You’re angry.”

And Keith felt himself explode.

“OF COURSE I’M ANGRY!” Keith started stomping back to his father. “I told you that I didn’t want to go to some stupid school that was practically a hundred miles away from our house! And I told you to stop entering every burning building you saw like some heroic fireman! But did you?!”

Ken took it all in with a pained, sad smile. He could only imagine what Keith felt like that day; putting the pieces together when he saw the hoverbike and running to the burning building.

“How can I not be angry, dad?!” Keith screamed with tears in his eyes, his voice almost breaking, finally at arm’s length from Ken.

Ken took in his son’s current distraught face. Was this how Keith looked like when he found out what had happened? Ken remembered his first memory of being in a coma. He heard Keith’s angry stifling sobs somewhere beside him, as though Keith was biting his sweater to stop himself from crying too loudly. And Ken had instantly panicked because he couldn’t move, couldn’t see, couldn’t hold his son and tell him everything was going to be okay.

But now he could.

Ken reached out towards his son, grasped Keith’s shoulder and pulled him in. Ken tucked Keith’s face in the crook of his neck, cradling the back of his son’s head and just held him close like the precious treasure Ken always thought of him as.

“I’m so sorry, Keith," Ken breathed out, his voice low and carrying the weight of years of guilt.

Keith was stiff and rigid in his father’s arms, as though he wanted nothing to do with the hug, as though he never wanted to forgive the man-

But then, something shifted.

Ken heard a stifled inhale, felt Keith’s back shuddering and then, a quiet hiccup.

Ken embraced his son tighter as Keith tried and failed to push down the waves of emotions that he had been suppressing for the past few years. Keith’s arms finally returned Ken’s hug, fingers desperately scrambling onto the back of Ken’s shirt as deep, desperate sobs burst out of him uncontrollably. Keith’s shuddering gasps brought tears to Ken's eyes. There was so much pain inside of Keith and Ken could only absorb and accept how hurt his son was. Ken closed his eyes and gently kissed his son’s head as he carded his hand through Keith’s hair.

Quiet apologies fell through Ken’s lips unbidden. He would say them again and again to try and take away all that pain from his son, to make up for all those years Ken wasn’t there for him. He didn't know how long they had hugged but Ken didn't want to let go any time soon. 

Ken opened his eyes when he felt someone else join in their hug. He smiled at his wife. They both bracketed their grief-stricken son and made sure that he felt their love. Krolia nuzzled herself into her son’s mop of hair and rubbed one hand soothingly up and down Keith’s back.

Both of them made Keith feel so small and yet so safe. It was an incredible feeling, almost overwhelming, when you had no parents for the past few years to suddenly having them both and loving you so much without question.

It was an awkward affair after Keith’s tears subsided, but he gladly hugged the two of them once more when Ken prompted him to.

“It’s okay to be angry, good actua-“

“I know. You can stop now,” Keith replied exasperatedly with an eyeroll.

Keith’s mood and demeanor had already started to change; they could visibly see the difference in his eyes and the way Keith carried himself. Ken and Krolia had never been happier for their son.

Lance yawned as he entered the lounge and joined Allura and Lotor on the sofa. He looked around and asked, “Did the whole Kogane family finally leave the castle? Are we leaving them on Arus?”

Sam smiled but refused to indulge Lance's desire. “Nope. They’re in the workshop.”

Lance tossed his head back and groaned out loud in mock misery.

Meanwhile, Pidge had pulled Shiro into the chair at the corner of the room as she climbed and sat on the table designated for the chair.

“Okay, let’s see what’s inside.” Pidge plugged in some wires into Shiro’s arm and started to run diagnostics on it with her laptop. She didn’t know what she was looking for yet but she could probably figure it out. Looking at some of the data though, Pidge frowned at Shiro. “Is this arm new?”

Shiro was startled by the question. “Yes, why?”

“Huh. It’s just that… well… It’s almost like they put your original arm back but with obvious modifications. How was your muscle memory after you first got it?”

Shiro’s eyes widened in wonder as he recalled his ‘Keith rescue mission’. “Perfect.”

“Thought so.” Pidge nodded. “Okay, scanning done-“

“Shouldn’t we like, attempt to form Voltron at least once before we leave Arus?” Hunk inquired.

“Yeah yeah, add it to the to-do list," Pidge offhandedly said as she continued typing into her laptop and running analysis on the data of Shiro’s arm.

Allura looked at her green paladin with horror on her face. “You want to put Voltron on a... to-do list…?”

Pidge looked at Allura and sighed. “I know we didn’t set a time and it’s probably urgent that we save the universe and whatnot. But need I remind everyone that Shiro has a galra arm that hasn’t even been tested yet! What if it's evil and used to spy on us?!” With a completely unapologetic face, she said to Lotor, “No offense.”

“None taken. It probably will be used to spy on us if the witch realizes one of her test subjects is a paladin of Voltron.” Lotor inclined his head. “What do you propose the solution to his arm be, then?”

Pidge looked up from her screen with a dry look. “Uh. Remove it, duh.”

Lotor frowned. “One does not simply remove an arm-“

For the umpteenth time, Lotor was cut off by hysterical laughter from the humans. The galra prince defeatedly put his face in his palms and tiredly announced, “I am never speaking to any of you humans again.”

Eventually, Matt took away Pidge’s laptop, pulled out the wires plugged into Shiro’s arm and told her, “I’ll do the analysis with dad, you go form Voltron.”

Pidge had huffed but agreed as she jumped off the table, “Fine. Let’s go get gundam on the road, guys.”

The younger humans laughed at the crude comparison of Voltron, even Shiro, who volunteered to go get Keith and alert the Koganes of the plan to form Voltron.

Chapter Text

Gundam did not get on the road.

In fact, they were so off the road that Allura had called off their efforts and advised the paladins to perhaps ‘get to know each other’ before trying to form Voltron again. Thus, all five paladins were, in other words, ‘bonding’. And to ensure they were getting to know one another, Coran monitored them via the lions as well as the communicative devices on their paladin armor and helmets.

About an hour had passed since the paladins were set free when Krolia strolled into the main deck to check on their progress.

“How are they doing?” Krolia inquired Coran.

Coran let out a thoughtful grunt. “Well…”

One of the screens broadcasted twin views from the helm of the Red Lion and the Blue Lion. It seemed as though the lions were hovering in mid-air, facing some rocky terrain with questionable steam bursting out of various holes at random intervals.

Hunk’s doubtful voice flowed through from another screen, “Guys? I don’t think this is such a great idea. That gas looks dangerous!”

Lance’s oddly cheerful voice replied, “Hunk’s right, Keith. This is dangerous.”

“And dumb,” Keith grumbled.

“On three?” Lance challenged.

“Three," Keith challenged right back before he jammed his lever and accelerated forward with the Red Lion.

Lance was left sputtering before he too kicked into high gear to chase after the Red Lion while yelling profanities at Keith. “THAT WAS CHEATING, YOU LITTLE SNEAK! WE COUNT FROM ONE AND TWO AND THEN GO ON THREE!!”

“I did go on three," Keith responded with a playful undertone.

Lance let out a frustrated yell, not even realizing how well he was navigating through the terrain. The race between the Red Lion and the Blue Lion could be seen from the screen broadcasting the Yellow Lion’s helm. Apparently, Hunk was waiting at the ‘finish line’ to see who would win the race between Lance and Keith.

Meanwhile, on a separate screen, Pidge could be seen investigating some blue grapes from one of the Arusian forests. She and Shiro had flown out to explore more of the planet. Pidge had seen some interesting species when they flew around the biosphere of Arus after Allura opened the wormhole on the other side of the planet from the Castle of Lions.

Pidge was apparently learning about the Altean tech installed in the paladin suit. It was able to scan and run basic diagnostic tests on the components of various forms of matter, plants and living species. After confirming that the grapes were harmless, Pidge hummed as she plucked one from the bunch to take a closer look at the fruit. “Eh. It checks out. What do you think, Shiro? Safe to eat?”

“I guess?”

“Your confidence is astounding,” Pidge deadpanned. She popped the fruit in her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “It’s got the crunch-soft texture of a grape… But it tastes like pineapple.”

Shiro did the same as Pidge and nodded while letting out a pleased sound. “It does.”

“I’m so bringing these back for Matt!”

“…But Matt hates pineapple…”

“Exactly.” Pidge held out the woody stem of the bunch of blue grapes and turned to Shiro with an expectant look.

Shiro sighed and activated his glowing arm to cut off the wood so Pidge could harvest the whole bunch. “I had nothing to do with this.”

Pidge mimicked zipping her lips shut.

Back on the other screen, Hunk had announced Keith as the winner, so Lance challenged Keith to a ‘Best 2 out of 3’ challenge. Keith didn’t give a verbal response, but he steered the Red Lion back to the ‘starting line’ anyway.  

Coran beamed to Krolia, “They’re all getting along splendidly, I’d say!”

Krolia, who had been staring at the screens with a straight face, turned to give Coran the exact same expression. Thirty minutes later, the paladins were back at the Castle of Lions where Krolia was waiting for them with a new ‘bonding’ training exercise – fully approved and endorsed by the princess.

Matt typed a few commands to investigate the diagnostic scan Pidge had done on Shiro’s new arm. “Dad, look at this.”

Sam hunched from behind Matt’s chair and squinted at the screen in front of his son before he backed away in shock. “That’s…!”

They were disturbed by the sound of three successive explosions followed by Lance’s distant panicked voice almost screaming, “YOUR MOM IS CRAZY!”

The noise shifted away from the Holts after a few more distant explosions mixed in with Pidge’s excited war cry, Keith yelling, Hunk’s shouts and Shiro’s laughter.

Matt gave his father a loaded look. “So this is how you feel when Shiro, Keith and I do stupid stuff.”

Sam just gave his son an exasperated sigh.

“What are you two working on?” asked a new voice.

The Holts turned to see Lotor standing at the doorway. Ever since Lotor brought Matt to pick up Sam from a refugee camp and later flew them to Arus, the three of them had grown an amicable friendship and a shared love for science. The only blip was Matt's momentary distrust of Lotor after finding out he was Zarkon's son. But past that, Matt appreciated Lotor's snark and funny speech. Sam beckoned Lotor inside and showed Matt’s findings.

“You see these codes? It means that Shiro’s arm is not just a prosthetic. It should take weeks or months to get used to having a new limb but Shiro’s arm is an exact replica of his old arm. Biologically, it’s the same limb!”

Lotor frowned at Sam. “Is this a rare achievement?”

Matt shrugged. “Considering your tech? No, probably not. But it does beg the question of ‘why’. If Shiro was just a human, why replace his arm with an exact replica? What made him so special? We’re nothing compared to you guys.”

“He was a great fighter, enough so that he was dubbed ‘The Champion’. Replacing his arm would have guaranteed extended entertainment,” Lotor reasoned.

Matt regarded the prince with a closed off expression. “I call bullshit on that one. I work with rebels. I’ve rescued prisoners. I know the stories. You and I both know Shiro isn’t the first-“ Matt made air quote with his fingers, “- unbeatable fighter in the arena. They lose a limb or die, and its game over for them. All handicaps get immediately shipped off to labor camps. So why wasn’t Shiro? He was still on the main ship after his surgery. Long enough for him to even rescue Keith before escaping. I didn’t even get to say two words before the druids took me away to a camp on planet Zeda.”

Lotor had nothing to say to the truth. To recreate a limb required extensive knowledge on the specimen’s body, at least months’ worth of research and test trials. That could only mean that Keith was not the only Kerberos crew who was scrutinized by the witch. And if the witch had some sort of virus input or surveillance tech in the arm, it could gravely jeopardize them all.

“Is there any way to temporarily disable his arm?”

Sam sighed. “Not without rendering it useless.”

Lotor looked away in thought. “Could you use the current data to make a new arm?”

The Holt father and son turned to each other with raised eyebrows. They both turned to Matt’s computer simultaneously and then turned back to Lotor in sync.

“I don’t see why not," Sam answered confidently. “I haven’t had the chance to explore Altean technology yet.”

“We best get to it, I guess.” Matt grinned at his father.

Lotor nodded. “I’ll deliver your findings to the princess.”

In the med bay, Ken had set up a station to test the Altean’s blood and to create a useful biological weapon against it. He was shocked by how advanced Altean technology was but was disheartened that it wasn’t used to its full capacity. 

Coran, who was present at the time, had answered Ken’s statement with, “Oh yes, when Altea was at its prime, our alchemists were revered by the universe! Allura’s father built the lions! And this castle was built by pop-pop! There were machines and technology galore! Oh, you could only imagine the various innovations of Altea…” he finished wistfully with a faraway look in his eyes.

When Allura joined them at the med bay, Ken was analyzing their blood samples with a bewildered expression.

“Is something the matter?” Allura inquired worriedly.

“It’s just…” Ken took a deep breath. “There’s a pretty large difference between both of your bloods.”

The Alteans studied Ken’s findings. Coran was the one who pointed out, “Well of course! The royal line of Altea has a large reserve of quintessence! It is logical that her blood differs from mine. It is why Allura is the only one capable of creating wormholes and steering the Castle of Lions! It’s quite obvious from her white hair.”

Allura’s eyes widened at Coran. “My hair?”

“Why yes! Only the royal bloodline carries the distinct white colour!”

“Father never told me that…”

“It was never a question!”

Allura reeled back from the information. She had always assumed it was just a normal family trait instead of a royal family trait. Then… What about Lotor? How did she know he was Altean in the first place? The moment she saw him, she knew. Was it due to his... quintessence? 

If white hair were the sign of royalty as well as enhanced levels of quintessence, and Lotor was the son of Emperor Zarkon and an Altean, that meant his mother was-

“Coran," Allura’s voice quivered with fear. “Years before the invasion, father mentioned that one of our own married his best friend. It was Zarkon, wasn’t it? Who was it? The one who married him?”

Coran was quiet for a moment. When he spoke, there was a melancholic tone in his voice, “Honerva. An esteemed Altean alchemist and later an empress. I did not witness their ‘love at first glance’ as your father used to joke. But they had a lovely wedding. She lived on Daibazaal, studying the rift from the crater created by an unknown comet. The same comet your father used to build Voltron. The rift became her sole purpose and she never returned to Altea. It is why you are not familiar with her or her name. We had not reached the subject yet as you were still learning about your healing responsibilities.”

Lotor’s voice suddenly floated into the room as he walked into the med bay, “Is it possible that Honerva was also adept in the field of biology?”

Coran nodded, unphased by the prince’s sudden appearance. “I believe she was. Her absence from Altea greatly impacted our people. Her mind was revolutionary. She was our top scientist!”

“In her time, was she able to recreate limbs with perfect muscle memory?”

Ken piqued at the question and both his and Allura’s eyes widened from the implication.

Coran remained undeterred. “Well of course! She invented the healing pods and the atomizer to create body parts long before Allura was even born! As long as the data is available, all Alteans are able to recover lost limbs and selected ruined organs!”  

Allura stared at Lotor. “Your mother…”

“Is Honerva, yes," Lotor replied tersely.

Ken started, “And she-”

“-is also the witch," Lotor finished.

Coran gaped at Lotor. “You're Altean?! And your mother was-?! T-That! That can’t be! Honerva was quite distant from the royal Altean bloodline!”

Lotor sauntered to Ken and offered the skin of his arm. “Compare mine with Allura’s.”

Ken took Lotor's blood and tested it without question. The results showed that while Lotor’s blood was slightly weaker than Allura’s by a small margin, it was stronger than Coran’s by a long mile. And Lotor was only half-Altean. His mother’s blood would have been more potent, perhaps even more powerful than Allura’s.

“The witch’s hair is white and so is mine. Both of us have lived for more than 10,000 years. Honerva may not have been Altean royalty but her quintessence level must be as high as any royal family if not more.” Lotor continued, “I knew we had a suspicious amount of quintessence from her research. After I left the empire, I had suspected that it was due to some sort of quintessence overload or poisoning from harvesting quintessence.”

“Harvesting… quintessence…?” Allura asked faintly.

Lotor nodded. “The Galra Empire harvests quintessence from planets. It results in genocide. Similar to what happened to Altea."

Allura started to feel light-headed. She reached out to a table to balance herself.

The prince went on, “However, to my knowledge, it has never affected any of the galras to such a degree of having white hair. Of course, they did not have Altean blood but even in her research, the core quintessence of galra is generally quite low. Their longevity could be due to quintessence exposure but it had no effect to their cores. Thus, I had no reference for my theory until now.” Lotor looked up to Coran. “I was not aware of this ‘rift’ you spoke of. You said Honerva studied it extensively on Daibazaal. Could it be possible that the long exposure caused her to gain a boost of core quintessence?”

Ken added to further solidify Lotor’s theory, “If you were conceived while she was poisoned with quintessence, that would explain why you are the way you are.”

“Precisely. The Galra Empire’s longevity may be due to exposure to quintessence, but I have not been part of the empire for a long time. Thus, my longevity can only be explained due to my… poisoned core. The rift could be the answer.”

Coran shook his head with a forlorn face. “The rift is not something I’m knowledgeable with.”

“My father was,” Allura spoke softly. She exchanged a heavy knowing look with Coran. “I’ll see what I can find.”

“Very well," Lotor conceded without pushing any further. He already had the information he needed to further his own research. “In the meantime, I must point out to you, princess. Two of your paladins may be greatly compromised. She delved into the mind of your red paladin, possibly even manipulating him at this very moment. And she has enough data on your black paladin to recreate his entire arm for reasons we do not even know. Whatever she is planning, it will not end well for either of them.”

Burdened by so many unpleasant revelations at once, Allura’s legs weakened and she slowly allowed herself to sit down. She wished she did not know what she knew then. To think that her own kin, someone so respected by her people, would commit such heinous crimes. Her father always told her that their enhanced quintessence was to help others, and yet Honerva had the gall to greedily harvest more quintessence, killing planets and helping Zarkon enslave the universe. The witch had held two of her paladins prisoner for more than a deca-phoeb – possibly mentally and physically scarring them for life. The young faces of her paladins came to mind; humans barely passing as young adults.

Allura’s heart hardened. She would not let the witch do as she pleased. Not anymore.

The Altean princess stood up with renewed strength and determination. “What can we do?”

Lotor smiled at her proudly. “The human scientists are working on a new arm for your black paladin. With the Altean technology on this ship, I’m confident they will achieve their goal soon. The sooner that arm is replaced, the better.”

Allura smiled gratefully. “I’ll make sure they have all they need.”

“And Keith?” Ken asked.

Lotor gazed at the human. “I do not know how far she has messed with your son’s mind. The mind is a delicate thing, I’ve heard. It is not wise to play with it if you do not know what you are doing. For now, monitoring his actions would be best."

"The lions know their paladins best. I will trust Keith for as long as the Red Lion will trust him," Allura sternly declared.

"That's fair." Ken inclined his head. 

Lotor addressed Ken once more, "I admire your son's ability to defend himself against Haggar's mental assault and manipulation. No prisoner has ever lasted a whole year under her care. Either your son is broken and made anew or she never even penetrated his mental shields. I plan to investigate one of her research facilities where she held the red paladin. As her bloodline, I would have more access since she is so keen on using her heritage as security measures.”

Ken sneered. “Take me along when you do.”

Lotor smirked at the deadly human he had come to admire. “With pleasure.”

Outside the castle, the paladins were worn out and covered with scrapes and smudges from Krolia’s explosive ‘bonding’ training but they were each cheering in their respective lions as Voltron stood tall for the first time in over 10,000 years.

After their excitement died down, Hunk asked, “Soooo… how do we disband?”

An awkward 15 minutes later, which consisted of all the lions going in different directions in an effort to go their separate ways, Voltron finally (safely) disbanded into 5 separate lions once more.

“Okay team, we’re gonna form Voltron one more time and-” Shiro commanded.

“Me and Keith are gonna twirl around before we become your arms, got it.” Pidge gave Shiro a finger-gun gesture.

“…What?”

Keith let out a put-on sigh. “She just said we’re gonna twirl around before we become the arms, Shiro.”

Shiro gave them both a variation of his confused and bewildered faces. “But why?”

“Why not?” Pidge shrugged. “Hunk and Lance can do whatever they want as legs too.”

“Nope, we’re good with Shiro just stepping on us," Lance replied nonchalantly.   

Hunk excitedly exclaimed, “OH! Can I be the head next?!”

“You can’t be the head,” Keith snapped. “Shiro’s the head.”

Shiro sighed as Hunk whined and Lance bickered with Keith about shouting at Hunk while Pidge ignored all of them and proceeded to play her playlist that she installed in the Green Lion. It was going to be a long day.

“Form Voltron!” Shiro finally commanded once the paladins found their focus again.

Pidge whooped as she and Keith twirled the Red Lion and Green Lion before joining to the Black Lion to form Voltron’s arms.

Shiro smiled as Voltron towered on Arus once more. Some arusians could be seen cheering for them from the ground. Then they all heard and saw Princess Allura pop up in a window on each of their screens.

“Well done, paladins!”

“Piece of cake, princess.” Lance smugly winked.

Hunk defeatedly mentioned, “It’s not like it took us half a day of goofing off or anything.”

“No, it just took Keith’s mom throwing us in a live battleship game with real grenades and dynamites,” Pidge deadpanned.

“You ain’t seen nothing yet from her playbook,” Keith replied ominously.   

“Okay guys, focus. Voltron now, training later. Now-” Shiro gripped both his levers confidently. “-let’s see what this thing can do.”

“Yeah!” came the collective determined cheers from the paladins.

Chapter Text

They left Arus on a beautiful morning - in Lance's opinion at least. He headed to the bathroom while everyone was busy milling about the castle. He just wanted half an hour of pampering himself with a nice hot shower. No more training or flying, just pure relaxation and self-love.

Lance picked one of the private cubicles with its cool sliding doors and activated the shower head. He sighed in relief as the water washed over his body and the steam fogged up the stall.

Nothing beats a good, hot, steamy showe-

The sliding door to his cubicle suddenly slammed open.

Pidge casually asked, “Hey Lance, did you – stop screaming, it’s just me – did you bring any headphones with you?”

Pidge giggled to herself as she watched her laptop screen. She had set up a simple short-range surveillance camera (courtesy of her pressuring Hunk to make one for her) in the workshop where Matt was working at. Pidge had left the pineapple-grapes on Matt’s worktable half an hour ago and she was just in time to catch her brother’s reaction.

Since she didn’t have any headphones, she ended up hiding in the empty training room to watch her plan unfold privately.

Keith silently entered the training room wearing a black long-sleeved turtleneck undershirt. He eyed Pidge suspiciously and snuck up on her with crossed arms. “What are you doing?”

Instead of being angry or defensive, Pidge pulled Keith closer and pointed to the screen. “Watch.”

On the screen, the livestream showed Matt being surprised at seeing the grapes. He loved grapes, everyone who knew him knew that. He sat down and took one grape from the bunch before happily popping it into his mouth. His reaction was instantaneous. Matt looked like he was choking before he coughed out the fruit and moaned in disgust. He started wiping his tongue with his fingers to try and get rid of the horrid taste of pineapple.

Pidge had howled with laughter and was clutching onto Keith for support. Keith looked absolutely done with the younger Holt sibling.

“You’re recording this, aren’t you?”

Pidge paused her laughter and grasped at her chest with her head cocked to the side to show her disappointment with Keith’s question. “Oh Keith. In what universe would I not?”  

“What are you two doing?” Shiro asked from the entrance of the training room, wearing a sleeveless black undershirt.

Pidge immediately shut her laptop and smiled innocently. “Nothing!” She stood up cheerfully and gave them both a pointed look. “Have fun training!” And then she left the training room with a light skip in her steps.

Both Shiro and Keith watched her go before they looked at each other.

“Was it the grapes?” Shiro sighed as he started warming up with a few simple stretches.

“You know Matt’s gonna kill you if he finds out," Keith intoned while mirroring Shiro’s steps.

Shiro smiled with his eyebrows up. “If. If is good.”

Keith rolled his eyes. Without wasting any more time, he shouted the voice command, “Initiate training sequence, Level 23.”

Shiro continued the command, “Divide field. Double the targets.”

“Initiation accepted. Training sequence commencing.”

Keith gave Shiro a surprised look. The past twenty levels or so, they had always played on a single field, fighting side by side and back to back.

“Loser has to sleep in the middle tonight," Shiro dared Keith. Matt always claimed a corner so whoever slept in the middle would be subjected to the cuddle monster.

Not one to ever deny a challenge, especially one from Shiro himself, Keith smirked. “You’ll regret this.”

In another part of the castle, Hunk almost screamed when he came into the kitchen and saw someone with their face down on one of the counters. It took him a second to realize who it was.

“Urm, Ken? You okay?”

A muffled “Swell.” was heard.

Hunk nodded slowly and creeped around to take ingredients from the cabinets in the pantry. He saw a sack labeled ‘scaultrite’ and figured, maybe he could make cookies out of them.

Throughout Hunk’s hustle and bustle, Ken remained with his face still plastered on the counter. He was dead exhausted from experimenting with Allura and Lotor’s blood. Nothing he did seemed to affect his samples at all. It was understandable that it had taken him more than a year on Earth because he didn’t exactly have the technology or data bank to experiment on galra blood. But he was currently in an advanced Altean castle with all the technology and information one could ever hope to have, and he still couldn’t find even a direction on which way to go next. Thus, he decided to rest his mind in the kitchens (because it was the closest), hoping that some sort of epiphany might come.

Time passed and Hunk finally proudly pulled a batch of scaultrite cookies from the castle’s oven.

Ken lifted his head at last to bask in Hunk’s excited energy. It was infectious and Ken needed the boost.

“Time for the taste test!” Hunk exclaimed and took a cookie for a bite.

There was a horrific crunch-like noise before Hunk cried out in pain and pulled away a still-perfect scaultrite cookie from his mouth. Curiosity piqued, Ken took a cookie from the tray and gnawed at the cookie.

“Damn. These are harder than a concrete slab.”

Hunk nodded solemnly with a hand over his mouth to soothe his teeth.

“What’cha put in ‘em?”

Turning to where Hunk was pointing, Ken eyed the bag labeled ‘scaultrite’. He then fiddled with the communicator Coran gave him and spoke into it, “Hey Coran?”

“Yes!”

“What are scaultrites?”

“It’s a rare material that we Alteans harvest from the belly of weblums to power up the teludav!”

Ken smiled dumbly. “I have no idea what half that sentence even means.”

“Well to put it simply, scaultrites act as a conduit for Allura to channel her quintessence to form wormholes!”

A conduit? For quintessence?

Ken felt his brain wake up and processed the information like a switch being flicked on. “Are you saying that scaultrite converts quintessence into a different form of energy?”

“…I suppose you could say that, yes!”

Ken immediately took the sack of scaultrite, turned to Hunk with a serious face and said, “You’re a genius,” before he left the kitchen in a flurry of movement.

Hunk muffled a thank you while still nursing his teeth with tears in his eyes. Next time, he’ll ask Coran first on which ingredients were edible and which were not. Hunk then suddenly remembered the weird hoverbike-thingy he saw in the workshop when he was looking for parts to make Pidge’s surveillance camera. That vehicle prototype was a work of art; the circuit boards, the wiring, the welding, the sheer genius behind using scraps of foreign metal to imitate magnetic levitation! He was practically gushing about tweaking it when Sam had sauntered over to tell him who made it. Hunk gasped out loud.

“Wait…” Hunk shouted, “KEN, CAN I PLAY WITH THE HOVERBIKE?”

Ken’s voice floated back into the kitchen, “Play all you want!”

Hunk whooped to himself and started to clean up the kitchen so that he could finally get his hands on the hoverbike. He may not have signed up to save the universe but he'd always wanted to work on projects at his own leisure time. 

*

Krolia stood next to Lotor in one of the castle’s observatory as Lotor launched Sendak’s body out of the castle from a nearby panel. The nearest star that acted as a Sun for Arus, was hot enough to perish almost anything at close range. The coordinates for the pod had been set. And the two of them watched to make sure the deed was done. They had promised the princess that they would rid of Sendak painlessly once they were away from Arus. True enough, Krolia was quick to deal with the vicious galra while Lotor suggested that the body be destroyed completely so that the witch would not get her hands on him. He had seen his fair share of Haggar’s… upgrades.

*

The princess joined Krolia and Lotor in the observatory, not knowing of the reason they were there in the first place. “So, where will you two go from here?”

Krolia responded first, “I will stay here for now. My position in the empire has been compromised. My current mission is to bring you to meet Kolivan, our leader. What happens after will be discussed at a later date.”

Allura nodded in silent acquiescence. She turned to Lotor expectantly.

“I think I will cause problems on purpose-“ Lotor cut himself off and stared blankly. He lowered his voice and admitted, “For some reason I can hear the humans laughing in my head.”

With a brief shake of his head, Lotor cleared his throat and continued, “Currently, I am waiting for my subordinates to finish their current mission. I’m expecting them in a quintant or so. Upon rendezvous with this castle, I shall depart to one of Haggar’s laboratories to investigate her involvement with the red paladin. At Ken’s request, I will be taking him with me.”

Allura frowned. “Wouldn’t it be better if I just opened up a wormhole for you if you already have the coordinates?”

“I’m afraid I would have to advise against that, princess. You theorized that Sendak was alerted of your presence due to the castle’s energy. I fear that a wormhole so near to her territory might trigger alarms. It would be best if my team travelled manually as Krolia did when she first discovered the laboratory.”

Allura turned to Krolia. “You remained undetected?”

Krolia inclined her head. “For a few phoebs, yes.”

The princess quietly pondered on Lotor’s decision and finally nodded at the prince. “I concede with your decision, then.”

Silence reigned the observatory as Allura wondered to herself.

“Why are you willing to go so far for my red paladin?” Allura asked Lotor skeptically. After thinking about it, she realized she did not understand Lotor’s motive and interest in helping Keith.

“Aside from assisting Voltron, let us call it, professional curiosity. I would like to see what the witch found so valuable in a human-galra hybrid.”

At least the prince did not lie outright. Allura knew Lotor had a keen interest in the field of science. And while his interest in Haggar’s research seemed harmless, Allura could not help the seed of doubt being planted. She would simply have to have faith in Lotor.

Lotor’s communicator flashed minutely at his hip. He bowed his head slightly to Allura and said, “Excuse me, I must take this.”

Once Lotor left the observatory, Krolia informed the princess, “He has a soft spot for those like him.”

Allura frowned. “Banished, you mean? But Keith-“

“No, not banished.” Krolia smiled kindly. “Those who come from two worlds – the empire and the rest of the universe.”

‘Half-breeds’ came to Allura’s mind.  

“An injustice committed to one of them is an injustice committed to all of them.” Krolia continued, “He especially feels a kinship for my son because they share the same tormentor.”

Allura could understand that much at least. An enemy of an enemy is a friend. “I see.”

All of a sudden, Matt’s voice resounded throughout the castle via the sound system, “Dad, Shiro, Keith, Pidge, Lance, Hunk, can you guys stop whatever you’re doing and come to the lounge?” He paused for a moment before saying, “Yes, NOW.” as though he could hear some of them grumbling.

Allura chuckled. “I’ll see what they’re up to this time. Life is never boring with the humans, is it?”

Krolia snickered. “Never.” She was reminded of Ken who probably hadn’t slept since he first arrived at the castle. He always crashed hard after an intense few days in the workshop back on Earth. That man could not leave a project hanging. Krolia doubted that habit changed just because they were in space. “I’ll check up on Ken.”

Lotor joined Allura on the brisk journey to the lounge to see what the humans were up to. They walked into what seemed to be Matt lecturing the other humans on…etiquette?

“What happened?” Lotor asked Coran, who stood in a corner of the room.

“Well,” Coran started. “Matt suddenly realized that none of them have any experience in the various alien cultures of the universe! Thus, he decided that they all need an extraterrestrial ethics lesson before initiating any sort of contact with the citizens of other planets!”

Considering that Matt was part of the rebel coalition and had saved and met hundreds of alien species, introducing basic ethics to the team was brilliant. Lotor said so as much.

Allura nodded. “That is awfully thoughtful of him.”

The three watched as Matt continued the lesson. “Okay. So, you got the basics down. Now, say you’re on a foreign planet and its people humbly welcome you to their land. Name a way to be nice to them. Go.”

“Don’t kill them at first sight," Keith answered first.

Matt looked as though he was about to object but then gave Keith a considering look. “Setting the bar a little low there Keith, but I’ll allow it. What else?”

“How ‘bout-“ Lance glared at Pidge as he said, “-don’t barge in the shower stall when they’re showering.”

Pidge nonchalantly suggested next, “Don’t scream at them if they do barge in shower stalls to ask you questions while you’re showering.”

Hunk went next with a tearful voice, “Don’t break their teeth by serving them scaultrite cookies.”

Sam stared at all the teenagers and softly, but with feeling, said, “I’m getting slightly concerned about all of you.”

Shiro shrugged at Matt. “Smile and wave and hope it’s not culturally inappropriate...?”

Matt sighed heavily.

Lotor frowned. “Hold on. You’re missing one human.”

Lance shook his head and purposefully said, “No, we’re really not.”

“I do not understand.”

“Put it this way, while all of us are busy trying not to screw up with any aliens, Ken would probably be invited to tea with the queen and king of the species. Does that make sense?”

Lotor hated the fact that he could, indeed, see the sense in the blue paladin’s statement. There was something about that particular human’s charisma that made him seem so friendly and innocuous. Lotor wondered what Ken was doing at that very moment.

“Ken?” Krolia called out from the doors of the med bay.

Ken was either ignoring her or urging her closer with his silence since he was too focused to hear her.

“You must rest,” Krolia urged as she approached where Ken was hunched over the blood samples he had been working on non-stop.

“Ken," Krolia repeated once she was standing right beside him.

The human’s head immediately snapped up, wide and slightly unfocused eyes flying to Krolia. “Hey darl," Ken murmured, his voice raspy and his body slumped with obvious traces of fatigue.

In a rare act of physical contact, Krolia ran her fingers through Ken’s hair. “You need to sleep.”

“I know, just-“ Ken seemed a little out of it as he rearranged the samples and an Altean precision dropper, similar to Earth’s micropipette. “Look at this.”

He showed Krolia the holoscreen in front of them and pointed to a chart where Allura and Lotor’s blood displayed a significantly high amount of energy. “That’s their blood right now. But after I introduce this-“ Ken let a few drops of blue liquid fall onto the blood samples from the dropper.

In rapid succession, the chart levels plummeted to about half of its original height.

Krolia blinked in awe.

“I can’t do what I did with your blood,” Ken spoke softly. “Nothing seems to coagulate Altean blood like certain metals can coagulate galra blood. What I can do though, is strip Alteans from raw quintessence. To a certain degree, at least.”

Ken and Krolia gazed at one another. It wasn't necessarily deadly but that would have to be enough. They would have to make do.

In about a day, as expected, a foreign spacecraft hailed the castle in the middle of space. Thankfully (or unfortunately), all the castle residents were present to see a cheerful face greeting them.

“Hello~! We’re here to pick up our devilishly handsome-“

“Ezor,” Lotor immediately reprimanded. “How was your mission?”

Ezor’s face turned to static before a more stoic-looking alien greeted them, “Mission accomplished. We’re ready to depart at your command.”

“Thank you, Acxa.” Lotor then turned to Allura who was trying to hide her smile.

The princess nodded at Lotor. “I’ll open up the hangar for them. Do you need any supplies?”

Acxa was suddenly replaced with a different fiercer face who answered with a gruff voice, “Yes,” at the same time Lotor said “No.”

While Lotor was engaged in a staring match with the person on screen, Allura pulled Coran and Keith (who indignantly pulled Shiro as well) with her to help prepare some supplies for Lotor’s team. Ken trailed after them to grab his own stuff.

“We do not need supplies, Zethrid," Lotor stressed.

Krolia voiced out in a stern tone, “It’s a 4-quintant journey at the very least. Trust me, you’ll need the supplies.”

The face on the screen changed for the last time as another alien replaced Zethrid. "..." The alien didn’t seem to say anything but Krolia acknowledged the alien with a nod. “Thank you, Narti, that’s exactly what I’m trying to tell him.”

“Oh for the love of-“ Lotor pinched his forehead. “Fine.”

Meanwhile, Hunk felt so lost and confused, Lance was gaping because Lotor’s team were clearly made up of women, Matt was impressed that Lotor’s team were made up of only women and Pidge looked bored.

In a few minutes, they all met at the hangar where Coran was trying to push a cart up the ramp of the spacecraft. Hunk and Lance silently helped the Altean to load the supplies while Ken approached Shiro and Matt.

“Take care of him for me,” Ken said as he patted their arms. They didn’t need to ask who Ken was referring to.

Sam, who was standing next to Matt, took out a tiny communicator-like device from behind him. “I didn’t have much time tweaking it, but it should work no matter how far you are. Transmission might be a little delayed, but we’ll get your message from wherever you’ll be.”

Ken took the device with an awed and touched expression.

Matt leaned in towards them and whispered, “It’s rebel tech.”

Pidge did the same from Sam’s other side, “I helped.”

Lance sighed when he approached the group. “Can’t believe I’m saying this, but- I’m gonna miss your weirdness.”

“I’m gonna miss you kids too.” To Hunk, Ken said, “I’m leaving that prototype in your hands. Make as many as you want from my blueprints. You’re in charge of them now.”

Hunk puffed up and took pride in Ken’s words. “Yes sir.”

Allura and Coran moved towards Ken next. The Alteans wore sad smiles. The princess shook Ken’s hand with both of hers. “Good luck, Ken.”

“Thank you, princess. You two look after one another.”

“We will," Coran replied in earnest.

Finally, Ken turned to his son. Keith’s face was neutral, but Ken could tell his son’s broken heart when he looked into Keith’s eyes. Ken smiled warmly and opened up his arms.

Keith’s face twitched minutely into a frown before he determinedly paced forward and embraced Ken with a tight, long hug. Ken closed his eyes and returned the hug with all his strength. Ken felt himself swallow back a rush of emotions. For a moment, the arms around him made him feel like it was the last time he would see Keith, the last time he would hold his boy. At the same time, Ken felt his son’s love and how much Keith would miss him from how hard his son was holding onto him. This felt even worse than when Ken was in a coma. It was different when you’re deliberately parting from the ones you love rather than accidentally.

“Take care of your mom, you hear?”

Ken felt Keith’s nod from where his son’s face was squished to his shoulder.

“I love you, Keith,” Ken whispered so that only Keith could hear his sentimental words.

“Love you too, dad,” Keith’s muffled voice replied just as softly.

Ken squeezed his son one more time before planting a kiss on Keith’s head. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

The father and son reluctantly pulled apart but still held each other at arms length as they exchanged a heavy stare. With a ruffle of Keith’s hair and a fond smile, Ken turned and moved towards Lotor’s spacecraft where Krolia was waiting for him at the bottom of the ramp.

His wife smiled and they moved in sync towards one another. They reached out their hands at the same time, grasping each other's arms and closed the gap between them till their foreheads and noses touched. They didn’t need words. For a few seconds, they breathed together with their eyes closed. When they opened their eyes, Ken softly nudged his wife and then placed a chaste kiss on Krolia’s forehead.

Their moment passed, and their hands let the other go.

Ken walked up the ramp of the spacecraft to stand alongside Lotor. They both waved team Voltron goodbye as the ramp pulled up and the vehicle’s engine revved up. By the next minute, they had already left the Castle of Lions.

Ken climbed up the ladder that led to the upper level of the spacecraft and made himself comfortable in a corner that had some boxes full of bits and bobs. The ship must have been on autopilot because Ken found himself being stared by Lotor's crew who all looked bewildered.

“Hello ladies! Mind if I take a nap?”

Ezor smiled at him nonetheless. “Right there you mean? Not at all!”

Axca gave Ezor a deadpan look that made the other roll her eyes. “Oh fine.”

Ezor turned back to Ken and said, “We have some beds that you-“ but she cut herself off when she saw Ken already slumped and asleep against the boxes with his legs stretched out in front of him and his bag held close to his chest.

“Oh.”

Zethrid and Narti crouched down beside the unconscious human and poked at Ken’s face. “He’s really out.”

“Leave him,” Lotor instructed. “He’s recently made a breakthrough on possibly demobilizing the witch. I was informed that he hasn’t rested for a few quintants.”

Ezor gaped and pointed at Ken with her thumb. “This guy?”

Lotor smirked. “Truly. You’ll see for yourself when he wakes up.” The prince’s face returned to its normal stoic expression. He commanded his team regally, “Return to your stations. Set course for the coordinates I sent earlier.”

“Yes sir,” they chanted in unison.

Keith watched Lotor’s ship fly till it was out of view from the observatory room nearest to the castle hangar. At some point, Shiro appeared on his right as Matt appeared on his left. They offered Keith silent support and he was grateful for their lack of words. He didn’t have much to say at the moment.

When Keith finally looked away and turned around, he saw his mother leaning casually against the entrance.

“He’ll be fine,” Krolia said with a relaxed smile.

Keith found the courage to smile back in agreement. “Yeah.”

When they met the others back at the bridge, Coran brightened, “Ah! There you all are. There is a balmera nearby but it seems it's being held captive by the Galra Empire!”

Pidge raised her hand and spoke, “Sounds urgent, let’s get going and please explain ‘balmera’ in detail along the way.”

Allura smiled at her green paladin and nodded to the rest of her team. “I’m opening up a wormhole.”

Shiro squeezed Keith’s shoulder and they both smiled and nodded to one another. Then, the black paladin addressed the room, “Okay team, buckle up. We’ve got a balmera to rescue.”

Chapter Text

After their first successful mission of freeing the balmera, the days and nights began to melt together. The return of Voltron started spreading across galaxies. Hundreds of various species began to hope once more, especially after seeing first-hand the capabilities of the paladins and the lions battling various ‘robeasts’ and overtaking galra bases.

Krolia, as representative of the Blade of Marmora, often stayed behind with some rebels to deal with damage control from Voltron. She was always a day or two behind the Castle of Lions, often joining Voltron on their next rescue mission with more rebels. Thus, she wasn’t always with team Voltron but she was often seen standing next to the red paladin when Voltron was being cheered by the oppressed citizens of whichever celestial sphere Voltron had freed. The paladins were celebrated as heroes, and Voltron was once more seen as a miracle and a symbol of hope.

However, in the Castle of Lions, not everything was as miraculous and as amazing as it seemed. Team Voltron didn’t always have good days.

And it didn’t take long for some of team Voltron to realize that missing Earth and homesickness was minor compared to what the Kerberos crew suffered on an almost daily basis.

Shiro still talked in his sleep and woke up in cold sweats, gasping with his heart hammering.

Sam rarely entered deep sleep and would jerk awake at the sound of a pin drop.

Matt sometimes didn’t sleep for days because he was so used to spending every minute of his life looking for his crew.

And Keith? Sometimes he would forget where he was and what they were all doing. Sometimes he wouldn’t speak for hours on end. Sometimes he saw things that made him want to never sleep.

On the worst nights, Shiro, Matt and Keith could be seen watching the stars with their own cups of hot beverage. It didn’t matter whose episode woke them up. And while Sam didn’t always join them, he sometimes visited them long enough to ruffle their hair or squeeze their shoulders. They were always there for one another. The others quickly learned the crew’s coping mechanisms and offered support in any way they could.

Pidge often reminded Matt to sleep (and vice versa sometimes).

Hunk made sure there were always hot drinks available in the thermal storage tank of the kitchen.

Lance did his best to talk and distract them whenever he could. He’d initiate simple games or just bicker with Keith to lighten up the mood.

Coran offered Sam some earplugs that helped to cancel noises when he was working in the workshop so that if he ever dozed off, only loud noises or extreme vibrations would wake him up.

And Allura, she watched over all of them. She dimmed the lights when Sam fell asleep. She left blankets in the observatory where Shiro, Matt and Keith liked to watch the stars after one of them woke up. She made sure they had a listening ear if they ever needed someone else to talk to. She had the space mice guard the black paladin’s quarters to alert her when the trio woke up. And sometimes, Krolia was there to help as well. She had her ways to take the boys’ minds off things.

Bad nights were the worst nights. But the Kerberos crew members were never alone. And that was what mattered.

Lotor didn’t expect to run into so much trouble on the way to the laboratory. What was supposed to be a 4-quintant journey, slowly turned to twice the estimated time. He didn’t exactly mind because that gave time for Ken to scare the living daylight out of his crew as Lotor had once experienced.

There were at least two new inventions that were previously not on his ship. Hanging in the hangar weapon storage were six jetpacks that lasted twice as long as the ones used by the Blade of Marmora. Ken decided that the jetpacks on the ship needed an upgrade. And attached to each pack, was a crude radionavigation system that would help them find each other should they be separated, inspired by Sam Holt’s parting gift. If that wasn’t enough, Ken had officially beaten Zethrid and Ezor in a spontaneous weaponless spar and it drove them crazy.

“Are you sure he’s human?” Ezor had asked Lotor one day.

And Lotor, honestly, did not know the answer. Perhaps that was how Haggar had felt like when she met the human anomalies known as the red and black paladins of Voltron.

Eight quintants ago, Ken was seen as the weak link of Lotor’s crew. But by the time the spacecraft was parked and cloaked behind an asteroid and the team was ready to individually fly out the hangar to the coordinates of the laboratory, Lotor noticed that Ken was the one standing behind him.

In just around eight days, Acxa, Narti, Ezor and Zethrid believed that Ken had proved his worth to the point that they accepted him as someone just below Lotor in the hierarchy of their crew.

Terrifying? Absolutely.

Lotor hid his emotions well though. With a nod to all of them, they departed from the spacecraft and slowly made their way to one of the witch’s lairs.

Sam’s gift was incredible. Ken tried it out as soon as he woke up to test the communicator’s capabilities. As the days spread out, the transmission started to delay from a few minutes to a few hours. But it was still better than nothing.

Ken was a little heartbroken to find out that the Kerberos crew were not doing so good. He was still happy about Voltron though. The ship’s radios even picked up some news spreading about the universe’s new beacon of hope. Ken had seen Lotor frown at that and Ken understood why. News like that would easily circulate. And sooner or later, the empire would catch up to Voltron and catch them by surprise.

However, with Voltron being so active, it meant that the witch should be sufficiently distracted, enough for them to infiltrate the laboratory undetected.

Ken’s theory was proven right when they stepped foot on the barren laboratory without encountering any obstacles or immediate ambush. In fact, the place seemed abandoned. Ken silently prayed that their efforts were not wasted.

It must have shown on his face because Lotor proceeded to say, “It is part of her tactic. Watch.”

The prince approached a small panel on a pillar and placed his hand on the touchpad. Almost instantly, the whole premise lit up; various large control panels whirred to life, questionable yellow liquid tanks bubbled ominously, and distant disjointed sounds of electricity resounded all around them.

“As we discussed. Acxa, Zethrid, secure the perimeter. Ezor, ensure there are no prisoners left behind. Narti, secure our exit and take out any incoming hostiles. The three of you can join Narti once you’re done. Ken, with me.”

Ken followed Lotor into the research center until they arrived in a room full of holoscreens and control panels. Once more, Lotor fiddled with a touchpad on the wall and the room began to light up in an eerie purple hue. Ken looked around and froze when he recognized the outline of his son’s body on one of the screens.

Both of them approached the screen with Lotor quickly accessing the touchpad, activating the interface that allowed him to search for data.

Keith’s body outline shrunk to a corner of the screen as multiple words and notes began to list in the remaining majority of the space available. Occasionally, some words would appear in a square speech bubble with its tail directed at a body part. The words were quick, but Ken had brushed up on his language over the past few days, so he managed to read the gist of the hectic scroll of ‘results’.

Reading about it was only the beginning. Soon, pictures started popping up. And Ken felt his hands tremble from a burning rage he had not felt since before Keith was born. He could feel his breath picking up as his heart started to race. He wanted to smash the damn screen to stop the multiple images from showing him his son’s torment.

Shiro activated his thrusters to give him a boost up the side of a large ravine where Hunk was waiting at the edge. Shiro was carrying three fluffkies – intelligent species that lived on the planet they were on – to evacuate them immediately.

The Castle of Lions had been one quintant away from the Blade of Marmora base when Coran was alerted of the unstable core of a nearby planet. Thus, Voltron was deployed immediately for evacuation, but it proved to be a challenge because the magnetic force around the planet greatly affected Voltron’s ability to move. Thus, the lions were separated, and each activated its shell to overcome the planet’s erratic magnetic field.

Hunk and the Holts even stripped the paladin armor of metal-like materials, leaving only the basic safety equipment such as helmet, arm and knee braces, and the standard black full bodysuit of the paladin getup to ensure smooth ground movement. It was a lot of work since most of the planet’s citizens lived in deep caves, ravines, and gullies.

“Is that the last of them, Coran?” Shiro asked as he passed his passengers to Hunk. They had made a paladin-chain to evacuate those in the ravines so that they didn’t lose track of which location was already evacuated.

“That should be all of them. Nice work!”

“Good.” Shiro sighed from where he stood on the edge. He looked down the ravine and waved at Keith at the bottom. “We’re done here, Keith!”

He saw a small thumbs up and Keith preparing to take flight when suddenly, the whole planet shook violently. Shiro lost his footing and fell back into the ravine. He heard Keith shouting his name and it prompted Shiro to move. Shiro was quick enough to activate his jetpack but not long enough to reorient himself before he hit Keith on the way down.

They both landed at the bottom of the ravine, safe but a little disoriented from the double impact.

“What the heck happened? Guys?” Shiro asked into his com as he sat up.

Shiro heard the telltale sound of electricity crackling nearby. He looked at Keith and they both looked to the ground in fear.

Neither of them had time to move because as sudden as the earthquake, the ground beneath them buzzed to life and shocked them to their core with a dose of current.

They didn’t even hear their own sharp cries.

Lance and Pidge hurried to the ravine after the earthquake and the sudden formation of an electric terrain all over the planet’s surface. All three of them; Hunk, Lance and Pidge, had been above ground when the second incident occurred. They panicked and shifted into overdrive when they heard Shiro and Keith’s shouts. Hunk went off to carry the last evacuees to the lions while Lance and Pidge went to retrieve their comrades.

Thankfully, the shock didn’t last long, only about two or three seconds but Shiro felt like he was suffering from the worst tremors ever.

“..iro! Keith! Are y-… two alright?!” Shiro heard Allura’s muddled panicked voice.

“Yeah…” Shiro grunted as he sat up once more. Keith was starting to push himself off the ground as well. Shiro couldn’t see his face but Keith moving was already a good sign.

“That was a nasty shock.”

Shiro heard Krolia’s distant voice talking with Allura. She must have been on her way from the previous planet they stopped by to rescue. Shiro could only imagine what sort of reprimand they would get for this. Shiro was slowly rising to his feet when Krolia’s voice returned, louder and significantly more urgent, “Shiro, get away from Keith!”

The warning bells rang in Shiro’s head as Keith unsteadily stood up as well. When Keith looked up, Shiro recognized the look in Keith’s eyes. He felt his heart drop at the sight of Keith’s fearsome scowl. It was exactly like that time they first met in the arena.

Shiro managed to question his luck out loud, “Are you shitting me right now?” before he was forced to move to avoid Keith’s high kick.

Pidge and Lance lowered themselves down the ravine and were bewildered to see Keith and Shiro sparring with both their helmets off.

“Guys! This is really not the time and place! We gotta get out here before a second wave comes!” Pidge urged.

They saw Shiro momentarily looking up at them before he was back on the defensive from Keith’s attacks.

“Keith, stop hitting Shiro!” Lance scolded.

“DON’T COME DOWN HERE!” Shiro frantically shouted back.

Something in Shiro’s voice made both Pidge and Lance pause mid-flight. Now that they really looked at the two, it seemed like Shiro was the only one who was blocking or deflecting, and Keith was the only one advancing and attacking.

“Something’s wrong with Keith,” Pidge realized to herself. To Shiro, she shouted, “Shiro, what can we do?!”

“Get Matt-” Shiro ducked from a punch and grabbed Keith’s arm to send him flying. “-on loudspeaker!”

On that first morning in the castle when Keith left their little puppy pile, Matt and Shiro had quietly discussed about that fateful battle at the arena.

Shiro had said that he tried to ‘wake’ Keith up with various tidbits from their garrison days and proceeded to explain how much it destroyed Keith mid-battle.

Matt had reasoned it was because nothing could take away their friendship. Keith had probably been angry at himself for letting something like those tidbits slip through his mind to be manipulated by the witch. Matt told Shiro the little things Keith had said about the witch – how she tried to manipulate his memories and used them against him. Keith’s neutral view of Shiro as an adversary was the one memory the witch obtained in Keith’s early days of captivity because he was caught off guard. She immediately turned Shiro into Keith’s enemy via illusions.

Thus, to Keith, when illusion-Shiro started acting like real-Shiro in the arena, he believed the witch had somehow gotten those memories out as well. Keith thought he had failed.  

“Nothing can imitate the true us, Shiro. Our doppelgangers in Keith’s brain could talk like us and look like us, but they’ll never be able to be us. So next time Keith goes into a relapse like that, we gotta do something that is so fundamentally us, that Keith won’t even question who we are.”

Matt made sense. Shiro remembered how quick Keith had accepted Shiro after Shiro cut out that uneven shape from the door to rescue Keith on the main ship. But that was something physically taxing and Shiro wouldn’t always have the opportunity if Keith was actively attacking him.

When he told that to Matt, the elder Holt sibling smirked. “Leave that to me. I can get him back with just my voice.”

Shiro gave Matt a flat look and mockingly asked, “And how do you plan on doing that, O’ Great One?”

“Ye of little faith," Matt spat in lieu of an answer. He sobered up and smiled at Shiro. “Remember when I asked the lovely upperclassman, Miss Valdez, to go out with me?”

Shiro just groaned out loud and buried his face in his hands.

“Shiro, there’s a second wave coming!” Pidge alerted as the warning signals on her holopad began to blare. There was a prerelease of certain waves before the formation of the electric terrain. Pidge’s fingers continued to rewire the com in her helmet to enable a louder output.

Lance flew closer towards the bottom of the ravine. “Shiro you gotta get off the ground! Grab my hand!”

“I’m not leaving Keith!” Shiro responded adamantly.

There was the telltale crackle of electricity once more and Shiro braced himself. ‘Hurry Pidge!’

The shock came and Lance and Pidge watched helplessly as both of their friends spasmed from the current. Keith remained standing while Shiro fell to his knees.

In the distance, the Red Lion roared fiercely.

Keith was fighting another Shiro clone. He hated these illusions. If he didn’t do his best, Shiro would kill him (sort of) or taunt him or hold him down while the witch did things that made Keith scream silently.

The Shiro clone disappeared momentarily as Keith felt the familiar sensation of electricity licking every inch of his skin. Had they moved on from the battle? Did Keith lose again? At some point, the current didn’t hurt anymore. Perhaps his nerves were fried, and his pain receptors no longer worked. Keith looked down at his body. He should’ve been beyond recognition with the discoloration all over his skin. But the witch had her ways to make him all new again. She always did. Sometimes she made him fight with his wounded body. And Keith wasn’t even sure if those battles were illusions.

Suddenly, Keith heard a faint echo of a lion’s roar. He looked up and saw himself standing in a dim open space. Where was he? An astral plane? The lion’s roar grew louder from behind him and something inside Keith’s brain snapped taut as he felt himself being revitalized, as though his body was free from all its burdens.

Keith’s vision changed with one blink, and suddenly he saw Shiro kneeling in front of him. Not illusion-Shiro, but paladin-Shiro.

Paladin.

Voltron.

Keith was a paladin of Voltron.

But… he was fighting illusion-Shiro. He was just electrocuted by the witch, wasn’t he? This was another illusion, it had to be-

"Got it!" Pidge cheered as she finally correctly rewired the com in her helmet. Pidge shouted as she directed the helmet at Shiro and Keith, “Go Matt!”

The com let out some static noises before Matt’s voice started to sing in an obnoxiously loud voice, “Bow chika, bow, bow! That's what my baby says~ Mow, mow, mow! And my heart starts pumpin'-“

Lance gaped openly and stared at Pidge’s helmet in shock as Matt continued to sing. Pidge herself was confused but then again, it’s her brother, so it wasn’t totally farfetched.

Meanwhile, on the ground, at the bottom of the ravine, Shiro watched as the fiery light died in Keith’s eyes. Keith’s anger and fear slowly ebbed and was instead replaced with clarity of his surrounding and incredulity of the sound he was hearing. Keith blinked rapidly before he began to frown as he looked up to where Pidge was.

Softly, Shiro heard Keith say, “Matt, what the fuck?”

And Shiro laughed. It was the exact same reaction Keith gave when Matt belted out High School Muscial’s ‘You Are The Music In Me’ to Miss Valdez in the cafeteria.

Keith’s legs began to shake from his sudden loss of adrenaline and the aftershocks of the electric terrain. Shiro moved in time to catch Keith from falling to the ground hard. They both slowly fell back onto their knees with Shiro gently holding Keith up.

“I got you, Keith. I’m right here.” Shiro pressed their foreheads together and took deep breaths, urging Keith’s increasingly erratic breath to calm down with him. “You’re okay. You’re alright.”

Finally, Keith’s body slumped, and his head leaned down to rest against Shiro’s shoulder instead.

Above them, Matt was still singing his heart out from Pidge’s helmet. Matt’s singing was even accompanied by his own rhythmic clapping.

Shiro heard Keith’s muffled voice saying, “Please shut him up.”

Shiro could only chuckle softly. “You know there’s no stopping Matt when he starts singing.”

“Never gonna stop! Gitchee gitchee goo means that I love you! Sing it princess!” To everyone’s further shock, Allura reluctantly started to sing along the chorus with Matt. She didn't know all the words but she definitely had the right spirit.

With Shiro’s thumbs-up signal, Lance and Pidge finally descended with Hunk not too far behind them. He must’ve finished loading all the evacuees.

When Pidge managed to convince Matt to stop singing because Keith was back to normal, the elder Holt sibling cooed, “Are you feeling swell, Keith? Cuz I’m feeling a song coming on-“

“Fuck off, Matt,” Keith groaned tiredly as Lance helped him to stand up.

“Language,” Shiro reprimanded lightly. He’d never admit how relieving it was to hear Keith swear because he only did it when he was with Matt and Shiro exclusively. Keith swearing out loud with the other paladins present was a good sign of him seeing them as family too.

Matt paid little attention to Keith’s demand and started singing once more, “You’ve got a friend in me~ You’ve got a friend in me!”

Since the electric terrain busted Shiro and Keith’s jetpacks, Hunk flew with Shiro while Lance flew with Keith and Pidge flew solo with Matt still singing from her helmet. When everyone intermittently started joining Matt singing the classic song from Toy Story, Keith deadpanned, “I hate all of you.”

In the castle, as Coran and Sam prepped to attend to the new evacuees, and Matt went to the hangar to welcome the paladins back, Allura stood in the bridge alone. She had witnessed something monumental.

For just a few ticks, she heard the roar of the Red Lion, loud and clear in her head. And during that moment, she saw Keith. He was looking away from her, but she could tell it was him from his hair. What shocked her the most, was that Keith had looked so different. There were multiple oddly colored wounds on his body, and his stance seemed weary, like a soldier limping through a battlefield at the end of a war.

The lion’s roar resounded, and she realized that she was seeing from the eyes of the Red Lion. Suddenly, she saw her paladin in front of her; Keith in his uniform, standing tall and confident. The vision broke when Matt started singing an oddly catchy Earth song. The jumbled words were easy enough to sing along to when Matt prompted her to join in.

Sam’s communicator had buzzed then and he read Pidge’s message out loud, “They got Keith back.”

Matt had stopped singing but after exchanging a few words with Keith, he started to sing a different song. This time, the whole lot of humans joined him. Even Sam was humming along to it.

A few minutes later, Allura was informed that her paladins were coming home with five lions full of evacuees.

The vision she saw earlier though, stayed in Allura’s mind like it was burned into her core. The Red Lion would never choose anyone other than Keith, that much was clear. It would protect him for life, even from himself.

From one of the screens on the bridge, she saw Matt walking up to the paladins in the hangar before reaching out to give Keith a hug.

Allura felt like she knew what she could do to make her vision of Keith come true; the one who stood strong at the end. But she would have to consult with her father first.

Lotor had paused the data search and turned to face Ken. The man’s anger was palpable and Lotor needed to make sure Ken was ready to proceed without any accidental damage to the control panels.

“Why isn’t there any scarring from all this?” Ken asked in a low voice, maintaining composure despite his current boiling temper. He had seen Keith’s scars but none of them were to that degree.

“Quintessence has vast healing properties. I am aware that it can heal almost any injuries inflicted on galra skin, provided that all limbs remain attached prior to application. Harvested quintessence emits a gold hue while processed quintessence, manufactured by the empire for optimum usage, is a luminescent purple. Seeming that the red paladin is not fully galra, the raw quintessence would benefit him more than the processed ones.”

The tanks earlier weren’t filled with just any type of liquid. It was raw quintessence. And with each image on the screen, Ken saw multiple inflicted wounds, possibly multiple levels of burns. Some pictures were from the same location but with different wounds, which implied that Keith was possibly healed and hurt over again-

“Forgive me for saying, but these were only the physical aspect of the witch’s care. We are about to delve in her research on his mind. Can you remain calm?”

Ken closed his eyes. This was his son. This was Keith. Keith, who was trained to withstand interrogation and torture. Keith, who still laughed in excitement when he sped up on the prototype hoverbike because Ken made it go twice as fast as the one they had at home. Keith, who was still alive and so was his tormentor. Ken needed to pull through for his son.

With a deep breath, Ken nodded at Lotor.

The prince calmly intoned, “If it’s of any consolation, the data indicates that your son suffered physical treatment for only two sessions, spanning only a few doboshes each. I believe it was used as an incentive for creative illusions. What you experienced once, can be used against you through the mind.”

It wasn’t of any consolation if Keith was still mentally subjected to the treatment and thinking it was real, but Ken appreciated Lotor’s words, nonetheless. Lotor tapped on the touchpad once more and the holoscreen wiped out all images and words to show an almost endless array of information scrolling downwards.

Chapter Text

For a few minutes, there was nothing but a flurry of data appearing on the screen. It almost seemed like the whole system was malfunctioning but Ken was reassured that it simply meant there was a lot of information being stored in the particular file Lotor had accessed. However, even the prince was frowning when the screen showed no pause in presenting the available data.

“That can’t be right…” Lotor confessed as he caught glimpses of the data files.

“What’s wrong?”

“Haggar’s multiple research projects are usually vast and consumes a lot of memory in the data storage but I’ve only ever seen this much research data on the main ship. It’s where most of her experiments are stored. This facility is fairly new. There is very little chance of a facility this small having this much data.”

“And it’s only this one file.”

Lotor repeated in agreement, “It’s only this one file. The one on your son.”

A soft sound from the screen notified them that the data had finished loading up. Lotor braced forward and began pressing a few buttons. The interface flickered and showed the first timestamp of the witch’s mental manipulation of the red paladin. It all started a little over a year ago.

Lotor moved to the next timestamp.

And the next.

And the one after that.

Moving from the fourth to the fifth timestamp however, took a few extra ticks. And the gap between the next one was even longer.  

The prince scowled at the amount of data that scrolled between the timestamps of the second month Keith was held captive. Each of the timestamps were only a few vargas apart but that wasn’t the abnormal part. It was usual for the witch to mindfuck her victims every once in a while. What wasn’t usual was the overwhelming data of the sessions she had with the red paladin. Even Haggar’s mental interrogations against traitors didn’t have that much going on in each session. So why…

“She couldn’t have…” Lotor’s eyes widened when he realized. He looked to Ken with an alarming look on his face.

Pidge casually strolled with her open laptop in her arms, into the room where her brother, Keith and Shiro were hanging out in. “Working on the arm with dad. Just wanted to know if Shiro wanted any games in his new arm.”

Shiro’s back straightened as he sat up with a smile. “I can have games in my arm?”

“Simple ones like minesweeper and solitaire or anything like that.”

“Can I have flipull?”

Pidge stared at Shiro with a dull look in her eyes. “There are like, thousands of games in this universe and you want flipull in your arm? Really?”

“I like flipull,” Shiro said with a touch of hurt in his voice as he deflated a little.

Pidge turned to her brother who simply shrugged and said, “He likes flipull.”

“And pinball," Keith added belatedly.

Shiro was suddenly perking up once more. “Can I have pinball too?”

Pidge let out a put-on sigh, turned around and started walking away while typing one-handed on her computer. “Fine!” her exasperated voice flowed back into the room after she left.

Not long after Pidge left, Princess Allura came in. “May I have a word with all of you?”

Sensing the foreboding tone in her question, Keith, Shiro and Matt turned to one another and then back to Allura.

Matt took the lead on their behalf. “Sure, princess. What do you need?”

Allura smiled but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Not here. In the infirmary, if you will.”

All three of them curbed the urge to ask why and instead followed the princess to the med bay. Coran and Sam were already there when they arrived.

Matt’s brows furrowed at his father. “I thought you were working on the arm with Pidge.”

Sam’s eyes had the same fearful apprehension that Allura did as he said, “I tasked her with some… personal upgrades. She’s working on it alone at the moment.”

So that was why Pidge had asked Shiro about the games.

Keith took a good look at everyone around the room. He could tell that he, Matt and Shiro were the only ones not clued in with whatever was happening or about to happen. Keith began to glare and his casual stance took a 180˚ turn. His hand twitched to make a grab for his blade or materialize his bayard. “What’s going on here?”

Allura was quick to soothe his temper. “It’s not like that, it’s just-…”

“Keith," Sam called out gently.

Sam’s voice and face grounded Keith somewhat. It was enough to make Keith return to his normal stance but not enough to make him stop eyeing the Alteans suspiciously.

“Princess, perhaps it’s better if you start from the beginning,” Sam suggested.

“Right.” Allura took a deep breath and started narrating, “My people had… ways of solving any issues we were faced with. Even nightmares for children.”

The three youngest Kerberos crew stiffened minutely.

“Nightmares stem from faces, things or experiences that is magnified by the brain. We Alteans, especially parents, are capable of muting these things for our children. My father and mother helped me when I kept having nightmares of being mauled by a clanmurel. Without the root of the issue, the brain would not be able to imitate and manipulate it into a nightmare. It’s not a permanent solution but it can also help with trauma. It’s a form of mind melding and it’s a common practice fo-“

Keith cut the princess off rudely, “You want to erase our memories.”

“Not erase,” Allura countered gently. “Simply dim them. I cannot take away your memories, no matter how much I want to. But I can lessen the pain.”

The princess looked so forlorn but so desperate as well. “Please let me take away the pain.”

Matt and Shiro exchanged a heavy look over Keith’s head. While they were both sceptical of having someone in their head, they couldn’t imagine what Keith must be feeling.

“Can we have a minute?” Shiro asked with a kind smile.

Allura nodded understandingly. “Of course.”

Both Matt and Shiro pulled Keith out of the infirmary and made sure the door was shut tight before they turned to each other.

“No,” Keith flat out answered with his arms crossed. “I am not having anyone touch my mind again.”

Matt huffed through his nose. “Keith-“

“Don’t let me stop you two from going through with it though,” Keith muttered coldly with his face turned away.

“Hey,” Shiro reprimanded. “Don’t do that. Not with us.”

Keith bit his lip and forcibly loosened his tense body. “Sorry I just-“ He didn’t know what to do. His hands wanted to grip his hair and pull it out. He felt like there was an itch under his skin that he couldn’t scratch. Keith felt so wound up, so on edge, so… unstable that he blurted out, “I can’t.”

And he found that he really meant it. He looked up to Matt and Shiro and repeated, “I can’t. I just-“

“We know.” Matt grasped Keith’s shoulder. “But on the off chance that it works…”

Keith looked into Matt’s eyes and could see the hope in them but he just couldn’t feel the same. “And what if it doesn’t?”

Shiro answered, “At least we won’t regret not trying.”

Keith suddenly felt like screaming at them. They could do it without him. But he knew that neither Shiro nor Matt would go through with whatever the heck Allura was suggesting if Keith didn’t do it with them. And it wasn’t fair. Because Keith loved them both too much to say no. He tried to look on the bright side. It wouldn’t be the first time someone went inside his head. And wasn’t that a depressing thought. He wanted to believe that Allura was different; that she was everything the witch was not. Keith trusted the Altean princess on a minimal level but definitely did not trust her with his mind.

Keith’s thoughts suddenly went to Shiro and Matt. What choice did he have? He hated how quickly he gave in.

“Okay.”

When the three of them came back in with their positive answer, the princess looked beyond relieved. Matt volunteered to go first.

He sat down on one of the beds and reclined his body till he laid down flat, looking up at the ceiling. Allura stood on the edge of the topside of the bed, her face hovering above Matt’s and her fingers gently pressing on various points of Matt’s head and face.

“Just relax and close your eyes,” Allura whispered as she did the same.

In what was probably just a few seconds (but felt like an hour for Keith), Matt’s eyes opened with shock. “Oh wow.”

Allura released his head and Matt promptly sat up still looking more than a little amazed. “Wow,” he repeated with more emphasis. Matt turned to Allura and the gratitude in his eyes was visible for all of them to see.

The princess simply smiled and nodded. She turned to Shiro and urged him to go next.

Shiro took over a minute before Allura was done with him. And while Shiro had the same stupefied look, Allura seemed… disturbed. And maybe a little worn out.

When she turned to Keith, the red paladin was frowning. “Shouldn’t you take a break or something?”

“I’m fine, Keith. I’d feel much better after all of you have had your turn.”

“What about Sam?”

Sam’s palm was suddenly on Keith’s back, pushing him forward. “I’ve already had my turn before you kids even got here.”

And that was why he trusted Allura with his crew’s minds and didn’t object even though he knew what Keith had gone through during the year of their captivity. Matt and Shiro turned out fine. Sam turned out fine. It was just a few seconds. Maybe a minute or two at most. Allura would just be in his mind for a short moment and then she’d be out. Keith kept telling himself that it was nothing.

But when he got on the bed, when he saw Allura’s face upside down, when her white hair came into view, Keith felt his body grow cold in dread. He started shaking as memories of the witch and the druids came back full force.

Matt and Shiro were quick to notice the stark difference in Keith’s body language and the mild panic in his eyes. They each quickly took one side of the bed and tried to make sure Keith didn’t drown in his memories, to make sure he didn’t slip away again.

“Keith, you need to breathe. Follow me, c’mon,” Matt urged as he took Keith’s hand and pressed it onto where his heart was. Matt took slow deep breaths so that Keith could feel the fall and rise of the chest against his palm.

Meanwhile, Shiro gently guided Keith’s head so that Keith looked away from Allura and towards him instead. “Hey, hey, look here. Keith, it’s okay.“ Shiro’s heart broke at seeing Keith’s fearful eyes staring at him. “We’re not there anymore. You’re safe. Okay? I need you to answer me, Keith.”

“..’m okay," Keith hoarsely answered eventually.

They knew he wasn’t okay but at least he was coherent.

Sam cut in while addressing the princess, “The quicker we get this done, the sooner we can avoid another relapse.”

Allura nodded and quickly assumed position. “Close your eyes, Keith.”

Keith did as he was told and soon, his body went lax like Shiro and Matt did. They had all fallen in a trance-like state but it wasn’t so obvious before because unlike Keith, they were already so relaxed.

A minute passed. And then five minutes passed.

“Why is she taking so long?” Matt asked worriedly.

“It is easy and simple to remove a face or dim the thoughts of falling or mauling but a lengthy mind meld could mean that we’re dealing with a damaged mind or perhaps… too many bad memories,” Coran informed them all in a grave tone. "The mind meld would not work unless all viable triggers are eliminated."

They all watched Allura and noticed that she was starting to frown. Sweat had also started to form on her forehead. He face was starting to pale as well.

Shiro looked to Coran. “Coran? Should we stop her?”

“Don’t,” Allura answered tersely with her eyes still closed. “Do not remove me no matter what happens.”

Just a few seconds after she had spoken, Allura fell to her knees. Shiro and Matt shouted in alarm and moved to help her but once more, the princess fiercely said, “Don’t!”

They saw how her fingers were still perfectly holding Keith’s face and head; as though she hadn't just crumbled to the ground.

“Just a little more,” she breathed tiredly but her concentration had not faltered for even a second.

Within another two minutes, the princess finally opened her eyes and her hands released her paladin as she fell back against the wall behind her.

“Princess!” Matt exclaimed as he knelt down beside her. “Are you alright?”

Allura was catching up her breath and wiping the sweat from her brows but she seemed relatively fine as she sagged further against the wall. She nodded to Matt and looked up to where she could still see Keith’s head.

“Why isn’t he waking up?” Shiro asked almost hysterically.

“Let him rest," Allura spoke calmly. “He needs it.”

Coran and Matt both helped the princess to stand. “You need it too.”

They both placed her on the bed next to Keith’s after she declined the healing pod. Allura felt the heavy stares from the Kerberos crew. It was Shiro who grasped her hand and voiced out the crew's collective gratitude; a very heartfelt, “Thank you, princess…”

Allura could fathom the position they were in when in regards to Keith and each other. Watching your loved ones suffer without being able to help them was a painful journey. She squeezed Shiro’s hand with a warm smile. She was glad she had deliberated with her father about using mind meld to heal her comrades. After a few minutes of Coran fussing around, they finally dimmed the lights of the infirmary and left Keith and Allura to their sleep.

With everyone gone, Allura finally let herself choke on a sob as she turned to her red paladin. She simply could not understand how someone could be so cruel and torment someone for so long. Keith had suffered so much. Trauma was not a competition but Keith’s was so overwhelming compared to the rest of the Kerberos crew. It was a miracle how functional he was on a daily basis.

And although Allura felt like her brain would implode after the vicious scouring she had done on her paladin’s mental scars, she would do it again and again if it meant her new found family would be safe from their dreadful experiences.

Her tears dried up and she smiled wistfully at Keith. She could see him, finally free from everything that weighed him down. She could see him stand tall and accept his rightful place as a paladin of Voltron. Allura finally closed her eyes and allowed herself to sleep.

Ken was already burning but Lotor practically poured gasoline on the human’s anger when he all but admitted the actual duration of Keith’s mental assault. The reason for the facility having so much data was because Keith had to endure mental torture that was more than thrice the duration of his actual physical captivity.

Ken actually had to remove himself before he started punching Lotor without a good reason.

But when Ken came back, Lotor could barely feel any wrath from the man. His expression must have looked like a question because Ken conversationally said, “You ever feel so angry that you just become… calm. That’s what’s going on right now.”

Lotor chose not to ask any further questions and instead showed Ken the scans he found.

“They look like brainwaves,” Ken offered.

The prince agreed and pointed out, “But she only recorded them at certain times.”

“Show me.”

Lotor pressed a few more flat keys on the panel and the interface zoomed out to show the collective timestamps of when the scans were made. Ken squinted and read what he could about the timestamps and why there were so significant. The witch only recorded brain scans after a particularly personal session – one that involved most if not all of the Kerberos crew and their untimely deaths. A figurative light bulb flickered to life in Ken’s head.

The blackouts. Keith’s dissociation. That was what she was aiming for.

“She wanted his brainwaves when she caught him dissociating.”

Lotor gave Ken a doubtful look. “And why would she want those?”

Before Ken could give his deduction, Acxa’s slightly frightened voice came through their communicators, “Lotor, I think you should come see this.”

She had sent them a location that was located on the facility. And while they were focused on the findings of witch’s study, they couldn’t help but be curious of Acxa’s tone. They both reluctantly left the premise of the laboratory and went to the other side of the facility. What greeted them was something beyond their imagination.

All of the female blade members were found standing in front of rows and rows of transparent vats filled with… what looked like to be clones of Shiro, the black paladin.

Lotor was the first to get over the shock. He took quick strides to one of the small panels available in front of each container.

“Are they…?” Ken asked warily.

“No. They’re not alive,” Lotor answered with relief. “The data suggests a high input of muscle memory but it lacks several components and brain activity.”

As one, the prince and the human exchanged a sharp look.

“The black paladin’s prosthetic had the exact same muscle memory of his previous arm. And now we know why.” Lotor redirected the conversation back to where they left of at the laboratory earlier, “What we don’t know is why those brain scans of your son is so imperative to her research.”

Ken recollected his thoughts and decided the best way to explain it was by example. “Were you aware that my son was dissociating at that meal when all of them went to shower?”

The prince tried to recall and now that it was mentioned, he did realize that the red paladin did not say anything, no agreement or rebuke. He simply followed when the black paladin had urged him to. “But why would it be so significant for the witch to induce as many as she could?”

All the pieces were connecting fast in Ken’s head. “You saw how he was like. He just did what he was told.”

“If she wanted mindless soldiers who listened to her every order, the sentries-“

“-are basically robots,” Ken countered and avoided the argument before it even began. He continued, “The sentries are wired machines. Machines can be re-calibrated and reprogrammed. You could give me a sentry right now and I can reconfigure it to do and say what I want it to.”

The prince remained silent as he took it all in.

“She didn’t want mindless soldiers. She wanted soldiers with brainwaves that would’ve followed whatever instructions they were given. All this time, she was aiming to make him stay dissociated. She’s been trying for months to break through Keith’s walls.” Ken gritted his teeth as he recalled Sam's info from Matt and Shiro's recollection of the unforgettable battle in the arena between the 'Champion' and the 'Half-breed'.

“And she knew, if Keith had been responsible for killing someone he was desperately trying to protect- god, that would’ve broke him.” Ken carded his right hand through his hair. Keith would’ve never forgiven himself if Shiro had died by his own hands. He’d be nothing more than a shell.

The prefect state.

The witch didn’t want just any broken creature. She specifically wanted Keith because of how malleable he was when he was dissociating. “If Keith had killed Shiro in that arena, then she’d get the brainwaves she’s always wanted.”

“And since she’s already made clones of the black paladin, discarding the original wouldn’t have affected her research,” Lotor helped reason.

“That’s right.” Ken looked at all the clones, ones that could fight like the caged animal Shiro was said to be in the arena. The final puzzle piece. “If she could mimic and repeat just one set of brainwaves and merge it with the muscle memory of a driven warrior, then…”

Lotor finally understood as he looked at the vats of humans surrounding them. “The perfect soldier.”

“Precisely.”

All of them stiffened at the echoed sound of a new voice. Lotor was already glaring and had withdrawn his blade. “Haggar,” he spat angrily.

The women quickly formed a circle around Ken and Lotor. Zethrid was the one who looked at Ken and said, “You got nothing against her druids. They can teleport anywhere.”

“She’s right.” Lotor grasped Ken’s shoulder. “It would be better if you hide. We were trained for this and I know how to deal with her best.”

“How interesting,” the voice of the witch echoed ominously once more. “You brought me another human?”

All at once, five druids appeared in front of Lotor and his team. They were quick to strike and soon each blade member spread out with their respective enemies. Ken was left standing dumbfounded when he felt someone suddenly appear behind him. Without hesitation, Ken moved and landed a punch straight at where he expected the person’s face to be.

There was a sickening crunch of something breaking as the druid that was meant to sneak up on Ken, held its own broken mask with a horrible shriek. The hit must have impacted the druid’s face as well.

The other pairs paused comically to see a human take on a druid and actually hitting the druid.

“What are you doing?!” Lotor almost shouted.

Ken was seen casually shaking his hand to rid himself of the tremors from punching something too hard. “Taking my own advice. That it’s good to be angry,” he finished off with a hard kick to the creature still in front of him.

That seemed to kick the others into overdrive and they were all respectively landing hit after hit. When the druids started to teleport and using their devastating dark energy blast attack, all of them worked together to attack each other’s targets. That sort of threw the druids off their game since they weren’t expecting the group to change targets so effortlessly or to work together so harmoniously. For example, when Narti’s target disappeared, she would send a flying kick to another available druid that was about to send a big blast to Zethrid.

The others repeated a similar motion – attacking whichever solid targets that were closest to them. The druids could barely keep up with the random order despite their numbers matching their opponents. They were even more surprised by how nimble and light-footed the sole human was as he avoided all of their projectiles and teamed up with trained fighters. Despite most of the druids utilizing their ability to hover, Ken and the girls were great at utilizing their acrobatic skills and object-throwing abilities.

Lotor seemed to grow more frustrated as the witch failed to make an appearance. When his druid target was overwhelmed by Ken and Ezor, Lotor went without a target and it made him shout to his surrounding, “Show yourself, you coward!”

“I’m disappointed in you, my prince,” Haggar’s voice resounded to Lotor’s left. “The emperor would be disgusted to see how low you have brought yourself.”

When she finally materialized, Lotor directed his blade at her. “Oh how tragic it is to be seen as vermin by my own father,” he replied sarcastically. Then, they were fighting. Lotor expertly danced around her beams of dark energy and her ability to teleport. He had been training for this battle his whole life. And he knew he was the only one who could go against her since he could sense her best.

Still, Lotor quickly found himself cornered to the dangerous edge of the facility. The destructive consequences of the witch’s projectile attacks gave way to uneven surfaces and rubble forming everywhere. The battle ground was simply not in Lotor’s favour. A well-timed dark energy beam followed by Lotor losing his footing caused him to trip over the edge. Quickly, he stabbed his blade into the metal-like structure of the facility with his other hand holding on to the very edge he had fallen from.

He could hear his comrades' shouts for him. Lotor looked up and saw the witch looming over him. “How pathetic,” she mocked with a malicious voice.

Lotor badly wanted to stab her. The witty remark on the tip of his tongue didn’t quite make it when he saw the witch suddenly flinch and turn around with her hand raised. “You…!”

From his position, Lotor saw something piercing the witch’s palm. It looked oddly familiar and then he realized that it was one of Ken’s newest inventions that he had brought along. The human had actually shot Haggar, one of the most powerful beings, with one of his darts. Her arrogance against a human made her take the hit rather than teleporting to avoid the small object the human had thrown at her. And she didn’t even know how devastating those little things would be.

Lotor felt a hysterical laughter bubbling from inside him.

All of a sudden, an intense blue light began to surround the witch’s body as she groaned in alarm and seemingly fell to her knees. At least, Lotor thought she did since he heard something hit the ground. He couldn’t actually see anymore due to the blinding radiance.

“What did you do?! Who are you…?! You mere human!” the witch seethed in anger but the pain in her voice made her sound less threatening.

“Just a very angry parent. I don’t appreciate anyone touching my son, especially when they toy around with his mind.”

Ken’s calm voice sounded suspiciously close so Lotor assumed he must have approached the witch.

“You-“ the witch cut herself off with another agonizing scream. “You’re the half-breed’s father!” she accused Ken with venom dripping in her voice.

“Yup,” was Ken’s satisfied answer. “And unlike you-“ Lotor heard Ken grab something, perhaps the witch’s cloak. “-I actually love my son.”

With that final statement, Lotor heard Ken either kicking or punching - probably kicking based on the harsh sound, definitely kicking. Maybe both. Punching, and then kicking - the witch off the edge of the facility with her falling silently just beside where Lotor was still holding on with his hand and blade. Lotor looked down and saw the light fading from the witch’s fallen body just ticks before druids appeared around her and they all teleported away.

Lotor wanted to be angry that they escaped but he would consider this a win. The prince looked up to Ken reaching a hand out towards him.

“You’ll get her next time,” the human promised.

Ken was elated that his creation had worked at weakening the witch but something kept nagging him about his earlier confrontation. Towards the end, before he sent her on her way, as he was saying that last sentence, he saw the witch’s eyes… clear up.

They weren’t the glowing orbs they were before, just… plain eyes. And her pupils had widened at Ken’s final statement. “And unlike you, I actually love my son.”

Something caught the witch’s attention when Ken had said that. But he was too angry at the time to consider the look in the witch's eyes. Instead, he punched her and then he kicked her off the edge. He really wanted to just pummel her but some part of him said that that honour should go to either his son or to Lotor. Maybe Lotor. Like hell he was gonna let that witch near Keith again. He rubbed his eyes to slowly help with the glare before he crouched down at the edge where he knew Lotor was still dangling from.

Once Ken helped the prince up and Lotor was safely back on even ground, Ken whooped and smiled at everyone who was staring at him with a disbelieving look. “God, that felt good! You guys alright?”

Ezor awkwardly pointed to a passed out Zethrid and said, “She distracted like three of the druids when you were… busy with the witch so she got knocked out cold.”

“Oh that’s fine, I can carry her back.”

Before any of them could argue that no, Ken should not be able to carry an alien of her size, he had already lifted her up in a fireman carry and was looking expectantly at all of them. “No point dilly-dallying here.”

“What is… dilly-dallying…?” was Ezor’s ignored question in the background.

“Let’s destroy this place and head on back to the ship.” Ken made sure to look at Lotor to prompt him into moving and giving out orders.

The prince nodded and turned to his subordinates. “Leave no clone or memory data intact. Set up the devices at every weak point of this facility. Destroy everything.”

Acxa, Narti and Ezor moved swiftly and were ready to leave within a minute. They had already set up the explosives while they were securing the facility earlier. All that was left to do was set up more explosives around the vats that held the clones.

“Oh wait wait! The kids will get a kick out of this!”

The aliens watched as Ken balanced Zethrid on his shoulders while taking out Sam Holt’s communicative device to seemingly record the Shiro clones. After that was done, each of them took flight with their jetpacks with Narti, Acxa and Ezor helping Ken to balance Zethrid still on top of him.

By the time they made it back to ship, Haggar's laboratory and research facility was nothing more than a crumbling mess in space.

Keith awoke to the sound of a lot of laughter around him. Matt, who upon seeing Keith being awake, quickly scrambled up and excitedly sat at Keith’s side.

“Look what your dad sent!”

Keith barely managed to comprehend why he was on a bed in the infirmary or why everyone was in it with him before Matt was shoving a little device that was playing a video. Keith swore that he must be dreaming because the video panned out across containers of- …multiple Shiro’s? – like Shiro was a barbie doll on sale at a toy store. Then, the camera paused at Lotor’s face.

“No,” the prince said.

“C’mon it’ll be fun!” Ken’s cheerful voice encouraged.

Lotor sighed before he lazily flicked his hand at all the containers while monotonously saying to the camera, “Look at all those… Shiro’s.”

The room burst into laughter again and Keith was so confused that he thought to himself - Allura’s mind melding must have worked because he’s never had a dream this ridiculous or with so much laughter before. Still feeling exhausted (which made no sense to Keith since his dream-self had never felt tired before but whatever), Keith closed his eyes and he drifted back to sleep with the echoing sounds of laughter around him.

Chapter Text

“Did you guys see Keith last night? He beat Shiro’s score again!”

“No way. You actually saw him do it?”

“Duh! Doug got it on camera! It was uploaded on the gram before his cam got confiscated.”

“This, I gotta see.”

“Tough luck, vid got taken down this morning.”

“You guys talking about Kogane? I got the vid on my holopad!”

Lance huffed out an exhale.

Keith Keith Keith

That’s all the student body could talk about. And if he grumbled about it, they would just call him jealous. Lance was not jealous. Contrary to people’s belief, Lance was just as curious of Keith as everyone was. There was a huge controversy surrounding one Keith Kogane. No one knew how he got in. He didn’t go through the regular cadet track because not a single batch admitted to going through the pre-programs with him. Rumours said he didn’t go through any sort of pre-Garrisson program at all. Suddenly, he was just there, attending seemingly random classes.

It didn’t help that no one knew where Keith’s room was either.

Plus, the guy was as elusive as a cryptid. The only times he was seen was during class and the rare occasions where he used the flight simulator when one of the instructors (Shiro specifically) beat his highscore.

Other than that, Keith Kogane didn’t seem all that special to Lance. They’ve shared a few basic mandatory Garrison classes. Sure, Keith probably really was a prodigy and scored in the top 10th percentile but he never answered or asked any questions in class. Keith Kogane was just a dude to Lance. People hype him up for absolutely no reason in Lance’s opinion.

Lance held back from grumbling at his classmates to shut up already about Keith before a tell-tale silence swept throughout the classroom. Everyone was looking at the back entrance of the auditorium where Keith Kogane had just strode in to take a seat at the last row, away from everyone else.

It was just Quantum Physics 203. Keith Kogane had been seen in 30X and 40X classes. So why the heck was he in a 20X class?

Lance thought to himself, ‘Did he fail quantum physics?’

Granted, the subject wasn’t easy but someone who was doing advance classes couldn’t possibly not pass a lower course, right?

Everyone softly whispered among themselves until the instructor arrived.

Now, Lance would admit that he wasn’t the smartest of the bunch but he wasn’t dumb. Speaking out was one of the ways to get noticed so Lance did just that. His theories were dismissed and shut down rather quickly though. It wasn’t his fault that most of the scientific theories were just that. Theories.

There was nothing wrong with questioning theories. Why was the concept of quantum and relativity completely opposite of one another? Why couldn’t it coexist?

Lance felt himself flush at being berated in front of the whole class for ‘trying to go against the curriculum’. He wasn’t, okay?

For some reason, he felt eyes on him even after the scolding had ended and the teaching had proceeded. He subtly looked back and saw Keith Kogane staring down at him from the back row. Lance couldn’t tell what Keith thought about all the earlier fiasco so he just turned back to their instructor who was introducing the all-exciting concept of quantum physics - jumping electrons.

By the time the lecture was over, true to rumours, Keith was no longer in his seat and no one had seen him leave.

Lance never saw Keith in Quantum Physics 203 after that and some part of him wondered if it was because of his stupid questions that drove the prodigal cryptid out of that class.

(He was wrong. Three weeks later, Keith Kogane was announced as one of the pilots for the Kerberos mission. No one praised the prodigy after that. All the cadets instantly hated Keith Kogane.)

Matt hummed as he checked the coding again for the umpteenth time.

“Biometrics?” Pidge called out.

Matt ran a simulation on the device, waited for the greenlight and positive ping sound before nodding, “Check.”

“Muscle motion thingy?”

“Check.”

Suddenly, from where he was sitting on the edge of one of the beds in the infirmary, Shiro piped in, “Flipull?”

Both Holts replied, “Check.”

Matt added, “And before you ask, yes, we added pinball too.”

“And pacman~” Pidge sing-songed.

Shiro wiggled his little stub of an arm that was fitted with a new circular alloy base, “How’s the maglev pre-connection?”

Gleefully, Sam tinkered with the matching alloy-maglev portion of Shiro’s new arm, “Everything looks ready to go!”

Matt looked to his sister and his dad, “Project new arm is go?”

“Yeah!” shouted Pidge, Sam and Shiro, with different degrees of excitement.

All of them completely ignored the peanut gallery just within their peripheral vision. They weren’t vying for any attention anyway.

Hunk, Keith and Lance watched the group almost impassively. Not that they weren’t happy for Shiro but they’ve all seen what geniuses the entire Holt family was made of. Recreating a magnetic levitating limb was well within their capabilities. There was something that Lance was starting to notice though.

He didn’t know Matt very well but he was in a few classes that Shiro taught in. That Shiro was stern but helpful and humble, a little playful but focused. But most importantly, that Shiro had one of the kindest smiles Lance had seen. And he never realised it was missing until he saw it again at this very moment. Lance knew how hard the Kerberos team was hit by their year in captivity. But he only understood the gravity of that experience when the princess had to practically box up their memories and lock it away.

Lance was brought back from his memories when he heard Matt groan about another coding error. The Holts began crowding the screen, all checking the coding and Pidge even running portions of it on a separate screen. Shiro joined in and pointed out a few portions he thought were written incorrectly.

With a sigh, Lance turned to Hunk on his right who was fiddling with what he suspected was the core of a hoverbike. Looking to his left, he immediately jolted because freaking Keith was unexpectedly staring straight at him.

Unable to help himself, he asked, “What are you even doing here? Didn’t you want to take Red out for a joyride?”

Hunk answered for Keith, “His dad creates hoverbikes.”

And yeah, that wasn’t really an answer to Lance. “So?”

“He’ll know if I mess anything beyond repair.”

Keith finally spoke and Lance can just hear the frown on his face, “You kiddin’? You fixed the unfixable replicator on the 3rd floor cafeteria. Something none of the techs wanted to fix. This-“ Keith gestured to the hoverbike core in Hunk’s hands, “-is child’s play compared to that machine.”

“Aww Keith…” Hunk cooed but then scrunched his eyes, “Wait… How’d you even know it was me?”

Lance was curious too because Hunk had only told him about it in confidence.

Keith deadpanned, “Hunk. You made it replicate pizza with tuna, corn and pineapple on top. All at once.”

Okay, even Lance sighed at that. It should’ve been obvious for everyone really. At Hunk’s clueless face, Lance sighed again, “Buddy, you’re literally the only one who likes pizza that way.”

“Really?!” Hunk exclaimed in disbelief.

Keith, and even Matt, Shiro and Pidge intoned, “Really.”

Hunk huffed and then continued playing around with the hoverbike core. Meanwhile, Lance could feel Keith’s eyes on him again.

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” Lance spit out without looking at Keith.

Lance expected a biting remark or something but instead, Keith’s voice took a soft tone.

“…I do remember you.”

“Huh?” Lance eloquently inquired.

“Quantum class. You asked Roth a question before class started.”

With a flail of his arms, Lance groaned, “Figures that’s what you choose to remem-“

“Your theory wasn’t impossible y’know? The coexistence of both laws of how nature works. Quantum and relativity. We probably just haven’t cracked it yet. Probably need a little differentiation or integration or both of whatever current theory we have now. Like Schrodinger did.”

Ignoring how that was the most Lance had ever heard Keith speak in one sitting, Lance shouted, “Wait, you remember that?!”

Keith continued with his calm tone, “You asked a good question. Roth was just a textbook teacher.”

“You never said anything,” Lance wistfully admitted.

If anyone knew how the Keith Kogane had agreed with something Lance had thought on a whim back then-

With an indifferent shrug, Keith admitted, “I got pulled out from the class before I could sit down with you.”

“You were going to sit down with me?” Lance asked with a disbelieving look.

Lance instantly noticed a gleam in Keith’s eyes as he replied, “That weekend after class, I actually read all about both theories and then I realized you could be right. I thought we could maybe take it further. Maybe even bring Matt into it too.”

“Oh my god, you’re such a nerd,” Lance blurted out.

“Lance,” Keith intoned yet again, in a deadpan manner, “We’re all nerds.”

Ah.

Lance glanced around the infirmary. The Holts trying to connect a maglev arm to Shiro who was actually helpful with fixing the coding. Hunk who was playing with a miniature engine for a hoverbike. Keith who still looked somewhat excited to talk about quantum physics and relativity with Lance.

They were all nerds.

“Oh my god…” Lance dragged his palm over his face. Then he looked back at Keith. ‘Oh what the heck?’ he thought.

“Fine. What’d you got?”

Keith adjusted himself and with a smile, he started talking. Lance admitted it took a while for him to get with the program. Not because he couldn’t keep up. But because, for the first time, he saw Keith’s actual smile. For those few seconds, Lance remembered what he originally thought of Keith back at the Garrison.

It was comforting to know that he was right.

Keith Kogane was just a regular dude. A true nerd at heart, but a dude nonetheless.

As their debate about the laws of nature turned heated, it eventually attracted Sam to join in as well. And after hearing a ridiculous conspiracy theory from Keith that Lance seemed to agree on, Pidge got up from her station with a stern, “Don’t. Move.” to Shiro, and then she left to put a stop to it.

“Keith, I swear if you slander that dead man one more time-“

Keith’s only argument was, “But is he, Pidge? Is he, really?”

Pidge took a deep breath as she clapped her palms together in front of her face with her eyes closed, “No. We are not doing this again.”

They proceeded to do ‘this’ again, which was to fight about Keith’s conspiracy theories.

Matt had rotated his chair to face the loud group. He had noticed Keith’s more open demeanour, as did Shiro. The stark difference in personality or perhaps, the nostalgic personality tugged at their hearts.

“Any theories on why it’s so obvious on him? Ken is gonna grill us like mad,” Shiro sighed. He wasn’t looking forward to that. Not with how dubiously Allura had handled their memories. Fuck, they had to deal with Krolia too. Why did Allura had to choose to do the mind meld thing when Krolia was out on a mission with the blades anyway?

“I got one,” Matt stretched out his arms, “You remember that movie, Inside Out?”

Shiro frowned, “The spy movie?”

“What? No!”

When Shiro’s face took an ashen expression, Matt quickly beat him to it, “NO. Not the gory alien one either.”

Shiro remained seated with a confused expression.

Matt took pity on him. “The one where you cried when Bing Bong-“

“OH. That Inside Out,” Shiro nodded slowly. Which slowly turned into a shake of his head, “Yeah I’m not getting it. What does Bing Bong have anything to do with Keith?”

With a roll of his eyes, Matt explained, “Not Bing Bong, dummy. Remember the core memory palaces? I was thinking that maybe we didn’t have a lot of things that replaced our core memory. While your experience was gruesome, you also said it was repetitive. You see, so was mine. Before I met the rebels, everyday was the same thing. I bet dad was like that too.

“So my theory is that Keith’s core memory was replaced by whatever he suffered. And now that it’s locked away, whatever was there before, is there now.”

That would definitely answer why Keith 'suddenly' remembered Lance when in fact, Keith had not shown any sort of recognition up to after the mind meld. Shiro stared at Matt, “Sound theory but I can’t believe you’re comparing all this to a 21st century movie.”

“Eh, if it fits, it fits.”

They both continued watching as Pidge and Keith got into the old ‘water is wet’ debate next.

“Rock paper scissors on who gets to tell Ken,” Matt whispered to Shiro.

They both silently shook their fist in the air three times and revealed their choices.

Shiro picked up his still-detached maglev arm and smacked Matt’s head with it when the man laughed at Shiro’s sealed fate.

“You always choose rock, Shiro.”

“If I’m telling Ken, you’re dealing with Krolia.”

“… fuck.”