Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

After being with the paladins for so long and fighting out of the shadows, Keith finds himself missing the efficiency and secrecy of the Blades. He slumps onto his mattress and holds out the blade Kolivan had given him all those deca-pheobs ago. His human reflection stares back at him through his blade and he winces at the disheartening thought that perhaps his place is not with the Blades after all. Perhaps, he never was really one of them. He misses the mask, and he misses recognising himself as Krolia’s strong and galra son. The pride of taking down the empire daily is overshadowed by the desire to connect with the Earthians and their silly fixations on movies and media. The desire to understand what creates such a happy-go-lucky and colourful bunch. The desire to understand where he came from. He tosses the blade on his mattress and rubs his face roughly in his hands groaning at his own pathetic thoughts, rationalising to himself that there is no real benefit to any of it. He pulls the base of his eyes down and stares up at the ceiling for a moment when something clicks for him. "Six paladins..." He’s interrupted by a knock and embarrassingly throws his body out to tuck the blade under his pillow like a kid.

“Uh, come in?”

The door opens, revealing a despondent Lance. “Sorry to bother you," he sighs and Keith feels his heart pound at the unexpected entrance wondering what Lance came to him for. Lance pauses for a moment near the doorway and crosses his arms with a pout. "…what are you hiding?”

“I’m not hiding anything?” Keith asks baffled.

“You’re holding your hand below your pillow and you and I both know your hands are not that chilly.” Keith sighs and holds out his blade to Lance who is blinking wide-eyed at him. “This was not what I was expecting," Lance approaches closer and flops down next to Keith. "What are you hiding that for? We all know you have it - for god's sake - we all know you have it literally all the time." Lance chuckles.

"I wasn’t hiding it.” Keith denies vehemently with a blush.

“Sure buddy," Lance leans down on the mattress and rests his head in his hand. "What's bothering you then?” He asks innocently. There it is - the nagging feeling that Keith wants to be someone open and honest and laid-back. The desire to take a break from the mission and relax with his paladins. The desire to lay down next to Lance who looks so snug where he's positioned and simply watch him because he's so full of surprises and interesting conversation topics.

“Didn’t you come here to talk about your problem?” Keith interjects, trying to get out of this pointless comfort before it sucks him in completely.

“You don’t know that.”

“I’m pretty sure I do,” Keith counters and Lance pinches his arm in response. He sulks at Keith and Keith sighs at the look, “I’m just not used to all this fanfare and attention. Everyone praises us for getting rid of Zarkon but we haven’t even finished the battle. There’s a whole empire that needs to be taken down and I just don’t know what we're doing...”

"We're restoring the universe planet by planet and undoing the millennia of Galran occupation." Lance supplies matter-of-factly.

"I guess so..." Keith's eyes lower and Lance watches him carefully.

"...Is that not your speed?" Lance says as he sits up.

Keith stands up with his back facing Lance so that he can deliver his thoughts without being distracted by the promise of comfort. "It's not enough. It's slow and Voltron is becoming a figurehead rather than being used like the shield and sword it is. What's the point of slow diplomacy when people are still enslaved out there? We need to disrupt the empire more- we need to do more!" He huffs out. He hears Lance shuffle behind him but without the usual quips. Keith pinches his lip in his teeth, dreading the next few seconds. “I’m thinking of going back to the blades.” More shuffling and continued silence.

“If…” Lance begins. “...If you go back, who will pilot Black?”

Keith turns slowly to Lance who is looking at him with an unreadable expression. Guilt? Remorse? Sadness? It’s hard to tell but Keith figures it must have to do with what Lance wanted to talk to him about.

“Well, Shiro will.”

Lance grabs Keith’s hands suddenly and pushes his forehead into them as if in prayer.

“Don’t try to stop me Lance, we have too many pilots anyways.” Lance shakes his head against Keith’s hands and seems to shudder from emotions. “I’m the temporary pilot to substitute in when coach’s top athlete is taking a break. I barely made it to fighter class.”

“You always find some way to confuse me,” Keith says with a chuckle. “Blue knew you were her paladin. Red knew it too. You have the approval of two lions whilst I had to earn both of their trust.”

The loudspeakers of the castle erupts around them along with a flash of red lights. Coran’s voice streams through. “Paladins on standby, an unknown ship is heading towards us.”

Keith looks back to Lance. “End of discussion.” He says before he storms off to the observatory deck with Lance following closely and hesitating to speak more. They arrive on deck along with Hunk who greets them quickly before they rush to their designated seats.

“I don’t believe it!” Coran yells. “We’re receiving a communication line from the ships and it’s…Lotor!”

“Paladins to your hangers and await orders.” Shiro commands. Keith grabs Lance’s arm before they part and orders. “I don’t know what you mean but you are not a substitute,” he says seriously. Lance blushes slightly, a little taken aback by the authority in Keith’s voice.

Lotor’s face broadcasts to the castle and his voice transmits over. “Paladins of Voltron, I have come up with a proposal. Will you permit me and two of my generals entry into your castle?” His pretentious voice drawls over. The paladins glance at Shiro, awaiting his orders. Hunk is mouthing no while Pidge looks at Shiro with concern.

“Yes you may come.”

The paladins are shocked and Keith curses as he runs outs of his seat and to Black’s hangar. “This is a trap, I’m on standby.”

Lance glances hesitantly between the paladins before running off to Red’s hangar.

“Everything okay for our boarding?” Lotor asks.

“Yes, approach slowly…and with caution.” Shiro replies with a sigh.

The remaining paladins eye each other with concern. The tension’s high as they see specks of ships growing larger. Looking between Lotor’s smug face over the comms and Shiro who is standing resolutely by the helm. As the ships approach closer and closer, the other paladins feel Black powering up. “Keith?” “Wait.” “Hang on a tick” Keith hears simultaneously over his comms.

“How can you trust him, Shiro?”

“Keith?!” Coran yells over the comms as he sees Black soar past the castle and straight towards Lotor’s group of ships.

“Whatever proposal Lotor has for us, it’s not going to be good,” he anwers.

“Hold your position!” Shiro commands but the Black lion doesn’t show any sign of slowing down. Shiro sighs deeply, “Lance…”

“On it.” Red shoots past the castle, gaining speed on Black quickly, and below his breath he mumbles, “Get back here space ninja.”

In his peripherals, Keith sees Lance’s lion catching up paired with a video comm request which he grants. Lance’s pouty face opens over his screen, “Keith you better stop before I make you stop.”

“This is our chance-”

“He clearly has something in mind apart from fighting us off the bat!” Lance argues.

“You can’t trust anything they say.” He growls back. Red speeds up and flies in front of Black causing Keith to stop his lion.

“You are still Keith the leader of Voltron and as the leader you need to follow the rest of your team and actually lead us instead of running off.” Lance stutters, “you aren’t gone yet.” Keith is silent and glances between Lotor’s ship and Red who is looking at him with her mechanical eyes. He begrudgingly turns Black around.

“Just know I don’t like this,” he ends with.

“Thank you, Keith.” Lance says with a sigh and the two of them head back to the castle of lions.

Shiro takes a breath of relief, “Thanks Lance, what would we do without you.” It warms Lance’s chest and makes him swell with pride, but he finds guilt beneath at having to throw Keith under the bus. “Okay team,” Shiro says as he shuts off the communication line and turns towards the group who are looking at him with varying expressions of confusion and bewilderment. “I appreciate the wariness but we should hear him out.”

Chapter Text

“Greetings Paladins of Voltron” Lotor enters with a snobby accent. He bows at Allura, “princess.”

Allura crosses her arms with disdain trying not to show her discomfort and Lance scoffs. Shiro speaks up first.

“Hello Prince Lotor or, from my understanding, emperor now. You have to forgive our cold welcome, we’re not exactly used to being friendly with members of the Galran empire.” He glances at Keith who has a sharp gaze trained onto Lotor and his two generals. He seems ready to pounce at any moment like a guard dog pulling on its leash. The rest of the paladins watch with general mistrust. “What were you interested in discussing with us?”

Lotor reaches into a pocket when Lance raises his bayard. “Hey hey, easy now.” Shiro placates as he grabs the tip of the blaster.

“I assure you I am not my barbaric father and won’t be attacking out of nowhere.” Lotor says as he pulls out a GPS. “This will lead you to a spot in the universe I have identified as carrying an Altean ship.” He throws it over and Pidge jumps to catch it whilst her and Coran look over it briefly. Coran looks to Allura with uncertainty. “Believe me or not, there exists a trans realty comet, the same Voltron is made of, that will allow my empire to prosper without the subjugation of anyone and everything. I am formally requesting that Voltron retrieve this ore for me and I believe you will save the universe from the Galra’s conquest as a consequence.” They stand in stunned silence.

Pidge clears her throat. “So just to be clear, you are not only claiming that there are Alteans around but that there is a reality piercing ore. And they’re in the same spot. I’m sorry I find it hard to believe all these claims at once.”

“Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. We both have much to gain from this and I think it’s very worthwhile.”

Allura narrows her eyes but joins the tech trio who are already researching the location. Lotor and his generals shuffle around so that Lotor can sit in the blue paladin’s seat with a leg folded over. “Any Galran ships nearby?” She asks quietly with a stink eye towards Lotor.

“Doesn’t seem like it princess,” Coran replies.

“But we can’t put aside the possibility of them hyper-driving to us so I say we stop in the vicinity and wait it out.” Pidge suggests lowly so that Lotor can’t hear. Allura nods.

Hunk pipes up, “we’re missing a lot of information I think we should interrogate him more.” Allura nods and returns to speaking with Lotor.

“We’re willing to see how it is. How about you stay with us while we head there? No generals. We will hail a communication line to them once we arrive.”

“No no no, see I also don’t trust you entirely princess. I have to insist they come with.” He gestures to Axca and Zethrid standing behind him. “You have to understand that I am a busy man, I have an empire to run and I cannot leave it to the insurgent generals that threaten it. I either leave, and you take my generals or I come and my generals come with me to protect me from the people who took down my father.” He reminds them.

“You want this ore that supposedly makes your empire prosper? Then you need to follow our rules.” Pidge replies sternly.

“Your generals go, you stay.” Allura adds again.

Lotor sighs. “I didn’t want to do this so early, but, I have another thing to show you to make you trust me. Princess, I believe you will understand.” He pulls out a strange glowing stone and stands up. He holds it out for her to take and Allura looks with concern at her team. Hunk and Lance look back at her with matching concern, Pidge has her eyes narrowed, Coran is trying to see what Lotor is holding from where he is, and Keith and Shiro have blank faces though there’s no doubt Keith is ready and raring to deliver Lotor a beat down.

“Prince Lotor isn’t going to hurt your precious princess.” Zethrid spits out, sensing everyone's tenseness.

“We just lack information, that’s all.” Shiro tries to break the increasing tension.

“The only information you need is that you’re alive because the prince is merciful. So how about some gratitude for everything he is sharing.” Zethrid snarls back.

“I beg to differ.” Allura pipes in as she walks closer to Lotor who has a smug smile on his face.

“Gratitude? Who let you guys in? Who do you need to get you this ore?” Pidge points to the GPS angrily.

Zethrid growls, clearly irritated. “Zethrid…” Acxa says in a warning tone.

“Your tiny one is awfully easy to pummel for such an annoying mouth.” She points at Pidge menacingly making a bead of sweat drop slowly down her face.

“You touch her and there will be a problem.” Lance threatens with his raised bayard. Zethrid takes a step closer prompting Lance’s bayard to emit the sound of it powering up. Keith slowly shifts closer to Lance, hand on his bayard.

The only warning they receive is Zethrid’s scoff as she chucks her cloak, obscuring Lance’s vision. Keith immediately runs to Lance and Allura grabs Lotor’s arms before slamming him to the ground with an 'omph'. Strangely, she notices that he's awfully calm for someone in his position.

Lance immediately fires but it hits a shield behind the falling garment as Acxa steps in to defend, revealing Zethrid going after Pidge. Keith kicks into action and chases Zethrid but Acxa intervenes by throwing a blade which Lance shoots out of the way but it stops Keith for enough time that allows Axca to tackle him. Shiro sprints past them, using the opportunity to reach Zethrid whilst Pidge and Hunk evade and attack with Coran running around helplessly though yelling nonsense threats that truthfully serve to clue the generals of his harmlessness.

“Tell your generals to stand down!” Allura orders.

“Zethrid enough.” Lotor says, but it’s all too chaotic to hear his commands. Acxa hears, making her falter for a second and allowing Keith an opportunity to to kick her off him to help Shiro bear wrestle the big Galran woman. As Axca stumbles back from the force of the kick, she notices Lance now standing alone and charges towards him. He shoots at her but at this close distance, she can predict where the shots are landing based on where the barrel is pointing and expertly dodges each shot with a concerningly high level of mobility.

“How the fuck-“ Lance curses under his breath before he has to use his bayard as a defence against a quick roundhouse kick. He’s knocked off balance allowing Axca to land another kick with a resounding impact noise, this time into his side which knocks him violently to the ground. Keith notices the commotion and glances backwards. His heart drops.

“Don’t touch him!” He yells furiously as he roughly twists in the air to throw his bayard directly at her. Acxa ducks from the attack but is met with Keith's yellow flashing eyes and Marmoran Blade. She falters at the sight of him but responds all the same with a blade of her own and the two hack and slash in a chaotic mess only able to be followed by a keen observer skilled in fighting. Their weapons meet occasionally but for the most part, they take hits left and right instead of chancing a slice from their blades. Keith occasionally switches his grip and even the hand wielding the blade at any opportunity he sees but Acxa is too skilled at close combat and expertly analyses which fist she can take a blow from. She lands hits against Keith that cause him to lose balance but his mobility makes up for it as he adjusts every muscle in his body to twist and readjust his movements. Lance’s eyes widen as he takes in the incredible fight before him, not even sure how he can intervene properly. Neither side seemed to be giving in. Lance steels himself, lifting his gun with a groan and a hand to his side. He cocks it at Lotor’s head and bellow out. “HE SAID ENOUGH!” Acxa and Keith pause simultaneously, breaths heavy but focus intact and eyes trained on each other's movements. Zethrid falters at seeing Lotor in danger which Pidge uses as an opportunity to trip her with her bayard whilst Shiro and Hunk hold her down.

“Thank you, Lance was it?” Lotor responds with a sigh which Lance is pretty sure is laced with sarcasm.

“Acxa, Zethrid, stand down we come here for negotiations not infighting. I will warn you though,” he directs to Allura who eases off of him, “-that Acxa and Zethrid only make up half of my generals.” Allura frowns, glancing around at the state of her paladins. She grimaces at him, finding the threat distasteful. Axca lowers her blade cautiously while Keith hesitates a bit before running to Lance to help him up.

Zethrid growls an annoyed, “ugh get off me I won’t do anything,” and Shiro and Hunk relent. Keith almost has to haul Lance’s entire weight up because he’s groaning and coughing from the pain in his side.

“I think she broke my rib with that kick.” Lance coughs out. “Are you okay?” He asks Keith tiredly as he does a quick scan of his body.

“Galra are more resistant than Earthians, how are you feeling?” Keith asks as he supports Lance’s weight.

“Can you take me to the healing pod?” Lance asks with furrowed brows and a hand over his mouth. Keith nods and helps him out of the observation deck, glaring at Lotor on his way out.

“Is it too presumptuous of me to ask that our negotiations go on?” Lotor asks.

Shiro sighs and Allura frowns. “Maybe if you care to explain everything, your intentions with the ore and why you have an Altean alchemy stone?” She says while brandishing the stone she stole during the chaos.

He smirks at her. “As expected of you princess, Axca and Zethrid may I request your temporary leave?” He lifts an eyebrow at Allura expectantly.

“Paladins, leave us please. Coran, stay with me.”

“Yes princess.” They all file out and Shiro stops for a moment watching Lotor. His eyes gleam purple and Lotor looks back at him with confusion, quickly morphing to distrust.

When it’s just Allura, Lotor, and Coran, Lotor smiles brightly at the two.

“I’m so glad I can finally meet you both.”

Chapter Text

Axca and Zethrid remain by the entrance of the observation deck, ready for Lotor’s call. Shiro assures the rest of the paladins that they won’t do anything but he will stay nearby anyways.

“Why don’t you check on Lance?” He suggests to Hunk and Pidge.

“Lance!” They say wide eyed looking at each other and sprint to the infirmary.

When they arrive they see Keith with his hands clasped and head resting on top.

“How is he?” Hunk asks gently, startling Keith. They see that behind him, Lance is laying in the pod with the under armour of his paladin suit. They all hover around him as they converse.

“What are you guys doing here?” Keith asks. “What about Lotor?!”

“Allura and Lotor are chatting, privately.” Pidge wiggles her eyebrows. Keith grimaces with disgust.

“Well Coran is there too.” Hunk adds.

“I wonder what they’re talking about?” Keith questions.

“Probably some Altean alchemy or politics. Maybe they’re hashing things out from 10,000 years ago.” Pidge takes a photo of Lance and starts drawing on her device.

“But wow, the gang is here!” Hunk says with delight as he wraps an arm around both Keith and Pidge’s shoulders.

“The gang?” “Huh?”

“Well you know, minus Shiro plus Lance is a lot quieter but, the kidnapping Shiro gang yaknow? I still remember when we first met you Keith, what a wild day.”

Keith chuckles quietly. “Yeah, I wasn’t expecting to find the blue paladin when I arrived.”

“I wonder if Professor Adam and Professor Xavier have smoothed things over with the garrison so they don’t hunt us when we get back to Earth.” Pidge shivers from the memory of the garrison chase.

-

After a long journey of evading galra fleets and scouts, Yorak's Marmora ship arrives in Earth's solar system. He quickly is able to identify planet Earth because it resembles a long-gone planet Altea. When he enters Earth's atmosphere he sets the coordinates to find the closest landing to the vague coordinates of the blue lion. Earth is interesting because whilst it was so hot in the day, it had become so much colder when night fell. He had only travelled for about 2 vargas, occasionally using his jet boosters to get over particularly difficult rocky terrain, before a large facility comes into sight. Instincts on high alert he slinks around the first sign of civilisation. Yorak was still investigating the facility and its potential relationship to the blue lion when his sensors start going off. A Galra ship is nearby. He brings out his knife and looks to the skies. Low-and-behold, a galran pod is plummeting through the sky and crash lands a ways away.

"Is that?..."

He whispers to himself and flinches when the facility's alarms start blaring and various personnel start running about. Understanding that this is his chance to see the Earthians, he sneaks a glance from his hiding spot and his heart plummets. They look just like me. Shaking his head, he immediately focuses on the mission at hand, which at the moment was to meet Takashi Shirogane. He slinks away, ready for espionage but not for diplomacy. Who knows, maybe this race’s idea of diplomacy was espionage.

-

Lance, Hunk, and Pidge are jaw-struck watching what’s happening through Pidge’s hacked camera.

“Guys, there’s no way we can sneak him out,” Pidge says. Lance is holding his chin thinking - though there’s genuinely nothing going through his head - and Hunk is holding his head in his hands.

Hunk suggests, “Maybe we don’t need to sneak him out? Maybe we should just head back and see what happens tomorrow?”

“No,” Pidge glares at Hunk. “The garrison have been lying about the whole Kerberos mission and now I have my way into the truth. I am not going to sit back whilst the garrison covers everything up again!”

BOOM. Huh? The three turn away from the laptop to where there was a large explosion. They can see that most of the guards and officers have moved towards it, leaving Shiro with only a few personnel monitoring him.

“What’s that?” Lance directs their attention to the screen where they can see a cloaked figure rushing into the facility before the personnel are knocked out in KO combos after combos. “Holy crow, we have a ninja on our hands go go go!” The three scramble for Shiro.

When they run into the room holding Shiro, they catch the hooded figure halfway through picking up Shiro’s limp body. The figure’s intimidating mask turns towards them making them all flinch but Lance steps up.

“I don’t know who you are but I’m the one who’s saving Shiro.” Pidge and Hunk roll their eyes as Pidge watches from the entrance on alert if anyone is coming whilst Hunk gathers supplies he finds lying around.

Yorak stutters. “I’m sorry, who are you?” Could this be one of this planet’s leaders? He thinks.

“The name’s Lance.” Lance looks expectantly into Yorak’s masked glowing eyes that don’t react.

Yorak stares back trying to remember if ‘Lance’ was any name he studied. He doesn’t recall any Earthian by that name but can’t help but notice how weak Earthians are. Their unscarred skin, thin physiques, round ears, soft mouths, shining blue eyes…

“Are you the leader?” Yorak asks, shaking himself away from staring and focusing on getting Takashi Shirogane away. Lance notices that even though Shiro is significantly larger than the masked figure that they have no problem holding Shiro’s weight on their back, but he can’t let them have all the glory so he grabs whatever he can see lying around that looks vaguely useful and sneaks a glance at Shiro’s new right arm with a gulp.

“Am I the leader? Pffft I guess you can say I’m the leader, right guys?” Lance asks Pidge and Hunk as they all sneak out.

“Yeah sure.” “If you want to be.” They answer simultaneously.

Yorak feels a rush of relief that he has already encountered one of their leaders so quickly and that they seem easy to talk to. Maybe the diplomacy will be easy? He introduces himself the way Krolia had ordered him to. In a thick southern accent, “I’m… Keith Kogane, it’s nice to meet...yall.”

Quiet…and then Lance snorts out a cute giggle, “what’s with the sudden accent?” He beams at Keith.

Keith blushes under his mask, completely embarrassed. He knew he shouldn’t trust mom with this, she’s just as bad at diplomacy as him.

“I was told to speak to you like that but I was fed the wrong information.” He defends.

“Haha, hey it suits you - the mysterious, grizzly stranger with a southern accent, yeah sounds about right.” Lance nods to himself.

“Not trying to interrupt whatever this is but where’s our ride?” Pidge asks.

Oh quiznack. Keith had just run in when he noticed most of the guards were distracted so he didn’t think this far into the escape plan.

Lance lets out a groan. “Mr Ninja Assassin didn’t prepare a getaway van? Follow me.”

Chapter Text

“Lance…are we seriously doing this?”

“Relax Hunk, riding a bike in a desert wasteland is way simpler than piloting through stray meteors. I won’t crash.” Lance leads all of them to an open hangar holding ships, trucks, and most importantly, getaway bikes. They all scramble on the back end of a hoverbike with Hunk and Keith holding onto Shiro’s limp body.

Pidge looks sceptically over Lance’s shoulder. “Are you sure you know how to drive this?” Turning behind them, “I don’t think we’re in the acceptable weight limit…”

Lance revs up the hoverbike’s engine and lifts them off the ground. “Uhh, yeah sure I think it’ll be fine.” They jolt violently forward
.
“Nope no, not doing this.”

“Hunk!”

“This is all kinds of bad news - how about we just turn Shiro in and head back inside.”

“Hunk we’ve been over this,” Pidge yells. “They said my-they’ve covered up this mission enough and we need the truth without them interfering.”
“Yeah! And if we hand Shiro over, they’re going to think we concocted this grand plan with explosions and whatnot to screw them over!” Lance adds.

Pidge and Hunk stare at Lance for a beat.

“Okay we kinda did-! Are-! Whatever! At least we didn’t have anything to do with those explosions and this guy showing up.” He points his thumb to Keith whose masked face is flicking innocently between them all. Alarms start blaring in the hanger, flashing red around. Keith doesn’t need to know Earth customs to know that it’s not a good sign so he growls- “Ohmygod did he just literally growl?” Lance asks – and pulls Lance behind the driver seat so he can sit in it. Revs. Flexes the pedals. And takes off. The trio scream as they shoot off, Lance wrapping all his limbs around Keith’s head, Pidge hugging Lance, Hunk grabbing onto Pidge with one arm and the other holding onto Shiro who is FLAILING in the wind.

“OHMYGOD OHMYGOD OHMYGOD SHIRO PLEASE WAKE UP!” Hunk cries out.

Behind them garrison trucks are in hot pursuit.

“HOLY SHIT” Lance screams terrified.

“LEFT LEFT LEFT, NO RIGHT, NO STRAIGHT.” Pidge is trying to direct.

“Big man, left!” Keith orders and Hunk wilfully follows, not trying to die. The edge of a cliff comes into the clearing, Keith recognises it as part of the terrain he had to navigate before arriving here. Perfect.

“ISN’T THAT A CLIFF?!” Hunk screams. The trio all scream various NO’s and WAIT’s as Keith speeds up the bike and they plummet off with their screams echoing.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING YOU’RE GOING TO KILL ALL OF US!” Lance screams into Keith’s ear.

“Shut up and trust me!” He yells back, and as the ground comes closer and closer he reconfigures hover controls and pulls them up so they don’t splat on the ground. Turning her head behind, Pidge sees that the garrison trucks have stopped by the cliff edge now too far to pursuit them.
She turns back to face Keith, huh she smirks. “Something tells me you’re going to be an incredible ally.”

Keith’s masked face ever so slightly turns towards them, still focused on driving them to his blade of marmora ship. “You don’t even know the half of it.”

When they arrive at their destination, the trio are mouth agape at Keith’s ship. Hunk is busy gushing over the engines, Pidge is fiddling with the various controls, and Lance is standing in front of the pilot controls in awe. Keith is preoccupied assessing the vicinity’s safety and also thinking of his apparent connection with this planet. He holds out his hand, turning it over. Dissolves his mask and looks at his warped reflection in the shine of the ship’s metal. He strips off his armour and goes to confront Lance, the leader.
Lance notices his entry first, turning around to greet him but double takes at the sight of his chiselled body covered in what is essentially spandex-adjacent.

“Nice to finally see your face…and of course you have a mullet.” He says
.
“Hey Keith, I wanted to know how this is powered – it’s so thin and compact the energy source must be…” Pidge trails off while she continues to fiddle with the device in her hands.

Keith marches up to Lance, clears his throat and crosses his arms. “Um, I require your time for um some information gathering?” He stutters out.

Lance stares wide-eyed at him, glancing briefly to Pidge and Hunk who are giving him a similar confused look. He hurriedly gets out of the pilot seat and brushes his clothes from imaginary dust.

“Oh uh, yeah sure, let’s get out of here, oh unless you want to talk in here.” He rubs the back of his neck, feeling the embarrassment of completely fumbling his words in front of a hot guy- NO it’s because he’s a stranger.

Keith also rubs his neck, “We can go outside.” The two walk out with Pidge sticking her tongue out at Lance as he passes.

As they walk beneath the clear night sky, Lance asks him, “so what’s up?”

Keith sighs and takes a deep breath in, feeling the wind jostle his hair.

“Does the name Keith Kogane mean anything to you?”

“Uhhh, apart from it being your name? Not really.”

Keith nods, he expected as much. “To be honest I don’t know why I look like you. I don’t know where my name came from.

Lance blinks, looks Keith up and down and chuckles.

“I’m sorry, very philosophical I guess and I don’t think we look that much alike.”

“No, we do!” Keith says irritated, he pauses and turns to Lance gesturing to his face. Lance observes his facial features up close, leaning in with a hand on his chin and squinting. Keith starts to feel heat rushing to his face at the close attention, which Lance notices and backs away, a slight blush on his cheeks.

“Yeah I still don’t think we look that much alike.”

Keith sighs and the two keep walking. “You’ll get what I mean eventually. But more importantly, I wanted to talk to you about the state of your planet’s defences and the whereabouts of the Voltron lion.”

“Oops I think you’re speaking gibberish, maybe switch to the southern accent?” Lance jokes.

“Are you not the leader of your planet?”

“Pshhh, no I meant I’m basically the leader of our entourage.”

“So you’re not the leader of your planet?”

“Far from it, I’m just a boy from Cuba trying to become a pilot and go to space! Also this planet doesn’t have just 1 leader Keith, wakey wakey.” He clicks his fingers at Keith which Keith hisses at.

“So who are the leaders then? Actually I don’t need your leaders I just need whoever’s in charge and knows anything about your planet’s defences.”

Lance sighs, “Listen, Keith – my man – it’s been a long day and clearly you’re a little confused about things so how about we rest and talk to the others about whatever it is you need.”

Keith glares at Lance. Lance looks tiredly back at him, pleading to let him go.

“Your people have known peace too long, it’s making you weak.” Keith criticises.

“Hey! Your people? Where the hell did you drop from? and who’re you calling weak?!”

“You heard me.”

Lance chances a glance at Keith’s muscled body and remembers how he knocked out the garrison staff before.

“Grrr, shut up dumbass-” Lance says as he stomps away, “-there’s more to people than just strength. How about some heart huh?” He throws his hands up. Keith scoffs but relents and the two head back to the ship.

-

The healing pod opens with a whoosh of condensed air escaping. Keith responds immediately and runs to help Lance out.

“Lance!” Pidge and Hunk cheer.

“Hey guys,” Lance responds with a groan. “What are you guys talking about?”

“The garrison.” “You.” “Nothing important.” They answer simultaneously.

“Oh, riveting.”

“Do you feel okay?” Keith asks with concern.

“Yeah I’m just a little drowsy. Don’t give me that look Keith, we may not be space ninjas but we have the indominable human spirit.”

Silence. Hunk and Pidge are cringing at Lance.

“I’m glad you’re okay.” Keith responds and Lance lightly backhands Keith’s shoulder away.

“Shall we head back to the princess’ beck and call?” Lance suggests as he slides on his paladin armour.

-

The paladins walk towards the observatory deck, chatting on the way. Their chatter immediately dies down when they make eye contact with Axca and Zethrid waiting outside.

“Lance! Good to see you’re okay.” Shiro holds out a hand and Lance claps it.

“Yeah, that kick was nothing.” Lance says as he glances at Acxa who is leaning against the wall with her arms crossed. She looks at him with sharp eyes, but otherwise barely acknowledges him. He frowns but a blush forms on his cheeks.

“He has a type.” Pidge says as she elbows Hunk. She immediately sits on the steps and starts working on her device. Keith is squinting at Lance, a frown on his lips before he turns to glare Acxa down who meets the challenge. Lance is looking between the two with an innocent blush still painted on his face. Zethrid and Shiro are laughing about something together. Hunk sighs. Sometimes he feels like he’s the only normal person here.

The doors open and Axca immediately runs to Lotor.

“Princess! Coran!”

Allura looks to Lotor with noticeably less distrust. Lance squints his eyes at them.

“Paladins, we have come to an agreement and we are following Lotor’s direction.” She nods resolutely at them all and they all trust her decision. “Lotor, care to explain?”

“Of course princess but before I do, generals, I require your absence.”

“Why?” Acxa asks baffled.

“I will alert you when and where you are needed but at the moment, the compromise is that you are not privy to the actions Voltron will be taking from here on.”

“I understand.”

“Well I don’t!” Zethrid yells.

“Lotor will be okay with us, isn’t that right princess?” Shiro assures and Allura nods with a smile.

“Please generals, I ask that you trust me and that you trust Voltron. ”

Acxa and Zethrid stand straight and salute. Then they take their leave.

Lotor smiles fakely at the paladins who await his plan. “Now that the galra are gone, we can discuss how to take down the empire.”

“You want to take down the empire?” Hunk asks unsure.

“It begins with my origins-”

Lance and Pidge groan.

-

By the end of Lotor’s explanations everyone is staring in various stages of open-mouthed disbelief.

“Now we have definitive proof that Haggar is Altean, and ancient Altean at that.” Coran says excitedly.

“That witch is not my mother, but yes Haggar is Altean.” Lotor relents and Allura puts a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“Ooookay, so now we know what’s up with you. What’s up with us?” Lance asks sassily as his hands clap together and cut between Lotor and Allura, separating their contact. He gives Allura a confused look, in more ways than one.

“Once we have the ore, I will pass it to my generals and it will buy plenty of time for us to find Oriande.”

“How can you guarantee Haggar won’t transform the ore into what could be another Voltron?” Shiro asks.

“Because my generals will transform it into our own ship that Haggar won’t be able to touch.” Shiro nods and a slight purple hue glazes over his eyes briefly. “Don’t worry, it will be a while before Haggar catches on to what I’m up to and then even more time to catch up with Voltron...granted, you are assisting?”

"Of course we will be assisting," Allura confirms.

“Oriande is a folk-tale and little is known about it...let alone if it even exists," Coran muses. "At least Lotor’s stone guarantees that it exists somewhere and with Voltron, we are sure to eventually find it.”

“Respectfully princess, why can’t we mobilise Voltron against the Galran empire instead of doing all of this?” Keith asks with voice tense.

“Knowing the witch is Altean changes a lot of things. She has unknown power, untapped potential, and too much drive. Lotor and I need to be able to match her with her magic in order to truly put an end to things.”

“Okay, I’m on board so far. Where do we start?” Shiro asks.

“First stop is the ore, and the abandoned Altean ship attached.”

Chapter Text

The castle of lions reaches the coordinates following Lotor’s information. They all look around with baited breaths when they find a bright ship half encased by light. Allura and Coran look closely at it and gasp, turning to each other with tears. They hug each other, and Allura turns to Lotor before enveloping him in a tight hug he initially hesitates with but eventually melts into.

“Pshhh, lame.” Lance criticises.

"Weren't you the one that insisted Keith get better at hugging people?" Hunk accuses.

“You bully me when I don't do it properly,” Keith cuts in.

“Ohhh okaaay then, I will take credit for all your good behaviour then.” Lance smirks back and Keith scrunches his nose at him.

“Gross.” Pidge says looking at both pairs.

They enter their lions, with Allura holding Lotor as a passenger, and pass through the rift that encases the ship.

“I believe this is a strange wormhole of sorts, the numbers are all over the place. We’re not in the same place we were before at least.” Pidge reports.

“Paladins, we have our orders. We investigate this ship and then head back. Let’s not get distracted.” Keith orders.

“10-4,” the humans reply.

The lions dock on top of the ship and the team leaves to sneak onboard, beginning their investigations. As they progress through the dark and quiet hallways, they can tell something’s up but for the most part, it's almost completely empty. At a certain point in their investigations, Keith and Lotor suddenly become alert, gazes flicking around the hallway in paranoia.

“What’s wrong?” Lance asks and pulls out his bayard.

“Lotor?” Allura questions as she gently touches his arm and tightens her grip on her staff. At everyone's sudden alertness, Hunk hoists up the hulking weight of the gatling gun and steps in front of the group.

“We’re not alone.” Lotor responds, and Keith nods in agreement. Allura stands protectively in front of Lotor with her weapon raised as the group continues traversing through the ship but with significantly more caution. Lance watches Keith in the corner of his eyes, marveling at the focus and concentration and notices that him and Lotor seem to adjust their attention in sync, reacting to what seems to be the same thing.

Lance chuckles. “I don’t know what you two are hearing or sensing but do either of you know if it’s dangerous?”

“Can’t tell, it’s very consistent.” Keith replies.

“What is consistent?” Lance asks. At that moment, Lotor stops walking and looks around him.

“We’ll find out soon.” Keith responds. The group pauses because, around the corner of the hallway behind them, they start to hear heavy marching and when they turn, they are greeted by Altean soldiers wielding shiny weaponry.

“Alteans!” Allura cries out in relief.

“Halt! Who are you and what are you doing on this ship?”

“We mean no harm!” Allura responds with her arms held up.

“Queen Allura?”

"Queen?" Pidge questions and glances up at Lotor whose eyes narrow in understanding.

Upon seeing Allura, the Alteans lower their weapons.

“I am Princess Allura.” She answers slowly.

“Fascinating! You look exactly like Queen Allura, you must be her but…different. Is that a Galran with you?” The whole room's attention shifts from the princess to Lotor who sighs at the unnecessary trouble.

“Yes I am Galra, but I am also Altean,” He reassures.

“Remarkable! Queen Allura died thousands of years ago along with most of the Galra! What is going on? For lord’s sake, everyone put your weapons down, we are in the presence of two remarkable people. Please, walk with me.” The leading Altean beckons.

“Keith is Galra too.” Pidge teases and Keith slaps a hand on her mouth.

"Shut up Pidge," Lance scolds then drags her in closer and with a whisper, "they might probe him." The two of them giggle to each other and Keith quickly turns to a neutral Hunk who whispers next to his helmet. Keith flushes and wishes he had his Marmoran helmet instead of the paladin one since it would hide his shock.

"Lance shut up!" Keith yells in indignation.

It makes Lance and Pidge giggle more then Lance throws an arm around an angry Keith's shoulders. "Don't worry mi cariño, we'll protect you."

Keith flushes more, but this time it's not from being the butt of a joke. "No more about this," he huffs.

"Yes sir," Pidge salutes half-heartedly.

Meanwhile, ahead of them the Alteans are walking in tense silence. Lotor and Allura are murmuring to each other as the Altean general leads them to what appears to be the ship's control room. Pidge's suspicion is raised when she catches a soldier's unchanging, blank look under the softer glow of the new room. She tugs on Lance and Hunk's arm and gestures with her head for them to step away.

"We'll stay out of your way princes- Queen Allura," Pidge announces and she hopes Allura picks up on her tone.

"Oh certainly, that's okay right?" She asks the Altean general who nods, albeit tensely.

"Exercise caution," Lotor warns, which to the outsider seems like the words of a protective leader but the paladins know the man to not be such a man.

Keith doesn't seem to budge with the rest of them so Lance discreetly grabs Keith's hand which stuns the man enough to pull him away without a fuss."

-

“-so Griffin chased us through the quarters with peanut butter still smeared on his face until Professor Adam got us all in trouble. I made a vow to Hunk to never attempt twerking again.” Lance shares and Hunk groans at the memory.

“Woah, that’s crazy I knew they paired us all cus you guys were hella trouble and I was a model student,” Pidge gloats.

“What’s peanut butter? What’s twerking?” Keith asks distressed, completely not following.

“Pidgey pidge you’re secretly glad we were all paired, actually it might be fate.” Lance wraps his arm around Pidge’s shoulders, leaning heavily on her. "Look how well we work together."

“Peanut butter is a sort of spread that is quite delicious in different dishes.” Hunk explains to Keith. “Twerking is…I guess it’s a dance move using your butt?”

“Like this!” Lance jumps in front of them all dramatically and bends his knees pointing his ass at them all.

“Oh for god’s sake!” Pidge yells out while Keith is staring open-mouthed with mild concern but feels his temperature rising.

"Stop! We need to be paying attention to our surroundings!" Keith bellows out and a resounding thunk immediately halts the idle conversation of the group. Metal drops suddenly from above, quickly followed by two figures as the paladins each pull out their bayards.

Keith's eyes widen and he orders, "Hold!"

“Shiro?-” Hunk questions. One of the figures in front of them looks exactly like Shiro if the man had a different haircut.

“Who are you?” The Shiro look-a-like says in a voice starkly different from their Shiro.

“Slav!” Lance yells out with a pointed finger.

“How do you know my name?” Not-slav responds. “Oh. Where you come from, does everyone have big ears?”

“Uhhhh no?” Hunk says with his hands up - an automatic response to confusion.

“...but where we come from, princess Allura is alive, Alteans are gone, and the Galra are common and feared…” Pidge says slowly, working something out in her head. Then something clicks with her and Slav and they point to each other.

“You are not from our reality!” “This is an alternate dimension!” They say simultaneously.

“Huh?”

-

“Allura, Lotor! In this universe, the Alteans are bad!” Lance yells as the paladins run through the ship with two mysterious strangers tagging behind and shots being fired from behind them.

“What an awful thing to say!” Allura says. “Who are these people?! And why are you causing so much trouble?”

“Princess, I think they’re right.” Lotor interjects as he tugs on her shoulder to pull her away from the scientist she had been speaking with. "The trans-reality comet is right there. It’s probable this is a different reality.”

“Oh wow, Lotor is pretty sharp.” Pidge admires whilst shielding from a shot. "I guess that's what hundreds of years of warfare does."

“Allura! Don’t listen to them, nothing we do is bad! It’s all for the sake of the universe and if you help us retrieve that ore we can do many more amazing things,” the Altean general pleads and her sincerity tugs on Allura's heart.

“They’re brainwashing everyone! There’s no real peace, there’s just a controlled reality with only the Alteans in charge!” Not-Shiro says.

“Shiro?!”

“You have to trust him Allura.” Keith says with a fierce look in his eyes. Allura gulps and turns back to the Altean general.

“I’m sorry, this sounds like a wonderful place but I can’t help but think that you're selectively holding information back from me. I have to trust my friends’ judgement,” she explains with furrowed brows.

“Then you have betrayed all of us.” The general responds and pulls a gun out on Allura.

“Princess!” Lotor calls out and reacts quickly but not quick enough to protect her. Fortunately, Allura quickly parries with her bayard’s polearm. "So it's true then." She lunges towards the general.

They fight through their whole escape to the lions and leave with a bitter taste in their mouths.

“We’re taking the ore.” Allura says with darkness in her voice. Lotor places a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“I hope this universe can be freed one day…” Pidge says quietly.

-

With the retrieval of the ore, they reunite with Coran and update him on everything they encountered. Their observations and opinions coming together to form the conclusion that in that alternate reality, the Alteans wiped out the Galra and became the universe's oppressors. Coran's mood becomes low from this knowledge.

"I'm sorry Coran," Allura apologises with a balled-up fist pressing against her eyes.

"There is nothing either of us could have done and now we can learn from their mistakes and bring true peace to our universe."

Lance glances towards Keith standing across from him, noticing that the man has his head lowered almost in defeat. Strange. A sturdy hand on his shoulder drags his attention away and he looks up at Shiro who is watching Lotor intently.

"Peace is complicated," Shiro says and Lance's shoulders sag.

"Yeah."

As agreed upon, Lotor contacts his generals and they all await their arrival whilst discussing their plans for Oriande. A brief and private chat between Lotor and his generals is not missed by a watchful Keith or a reliable Shiro but the two of them keep it to themselves with a wordless nod.

-

Keith contacts Kolivan, asking for updates and what the recent missions are like. Afterwards, he approaches Shiro to talk to him. The conversation ends with Shiro patting Keith’s shoulder comfortingly. Keith seeks out the rest of the paladins and Coran to let them know his plans. He passes Pidge and Hunk in the kitchen together and they hug him sadly.

“We’ll miss you, stay safe.”

“I will.”

Then Keith runs into Coran and Allura walking together through the hall.

“That’s wonderful, but stay safe. And stay in contact.”

“I will.”

Then Keith seeks out Lance for a while, not finding him on the observation deck or his room. He ends up finding him in the training room facing off against the Altean training sentry with blaster in hand.

“The sentry is good practice for close combat.” Keith says as greeting.

“Holy crow what are you doing here?” Lance startles and fumbles a bit with his footing but manages to land a clean shot in the sentry’s leg, incapacitating it. “End training sequence. I guess why wouldn't you be here earlier is a better question.”

“Are you practicing to face close combat?” Keith places his bags down and stretches out his limbs.

Lance eyes the bag and a foreboding sense creeps up. "Lotor’s general gave me a good scare, I don’t want to be caught off guard at the very least.” Lance’s bayard dissolves as Keith approaches and Keith gestures for him to get into a fighting stance. Keith begins to slowly run Lance through combat movements and to Lance, the gentleness feels like a dance instead of the brutal training it's meant to be. It creates a tense quietness between them. “You’re leaving.” Lance confronts as he gently blocks with his forearms.

“...How’d you know?” Keith asks, not that he needs the answer but because he doesn't know what else to say.

“Just…everything lately. Your bag was the ultimate giveaway but you’ve been wanting to get back for so long. I get it you know?” Keith is silent before he starts speeding up his movements forcing Lance to respond. “Hey!” Then Keith manages to cross Lance’s arms before kneeing them both upwards, sending his arms flailing up. With Lance's arms raised, Keith uses the opportunity to wrap himself around Lance in a hug. “I didn’t know people hugged in close combat,” he jokes but squeezes his arms around Keith’s broad shoulders. "You're not going to throw me now are you?"

“You’re getting better.” Keith says into Lance’s shoulder.

“Haha thanks, a war really changes a man. You be safe while you’re gone, you don’t have your favourite sharpshooter anymore to look after you.”

“...I know.” Keith feels a deep yearning in his chest.

“I’m gonna miss you, Keith,” Lance says, concealing the shake in his voice and the guilt of being happy that he won't have to compete for Red. Perhaps there was more to Keith leaving...

“Mm.”

“Not even going to say it back wow.”

“I’m gonna miss you too.”

Lance chuckles then turns his head upwards and sighs. He pats Keith’s shoulder to signal time’s up. Keith unwraps himself and they look into each other’s eyes for a moment, looking for something. Lance smiles back and it shocks Keith out of his daze so he turns around to leave before it's too late.

“Who am I going to bully now?” Lance calls out as Keith passes through the doorway. Keith smiles back and throws up a middle finger. “Shouldn’t have taught him that one.” Lance chastises himself.

Chapter Text

“Okay paladins! We are a member down which in this profession means A LOT. Let us use this time for some theatre!” Coran announces with growing excitement. The paladins groan but Lance hollers.

“Alright! Razzle dazzle!”

-

“If Allura can sit out cus she’s doing important Oriande business, can’t I sit out to do important…tech business?” Pidge asks annoyed. The stupidly large cloak on her sags off one of her shoulders.

“No can do missy! Many people love the green paladin! If you leave the productions, who is going to talk about the fancy science things?!” Coran laughs to himself and walks away, ignoring the plight of his paladin.

Pidge groans loudly and throws her cloak onto the floor before stomping away. "Science is basically your guys' alchemy!" She cries out.

"Sure!" Coran answers, still not understanding what the word 'science' is referring to.

-

As Coran starts getting more unhinged with his ‘diplomatic productions’, the crowds undoubtedly start getting bigger and bigger. Allura decides to join one of the productions at Coran's begging.

"Please Princess! We need Voltron!"

"You actually need Voltron?"

"Yes! For the stage production!"

"For the stage production..."

“Oh and you have to pretend to be Keith.”

“Huh????”

-

Lotor and Allura are browsing archives in the castle in companionable silence, trying to find new leads on Oriande’s location since the previous ones were a bust. Lotor’s eyes widen at the screen, and he looks to Allura who is glued on a digitalised map and engrossed in translating the positioning of planets and universes to the current time. She’s so immersed in it that she doesn’t realise Lotor is now watching her fondly. He reaches over and taps her arm.

“Found something, can you look at it?”

“Of course.” She pulls her chair closer and leans into him to read the writing closer.

He smirks a little at her, “I saw your performance by the way.”

“Oh and what did you think?” She asks teasingly.

Lotor pretends to think for a beat. “I personally think Keith would have been more violent towards the attacking forces but you did a pretty good job at being grouchy.” They laugh together. “Lance is quite a performer though.”

“Yes he’s brilliant, Coran makes him the star every time because the fans go crazy.” Allura chuckles.

“He is a natural performer I think he has a real future in it if this war allows for it.”

-

Keith is watching his device under the covers of his bed when one of his eight Marmora roommates yanks the cover off. Keith blinks owlishly up at Xax who looks down at him with confusion.

“Are you watching the paladins’ universe tour?”

“Is that what it’s called?”

“...is that the part where the blue paladin dances from a rope attached to the red lion?”

“Yeah that’s Lance.”

“...is it weird that he’s dancing from your lion?”

“Technically it’s his now.”

“Right but the Altean princess plays as you…the red paladin.”

“Oh what?” Keith asks stupidly.

“...yeah did you skip that part?”

“Uhh, probably.”

“Right…are you just watching the blue paladin…?”

“No!” Keith snags the covers from Xax’s hands and covers himself again. “What did you need?” He asks muffled.

“Nothing, I was just wondering what the lump was.”

Keith groans.

-

“Sal! The customers!” An Unilu is running about the kitchen whilst the head chef Sal leans against a bench distracted by the contents of the TV.

Sal squints his eyes at the paladins, and specifically Hunk on screen. He glances at the long line of customers most likely waiting for the dish Hunk curated for the pop-up restaurant and heads to the counter to take orders.

“What do you want?”

“I heard the yellow Paladin worked here before!” A customer is saying excitedly whilst clasping their hands together.

“Okay yeah got it, Next!”

-

Matt and the rebels are hanging out by a riverbank, drying their clothes after a recent mission. The group of them laugh at Matt’s device that is displaying the antics of the paladins’ performances. Matt laughs especially hard whenever Pidge is on screen.

“That’s my sister!”

“We know!”

“Is Lance with your sister?”

“Ew no what gave you that idea?”

“I was just asking!” The rebel who asked then blushes.

Matt gives them a judgemental look. “Pidge is not interested.”

“Oh...Lance?”

“Oh that’s what it’s about!" Matt cries out in relief. "Lance would probably be interested but you’ll have to fight Keith for it.” Matt waves his hand dismissively.

-

“Good job paladins! Another day, another planet joining the Voltron coalition!”

“Coran good work with the shows! Lotor and I are onto something with Oriande but he needs to go back to manage his empire. There is news of insurgents and numerous power struggles.”

“As long as you think it’s safe to have him go back.” Shiro reassures. Allura nods and addresses the paladins.

“My attention can now be given to Voltron, so what is the plan from here?”

“The plan is that Keith will be back in the shows!”

Allura’s face slowly drops into a scowl and Lance finger guns at her. “Nice! Getting into character already I like it!”

Chapter Text

“Attention Lieutenants, do you copy?” No answer. Lotor frowns, adjusting his ship’s speed as he approaches what is supposed to be his primary fleet. “Attention Lieutenants, this is your emperor speaking.” A communication line opens up but it is not to Lotor’s relief.

“You are no emperor,” Sendak drawls out with a wicked smirk, emphasising each word.

“General Sendak…So good to see you, pray tell what are you doing on my ship?” Lotor narrows his eyes.

“Who do you think let me in? Your own soldiers of course.”

“You’ll have to forgive me but I highly doubt that.” Lotor shifts his gears and turns his ship away from his fleet.

“You’re right, your soldiers let in Zarkon’s witch first. I don’t want anything to do with your half-breeds but they have been quite useful in regaining my power. I don’t expect I’ll see you at the crowning ceremony will I?”

Lotor’s face twitches. “I wasn’t aware the ceremony was taking place.”

“You really think you’re the emperor because you’re the bastard son of Zarkon? Pathetic. He banished you long-ago there is no chance the empire will ever trust you.”

“...Then I will take it by force.” Lotor finishes with gritted teeth before cutting off the communication line. He sends out an encoded signal that he knows will pick up the right people who know what to look for.

-

Ezor elbows Zethrid for her attention and the pair look to Narti who is signing something with her hands. The two nod and split in different directions. Narti finds Acxa and signals her similarly followed shortly by Acxa nodding. The two head to the hangar where they meet up with the other two who had prepared ships for each of them. They open the hanger with alarms blaring and quickly fly out of the larger ship housing them all, followed quickly by sentries giving chase. The women easily evade and subdue their pursuers, quickly following after the signal Narti had detected.

They find Lotor’s familiar ship drifting slowly in space and the group reunites properly on a nearby planet to discuss.

“So you are now working for the witch.” Lotor says lowly as a greeting.

“Lotor, we don’t know how the witch kept finding us. She was relentless, we couldn’t undergo any operation without her interference. It was always futile somehow.” Acxa tries to explain.

“And the Sincline?” Lotor asks annoyed.

“...It’s being developed by Haggar now…”

Lotor slams his fist on a tree causing a crack to sprout out along the bark. Ezor tries to reason, “With the new emperor still in contention, the power struggle was getting out of hand in the empire. The witch isn't full Galra either so of all adversaries to be caught by, is it really that bad to have been her?” Ezor reasons.

Lotor rubs his temples. “We have lost our main fleet, and my trans reality ore is now in the hands of the witch…The only good news is that I have Voltron on my side now.” Lotor sits down on a protruding rock and places his chin in his hand, thinking deeply. “You're right, even though that witch is not Galra, she will support anyone she can control. Sendak is her puppet and we're her collateral. When will the ship be completed?”

“It was about halfway done last we checked.” Zethrid answers.

“No matter, I know who can finish the rest of my ship. I am going to have Voltron attack Zarkon’s fleet, and we will steal back my ship .” Lotor decides. He stands up and starts heading back into his pod.

“Respectfully Lotor, you are losing support the longer you are away from the empire. You cannot stay with Voltron any longer,” Acxa calls out.

“So it seems, I will only give them directions and then we will be on our own way, repairing this empire.”

“Yes sir.”

Once Lotor’s in his ship, he rubs a thumb over the communication line Allura presented him with. Then he hails a communication line with Voltron from the device.

“Oh Lotor, you’re a bit of a ways away aren’t you?” Coran greets, looking up at his panel to see the location of the signal.

“Yes, is Shiro there?”

“I’m here.” Shiro enters the screen.

“I am going to send you coordinates, that is where Zarkon’s main fleet is currently. His witch is planning something big but it’s not complete yet. I recommend Voltron launch an all-out attack on the fleet before they finish whatever they’re working on.”

“...may we know what to expect?”

Lotor falters a bit before making something up. “A cannon, one that decimates planets.”

“So Haggar is truly developing that weapon. We heard rumblings of that going around the coalition forces, thank you for the added intel.”

Lotor stares a little baffled, not having known the cannon was real. Added concern paints over his face at the thought that the empire was going to be rubble from its own people sooner than expected.

“When can you attack?” Lotor asks.

“This is a big operation no doubt, I want to enlist the help of our allies first and make a good plan. Short answer is: I’m not sure, keep in contact if you have information, it will help us a lot.”

Lotor nods and before he bids goodbye he quickly asks, “and how’s the princess?”

“She’s fine!” Lance insists as he pushes into Shiro’s space to be seen on screen. The boy is pouting angrily up at the screen.

“That’s good…I will keep in contact, goodbye for now paladins.” Lotor disconnects the line and sighs. When he leaves the privacy of his ship, he is surprised to see Narti waiting outside with his cat on her shoulders. “Narti? What is the purpose of this?”

Narti looks up at him with her usual blank expression and the cat meows. She then walks away with no answer.

-

“See what we were talking about Lotor?!” Zethrid grunts out as she evades the Galra jets on her tail. The group had started roaming between planets when they were attacked by an armada that seemed to come out of nowhere.

“I see indeed.” Lotor grunts and barrel rolls as he fires his blasters. “Retreat!” The group try their best to lose their pursuers and wind up roughly landing on another planet, hidden in foliage. “Everyone out.” Lotor commands. The group leave their ships and escape on foot, hiding behind and beneath anything. Their pursuers are quick to follow them, tracking down their ships and then following the path the group had run previously.

“They know exactly where we are at all times,” Acxa tells Lotor from their dual hiding spot behind the large trunk of a tree. Lotor frowns and the two attack the soldiers heading towards them. Ezor climbs up the trees and hops around alerting them of all the positions of the sentries and soldiers. The group use the wilderness to their advantage as they surprise attack their hunters. Zethrid hauls back one galra soldier who she dumps at Lotor’s feet.

“How do you know where we are?” Lotor asks, flicking his hair back with a puff of exhaustion.

“Victory or death!” The soldier yells but Ezor jumps onto her from the canopy before the soldier even has the chance to get up.

“Narti.” Lotor orders and Narti steps up to touch the head of the soldier. She sees flashes of Haggar and of the view of the inside of a Galra fleet. “Haggar?” Lotor questions. Then he turns around to think for a moment and the cat rubs itself against his legs. The cat that provides sight to his general. The cat that was once his wretched mother's... “I understand now.” He says with a sigh. He brandishes his sword and the Galra soldier growls, then SLICE.

“Huh?”

The others react with shock, looking at each other with confusion. Narti remains still before her head falls off her shoulders. Lotor flicks the blood from his sword and marches out of the cave.

“Now our witch problem is gone.” He scowls out with tired and angry eyes.

Chapter Text

Lotor’s generals sit in their respective ships in various stages of discomfort. Ezor has hugged her knees to her chest, Zethrid is unusually quiet, and Acxa tries her best to remain unfaltered - trusting in her leader.

“We’ve been cruising for a while now and no sign of the Galra.” Acxa reports.

“Excellent, we can get onto more important things now that they’ve lost their tail on us,” Lotor says.

Ezor gnaws at her lip and Zethrid’s face pops up on her communciation line.

“We’ll be okay.” Zethrid reassures. Ezor tries her best to return a smile.

-

“Paladins to deck!” Coran announces over the castle’s loudspeakers.

“Lance can you contact Keith?” Shiro asks.

“Oh uh, why not Kolivan?”

“Tried, he’s busy.”

“I see, I see…why do you think I can contact Keith?”

“...didn’t he give you a communicator back on Earth?”

“Rightttt, let’s say he did - how would you know?”

“Lance,” Shiro sighs and places a hand on Lance’s shoulder. “We know you have the line just try it please.” Shiro pleads.

“Okay whatever you say Boss, but I just want you to know that I’ve never used it before...so I don't know if it will still work,” Lance assures and smoothly slinks to his paladin seat to retrieve a device from the compartment inside. Shiro looks at him with tired eyes.

“You know Adam is my fiance right?”

“Well…ex-fiance now?”

“You little shit.” Shiro mumbles before turning away to greet the paladins entering the deck. “I’m just saying you can talk to me.” Shiro says softly to Lance who waves a dismissive hand.

“What’s going on?” Allura asks as she enters. Pidge bounds to her designated seat.

“We received a transmission from Lotor.”

“Oh! We did?” Allura tries to hide her excitement but fails tremendously.

“He confirmed the reports we’ve been receiving from the blades and the rebels. They’re building planet-decimating cannons.”

The tension increases in the room as the other members of the group become privy to the valuable information.

“Oriande can wait,” Allura sighs and walks to the centre of the room to interact with the castle’s maps and communication lines. “We should firstly contact the blades and the rebels to warn them since they’re on the front lines.”

“I’m hailing Keith right now.” Lance supplies helpfully.

“I’ll contact Matt, he’s close with the captain.” Pidge says as she types away on her devices.

“But do we know how to take them down?” Hunk asks meekly.

“We are sorely lacking on information, but thankfully Lotor seems to have insider knowledge,” Shiro reassures.

“Keith?” Lance says, everyone turns to him and he turns back to the device nervously.

“I’m okay Lance, you don’t have to check on me all the time.”

“Oh uh, no I don’t!” Lance turns slightly to gauge the reactions of the others in the room hoping they didn’t hear. Pidge is looking at him with a disgusted face. Damn. “ahem, ANYWAYS - we tried contacting Kolivan but it seems he’s busy.”

Lance lifts the device so that the rest of the people in the room are captured on the screen. Keith nods awkwardly at everyone. “Oh uh, yeah Kolivan’s on a mission to investigate some cannons the Galra are building.”

“That’s exactly what we wanted to talk to you about.” Shiro says with relief. “Lotor contacted us, he confirmed that the Galra are building planet-decimating cannons. We wanted to spread the news around the Voltron coalition and hopefully get our leaders together to discuss what we can do.”

Keith nods with understanding. “I will warn all the blade members over our comms and once Kolivan gets back, I will let him know to contact you as soon as possible. Thank you for the update paladins.”

“Don’t be a stranger Keith!” Hunk calls from the back with a wave of his arm.

“Haha, will do Hunk.”

“Yeah okay that’s it! Bye Keith!” Lance rushes and turns the device around to whisper quickly, “and I’m glad you’re still okay.” Then he quickly shuts off the line before Keith can respond and put him in an awkward spot with the others in the room.

“Matt messaged me back that Captain Olia will be contacting us soon.” Pidge rests her arms on her console and turns to Coran operating the main one.

“We need to figure out where these cannons are and their construction progress.” Allura says with her hand on her chin. “This is very worrying indeed, what could the purpose of the canons be but to destroy planet after planet?”

“Incoming transmission!” Coran announces. Captain Olia’s fluffy face opens on their screens and she greets them all.

“We wanted to know if you’ve heard more about those cannons we talked about before?” Pidge asks.

“Unfortunately we did, our rebel forces failed in a prisoner extraction because a cannon unlike anything we’ve seen before destroyed the entire facility in one blow. We luckily got away with minor injuries but the prisoners…”

“That’s horrible, but do you think the power of that blast was enough to destroy a planet?”

“If their goal is to do so, it will be easy to tweak that weapon to do it. Considering its firepower and given the size, there’s no question that a bigger one can do some real permanent damage. Question is, what's powering it?”

“So we know now that they’re making quite a bit of progress on its development…” Shiro says.

“We would like to discuss in conjunction with the blades what we shall do about this issue. We need all the information each side can provide and we need a detailed plan.” Allura commands.

“Of course, I will send Matt to you. I hope that we can come to a solution soon. I will bid you goodbye now, keep in touch.”

The paladins voice their farewells as Olia shuts off the communication line.

“So now we’re waiting for Matt to come and for Kolivan to contact us back.” Hunk summarises. “We should run a castle diagnostic in the meantime considering we might need everything in tip-top shape.”

“Wonderful idea number 2!” Hunk and Pidge file out with Coran but Pidge levels Lance with a look.

“Not you.”

“What?! Why?!”

“You’re too distracting.” Then Pidge turns away and trails after the others.

Lance huffs annoyed and turns back to Shiro and Allura who are already discussing something in detail. Presumably their battle plans. Lance groans and heads to the training room.

Chapter Text

“Princess, I’ve just finished speaking with Kolivan.” Shiro says as he pops his head into the archives room that Allura holes herself up in with her free time.

“What did he report?”

“Their mission into the cannons was successful and they’ve got the locations of all of them. There’s only two but given the knowledge from the rebels, they may already be completed and ready for use.”

Allura frowns and stands up to walk with Shiro back to the observatory deck. “We have to prioritise destroying them and, assuming that they’re completed,…our initial plan won’t cut it here. Where are the cannons?”

“One cannon is on board the empire’s main fleet and the other is on board and confirmed operational on the fleet of Zarkon’s trusted lieutenant.”

“We must contact the rebels and Kolivan again. We will coordinate an attack on all fronts. This will be a full-scale attack and we will need all members of the Voltron coalition to help. This will deal a big blow to the empire and send a message.”

-

All the paladins assemble in the observatory deck with Matt and a communication line opens to show Kolivan looking stoic as usual. Allura takes a brief moment to scan the faces of everyone in the room. They all look back at her with resolve painted on their features, it brings back memories of the last few times this room had been full like so. Full with so many accomplished people too. Determination rises up within her, knowing that all eyes are on the people in this room.

“Ready when you are Princess.” Coran announces and the light dims around her.

Allura breathes in through her nose and out of her mouth. Now is the time to unite the universe. “Greetings everyone,” Allura begins and all around the room, the map of the universe lights up as the transmission reaches across planets far and wide. The others look up in amazement at the sheer number of allies, never before seen. Allura tries not to let it intimidate her. “I am Princess Allura of Altea and the pilot of Voltron’s blue lion. If you are watching this, it is because you have pledged yourself to the Voltron coalition. Now is the time we will be launching a full-scale attack on the Galran empire. I’m sure many of you have heard what will be happening. Today is a day for the history books. There will be losses, but it is today when we the people of the universe make a stand against tyranny.”

From inside Lotor’s personal ship, the transmission plays but no one is in it to hear.

“-Today will pave the way for the future, I hope you are ready to rise up...”

From inside an inconspicuous shipping container, dozens of masked members watch the transmission in silence as the ship jostles them gently. Purple, glowing dots all facing a single direction. Keith squeezes his forearms.

-

“We’re having trouble on our end!” Olia calls over the comms. “Blades?!” She grunts as their ship narrowly evades a stray meteor.

“Just landed now! We’re en-route!” Keith reports. The flock of blades passes through the vegetative terrain like the wind. Quickly shortening the distance on the facility they’re prepared to storm.

“Oh no.” Matt whispers from the piloting seat as he sees the cannon aim towards them.

“Retreat!” Olia commands but the ominous glow and aftershock hits them before some of them can get out of the way.

Over the communication lines, the blades can hear the commotion on the front lines knowing that if they succeed, the losses will be honored.

-

In the far distance behind a large asteroid, Lotor’s crew await the destined battle between Voltron and Zarkon’s main fleet. They hide from the prying eyes of the Voltron coalition and the Galra, awaiting their opportunity to retrieve the Sincline.

“Something’s wrong.” Acxa says.

“Why aren’t all the shields down?” Lotor asks.

“Something must have not worked on their end!” Ezor accuses.

“What should we do Lotor?” Acxa asks. Lotor is silent for a beat in deep contemplation.

“You lot retrieve the ship, I will take down the final shield. Be ready.”

“Copy.” The generals respond.

-

“There’s a third shield!” A rebel yells over the comms. The blades stand alert, awaiting Kolivan’s orders.

“We don’t know what’s fueling that shield.” Kolivan thinks out loud.

“It’s very weak but it’s there! Just one concentrated blast can set it off but we’re overwhelmed and can’t get close enough to plant explosions or even fire at the shield with enough power!” They hear static and grunting from the rebel’s end.

Keith turns into the facility their crew had just successfully neutralised, looking for a ship.

“Yorak, whatever you do you must be careful.” Kolivan warns as the other blades quickly follow in Keith’s steps to find an aircraft. They only find a few.

"The mission must succeed," Keith answers and his ship takes off with haste to meet their allies at Naxcela.

-

"Galra ship incoming!"

A communication line opens up revealing Keith inside a Galran jet. “What’s the situation?!”.

"Keith?!"

“They must have redirected power from the ones in front to prop up this final shield before they were shut down.” Matt responds. “Voltron can’t get in smoothly! And the castle of lions is far too occupied to help!”

Keith quickly assesses the situation, seeing Voltron in the far distance and the spectacular castle of lions taking heavy fire. He grits his teeth and a thousand actions crosses his mind before he decides on one.

“Will the shield go down from a large impact?”

“Yes like a large explosion but we can’t get close enough to detonate anything.” Olia responds.

“...I can get close.” His ship soars straight towards the lion's den.

“Keith?!”

Keith’s ship soars past all the rebel ships docked just outside of range.

“Keith what are you doing?!”

Keith doesn’t answer, too focused on weaving through Galra jets and clearing the way. Multiple times he almost gets wiped out by a fighter but his experience with the paladins has honed his piloting creativity and he evades expertly. He speeds up when he sees the shield getting closer and grips his controls tightly, knowing that this is it for him. Closing his eyes, he sees Earth then the inside of the blades’ base where he grew up. Kolivan, Krolia, and the paladins flicker through his mind. “Stupid space ninja.” Lance teases him for but then he’s turning away, heading into a bright light. Keith’s whole body tenses preparing for impact even though it wouldn’t matter how much he tried to resist the imminent explosion. He opens his eyes to get a last glance at his fate. It was a good run.

The shield dissolves with a resounding shot from above. Keith jolts and reflexively pulls his controls back, body jolting from the sudden change in direction.

“Oh my god, Keith! Thank god!” Keith can hear Matt say over the comms. “Lotor saved you!” He cries out.

“Lotor?” Keith looks up at where the shot originated and sees that it is indeed Lotor’s familiar pod. Keith continues to fly away to safety and is passed by a fully formed Voltron who had sprung to action instantly at the complete falling of the shields. Keith notices Lotor’s ship retreat and he narrows his eyes as he sees three other ships dip behind the enormous metal hull of Zarkon’s fleet. Out of sight.

“Keith get out of there!” Matt reminds him. Keith flies himself out along with the rebel ships to avoid collateral damage. Seeing Voltron operate without him, with him watching as an outsider, it makes him feel a certain pang in his chest. The feeling of yearning, regret, awe, inspiration, hope. He watches Voltron for a moment, knowing that just like all the pilots in there, his mission is not yet over.

-

Lotor’s generals quickly locate the Sincline and pick it up with their ships then fly out, retreating from the conflict.

“Where to now Lotor?” Acxa asks.

“To a pocket in space that only I know of.”

Chapter Text

“This is the quantam abyss!” Zethrid yells out in shock.

“Indeed.” Lotor responds.

“...I’m not sure about this Lotor…what could you possibly have that’s inside there?” Ezor asks hesitantly.

“That’s for you to find out.” Lotor responds uncaring.

The group navigates tricky terrain carefully, following closely to Lotor in the lead with Sincline in tow. Ezor’s flight path gets cut off by a large meteor forcing her to fall behind.

“Wait!” She calls out.

“If we wait we will get caught up in the storm.”

“What will happen to Ezor then?” Zethrid confronts.

“If she gets lost she may get stuck in a slower timespace, so we can find her later and she’ll be fine.”

“And what if she doesn’t get stuck in whatever you say?”

“Well let's hope she doesn’t.”

Zethrid looks behind her at Ezor’s ship struggling to close the distance as more and more obstacles float in front of her, pushing her out of the safe path.

“I’m not leaving her.” Zethrid says before she drops her hold on the Sincline and loses position, heading to Ezor.

“Quiznack,” Lotor curses as he quickly picks up the slack on Sincline, rushing to carry its other side. “If you leave the path you will be lost to time Acxa,” He warns.

Acxa nods with a bead of sweat rolling down her forehead. She chances a glance at her companions, who are still following on behind them. She hopes they can keep up but over time she starts to lose sight of them completely, their trackers no longer providing a signal.

“They’re gone…” Acxa mumbles.

“Yes it is saddening indeed. Had they followed closer to me they would still be safe.”

Acxa swallows, uncertainty gnawing at her throat.

-

“We’re reconvening for the next mission.” A blade says through Keith’s comms. The cannon on the main fleet had been more than neutralised by Voltron, and the mission was a success thanks to the efforts of everyone involved including the ones who sacrificed themselves for the cause. Keith nods and confirms the order from inside the Galran jet but in the background he is trying to contact Voltron. The rebels had followed Voltron back to the Castle of Lions but the Blades had to head back to pick up their fellow compatriots. As is customary for them, the mission doesn’t end at the mere victory of a battle. There will always be more.

“Keith!” Allura answers. The background is full of the rebel alliance jumping around and celebrating with one another. Many are crying.

“Congratulations princess. One major step forward!” Keith reassures, hoping that their spirits aren’t down from the near defeat and the losses.

“Keith!” The other paladins in the background notice him and head closer to the comms. “Good work out there!” Hunk says with tears in his eyes and a cookie in his hand.

Keith smiles warmly and he can’t help but direct his attention to Lance who is celebrating quieter than the others it seems. Lance stands a little behind the paladins and pulls out a device from his paladin armor which Keith recognises is the one he had given Lance on Earth and what Lance has been contacting him through since he left. Lance points to it sheepishly and then hides it back in his armor. Keith beams brightly and returns easily to the conversation with the paladins.

“That was really scary, did the blades’ operation go smoothly?” Pidge asks.

“Uhh yeah it did, but it’s not really blade policy to assess the mission when it hasn’t been finished. We don’t like celebrating early.” He says awkwardly, knowing that he might be bringing down the mood.

“Right, I suppose centuries of fighting against the empire has naturally resulted in cautious rules.” Shiro agrees in understanding.

“Yeah that’s right, but I don’t imagine the blades have encountered anything to worry about so it should be safe to say it was a complete success on our end.”

“Keith, I’ve very glad the blades are always there to help.” Allura says genuinely. “I know I started off with a terrible outlook on your organisation, but now I am eternally grateful for the Galra that make up the Blades of Marmora. I’m sure there are many who are part of the empire but disagree with its idealogy and I hope for a day when we won’t have to guess who we can trust.” She raises a finger to her eye to wipe away an impending tear. Keith struggles with his own emotions a bit but ultimately he feels happiness arise.

“Thank you for what you’ve said princess.” He bows his head a bit.

“No one better piss off Kolivan then cus we want to keep the space ninjas on our side yeah?” Lance jokes, and saunters up to Allura and Pidge with his arms wrapping around their shoulders.

Pidge elbows Lance. “Then better keep your mouth shut!” She jabs.

“Hey I’ll have you know Kolivan would love my charms!” Lance places a sassy hand on his chest. “Clearly the Galra are suckers for human humor, just ask Keith’s mom.”

“Hey! We don’t know anything yet!” Keith blushes.

“Yeah yeah, your mom totally had the hots for a human is that so hard to believe?” Lance challenges.

Keith scrunches his face, trying not to get distracted by Lance. “...I guess it’s not that hard to believe.”

“See! We have nothing to worry about Pidgey, Kolivan should love us.”

“With apprehension…” Pidge answers glancing at Keith who is enthralled by Lance's antics as usual. 'When does this end', Pidge thinks.

“What are you up to now Keith?” Shiro interjects.

“We’re heading back to check on the blades we left behind, then Kolivan has a new briefing for us.”

“You whipper snappers sure are an energetic bunch! I remember when the old paladins would go on mission after mission after mission-” Coran trails off but no one is particularly paying attention to him and Keith sees that he's inebriated.

“Yeah, the universe requires our full attention.” Keith agrees. “I’ll talk to you guys later then.” He bids goodbye to them all. They all respond with their own goodbyes.

“Stay safe!” Lance says with a wave.

“Don’t forget to congratulate yourselves!” Hunk points.

“Talk to you again.” Pidge waves coolly.

“Good talking to you Keith.” “Talk again later.” Shiro and Allura say.

“STAY SAFE!” Lance reminds a second time with utmost seriousness, pushing his face closer into the screen.

“I will Lance! Thanks guys, we will meet again.” Keith finishes then shuts off the comms.

-

“Alteans?!” Acxa gasps as her and Lotor emerge from the forest they landed in. Lotor doesn’t answer her and keeps traversing ahead. Acxa watches as the Alteans gush over Lotor and seem to obey his orders with no question. They part for him like he is their emperor and they look at him as if he is their god. “Who is Lotor to you?” She discreetly asks an Altean as they transport the Sincline.

“What a silly question! He is our saviour! Our beloved hero.” The Altean raises his arms upwards and tilts his head, as if basking in the sky. “And now he has delivered something great to us, we can only be grateful for the opportunity to work on such a thing.” She nods awkwardly muttering a thanks before slinking away. She watches Lotor from afar with arms crossed and head a mess, reminiscing about when she first met him and experienced similar such sentiment.

-

“Dirty half-breed.” A Galra soldier pushes past a small child, nearly knocking them over. Acxa grunts, clutching the token in her hand. She had just stolen a Kythera from an oddly dressed Galran soldier. He seemed important so she had been observing him closely from the moment she saw him. Snatching the opportunity when he carelessly dropped the token on the ground.

“What do you want?” The Galran vendor asks unbothered. Acxa lifts the token in the air, showing off her intentions. The vendor glances between her ragged clothes and the shiny token but chooses to ignore it.

“Exobars please.” She asks. The vendor hands her what appears to be a chocolate bar and flicks her hand to gesture for Acxa to get lost. Acxa happily obeys and walks down the street munching on her savoury treat. She notices that down the street at the intersection the Galra citizens and soldiers stand aside with mixtures of shock, awe, disdain, and respect. She moves to the side, pocketing her treat just in case, awaiting whoever will soon round the corner. A group of Galra soldiers are accompanying the object of fascination who also happened to be the man she stole from. As the group walk further down the street, closer towards Acxa, she hears Galran citizens hissing out insults under their breath.

“Half-blood.” She hears. Her eyes widen and she looks back to the important man with shock. He notices her watching him and observes her for a bit before approaching her. She stands up straighter.

“You stole my…” He turns to the soldier behind him. “What’s it called here?”

“Kythera your highness.”

“I don’t particular care for it but you did steal from me.” He says turning back to Acxa.

“I-” She hesitates, nervous from all the attention.

“You’re a half-breed aren’t you?” The man asks. She feels the world closing in on her, the man suddenly feeling so much bigger than he was before. She nods.

“Curious, and your parents?”

“Mother is the manager of a store, she’s always busy.” Acxa answers nervously.

“Your mother is the Galra?” The man asks with narrowed eyes.

“My father is but he is not permitted to raise me.”

The man crouches down, getting eye-level with Acxa. She gulps and tries to look away politely. The man grabs the bar from her and analyses is for a bit. He chucks it away. Acxa steps forward, reaching a hand out automatically but pulling it back in once she remembers where she is.

“You don’t need that garbage, I will have you eating better food. Come.” The man starts to walk away but gestures her to follow. She obeys, confused. “I am Prince Lotor, I will eventually be the Galran emperor.” Lotor tells her as they march onwards, with the soldiers following behind. “And you will be my loyal soldier.” They pass the street vendor from before who gasps at seeing Lotor. The street vendor looks between Acxa and the entourage, catching Lotor’s attention. “So this is where you purchased that garbage.” Lotor looks closely at the goods available. Then he decides on something that looks colorful and extravagant, tossing more tokens than necessary as payment. Then he walks away and tells Acxa to take it. Her and the vendor share expressions of shock with each other before the vendor passes the good to Acxa. She bites into it with uncertainty, delighted from its wet sweetness. “That’s called fruit, and you need it to grow strong.” Lotor says without looking back at her. She looks at him with increasing veneration. “So child, what’s your name?” He asks.

“Acxa, sir.”

Chapter Text

“Lance I have to go.” Keith sighs for the fifth time with an impending smile behind his hand.

“No no no please stay on the line for a little longer.” Lance drawls out the ‘little’, slowly sliding off the bed where he was hanging off from. “I need to tell you about Alien vs Predator!”

“They met?!” Keith slams his hands on the sides of his console.

“YEAH!”

“…but I really have to go. I’ve already delayed my schedule by quite a bit now.”

“Okay,” Lance sighs out and smirks up at Keith.

“...I don’t need to see more of your muscles Lance.” Keith rolls his eyes. Lance ignores him and goes closer to the camera, capturing his developing calves in the screen. “Very impressive.” Keith says sarcastically.

“I just want you to appreciate my efforts!” Lance dramatically says as he falls back onto the bed.

“I already know your efforts, you’re a very hardworker and you’re making amazing progress.”

“...ew go back to grouchy Keith,” Lance responds jokingly. Keith rolls his eyes and in retaliation flexes his biceps to show off his own muscles.

“Take that,” Keith smirks.

‘Hot…wait no!’ Lance thinks as he frowns back at Keith with blush dusting his cheeks. “Alright quit showing off.”

Keith chuckles, “I really have to go Lance.” Keith shuffles to switch off the comms.

“Adios.” Lance mock salutes with two fingers. Keith pokes out his tongue grossly at the camera, a trait he picked up from Pidge and Lance's immaturity. Then the feed cuts out. Their calls are sporadic and often last barely enough time for Lance to assess Keith's health. Lance throws himself on his bed, bouncing a little, then clutches his chest and curls up.

-

“Let’s go Acxa, we will miss the opportunity if we don’t go now.” Lotor whispers the last part so the Alteans around them can’t hear.

“Will we retrieve Zethrid and Ezor?”

“Of course not, they chose to drift off in the quantum abyss - it was completely avoidable. I need to be at the crowning ceremony. It’s more important now than ever for the future of the empire.” Lotor bids farewell to the Alteans who were more than happy to work on the final construction of his ship before marching off.

“All the insurgent generals will be there...Sendak will be there even if Haggar perished at Naxzela.” Acxa warns.

“The more the merrier, they can witness my prowess. The empire is in shambles and now Voltron has dealt a crushing blow to their power structure.” Lotor turns on Acxa, eyes empty and face slightly sunken. “We’re going.”

-

A small group of blades discreetly sneak into the man-made structures of the crowning ceremony. The operation being of utmost importance coupled with a severe level of danger. Kolivan gets Keith’s attention as they’re shifting around in the shadows.

“Yorak, your mother is on board that general’s ship.” Kolivan directs Keith’s attention towards one of the generals who is arguing with another, each brandishing their choice of weapons. “They will surely wage war on each other, I’m ordering her extraction. You will be responsible so I will provide you coordinates after this.” He says succinctly before moving on to the next pillar.

“Yes sir.” Keith’s heart warms at the thought of seeing his mother again, anticipating the questions he was waiting to ask her about since this fiasco began. But as the blades are getting ready to depart, another ship loudly enters the ceremony and garners attention from all attendees.

“Your true emperor has arrived!”

Keith recognises the voice and glances out from beneath the stands, confirming that indeed Lotor has arrived. Keith looks towards Kolivan who looks back at him with equal confusion.

“What’s he doing here?!”

“We can’t do anything about it now,” Kolivan replies sternly as he wraps up a wire. “It’s a shame but there will be better leaders.”

“He has political power and soldiers. There already exists a following that are keen to move the empire to a new age. We can’t lose him, he’s too valuable.” Keith summarises, annoyed - mostly at Lotor. Keith turns but Kolivan grabs his arm.

“You stay and you jeopordise your chance to see your mother again.”

“I stay, I save Lotor and I will see Krolia. Go.” Keith runs off. Kolivan leaves with the other blade members.

-

Lotor positions himself halfway up the steps, expression challenging anyone who would dare to question his authority.

“This half-breed shouldn’t run our pure empire.”

“He doesn’t have what it takes to make the hard decisions in war!”

“I will never bow down to Zarkon’s bastard son.”

Lotor narrows his eyes at the generals and is surprised when a speedy flash of light weaves through the crowd and meets the generals who had spoken up. They jolt and spasm before landing on the ground with loud thuds. Everyone looks to the source of the magic, already knowing it could only be one person - Haggar. So she survived. Lotor glares at her but tries to cool his expression to seem indifferent.

“Which is why my general will become the emperor,” Haggar snidely says, prompting Sendak to step forward. Lotor and Sendak’s gaze meets and Sendak smirks to himself.

“What makes you think this man can best me, you witch?” Lotor spits out.

“What makes you think you will come out alive?” Sendak threatens and begins the descent up the stairs towards Lotor.

“Sendak…” Haggar warns.

Sendak gives a kurt glance back towards his supporter before ignoring her. “Stand down now, and I won’t have to sully your honor,” he announces but despite the words, it's clearly a provocation.

“Try,” Lotor says. All around is quiet, then Sendak lunges at Lotor who brandishes his sword quickly and the two fight on the steps whilst the generals below jeer and holler. Lotor expertly swings his sword, twisting it around his body and skillfully altering slashing at angles. Sendak’s new arm flies out which Lotor dodges before springing out to Sendak with his sword pointed. Lotor’s eyes widen as he quickly turns to parry Sendak’s arm that had quickly returned with increased speed. It meets back on Sendak’s shoulder like a rock sinking into a sling before rocketing back out. "Once the pawn of Zarkon, now the pawn of the witch," Lotor goads. Their fight is cut short when explosions ring out and the ground rumbles beneath them. “What are you up to?” Lotor accuses lowly, as he swings his sword in a series of unrelenting slashes.

“I should be asking you the same question, coward!” Sendak responds as he tries to counteract Lotor, but struggles to find an opening. The two of them flinch as from the shadows, Keith lunges out and tackles Lotor down the stairs.

“You?!” Lotor asks in shock. Keith’s mask dissolves showing his frown.

“You’re not supposed to be here.” Keith spits out. He dodges a collateral swipe from a nearby fight going on between sparring generals on the ground who used the opportunity to wreak havoc with their personal adversaries. “You have to go!” He yells. Explosions continue to go off around them with every general accusing one another and using the chaos to seize any opportunity to reduce their competition. Lotor wants to argue back, but seeing the chaos amongst the others he deems it more sensible to remove himself as they take each other out. The two half-galras maneuver themselves around, dodging and striking as they pave their way towards Lotor's ship. Acxa descends the aircraft from where she had been hovering over the battle then Keith boosts Lotor up to reach the ship as Lotor reaches down to let Keith aboard.

"Coward!" Sendak yells as he punches his way through but barely closes the distance.

“Is Voltron here?” Acxa asks as she sees Keith enter.

“No, I’m not part of them.” Keith responds as his chest heaves from the exertion.

“So what was the Blade of Marmora doing here?” Lotor asks.

“Reducing the number of dictators.” Keith answers with a low snarl as he looks out at the chaos unfolding beneath them. Their ship shakes at the force of another ship shooting at them.

“Fly us out!” Lotor commands. Acxa kicks the gears into action, piloting them out of the hostile airspace and into the vast emptiness of space.

They fly in silence with Keith privately making communications. Acxa glances at Lotor who is staring blankly out at space with his arms crossed but posture immaculate as ever.

“What now?” She asks.

“...I will return to Voltron. I will enlist the help of the princess to gain a different power. Political power is hopeless at the moment,” Lotor says with disappointment.

“...And what of me?”

“I will take you back to the Altean colony, there you will await my commands. When I command you to, you bring the Sincline to me. It will be easy with that ship because it is made of transreality ore. You should have no problem navigating out of the abyss without my assistance.”

Acxa nods. Then signals with her eyes towards Keith who is chatting with someone on his device.

“We will show him respect and grace,” Lotor answers and approaches Keith.

“Received.” Keith marks the end of his conversation.

“I have to thank you for your assistance today. The blades’ mission unfortunately alters my plan a bit but ultimately it should all work out in my favor.”

“We weren’t counting on you showing up to be honest.” Keith explains. Lotor sighs and gestures Keith to follow him back to the cockpit.

“I will return to Voltron will you be coming?”

Keith awkwardly tries to brush off the complicated thoughts of returning to the team. “...No I have another mission ready, if you don’t mind dropping me off nearby.”

"Always on another mission, we are a busy species." Lotor muses and leans on the back of Acxa's piloting seat.

The three half-Galrans stew in silence. None of them keen on chatting much, which is not unordinary for any of them. Keith bristles at the uncomfortable silence, glancing in his peripherals at the other two. He squeezes his lips together before blurting out the first thing that comes to mind.

"Do you guys know of Earthian cinema?" Acxa doesn't respond and Lotor looks to him with confusion. "I believe my other half to be Earthian...the paladins of Voltron are all from that planet um..."

"I've never been to that planet." Lotor responds. Silence...

"It's pretty nice. It looks like Altea."

"Does it? That's cool."

"Lance tells me of the cinema there."

"Right."

"Lance is the blue paladin." Keith quickly adds in.

"I know..." Lotor responds.

'We sure are an awkward species,' Axca thinks to herself, trying not to be roped into the weird tension in the room.

Chapter Text

“Right there,” Keith leans over Axca’s console and points to a small pod of ships cruising by. She growls and he glares back but gives her full range over her piloting controls. As she approaches closer, Keith hails a communication line.

“It is you Yorak.” The masked blade member answers the call.

“Thank you for the ship delivery,” Keith says and watches as the pods slow down.

“Of course. So this is Lotor’s ship…”

“He likes a particular design…easier for us to identify.” Keith says seriously as he looks warily at Lotor who is working on a large galaxy map.

“Indeed.”

Acxa opens up the airlock and Keith’s mask dissolves over his face. Lotor accompanies him to bid him goodbye and Keith calls out to Acxa his own goodbyes. She turns around with a blank face and nods at him with stern eyes. Keith lets himself fall out of the ship. He jetpacks towards the pod attached to another and swipes his hand over a particular spot to open the vehicle. After entering his ship, he signals to the other blades that he is good to go and then bids them luck on their own missions. He quickly finds the true coordinates for his mission and flies away from Lotor. The knowledge that Voltron is in the other direction doesn’t bother Keith too much. The knowledge that Lotor gets to work with them whilst he has his own missions does. He feels a small pang in his chest again.

-

Keith wakes first with the rising of the sun, feeling groggy from not sleeping enough (curse the short night time of this planet). He gets up to log his progress and send messages back to the blade. After being on this planet for an Earthian day and rescuing Takashi Shirogane with three Earthians who talk a lot, he had a feeling that this mission was not completed in getting more complicated. Keith heads into his pod and is startled by Hunk who he hadn’t known was inside the ship and…cleaning?

“Hey Keith,” Hunk greets in a tired voice.

“Hey Hunk?” Keith replies confused. By this point he got to learn Pidge and Hunk’s names from the Earthians talking to each other, so now at least he knows all of his companions’ names.

“I couldn’t sleep, I’m super nervous about the garrison. They’re so totally going to make me do remedial classes and maybe chew us out. But actually, stealing a pilot that has been declared missing from one of humanity’s greatest exploration missions who has crash-landed back on Earth with a robotic arm and who knows what other modifications…I’ll probably get booted.”

“Listen, could you wake the others up I have very important things to talk to all of you about.” Keith interjects, unsure of anything Hunk had said.

“You got it Keith, hey – you’re a bit weird but you’re a really chill guy.” Hunk says as he’s leaving the pod.

“Thank you?”

When Keith leaves the pod with his schematics in hand to show the Earthians, he notices that everyone, including Shiro, is missing except for Lance who is curled up still sleeping. He sits down next to Lance and looks around, taking stock of the planet’s natural atmosphere and ecosystem. He sees Shirogane, Pidge, and Hunk in the distance taking a walk whilst talking. Must be catching up he thinks. Keith shakes Lance’s shoulder lightly.

“Mm, 5 more minutes.” Lance grumbles and turns over to his other side. Keith relents seeing as the group is strolling slowly, why do Earthians walk so slowly and sleep so long? He turns his face towards the sky and breathes in the air.

It’s so quiet here.

After a bit of cloud watching, he tries to wake Lance up again, but is startled from Lance staring right at him. Keith looks away quickly.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You looked so happy,” Lance responds with a sly smile.

“...Stop that.” Keith turns further away from Lance, not liking the expression on his face.

“Where do you come from that this desert wasteland makes you so happy?” Lance asks seriously as he pushes himself up on his hands.

“I’ll explain everything once everyone’s here,” Keith answers then glares at Lance,. “…and when everyone’s awake.”

“I’m awake now! It’s the rest of you that clearly never sleep.” Lance murmurs as he waves at the group approaching closer.

“Sorry Keith,” Hunk says. “Shiro wanted to go for a walk and who am I to deny that! Also Lance is notoriously impossible to wake up without him kicking up a fuss.”

“Hey! Geez everyone’s out for me. I just need a bit of time to wake up,” Lance fights back then pivots to look at Shiro in awe. “It’s really good to meet you Shiro sir, I’m glad you’re back.”

“Thank you Lance-“ “Ohmygod he knows my name.” “-I’m glad to be back as well.”

“So,” Pidge interrupts, “care to explain Keith?” The whole group turn towards Keith. Keith pulls out his notes and schematics and proceeds to explain the entirety of most planet’s history for the last centuries. The group provides various expressions of oohs and ohs? and aahs. Shiro is solemn for the most part.
“-and there’s another problem, a big one.” Keith pulls up a hazy photo of a red robot in a hanger and of various paintings depicting a giant robotic man.

Lance nods, “we have to fight that mecha.”

“What? No, why would you think that?”

“What do you mean why would I think that? That’s clearly a bad guy and I’ve seen enough space shows to know that they always bring something big.”

“They don’t,” Pidge says

“Okay maybe they don’t but clearly all aliens are more advanced in some way.”

“I’m sure that’s not entirely true depending on what metric you’re measuring by-” Hunk pipes in.

“We have to fight it!”

“Lance shut up,” Keith snaps.

“Mullet says what?”

“Mullet? I have a name, and an ID!”

“You have a mullet and no one does that anymore so it’s easy to identify you.” Lance huffs out.

“But my name can just as easily identify me?!”

“Your name is shared with like millions of people-”

“Probably more like thousands.” Pidge interjects matter-of-factly.

“-so I don’t feel like saying your name right now so move on,” he makes shooing motions with his hands.

“Keith is common here?” Keith asks bewildered.

“Should we stay on topic?” Shiro interrupts.

Keith cringes at himself, annoyed that he got baited into the immaturity of the Earthians. If this happened with the Blades, he would be shut down immediately or he wouldn't even try to argue back. “We should, so this ship is not an enemy it’s actually Voltron, an ancient intergalactic hero. The robot comprises of five lions and five pilots but 10,000 years ago King Alfor of Altea split the lions to the far ends of the universe. Unfortunately, the red one has already been found and captured by the empire, a general named Sendak.”

Shiro eyes reflect an emptiness inside them for a brief moment but he quickly recovers and continues to listen carefully.

“-And I suppose the point I’m trying to get to is that they are very important and very powerful and well…the blue lion is located on this planet, nearby actually.”

Pidge perks up. “I’ve been picking up on transmissions from space that I think mentioned Voltron before. Do you think this has anything to do with the lion nearby?” She hands Keith her laptop and headphones.

Keith listens for a beat then returns the gear back, “I think it does.”

“Wait wait wait,” Hunk interrupts, “An ancient intergalactic space robot is here? On earth?! Let’s go find it right now!”

"Also wait, isn't this like Star Wars? Do you have light sabers?"

Keith flicks out the blade his mother had passed down to him and it activates with a shing, expanding suddenly.

"Geez put that thing away! Compensating much?" Lance jokes but truthfully he is quite terrified.

“I am a member of the Blade of Marmora, an organisation built over centuries from Galrans who don’t support the ridiculous power conquest. I have encrypted directions from a previous blade member to direct me to the blue lion and even then, it’s not guaranteed we can find it immediately. That is not the main priority, the main priority is to warn your planet that the Galra will come because, from what I’ve seen, this planet is sorely lacking in the defences necessary to fend them off.”

“We have nukes?” Lance suggests.

“I’m not sure what that is but the Galra have numbers, technology, and centuries of galactic warfare behind them. They are capable of transporting armadas of ships in a dobosh through hyperdrive and can annihilate civilisations with a single blast of their zaifoorge cannon, that is unless you’re prepared with particle barriers and other countermeasures.”

“...”

“...Holy shit, this sounds incredible! Awful, but an incredible show of technology,” Pidge gushes.

“They gave me this,” Shiro says as he holds up his robotic arm, “and it truly feels like my own arm but even stronger.” Shiro sweats a little at the look Pidge and Hunk are giving his arm.

Lance stands up, “I’m still skeptical, I mean, I believe there is life out there and the whole galaxy thing but is there really an alien race that is capable of dominating the universe? And how good is this Voltron anyways? Wouldn’t it have taken down the Galra 10,000 years ago if it was so powerful?”

“I-I don’t know, I don’t think anyone knows now because it was too long ago and the planet King Alfor lived on is now gone, with his entire civilisation.” Keith gets up and heads to his ship. “But now that you know what’s going on, I need your help to save your planet so here.” He presents to them blasters. The group approaches with various reactions, Lance and Pidge with excitement, Hunk with trepidation, and Shiro with distrust.

Pidge asks, “do you have anything more versatile?” She swings a blaster around, changing her hold on it.

“Not really, I wasn’t expecting this to be honest.”

“I think I’ll just stick to my laptop for now. God, Lance! Just pick one!”

“No Pidgey they’re all different,” he smooths his hands down them all.

“A gun is a gun.”

“It’s important I pick one that calls out to me otherwise I might drop it cus it just doesn’t fit my hand right you know?”

Keith perks up, “do you have a blaster you prefer?”

“Ahh hold your horses mullet, I'm not a weapon crazed maniac I just have an appreciation for quality.”

Keith pouts a little which Lance notices and feels similar guilt to when he denied his nephew the gameboy. “…but yes I do have an appreciation for craftsmanship and anything that requires fine movements.” He twirls his wrists in the air and sticks out his hip. Keith perks up immediately and Lance feels shot through the chest with cuteness at the sight.

Keith offers the selection to Shiro but he declines. “I’ll be fine, I’ve survived this long amidst the Galra.”

Keith nods in understanding. “And you, Hunk?”

“I don’t like it but I’ll take whatever you have, can’t be too careful I guess?”

Lance cheers. “This is so exciting! We’re like space mercenaries now, wait is that what you are Keith?”

“I guess you can say that.”

“Space mercenaries it is then!”

Chapter Text

“Shiro, you seem the most knowledgeable about everything going on so far. This is your planet. I trust you with leading our next course of action.” Keith says nodding to Shiro. Shiro firmly pats him on the shoulder and smiles.

“Thanks Keith, for being here and everything else you’ll do for us in the future.” Keith feels warmth from the genuine sincerity coming from Shiro, and the hand on his shoulder provides so much unfamiliar comfort, like you could trust this stranger with your life. “Okay team, I think it’s safe to say the garrison will not react well to me at the moment and they probably won’t appreciate you three coming back after what you did. So, let’s avoid them for now until we ideate a way to get them to listen. How about that blue lion?” He says turning to Keith who nods and retrieves his encrypted map.

Pidge and Hunk look at each other briefly with concern. They think back to the conversation they had with Shiro that morning.

-

“I’m sorry Katie I don’t know where they are.” Shiro says solemnly.

Pidge’s eyes well up. Hunk is staring, unseeing, and panics a bit from the information Shiro had just unloaded.
“So aliens are real…and they’re conquering the universe…”

Shiro nods, his eyes speak of bottled-up fear and exhaustion. Pidge squeezes Shiro’s arm. “Thank you Shiro, for telling us what happened. We’re all very glad you made it back.” Hunk nods along, tears watering from imagining what Shiro had been through.

“...I’m sorry I couldn’t save him.” Shiro replies.

“But you’re back and you’ve done all you can!” Pidge bursts out, “Besides, I believe he’s out there.”

They continue their walk in various stages of distress until Shiro remembers something and abruptly stops their walk back towards Keith.

“I have a fiancé.” He says.

“...You mean Professor Adam?” Hunk asks.

“So he’s a professor now…” Shiro notes quietly to himself.

“What about him Shiro?”

“...Nothing it’s just…been a while.” Amongst the fond memories Shiro allows himself to conjure up, he frowns upon remembering the final interaction he had with Adam. “He’s my ex-fiance now I forgot.” Shiro continues their walk back to camp. Pidge and Hunk look at each other with concern.

“He’s doing a great job at bossing all the pilots around?” Pidge tries with a shrug and Hunk elbows her.

“That’s him alright.”

-

“Shiro we can try to sneak into the Garrison. We have a lot of loose ends, and you could talk to Professor Adam.” Hunk suggests.

“This is a war coming.”

Lance frowns, “I don’t think that’s right Shiro. You’ve been through so much and Professor Adam doesn’t even know if you’re alive. It’s…a horrible thing.”

“It’s hard to not have closure…How about we split up if you’re worried about our time limit?” Pidge says.

“I think…that would be really good. Thanks everyone.” Shiro smiles a grateful smile.

Lance sniffles a bit, “ahem so how should we split?”

Hunk perks up, “ooh okay how about some of us go to locate the blue lion and just mark down where it is whilst the other team heads back into the garrison?”

Shiro straightens up, “good start Hunk, I will go back to meet Adam and we need Keith to guide the other team to the blue lion. Pidge, you’re extremely tech-savvy so I’ll need you to get through the garrison building.”

“You got it Shiro. I’m also not built for desert hiking so I was going to kick up a fuss if I had to stick with Keith,” She groans and Keith furrows his eyebrows at her, “No offense.”

Hunk raises his hand, “I know I suggested the idea and it’s actually because there are a lot of things I left behind that are important to me…I was hoping I could go back with you guys and maybe I can straighten things out with the garrison so they don’t hate us so much?” Hunk blinks hopefully up at Shiro.

“Alright, so Pidge and Hunk you’re with me and Lance you’re with Keith.”

“Huhh?? I want to go back too! I’ve got to tell Jenny what’s going on and…okay fair I don’t really need to go back BUT HUNK make sure you tell EVERYONE that we saved Shiro. Make a name for us!”

“You got it Lance.” They bro-fist with a cheer.

“Okay team, we have our missions let’s get a move-on.”

“Whoop!”

“Yeah!”

Keith immediately starts heading into the ship and pulls on his blade armor.

“Woah woah wait a sec mullet, do you ever chill?”

Keith looks back with a confused expression as he clips on his arm guards and his mask dissolves over his face. “We were given our orders, I know exactly what to do, there’s no point waiting.” He straps all his gear around his waist along with what is most definitely a hunting knife. Lance stares a little too long at his getup and how sick it looks and how it makes Keith look pretty hot and-

Nope. Bi-panic aside.

“True but we have to take a moment to discuss what our plan is don’t we?” Lance shrugs off his jacket and ties it around his waist as he picks up what is definitely the alien version of a fanny pack and starts to pack it. Keith shoves something into Lance’s bag. “Hey, so the muscles are just for show huh?” He pouts.

“It’s for you, a tracker just in case I lose you.”

“Oh, thanks…Well I hope you won’t end up having to use it.”

“and here,” Keith hands a thin device to him. “It’s a communicator, so you can reach me.”

“That’s so sweet.” Lance puts a hand to his heart. Keith returns a dead-eyed look snatching the communicator out of Lance’s hand.

“Press here to send out a signal and press here to pick up a signal and press here to end the signal. Don’t, lose, this.” Keith lightly taps the device against Lance’s forehead and Lance bristles at the sassiness. Said team member shoves the device against Lance’s chest before walking off.

“Will do hotshot,” Lance mumbles to himself. As he follows Keith out of the pod, Pidge passes by with their stolen hoverbike by her side. The size of the bike in comparison to Pidge’s tiny body is laughable especially given the ease at which the bike moves. Lance points and laughs at Pidge but then realises why she has the bike. “Why do you guys get the bike?!” He yells out as he snatches the bike from her.

Pidge pokes out her tongue, “because we have more people!” Pidge snatches the bike back despite Lance’s offended gasp.

“Excuse me??? We’re the ones that have to traverse the freaking desert!”

Keith ignores the two and walks past, glued to his device.

“But we actually have to be in and out quickly! Speed is of the utmost importance for our sneakiness.” Pidge pushes up her glasses in a way that is too snobby for Lance’s liking. Hunk joins the pair arguing and holds up placating hands as the two butt heads.

“We don’t need the bike.” Keith says with his back turned towards the group. Lance gasps in offense at the betrayal.

“Hah! Don’t be greedy Lance.” Pidge mocks.

“Keith?!” Lance turns towards Keith angrily.

“You have me.” Keith answers. The group is taken aback from the sudden and obvious claim though Keith is largely unaware of it. He pockets the device and starts stretching out his body to crack parts Lance didn’t even know could be cracked.

“If I go missing in the middle of the desert just know it’s your guys’ fault.” Lance says as he turns on Pidge and Hunk who are both rolling their eyes.

“Oh don’t be such a baby,” Pidge says, “we wasted time thanks to you so I hope we don’t miss our best chance to get in.”

“Ship-testing,” Hunk shares with Lance who nods in understanding.

"It's not like it's the first time we've been stranded in the desert," Pidge adds and delivers the bike to Shiro who attaches a small bag to it.

“Counting on you Lance,” Shiro calls over to him with a wave. Lance waves weakly back at his idol.

“Seeya buddy,” Hunk says.

“Come on Lance,” Keith says impatiently, “should be this way.”
After a while of treading through the thick sand, Lance’s calves cry out to him once again for a break and he sighs at Keith ahead of him. “Are you sure this is the right way?” Keith growls, literally growls. “Um, that’s really scary when you have the mask on.”

“Yes Lance, I’m positive this is the right way the problem is we have to find it ourselves.” Keith spits out.

“Okay but we’ve been walking around in a big circle haven’t we?” Lance groans.

“...What?”

“Yeah, that rock formation is one I recognise. We do our pilot runs over it all the time.”

Keith turns towards where Lance is pointing, and in hindsight they have been walking around it.
Keith turns back to his decoder and turns it off angrily. “I guess we have been walking in circles.”

“Hah! Told you.”

“Shut up, this isn’t my planet.” Keith trudges back towards Lance and scans around their terrain.

“If this isn’t your planet, why do you look…not alien?” He asks. Keith is caught a bit off-guard with the question and looks away from Lance up to the sky, hoping to see the stars and suddenly missing the conflict up there. “You should leave your mask down more.” Lance changes topic. Keith’s mask fizzles over his face at the comment so Lance can’t gauge his expression. “You don’t have to worry about burning by the way,” Lance pats Keith’s shoulder which was more of an excuse to lean on him.

“Burning?”

“Yeah, sunburns? I don’t have to worry about it as much as you do but you don't have to worry about it much. This area is low UV even though it's dry.”

“Because I’m half-Galra…?”

“What? No because I don’t know anything about alien biology,” 'unless you wanted me to know', he thinks to himself, “it’s just that your skin is quite pale like Pidge and Shiro. Lighter skin is more susceptible to the harsh sun rays and is a terrible aging factor.” He says fanning his face.

“I…didn’t know any of that.”

“You don’t have the sun in space?”

“No we do, depending on the galaxy, but I mostly work in the night and live on a base with little sunlight. I guess it was never a thought.” Keith puts the headphones connected to Pidge’s makeshift satellite onto Lance, opening up the side closest to himself so he could still hear him.

“Huh, that’s depressing.” Lance blurts out as he raises the satellite and turns it in different directions before he can think about his comment. "I should get you on a sun safe skincare regime."

Keith snorts a dry laugh. “There are far more depressing and important things to worry about.”

“…Sorry…I guess so. It's still a blow to the system all the new information. I still can't believe I'm talking to an alien right now. Because you arean alien right?”

Lance’s question is met with only the sound of Pidge’s makeshift satellite and Keith pulling out his knife that is definitely not a kitchen knife as they continue walking whilst making gashes in the ground. Lance expresses his concern over the very…very sharp knife which Keith retaliates to by pointing to Lance’s blaster.

Keith eventually pipes up, “The Galran empire has ruined so many lives. There's a lot of displacement and I suppose I always looked different from the others at base. Mom never told me anything about my origins and I never bothered asking. I’m just glad I’m on the side fixing things.”

“...Yeah true, we don’t stan colonisers.” Lance looks towards Keith who still has his mask on. “So about that mask…”

“It helps with anonymity and so the people we’re saving can trust us. You know, Galra.” He gestures to himself as he adjusts the satellite’s direction then seems to pause for a moment to think.

“I guess it’s rough when people automatically assume you’re a bad guy, but – and I’m making an assumption here so bear with me – you don’t look Galra…right? Unless Galra look human?”

“Um, I guess so. I wouldn't say that a war victim would think I'm Galran but it doesn't matter, we follow a system and things are easier to hide with a mask on." Keith ‘omphs’ at the sudden weight around his shoulders and sees that Lance has wrapped his arm around Keith’s neck.

“What?” Keith asks.

“Do Galrans ever hug it out?”

“We don’t.”

“You guys should,” and Lance reaches a finger to Keith's masked cheek to touch it teasingly.

“Whatever.” Keith finds that the physical contact and fondness attached to the touch is not so bad and blushes from this realisation. What am I, a child?.

They keep walking and walking, taking breaks every so often because Lance needed it.

“Okay the signal is starting to get really strong here.” Lance gestures to the very rocky terrain after wiping his brow of sweat. Keith jetpacks up a large rock to look over the landscape.

“Huhhhh?! I don’t have a jetpack Keith,” Lance fiercely gestures to his lack of anything. Keith rolls his eyes and reaches an arm down, which Lance groans and grabs. “Why can’t we just go around?” He mumbles.

“The high ground Lance.”

“You’re a high ground, wait, look there.”

Keith turns to where Lance is pointing at a hidden cave entrance. Lance grins at Keith's masked face which is super close to his own and likes to think that Keith might be expressing some sort of happiness back at him. Keith jumps down the rock, Lance could’ve sworn the ground cracked beneath his feet. Keith looks expectantly up at Lance who gestures angrily at himself and the rock as he makes a slow descent on his hands and butt. When he gets closer, Keith reaches a hand out and Lance grabs it to jump the rest of the way down. “Stupid space ninjas,” he mumbles to himself as he dusts off his jeans which he was very unlucky to have on in this whole fiasco. They head towards the cave which proves fruitful because when they enter, they’re greeted by carvings of lions littered on all the walls.

Keith breathes out in awe, “this has to be it.” He runs his fingers over the carvings.

Lance gently touches a carving until it starts to glow. “Woah.” The cave seems to rumble around them and Keith wraps an arm around Lance’s shoulder to keep him close which takes Lance aback for a beat. Then Lance realises the implication that he needs saving which leaves a sour taste in his mouth.

“Below!” Keith yells which only helps to announce the floor disappearing on them since they have nothing to grab onto. Lance yelps as they fall but are thankfully carried into a stream of water which dumps them onto a cold stone floor below. Lance groans dramatically and holds a hand on his sore ass as he pushes himself up whilst Keith recovers quicker and takes in the new environment.

“What the hell,” Lance says and when he lifts his head up it’s to a huge robot lion sitting with a blue field surrounding it. “What the hell?” He repeats. Keith’s eyes widen and he has to dissolve his mask to see the sight before him clearly. He wonders to himself if his mother had the same reaction when she was in his position all those deca pheobs ago.

“Looks like it’s being protected by a force field.” Keith observes as he approaches the robot with Lance trailing behind him.

“Are you getting the feeling it’s staring at you? The eyes are totally following me.” Lance remarks whilst walking in a zig zagging path.

“I wonder how we get through this,” Keith mumbles as he pushes his hands against the barrier.
When Lance reaches the field, he puts his hand on his hip and cocks his head to the side up at the lion's face. It feels familiar somehow.

“Maybe you just have to knock,” Lance suggests as a joke then gently raps on the barrier before a trail of energy reacts fiercely to his touch. “AH!” He recoils from the reaction and stumbles backward.

“Lance!”

They both take a step back as the lion’s eyes flash and the barrier ripples away from the point of contact. The ground beneath them rumbles and glows a vibrant blue, lighting up both of their faces from below. Lance stares up completely mesmerised. A vision pervades both their minds.

Chapter Text

Keith runs down the hallway of the Galra fleet he has just infiltrated, hiding behind divots and corners. He pauses behind one corner as two sentries march down the intersecting hallway when he senses someone approaching behind him. He quickly swivels around brandishing his fully formed blade and is met in a clash with another blade, albeit much smaller. His eyes widen at who it is.

“Mom.” He breathes out, feeling his heart swell.

“Good to see you Yorak.” Krolia greets with a wide smile. “Come on.” She gestures for him to follow her, already briefed on the extraction mission.

“Mom we have to go through this shaft.”

“To where?” She asks as they run.

“The air lock, another route.”

“Not yet.”

“What?”

The two’s eyes widen before they slam their bodies against opposite walls where an upset Galran general stomps down the hallway and mumbles to herself. Once she’s sufficiently a distance away, Krolia signals their continued escape through the ship though Keith is not sure where she's leading them.

“That was the general,” Krolia explains.

“They’re going to enter battle soon, I saw the fleets on my way here,” Keith supplies.

“Indeed, it seems negotiations fell through…to be expected from them. They only want a reason to fight each other.” Krolia says bitterly. “We have to hurry because this ship will go down along with all its information.”

“The plan doesn’t include information extraction…”

“They have plans, maps, and lists - Names…everything we need. I am not leaving without the information.” They skid around a corner and stumble into a room adorned with panels. Krolia hurriedly plugs in a device and starts typing away furiously. Keith hides by the doorway, watching the hallway with vigilance. He watches as sentries bound past them, no doubt heading towards the front line in the impending conflict.

“Mom!” Keith warns as the ship dips violently.

“Almost there,” Krolia tries to reassure but Keith doesn’t believe her.

“Mom we have to go.”

A loud explosion.

“Not yet.”

“Mom!”

The door hisses open and Keith holds his breath, praying whoever it is doesn’t spot him.

“Krolia?! The battle has begun long ago!” The Galran soldier pants out.

“I’m monitoring the ship’s vitals, we can’t have our ship failing beforewe are ready to fight,” Krolia smoothly lies. It doesn’t seem to work though because despite his mom's convincing and reasonable response, the soldier reaches for his communicator.

“Lieutenant Krolia is a traitor! Do not trust-” Keith interrupts the communication with a quick lunge and tackle from the shadows.

“Done!” Krolia announces and proceeds to knock the soldier struggling in Keith’s arms unconscious.

“We have to hijack a ship!” Keith says amidst the rumbles around them. They bump into two sentries heading the opposite direction.

“Unidentified.” The sentries’ robotic voices carry through as the two point their guns at Keith. Krolia springs into action, pulling out Keith’s blade and slicing the ends of the sentries’ guns before grabbing Keith’s arm and dragging him down the hallway.

“This way,” Krolia guides.

The two make their way through the shaking hallways and into a cargo ship with minimal interference on their way. Keith jumps in the back and the shuttle closes on them before its engines whir louder and louder. They shoot out of the hangar and into a chaotic air space with Galran ships firing against other Galran ships and explosions going off everywhere in the space between.

“How many have to die for them to be satisfied?” Keith spits out as he watches a ship near them explode in a ripple of flames.

“This is exactly how they want to die, that’s why.” Krolia answers and her voice does not betray the boiling emotion underneath her skin. The two groan as the ship is hit by a blast and Krolia attempts to maneuver them through the mess but it proves too difficult as they’re hit again and are sent barreling uncontrollably. “Left booster gone!” Krolia reports.

“They’re starting to chase us now!” Keith warns and Krolia grits her teeth before spying something in the distance.

“You have to trust me Yorak.”

“I do.”

Their ship barely manages to dodge and weave through the collateral damage between the two general's forces clashing. Krolia pilots them towards what appears to be an asteroid belt and Keith watches as all their pursuers, who have mistakened them as their enemy, are struggling to navigate through the asteroids.

“Eject on my mark,” Krolia commands.

“Affirmative,” Keith confirms, hands ready on the cargo ship's door. Krolia makes a sharp turn around a particularly large asteroid and flicks several buttons then shoves her helmet onto her head.

“Now!”

The hatch opens and Keith's mask materialises on his face before the two jump out and latch onto a floating asteroid with their weapons.

“Quick, I overloaded the system so it should blow,” Krolia motions for Keith to follow her as the two maneuver around the asteroid and jump onto another floating nearby. They watch with bated breaths as the pursuers fly past them and towards where the ship is. Silence. Then boom. The explosion either from the ship itself combusting or the pursuers shooting at it produces an aftershock that jostles the asteroids. Krolia wraps Keith in her arms to his surprise and brackets him into the asteroid with her claws digging into the rock. The remaining pursuers retreat, satisfied with the outcome. “Now our second problem. We have to traverse carefully my son. The wrong moves will be send us into the quantum abyss.”

“The quantum abyss? Forever?”

“Yes, this is a dangerous place but I’m confident we will be okay.” With that, Krolia bounces off and sets off on a path around the floating asteroids. Keith follows closely behind her, waiting for her to judge the best pathway before following it himself. At a particular jump, the asteroid they were previously standing on seems to jolt from a collision causing Keith to lose his footing with a grunt.

“YORAK!” Krolia cries out. Keith quickly activates his blade and Krolia doesn't hesitate to grab the tip of the sword. With her hand bleeding, she pulls him towards her whilst Keith pulls out another blade to lodge into the asteroid. The universe seems hellbent on knocking him into the quantum abyss because a boulder seems to tumble straight for him and even as he braces for impact, the boulder is incapable of hitting into him gently. He’s knocked from where he is hanging by his small knife and Krolia's body lurches from the hit, but instead of grabbing another handle for herself she continues to hold Keith's blade.

“You have to let go!” Keith grunts out, but not before a sudden vision pervades his mind. He sees a man in front of him, an Earthian man with a build larger than himself and stubble lining his jaw. The man smiles warmly, cut off by flashes of a shack in Earth’s desert that Keith recognises based on the rock formations in the distance. The image suddenly switches to Lance’s face in the same desert, followed by the rock formation that housed the blue lion beneath. He blinks, shock painting his features before shaking himself out of his daze and focusing back onto his mother.

“I won’t leave you!” Krolia yells out, pulling with all her might but Keith's body is being pulled by whatever the asteroid belt is circling. She feels her own grip slipping and notices an asteroid passing by and without thinking twice, launches off the rock with her son in her arms to collide into another rough surface. Her bleeding hand digs into the material as her other stabs her blade in for purchase. Keith feels tears prick at the corners of his eyes as another confusing vision passes his mind, this time of a black haired baby cradled in purple arms and the same man next to him. His heart throbs in a moment of vulnerability and he clings close to his mother, relishing in being cradled in her arms once again. From the force of their impact, the asteroid they cling onto spins and starts to twirl out of the belt's orbit.

Realising this, Keith knows that both him and his mom are now doomed“It’s knowledge or death…” Keith says in a whisper.

“You are my son,” Krolia explains, and there’s a shimmer in her eyes that appears as they spin rapidly around the abyss. Another vision, this time of an unknown origin as Keith recognises what seems to be an older Lance smiling and holding a hand. “There is much I need to learn about you, Keith.” Krolia cuts through the vision, squeezing Keith’s shoulders in a comfortable embrace. Keith squeezes her tighter as they continue to spin out of safety. “The visions are part of the abyss, flashes of the past and future.” Krolia smiles sadly as she seems to consider something. “There is much I need to tell you,” She offers a hopeful smile, or at least as hopeful as her face can show. Keith’s mask dissolves and he looks up at her with an expression of sadness bubbling along with wonder.

“About where I come from?” He asks with a small voice and Krolia nods with a smile that conveys swallowed down emotions of grief and regret. A shadow flicks around them and Krolia’s attention is turned to what seems to be a creature swimming leisurely through the asteroids. She wastes no time and throws Keith towards the creature and he lands on its tail with a thud shortly followed by Krolia.

“You and I are going to get through this and we can have a nice long chat,” she says with determination.

Chapter Text

“Lotor?” Coran whispers to himself before announcing over the castle’s system. “I believe Lotor is approaching the castle of lions.”

In a small room tucked away in the corner of the castle, Allura jolts up from her reading with the mice scrambling from the movement. “Lotor,” she breathes out with a smile adorning her features and bounds out of the room towards the deck. She slows her pace as she approaches and takes a moment to pat her dress down and rearrange her hair. A cough makes her turn around.

“Excited?” Pidge teases.

“Pidge! No- I mean yes I am excited to have our ally back. We must learn what the state of the empire is these days,” Allura hastily spews out before entering a brisk walk to the deck to avoid having to look at Pidge.

“Pshh, yeah alright. You’re acting like Lance now,” Pidge chuckles and Allura swivels her head around with annoyed fury.

“I am not,” She pronounces slowly but the dusting on her cheeks betrays her words.

“Who’s like me? Oh Allura, you look great!” Lance says as he meets the two in the hallway with Hunk in tow.

“Oh thank you, Lance,” Allura looks down at her feet and kicks an imaginary obstacle.

“Oh, just the pining,” Pidge answers and meets Hunk’s gaze in mutual understanding. Lance’s eyes flick between the two but recognition doesn’t cross his features.

“...Uh sure,” Lance pretends to understand but it makes Pidge snicker more.

“Don’t worry about it Lance, we support you,” Hunk says genuinely with a hand on his shoulder. Allura continues to make her way to the observation deck, happy with her decision to go here first instead of the hangar given how much teasing she’s already getting. The group follows behind her, chatting and bantering mostly at Lance’s demise.

“Paladins,” Shiro greets from the deck.

“How close is he?” Allura asks and Hunk elbows Pidge in the background.

“Just a dobosh away, we’ve already spoken to him. It'll be just one general this time,” Coran answers and Allura nods, a little disappointed that she didn’t make it in time to enter the communication line directly. After a dobosh of waiting and a brief tactical conversation between the team, Lotor and Acxa enter the deck.

“Paladins! So good to see you,” Lotor says with fanfare and walks up to Allura, bowing deeply. “Princess,” he grabs Allura’s hand and places a kiss on the back of it. She flushes slightly but allows him to continue showing his respect. When he raises his head and they make eye-contact, Allura falters slightly at the tired and absent gaze she sees. An odd feeling overcomes her but it’s quickly settled by Lotor’s smile that seems to transform his features back into what Allura remembered it being like when the two of them would engage in conversation within their quaint hole of records.

“It’s good to see you Lotor, we’d like a status update if you will. Specifically on the state of the empire’s leadership,” Shiro interjects. At that, Lotor drops his smile and turns away from Allura with a look that screams danger. Allura furrows her brows, the warning signs going off again within her, and looks to Hunk who is sharing a similar concerned expression. They make eye-contact and Hunk ever so slightly nods, reading the thoughts on her face and reassuring her that he’s seeing the same thing. He glances to Pidge and Lance who don't seem to have noticed anything amiss.

“A disaster is what it is. We attended the ceremony but it was a mere puff of a chest, no actual talk about a worthy ruler. No matter, the blades exploded the place and the generals are now fighting if they're not dead already.”

Lance perks up, standing taller with his interest peaked. “The blades?” He asks Lotor.

“Yes, your paladin saved me from the blast. I owe him for his bravery,” Lotor answers smoothly and a smile grows on Lance’s face at the news. “The outcome is unfortunate for the empire but it was bound to happen with all the generals itching to battle each other. If it didn't happen now then we would be living in an empire where all the rulers secretly want to kill each other.”

“So what’s the current move?” Allura asks.

“The current move is that we wait, the weeds will kill each other in mutual destruction and we will use the opportunity to become a more powerful force. Once they’re done fighting amongst themselves, I will assert myself once again before the empire…until then…” Lotor turns and an affectionate expression grows on his features, “I wish to complete our initial mission.” Allura gasps and were she less refined she would have squealed.

“Yes of course! I have made great progress that I’m sure will please you, we can discuss this together later.”

“Sorry to interrupt but where is Keith now? Do you know?” Pidge asks, stepping forward. Lance nods vehemently behind her.

“We dropped him off,” Acxa answers. “He reconvened with his blades and they provided him a ship so we don’t know where he is now.”

Lance frowns, concern painting his features. An all too familiar feeling these days it seems. Hunk squeezes Lance’s shoulder and gives him a thumbs up which helps alleviate the chronic anxiety that has been plaguing the boy these days.

Acxa takes notice of the exchange, and perhaps the guilt from the harm she caused the blue paladin causes her to speak up when she wouldn’t ordinarily do so. “He seemed okay, he spoke of Earthian cinema.” This prompts Lotor to look at her curiously and she tries to ignore his gaze.

“Did he now?” Lance responds with a chuckle and it infects itself onto Acxa’s own features as she feels herself loosen up.

“Didn’t he say he was meeting his mom?” Hunk adds in and Lance nods.

“Yeah, must be that mission then.”

“If he’s with his mom they’ll be unstoppable. This is exactly what they’re meant to do Lance, and surely they have some psychic bond or something,” Hunk jokes.

“Pft crazy, but possible.” Lance considers seriously.

“That’s all for now, I am interested in what you have to show me princess,” Lotor announces with a tired sigh and Allura gladly leads him away, speaking with him very animatedly. The remaining paladins turn their heads in an odd synchronicity towards Acxa who has been left alone with them.

“Uhh Acxa right?” Hunk greets with a hand out and Acxa nods, taking the hand quietly. “How would you like to join me in the kitchen? I’d love to learn what kind of food you like to eat.”

“...Very well.”

“Pidge, Lance?” Hunk addresses the two.

“I’m down, would be interesting to get to know Acxa," Pidge says but her friends can read her intent to interrogate.

“Lance?”

Acxa turns her attention to the blue paladin and he finds that when he looks at her, a comforting feeling washes over him like nostalgia but not quite. The piercing dark eyes and the way she holds herself…the fact that she’s half-Galra. It reminds Lance of eyes that ignite life in his bones and make him feel a warm comfort that he can't deny. Even when he wants to protect others and be a backbone, the protection he feels from a particular someone is welcoming rather than ostracizing. It’s a good thing Acxa’s voice is nothing like Keith’s because Lance would probably break down from anxiety and longing if there was any more resemblance. When he realises that he’s been caught like a deer in headlights by the others, he hurriedly answers, “I’ll join you later…gonna bond with red more.” With that he stalks away before the others can hound him for answers.

“So Acxa, what’s your favourite food?”

“...I like fruit.”

“Oh, simple!”

-

Lance sits with his legs tucked into his arms beside Red’s paw. He leans his head against the cold, and probably dirty metal. He finds that he doesn’t care and just wants to listen to her otherworldly rumbling, praying to somehow hear Keith’s voice through the connection. Predictably, he hears nothing from Keith and tucks his face into his knees to try and quell the rising anxiety that typically accompanies thoughts about an absent Keith.

“Please be okay,” he whispers and he’s not sure if it’s to Keith or himself.

“Lance?” A woman’s voice calls out and Lance scrambles to stand up and greet the owner of the voice.

“Acxa? What’s up?” He asks, trying to make it sound casual.

“Hunk requested I find you to try some of his Earth food. Tamales?”

“Oh sweet he managed to make tamales?!” Lance skips in glee.

“Yes, they were quite good.”

Lance notices the crumbs by Acxa’s mouth and laughs, “clearly.” He points to her mouth and she wipes away the waste onto her hand before licking it back up. “Sustainable,” Lance nods approvingly with a chuckle. The two head to the dining area where they are most likely to find the food.

“What’s the point of sitting by your ship without running repairs?” Acxa asks abruptly but innocently.

“Oh uh, it’s more to pass time. I guess our ship’s are sentient so I also figure they enjoy our company?”

“I see…but you seem worried and not at all like you’re just passing time.”

Lance’s eyes flicker in shock, “Oh uh, you caught that huh? I’m worried about a lot of things...it’s hard to pinpoint.” Lance waves his hand to try and brush it off.

“Just say some of them then,” Acxa demands.

“...Well I uh…I suppose I miss my family, I don’t know how they’re doing. And the Galra are in mayhem, planets are being caught in the crossfire and people are suffering from the warfare and I don’t know what Voltron can do about it all. We can’t save everyone and we have no idea if the empire is improving or not and I don’t even know if Keith is safe out there amidst all this.” He rambles out with a pinch in his voice.

“I worry similarly, though I do not have family that concern me,” Acxa nods.

“...What about your friends?”

Acxa falters and remembers everything that has transpired which she bottled away to focus on surviving. “I am only concerned about whatever’s in my grasp.”

“Like what?” Lance inquires further and Acxa thinks for a moment.

“I suppose...my next meal?” Silence passes between them before Acxa continues. “Actually, I have lost some friends recently to all this mess. I just somehow...forgot.”

Lance sighs. "I guess the bonus of forgetting is you do other stuff instead of worry?"

“I suppose...but what if those other things will just lead me to losing more friends?"

"Hey," Lance interrupts and levels her with a serious expression. "Are you okay?"

Suddenly Acxa feels cold sweat build on her neck and a sinking feeling in her gut. Emotions ripple from her chest to her limbs and she feels she might start shaking. "I-I’m not sure if I’ve made the right decisions in my life." Her head pounds and she feels like she needs to relieve the tension inside somehow. "I believe that I may have made a mistake following-” She cuts herself off abruptly with clenching fists and brings herself back to the hallway where it's just her and Lance. “Why doesn’t the red paladin stay with Voltron?” Acxa changes topic and the topic hits Lance hard enough that he doesn't comment on her sudden switch up. “Did you fight?”

“No not at all, I wish we did actually,” he chuckles bashfully.

“That’s an odd wish.”

“I guess so but if we fought it would make his absence easier to deal with…I think.”

“You’re correct, I find that I do not concern myself over others who have proven they don't concern themself with me.”

“Weirdly though, even if we fought I think Keith left for the good of the team.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“I know right! But…I get it. We had too many pilots and not enough ships. He wanted to go back anyways to do work more ‘meaningful’ to him,” Lance puts his words in airquotes. “I think…he left because of me.” Lance’s lip quivers and he bites it. “-and he might die out there, because of me.”

“That’s ridiculous, if he dies it’s because he wasn’t good enough at his job.” Acxa interjects ruthlessly. Lance blinks up at her, briefly forgetting his own grief in lieu of shock at her words. “You think we save the universe because of one person? We save it because it’s our job to protect our own lives and because we don’t agree with the empire. The red paladin was and always will be a member of the blade. This is the life that chose him and it’s the life that he chose. He probably never dreamed he would be a paladin of Voltron so why bother when it’s easier to do what you’ve always done. If I were him, I would be annoyed at the methods of the new team and leave to pursue my goals in my way.”

“But he could’ve stayed with us where he is arguably worth more!”

“And he would be safer with you lot?”

“Yes…he would have Voltron by his side and Black would look after him.”

“He would be on the frontlines- at least with the Blade he’s safer in the shadows.”

“But they don’t value him as much as we do, they would leave him behind!” Lance cries out.

“You need to trust them more, and trust in Keith’s own skill. He doesn’t need Voltron, he has never needed Voltron. Probably never expected to be part of it.”

Those words seem to cut through Lance like a hot knife. Brutal and painful, but quick and to the point. Perhaps those were the exact words Lance was afraid to admit or perhaps it’s exactly what he needed to hear. This whole time, he didn't know if it would make him feel worse believing that Keith left because the team wasn't good enough for him or if he left because he believed he wasn't good enough for the team. He can’t tell but either way it’s done and now he has to relish in the feelings that come from the absence of someone he has grown noticeably fond of.

“I’ve touched a nerve.” Acxa observes.

“Probably…” Lance sighs, feeling the emotions weigh a little less heavily. “I want him to be able to take a break you know?”

“Mm, you are very kind. Kindness is a privilege we can’t afford to give easily.”

“Yeah damn you guys are so uptight.” Lance teases half-heartedly.

Acxa shrugs, “I think we’re just awkward.” That causes Lance to burst out laughing.

“I think you’re onto something,” He says through his laughter.

Chapter Text

Keith and Krolia can only watch as the creature takes them through the light but instead of attempting to control their newfound vessel, they decide to make their passage comfortable. Another flash followed by a brief vision, this time of what seems to be the inside of the galra fleet Keith and Krolia just narrowly escaped from.

“Mom are you getting visions?” Keith holds his head.

“Time intersects within the abyss. I’m also getting the visions and I believe they are glimpses of the past…and the future.” Krolia looks to Keith with a look in her eyes that speaks of wonder. Keith flushes slightly, the memory of Lance’s older and more mature face smiling at him making him warm up from within. “Did you see your father?” Krolia asks, gaining Keith’s attention again.

“I saw a man, big and grizzly I suppose. I saw a baby and a shack too...”

Krolia leans back and nods with a relaxed expression. “The man you saw is your father. You saw from my memories so you saw yourself as a baby in my arms. I will never forget that day your father and I held you and decided your name. I named you Yorak, but for you to live on Earth, he named you Keith.” She chuckles to herself, like she was sharing a secret. Keith listens attentively, feeling a surge of adoration for this man he wouldn't be able to remember. “He was like us you know? He understood his own power and wanted to protect others. A firefighter.” She closes her eyes with a sigh.

Keith tucks his legs in and rests his cheek on his knees. “What happened to him?”

She sighs and shades her eyes with her hand. “You have to understand that there was nothing either of us could’ve done. We were long gone by then and your father was merely doing his job. The last transmission I heard was already too late. It was a recording,” Her tone conveys regret and bitterness. “He said he loved us.” Keith feels a wave of longing overcome him. He doesn’t think he could ever feel the same level as grief his mother seems to harbour but what he does feel is that perhaps in another universe, in another time when different decisions were made, he would have had this important man in his life. He could’ve lived on Earth. He could’ve had a father.

“Why did we leave?”

“The mission found me again. As you know, I came following the blue lion’s signals but so did the Galra. There was a brief reprieve where your father and I bonded and then had you but as you know, the mission is rarely over. We thought you would become more Galra as you aged so your father had to bid not just me but also you goodbye for your own safety, how wrong we were.” She reaches a hand out and caresses Keith’s face. He sighs into the touch, nuzzling in his mom’s big hand. "I'm glad that you are the way you are. You retain the planet where I had the best time of my life in your very being. Your father's body carries on in you and someday when I pass, you will carry my soul with you." Keith wraps his hands around his mom's bleeding one that is already slowing down.

Keith hushes from the sentiment and finds that all he can do is stare at his mother's face. There's that yearning feeling again, except it's accompanied by a bittersweet joy. Knowing that he had a father and that he resembles that man and seeing his mother's memories of a time that was unusually simple and innocent makes him feel loved yet he yearns for a world in which he could have felt this directly. He relishes in his mother's love but yearns for a future where she would stay, where her soul will not carry with him like she said. A future where moments like this between them aren't rare and he can expect long lives from them both. Before he knows it, tears are welling up in his eyes and spilling silently. He thinks his mom can understand because she doesn't say anything but keeps caressing his cheeks with her hand.

“Who could have ever known that our little boy would awaken Voltron.” She looks out, as if trying to convey her message to someone.

“It wasn’t me, it was the blue paladin,” Keith chuckles.

“Is the blue paladin the one in the vision I saw?”

Keith blushes and the joy surmounts. “Yes.”

“It looks like he is very happy with you in the future.”

“That’s good to know,” he answers with a smile as he imagines a future with all the paladins. Something he would usually stop himself from doing but his emotions are permitting him this current reprieve.

Krolia shuffles to get more comfortable. “We only have time now, there’s nothing we can do. Tell me of your travels.” She reaches a hand out and ruffles Keith’s hair, making sure to flick the hair at the nape of his neck in approval.

Keith shuffles to also get more comfortable and smiles upwards - where the Earthian sky would be. “When Shiro crashed near my landing point I was relieved until…”

-

“I YIELD!” Lance screams, promptly dropping to the ground where he sulks.

“There were a minimum of seven different ways to escape that grip. Your weak mind is to blame,” Acxa says coldly above him. Hunk frets on the side, poking his fingers together nervously. “Next.” She turns her gaze to him and he literally jumps.

“You know what, I think I actually should work on a different skill…maybe my strength? My gun is pretty heavy.” Hunk bashfully rubs the back of his head. Acxa nods and Hunk slips out with a quiet ‘sorry’ whispered to a betrayed Lance.

“You also want to quit?” Acxa asks with crossed arms. Her tone is malicious but Lance has come to learn that there usually isn’t actually any malice, just cold-hearted honesty. He groans and tugs his elbows in, slaps a palm onto the ground, and pushes himself onto his feet.

“No, let’s keep going,” Lance raises his fists in front of him and adjusts his weight ready for battle.

“Very well,” Acxa nods and Lance recognises the approval in her expression.

-

A meteor grabs Keith and Krolia’s attention as it flies over them and collides near their camp. Immediately they move to investigate with blades ready and find what appears to be a small wolf lying in a crater of his own creation.

“It came from the outside, we may find our way out of here through it,” Krolia comments as she moves to retrieve the animal. Hostile beasts that they have become intimately familiar with begin to lurk from the shadows and Keith joins his mother in fending them off. With little sweat broken and the beasts sufficiently scared off, Keith turns towards the animal and squats to his small height.

“What’s your name? Where do you come from?” He asks, almost demands. The wolf wags its tail weakly and curiously tilts its head. Keith stares into its knowing eyes, waiting for a response. When the silence stretches on for long enough, Keith feels his hair being ruffled.

“Seems to just be an animal. Let him be.” Krolia says, but her disappointment fails to escape Keith’s notice. The two of them move to make their way back to camp but the little wolf limps behind them.

“You have something to say?” Keith asks. No answer. “Alright then you can come with us if you have nowhere to go.” The wolf rubs it head against Keith’s leg, forcing him to admit that he is quite adorable.

-

“Princess…I think we’ve done it,” Lotor says breathlessly. Allura nods slowly and then turns to look at him with shimmering eyes.

“We have,” she confirms with a barely contained smile. The short distance between them closes completely with the two embracing each other in a tight hug. Allura squeezes Lotor’s shoulders tightly and he holds the back of her head carefully. “I can’t believe it!” She yells out, muffled in his shoulder. He chuckles, equally excited. When they part, a realisation crosses both of them and they lean back in but this time with their lips connecting slowly and gently. Their kiss is sweet and genuine, held for a long breath as they squeeze themselves closer to each other. Hearts thumping wildly against each other contrasting with the gentle glow of Allura’s marks against Lotor’s cheeks.

-

Keith dumps his pile of wood by their camp with the little wolf trotting by his side, holding his own piece of wood that would easily dwarf him. Keith ruffles the wolf’s head and takes the wood from his mouth with a ‘thanks’. The wolf sits itself down with tail wagging as Keith sorts through the pile.

“Will you tell me your name now?” Keith asks him. The only response is happy panting and the sound of a tail whipping the ground. Keith pats his head again, resuming his duty to sort through the wood. He finds a small broken off twig that would be of no use to them and throws it over his shoulder but to his surprise the wolf seems to zap out of existence, disappearing completely. “Huh?” Keith jolts to attention. The wolf zaps back into existence, but much further from where he had disappeared from. “What the quiznack?” The wolf excitedly runs back to Keith brandishing the same twig Keith had just thrown. Slightly confused, Keith gently takes the twig from his mouth with a pat and observes it in his hands. Seeing nothing odd he chucks it behind him again but the wolf yips and bolts for it.

Keith discovers a lot from the innocent back and forth. He learns that the wolf has a strange fascination with retrieving sticks but doesn’t do it when you purposefully throw it. More importantly, he learned that the wolf is capable of teleportation.

-

Lance groans and rolls his eyes at the sight before him. Allura and Lotor giggling to each other, seemingly in their own world, while the rest of them are forced to sit through it. “-and?” He interrupts with.

“Oh yes my apologies- and once we go inside, there is not a guarantee we will return with anything at all. But if we were to return with something, it would be immense knowledge in alchemy which will prove very useful for our future battles.”

“Okay great. Are we done?” Lance responds, turning to Shiro who sighs.

“Is there anything else we should know?” Shiro asks the two.

“I believe Oriande will only accept the worthy so we will have to assess what they mean by worthy once we arrive. No fret, I believe the princess here will surely qualify for its trials,” Lotor says with a smile directed at Allura who smiles and pulls in her shoulders shyly. Lance throws his head back and taps his arm impatiently.

-

“Mom…look.” Keith points to a pocket in the quantum abyss with evidence of civilisation.

“Interesting, I believe it would be worthwhile investigating once we are able to enter.”

Another vision obscures their minds for a brief moment and they turn to each other, understanding passing through their features.

“That was Lotor,” Keith explains with furrowed brows.

“That’s unfortunate, but at least we know that you will return to Voltron. We’re getting there no matter what,” Krolia decides, gesturing towards the strange pocket. Keith nods resolutely, trepidation growing from the vision of Voltron battling Lotor.

-

“Paladins I regret to inform you that we lost contact with Yorak and Krolia,” Kolivan says, betraying little emotion. Lance feels the world buckle around him, his knees losing feeling but still standing. His fingers numb by his side yet he feels them twitch oddly. Hunk immediately grabs his hand and squeezes it with both of his own.

“When?” Shiro asks, always the pillar of strength for them to rely on.

“Last communication was made with Yorak a movement ago. They were meant to return with a quintant or two of leeway. Communication was attempted after this time, but their lines were gone,” Kolivan informs. Pidge curls up her fists by her sides, gripping her lip with her teeth.

“I’ll see if the rebels know anything.” Pidge says curtly before storming out of the deck, clearly shaken by the news.

“Where was the last transmission?” Shiro continues.

“At XXX coordinates, a wasteland now because of the infighting.”

Lance counts to himself as he breathes in and out slowly.

“Either their devices were destroyed or something else is wrong,” Kolivan suggests with a twinge in his eyes, finally betraying his emotion.

“Understood,” Shiro rubs his face in his hands. “We will have to assume the worst, but it’s possible that something else is interfering.” He nods to himself and turns around to look Hunk and Lance in the eye. “People are lost in war, this is reality - but at the same time it’s okay to have hope. We got Matt and Sam back didn’t we?” He offers with a smile and Hunk and Lance nod back. Shiro turns back to Kolivan, “Thank you Kolivan, I know exactly how you must feel. We will hopefully be in contact again, operation Oriande is our current focus.” Kolivan nods in understanding and they bid farewell before the line is cut off.

“It is a tragedy how young he was,” Coran comments sadly. Lance lets out a sniffle and leaves the deck before he can be caught crying.

“You’re right, which is exactly why we must focus on our mission now. The empire cannot go on like this,” Shiro says, determined and turning away from Lance's exit.

Coran nods, “We’re nearing the coordinates the prince and princess provided us.”

“I’ll go check on Allura and Lotor’s progress then,” Hunk pumps his fist.

“No need, we’re ready upon arrival,” Allura says as she enters the deck with her flight suit on. She exchanges a meaningful nod with Coran and then turns to Shiro, noticing the despondent mood. “Tell me.”

Lance doesn’t notice Acxa loitering by the wall outside the deck until she grabs his hand and physically stops him from storming away. He snaps out of his distant gaze and glares at her.

She doesn’t falter. “What’s wrong?” At that simple question, Lance’s eyes water.

“He’s gone.” He says and Acxa squeezes his hand.

“We should have faith.” Acxa says, thinking of her own comrades. Lance turns his gaze away from her but she tugs on his arm to get his attention again. “Whatever happened was not in our control.” She says with deep sincerity, evidently understanding Lance’s feelings.

“Acxa!” Lotor calls from down the hallway. She doesn’t let go of Lance’s hand as she turns her attention to Lotor, noticing his fully armoured attire and crinkled eyebrows. “A word.” He commands, eyeing Lance.

Acxa turns to Lance with the feeling that she won’t be around for a while. “He’s a fighter, he will be back some way or another,” Acxa says before dropping his hand.

Lance squeezes his hand into a fist. “You’re right.” He yells out. Acxa tilts her head slightly back towards him, offering a slight smile. Shortly after, Lotor and her disappear around the corner leaving Lance with his guilt and grief. But now overshadowed by a sense of determination. He heads to the training room again.

“We are close to approaching Oriande,” Lotor tells Acxa. “The Sincline should be finished by now, you will go and pick it up. I expect it to be ready for my next mission after Oriande. No delays.”

“But sir, I won’t make it in or out of the abyss without your guidance.”

“I will guide you in then the ship will guide you out. That’s the beauty of the ore,” Lotor says confidently and Acxa frowns with uncertainty but tries not to let her concern show.

“Yes sir.”

“Be ready to leave soon.”

“No need, I can leave now.”

“Perfect, always a reliable one,” Lotor says turning away from her. “I appreciate it Acxa, and after all this, we will be able to retrieve Ezor and Zethrid.” He promises, but with his back turned to her she can’t discern his expressions easily.

“Indeed.” Acxa turns to leave, ready to work.

Chapter Text

“Now!” Krolia says signalling the trio to jump. They freefall briefly, the air whipping wildly around them the moment they break into the pocket. Keith and Krolia stuff their hands into the thick fur of their wolf’s back before promptly being zapped lower into the tree line and then lower and lower until they’re within reach of the ground. They drag their hands down the trunk of the tree to break their fall but still land heavily onto the ground with rollswith heavy impact that they break with rolls. The wolf zaps himself to the ground with heavy pants and a whine so Keith showers him with affection telling him ‘good boy good boy’. They navigate the terrain for a while, mostly around trees and bushes, before hearing the sound of running water. Following the sound in hopes of finding something they come across a woman with her back towards them hunched by the river.

“Is that?” Keith begins but Krolia gently pushes him back to stay hidden with a finger up to her mouth. “-an Altean?” Keith says bewildered, eyes fixated on the marks adorning the woman’s cheekbones. The woman gets up and starts making her way down the river, supposedly returning home or at least back to civilisation. The trio hidden within the trees stalk their way through, the woman never leaving their sight. When they reach the end of their hidden pathway Keith looks to Krolia conveying what they must do. She nods and the two jump out from behind the trees, Keith with a hand on thick fur and Krolia’s shoulder whilst Krolia smothers the woman’s mouth. They all zap into the forest with the woman shrieking the whole time..

“We mean no harm.” Keith says with placating hands. She continues screaming, scrambling away from them and looking between their faces and the large wolf.

“Can you stop yelling.” Krolia requests with annoyance. Immediately the woman shuts her mouth, slapping her hands over it to physically stop herself.

“Are you an Altean?” Keith asks cautiously, approaching closer. She nods furiously. “...Are you aware you’re in the quantam abyss?” She shakes her head rapidly. “Are there more Alteans?” She nods. “Who is Lotor to you?” At that, the fear and compliance she initially demonstrated becomes overshadowed by the anger that boils in her eyes. Keith looks to Krolia with a serious look as if to say, ‘this is important’.

“Lotor is only a liar.” The woman spits out.

Keith nods in understanding, “can you tell us more? About this place too?” He gestures around.

“You’re not with him?”

“No,” Krolia answers immediately before Keith can get into the details of their complicated relationship.

The woman nods, thinking for a moment to weigh her options. “...This is Altean colony number 1.”

“Number 1?”

“Lotor is in the midst of creating another colony though that’s a complete lie. We take tests to get into the other colony, apparently only certain people can survive there. The truth is that he harvests us for our quintessence. For what? I don’t know.” She turns her head down, mind in a dark place conveyed by the pain in her expression. “We worship him here. Not me. Lucky you,” she says bitterly but Keith can’t help but feel that it was indeed lucky of them.

“I’m Keith by the way, this is my mother Krolia, and this is our wolf.” Keith introduces.

“I’m Romelle, what’s the name?” She points to the wolf.

“Oh uh, he doesn’t have one that we know of.”

Romelle raises a single eyebrow up at him. “You didn’t give him a name?”

“I’m waiting for him to tell me…” Keith says, but he suddenly feels self-conscious.

“Okay weirdo…follow me. Lotor’s up to something here and you’re gonna help me stop it.”

Keith looks to Krolia who nods, happy with the smooth interrogation and the quick progress they seem to be making.

“You look like him,” Romelle points out. Keith turns to his mom who nods her head in admission. “We don’t see much of your kind. The fanatics will go crazy once they see you and you-” she turns to Keith, “You’re Altean too?”

“No, Galran and…Earthian.” The explanation foreign on his tongue but no doubt something he would have to grow used to.

“Never heard of it, but you look like us.” Romelle points to herself.

“Earthians do resemble Alteans quite a bit.”

“Hmmm, cool cool. Sorry if I’m rude, I’ve never left this place before. Never been in the outside world…Lotor is the only one from the outside I’m met. How did you guys get in here? Lotor said this place is impossible to find.”

“This colony is located in the quantam abyss, impossible to navigate through but we have a feeling we will find our exit here.” Krolia reveals.

“We found you accidentally.” Keith adds.

“Accident or not, you’re here now. There’s no in or out of this colony…but clearly you’ve already broken rule one.” She turns on them resolutely, “I want out of here.” She spits out. “However, you’re leaving take me with you. There’s nothing for me here anyways.” When they reach the bustling civilisation, Keith and Krolia have to take a moment to appreciate how many Alteans surround them. Believing them all to have perished it’s remarkable to see them thriving here…but they can tell something’s amiss. The Alteans approach Krolia with deep admiration and bow as she passes them, heads meeting the ground. As Romelle warned. A ship emerges from the abyss, flying over the group’s heads and garnering the whole city’s attention. They mumble excitedly amongst themselves with clear recognition.

“That’s one of Lotor’s ships.” Keith notices and Krolia furrows her brows.

“Yes, I told you he was up to something -hey wait-!” Romelle calls out as her new allies dash off, leaving her dawdling behind. She runs to catch up to them, unwilling to let them go. The group tuck themselves around the corner of a building, peeking over to watch Lotor’s ship touchdown. Keith’s eyes widen from their hiding spot as he sees Acxa leave the ship alone only to be greeted by a hoard of Alteans raising their hands as if worshipping her.

“That’s not Lotor.” Krolia points out.

“Because that’s his general.” Keith explains.

The group watch as Acxa interacts with the Alteans before being led elsewhere.

“We have to go closer,” Keith commands and Krolia follows his lead.

“Wait what? Please wait!” Romelle whisper-yells, nervous at the boldness. They sneak closer and watch as the engineers talk animatedly whilst gesturing wildly at the metal ground beneath them. Acxa nods and says something which prompts the party to step aside as the ground beneath them unravels. It appears that whatever Lotor had brewing here was held underground and because of that, Keith can’t quite makeout what it is. Acxa disappears underground before a large rumbling signals her exit. A ship the size of Voltron emerges from the ground with the Alteans bowing down to it.

“From the vision.” Krolia says with narrowed eyes. “This is our way out.”

“Quick, we need a ship.” Keith says to Romelle.

“Oh uh yes of course! Surely there’ll be some this way!” She runs off with the group trailing behind her until they come across an Altean pod that Keith recognises as similar to those of the castle’s. “What’s the plan?” She asks.

“We’re following her.” Keith commands as he hops into the pod with an outstretched hand towards her. Romelle hesitates for a moment but when she looks back at the Alteans worshipping the looming killing machine all hesitation dies out. She takes Keith’s hand, signalling the start of something completely new for her and she can’t help but feel excited. More rumbling signals Acxa’s departure and Keith hurriedly moves to get to the controls as their wolf stands resolutely by his side.

“They’re leaving so quickly! How will we even follow them?”

“My son is an incredible pilot.” Krolia assures and Keith feels embarrassment creep up at the attention.

“Hold on buddy,” Keith says to the wolf before they shoot out of the abyss hot on Acxa’s trail.

Acxa notices the pod following behind her but finds that she really couldn’t care. Part of her hopes that it’s Zethrid and Ezor, hoping that they managed to find their way to the colony and are now following the ship to get out. As Lotor promised, the ship seems to outline a path unriddled with the abyss’ energy. She steers through it trusting that it will eventually lead her out as long as she doesn’t make a mistake. For all his faults, Lotor is certainly an efficient and knowledgeable man because she soon finds herself back in space, wasting no time to navigate her way back to the castle. She chances a glance behind her but doesn’t see the pod anymore and disappointment clouds over her.

The immense pressure of the abyss’ energy and the speed at which they move causes the group in the pod to groan out.

“Are we going to make it?!” Romelle cries out.

“We will.” Keith repsonds and with a few aggressive turns their pod shoots out of the swirling mass of light causing its passengers to lurch forward, the immense pressure gone.

“You did it.” Krolia breathes out. “Only two years and we’re already out,” she chuckles to herself, admonishing the part of her that had expected them to wither in the abyss.

“Wow!” Romelle takes a moment to appreciate the vastness of space. Her wildest imaginations curating stories and adventures with this setting as its backdrop.

Keith smirks, ruffling his wolf’s head who wags his tail in return. “We really did it.”

“I’m opening up communication lines for us.” Krolia says as she gets out of her seat and moves to the controls. Keith hands her his personal devices that he kept safe with him and she takes out her own, plugging each one in and hailing a line with anyone that would pick up. Meanwhile, Keith spies an irregular pattern in the floating asteroids that point towards something big soaring past them and he follows down the path.

“Romelle, what was that ship?” Keith asks.

“I’m not quite sure, I can only guess that it has something to do with quintessence. My only family, my brother, was taken by Lotor to be stationed on the other colony. I didn’t pass the test you see. He’s the only one who’s ever come back from the colony but when he did, he was drained…withered. He stumbled out of his ship barely able to hold himself up and he ran to me…he wanted to see me one last time.” Romelle says weakly. “And I was glad to see him one last time…I watched as Lotor cleaned up the corpse and the ship, he removed all evidence of my brother’s struggle. Whatever he’s done I don’t think it’s in everyone’s best interest.”

“The abyss showed us a vision of that ship. It was my future memories of battling it with Voltron.”

“Voltron? Voltron is real?”

“It is.” Krolia answers with a proud smile.

“Incredible,” Romelle breathes out.

“But…” Keith frowns. “We’ve been gone for who knows how long,” he turns to his mom who shares his sentiment. “We don’t know what’s happened in the meantime and we have to expect the worst. Time is of the essence now.” The sound of beeping interrupts their conversation and Krolia hurries to answer it. Keith’s eyes widen and quickly soften at the line that opens up. “Lance,” he breathes out.

-

“Lotor! Your marks!” Allura points out and Lotor gently touches the top of his cheekbones feeling a gently thrumming deep within. He looks wide-eyed at Allura who returns it with an adoring smile. “You’re also worthy.”

“It seems I am,” he breathes out. He feels a surge of pride, relief, and grief mixing in his gut. Memories of the past 10,000 years of never being accepted for who he was, of the destruction that never seemed to stop, of the powerlessness, of the yearning for his mother, of finding his mother’s people, of betrayal after betryal after betrayal…Yet here he stands now with the princess of his mother’s people and staring down the legend he’s chased after for so long. “I’m here.” He whispers.

“Princess, it doesn’t seem like I’m worthy, but no matter! Alchemy was never my interest. This means that you and Lotor will have to venture in there alone.” Coran says with his usual bubbly tone.

“We’ll be right here Allura,” Lance says sternly but it fails to masks the concern and grief painted on his face.

“Be careful princess,” Pidge offers.

“We’ll be waiting for you,” Shiro nods to Lotor who can’t shake the suspicion of those words.

Encased in metal walls and darkness a hooded woman lifts her head and gasps, “Oriande.”

With their farewells, Allura and Lotor make their way to the hangar. They hold hands tightly and Allura turns to him before the final stretch. She holds his hand in both of hers and presses her forehead against it. Lotor can tell that she’s nervous and he can’t blame her given the nerves and fear he himself feels. He lifts up her chin and the two look into each other’s eyes for a while before they both break into smiles.

“We’ve got this.” Allura says.

“...We do.”

Team Voltron can only watch as their princess and Lotor soar past them and disappear into the light with their communication lines going dead as expected.

“The waiting begins,” Pidge jokes and is right because they all wait anxiously around the deck. Each entertaining themselves with anything they can find but still on high alert. After a while of torturous waiting, Lance feels the anxiety creep up and has to pinch himself to not let his mind wander. He hears the sound of a line opening from his paladin seat but ignores it because he knows he’s going crazy. The only thing that’s there is the untouched communication line Keith gave him and Lance is clearly too far gone in his anxiety that he’s imagining Keith calling to make him feel better about Allura’s disappearance.

“Someone pick that up,” Coran hisses out annoyed. Lance’s eyes widen and he turns to Shiro who has turned to find the source of the beeping. His arms fall slack against his sides and the world quietens for a brief moment.

“Lance,” Pidge says annoyed, realising it’s coming from his seat. Everyone voices shock and concern when Lance falls to his knees.

“Lance!” Hunk cries out, moving to help him up.

“What’s wrong?” Shiro asks as he also moves but Lance scrambles to get up by himself and dashes to his seat desperately. He pulls out the compartment aggressively and his hands shake as he reaches for the device that is definitely receiving a signal. His hands tremble and he takes a breath when he realises that it could be someone who picked up on a random signal that just so happened to be the one he shared with Keith. He finds that he can’t deal with that disappointment and hands the device to Hunk with shakiness.

“Answer it.” He demands of Hunk who immediately recognises the device and pieces together what Lance had figured out.

“No…it can’t be,” Hunk breathes out with a shaky voice and with a look at Lance’s defeated but clearly shaken composure he quickly takes the device and looks around the room seeing the mixture of confusion and gradual recognition. He slaps his face and answers the signal a bright smile growing on his face at the sight. He squats down next to Lance, grabbing Lance’s hand and wrapping it around the device with an excited shake of Lance’s shoulders. Lance dares to believe and looks at the line that opened up with bated breath and thumping heart.

“Lance,” Keith says. Lance’s eyes water and he lets out the breath he had been holding.

“Keith.”

“Keith?!” Coran yells out.

“KEITH!” Pidge cries out and slams herself into Lance to see. Shiro approaches quietly but his demeanor is unnatural and his hands don’t seem to know what to do.

“You’re back,” Shiro greets with a warm smile.

“It’s good to be back.” Keith laughs out, brushing back his hair.

Chapter Text

Acxa hovers on a planet near the coordinates of Oriande and the castle, sincline too large to even attempt to fit into the castle’s hangar. The line with Lotor is gone. So she waits. Alone with her thoughts.

-

“Kolivan said we lost connection with you and is that…?” Hunk points to the Galra behind Keith. Keith glances at Krolia and her fortified face, clearly busy planning what the next courses of action is.

“No time to waste, we’re en route to the castle. Where is Lotor?”

“Him and Allura are at Oriande.” Coran supplies helpfully. “Is something wrong…?”

“Yes…but it’s best if I let her tell you.” Keith directs their attention to the woman in the back of the pod. “We’ll be there in a few doboshes, I’ll meet you guys in the hangar,” he smiles at them, eyes lingering on identifying the minuscule details in Lance’s face so similar yet so different from the vision that supplied the only image for the last two years. The connection cuts off and they look at each other with concern though Lance finds he can ignore the Lotor problem quite easily in place of the gratitude that the universe returned Keith safely.

“Alright paladins, suit up. We don’t know what’s coming but something tells me it’s not good.” Shiro commands and his eyes flash purple briefly though no one picks up on it.

“10-4,” the trio salute. They all suit up whilst Coran runs ship diagnostics to distract himself from the concern gnawing to ensure Allura’s safety. After everyone is sufficiently prepared, they head as a group down to the hangar which opens up to welcome an Altean pod.

“Remarkable! It looks just like it came from home!” Coran marvels.

The pod opens up impossibly slowly and they watch as if in slow-motion as a tall Galran woman walks out followed by an Altean and then Keith whose face is framed by an impressive mane of hair and shoulders commanding respect. Is that…a space dog? Lance steps forward and Keith is reminded of the future memory painted by his very face. He notices something different about the memory, something starkly different that wasn’t just aging features. Keith lifts his hand to inspect Lance’s cheek, gaze focused as he tries to recall the difference, and mesmerised that he can now touch the vision.

“Uhh?” Lance blurts out with wide eyes, bringing Keith back to the present, remembering that he’s no longer traversing through the abyss aimlessly and that now he’s experiencing reality once again.

Keith hurriedly shuts Lance’s mouth with his thumb, effectively preventing Lance’s lips from moving. “No time to dawdle,” he says out loud though it’s mostly to himself. His mom levels him with a stern gaze and he shivers before turning to Romelle, giving her the floor.

-

Lotor growls, irritated by the ethereal beast’s ignorance. He swings and slashes, aggression nearing its peak the more the beast lunges at him. “I am your COMMANDER!” He hollers out. “You will listen to me!” One more swing and this time it connects to Lotor’s joy but the world seems to suck itself away from him. He falters, looking around him and then falls to the ground once he sees he’s been rejected. He bellows out a frustrated yell into the ground.

-

“You are the white lion…” Allura breathes out and dodges as the lion leaps at her. “What’s going on?! Please, I only come with pure intentions!” Another leap and Allura parries. “Please listen to me!” The lion stalks around her before lunging again. “I don’t want to hurt you! I just want to learn!” Her cries fall on deaf ears but with a deep inhale she steadies herself, taking in her surroundings. “I am sorry for encroaching on your territory…you have allowed me entry but now you fight against me…it doesn’t make sense.” She runs but finds herself running aimlessly and the lion catches up to her easily. “What…what do you want from me?!” She looks around at the pearlescent field that surrounds her. “...You need me to accept you.” She instantly drops onto her knees and closes her eyes, trying not to flinch at the fear of the lion jumping right at her. Instead of a brutal collision, she feels the lion become a fluid energy that sinks into her chest and she thrums with energy all the way to her fingertips. She gently wipes a small tear at the corner of her eye and opens her eyes to see Lotor running toward her. “Thank you,” She whispers. She turns to Lotor who doesn’t seem to share in the thrumming energy. Understanding crosses her features but she doesn’t push. “Lotor, I can’t thank you enough for all you’ve done for me.” She lifts up her hand, admiring the residual shimmer of colour that emanates from its tips.

“It was all worth it to finally see Oriande for myself, and now you’ve obtained its secrets.” Lotor grabs Allura’s hand and squeezes. The pair head back to the castle of lions but when the hangar doors open, Lotor realises something’s wrong.

“Keith?!” Allura cries out and runs to hug him, he accepts the embrace but when they part he levels her with a serious expression. She studies the room’s hostility, observing that it’s directed towards the man behind her. “Keith…?” Allura breathes out in disbelief, looking at Romelle. Her vision seems to zero in and her world tilts slightly.

“You need to hear her out.”

“Lotor has been lying to you!” Romelle says unable to hold back her anger. “He’s just using you like he used all of us. He harvested us!” She turns to face Lotor with a pained expression, “How could you?! We worshipped you as our hero! How could you betray us like this?!” Romelle stomps her foot and flails her arms around, breaking down at the sight of Lotor in front of her. Allura quickly turns to Lotor with confusion and he quickly tries to reassure her.

“Princess, she is exaggerating and you should allow me to explain-”

“Explain how you formed our colonies and lied to us for generations?!” Romelle interrupts bravely.

“Hang on, just- Lotor please explain. And only the truth.” Allura gently holds her temples.

“Princess, after the fall of Altea many of our people survived on other planets. They used their natural talents to blend in but they were never truly home. I spent centuries, tirelessly, finding all these Alteans and reuniting them with each other. You have to remember that they are my people, I wanted to protect my people.”

“Then explain why they were a secret until now.” Pidge spits out.

“Why do I only know of them now?” Allura asks with a shaky voice.

“Understand Allura that Zarkon destroyed Altea out of a grudge. Do you think he wouldn’t harm the innocent people too once he learnt of their existence? You have to understand it was for their protection! I didn’t intentionally hide their existence I just had simply grown used to not sharing the secret so openly…”

“But…why wouldn’t you tell me?” Allura’s eyes shine with unshed tears.

“Because he needs to use us,” Romelle answers. “If you knew then you would discover the experiments.”

“That’s not true-”

“He had his eyes on the transreality ore-” Pidge pipes in. “..-is it so outrageous to think that in all the time Lotor has been alive fighting in this war, that he would use any means possible to retrieve the ore? The ore that was only retrievable now with Voltron?” She challenges. Hunk places a hand on her shoulder to remind her to take it slowly. They fail to notice Shiro’s flickering purple eyes and pained expression.

“My brother was selected for your second colony, and he came back drained and withered. He came back in a ship, nothing like I’ve ever seen. I can never get the image of how he looked when he was dying out of my mind. I’ve replayed it so many times yet you covered it up and continued your lies!”

“Allura…” Lance whispers out concerned reaching a hand out.

“You can’t trust him!” Romelle’s voice cracks and she points an accusing finger at the man.

“Allura whatever the intention was, it’s fact that he hid them and used them,” Keith says.

“Allura he’s dangerous!” Pidge yells.

“We have to at least address it,” Hunk reasons.

“Allura please trust me, think about all we’ve accomplished together-” Lotor pleads but Allura slaps his hand away and glares up at him.

“Everyone be quiet!” The room goes silent at the sudden burst of anger from the princess they’ve all come to admire. She huffs and pinches between her eyes. “I don’t know what to believe…I believe you’re looking out for the greater good Lotor…but I also believe my paladins and my people.”

“...Am I not your people?” Lotor asks with hurt. Allura ignores him and signals to the others to do what they need to. “You cannot do this to me.” Lotor roughly grabs Allura’s shoulder and she tries to gently shake him off but he only latches on tighter. “Listen to me!” At the raised voice she swings him over her shoulder, finally having enough. The other paladins step back from the shock but Krolia nods approvingly. Lotor blinks, processing what had just happened before his expression contorts into a fierce rage. “I should’ve known not to rely on you people! So quick to judge! You always think you’re right! But I’ll have you know I have so many plans that you cannot even comprehend!” Lotor yells in outrage but is cut off by Shiro roughly knocking him out and hoisting him over his shoulder.

“Shiro! That was largely unnecessary!” Allura yells, but without warning Shiro takes off running with Lotor’s body hauled over his shoulder. “Shiro?!”

“Where’s he going?!” “Shiro!” “Hang on!” The cries of their team sound out but Shiro doesn’t slow down or even turn to listen. Their shock dissipates as Keith and Krolia take off running, spurring the others into action. The lights go off, forcing the paladins to slow their chase as they adjust to the lack of visibility.

“Coran!” Allura calls out.

“On it Princess!” Coran hurriedly makes his way to the castle’s control panel with Pidge following behind him. The Galrans power through, eyes flashing an unsettling yellow amidst the dark, empty hallways as they follow Shiro’s route.

“Lance!” Allura calls out as Lance sprints away from them.

“Pidge! You got eyes on cameras?” He commands.

“I do but he’s moving weirdly! Like…like he doesn’t know his way around the castle?!” Pidge communicates over comms.

“He’s only got so many escape routes, I’m going to the hangar. Hunk, with me. Allura, the airlock.” Lance announces with a collected coolness that reminds everyone why he’s the right hand of Voltron.

“Good thinking Lance!” Coran praises.

“On my way!” Allura confirms the instruction.

“Hunk has to stay with us! The whole system is completely re-written!”

“Roger! Lance buddy you good to go alone?”

“I’m not sure, but I guess I have no other choice,” Lance gulps nervously as he grips his bayard in his hand.

Chapter Text

The lights of the castle’s halls flicker back to life, causing Keith and Krolia to falter slightly from the sudden brightness. The rogue sentry that blocks their path whirls its Altean staff dangerously but is quickly pushed back from shots firing out from Lance’s bayard. Krolia moves at the opening and wrestles the dummy to the ground.

“Go!” She yells to her son who wastes no opportunity to bound after Shiro. Krolia’s soon overpowered by the abnormally strong bot that raises onto its legs carrying her on top. Allura hurriedly slides onto the ground, swinging her staff and sending the bot falling.

“Sorry old pal,” Lance says before his bayard transforms into a large red broadsword and promptly lops the dummy in half. “Krolia, come with me to the hangar,” he commands and Krolia nods, respecting the decision.

“Lead the way.”

Keith grumbles as the castle's defense mechanisms seem intent on stopping him from chasing Shiro down. He nimbly dodges shots fired at him that thankfully ease quickly, most likely thanks to the engineers working hard on reconfigurating the castle’s systems one by one. His speed quickly matches up to Shiro’s mad sprint which should not be possible without injury. “Shiro! What’s wrong?!” No answer. “Shiro please!” No answer. Keith growls, “Don’t make me stop you!” No answer. With the distance closing, Keith lunges at Shiro but Shiro turns and slams Keith to the wall with a strength Keith didn’t know the big man could muster against him. He notices that Shiro’s shoulder has popped out of place yet he shows no signs of noticing the damage to his own body before disappearing down rooms and winding hallways. “You’re hurting yourself!!”

“Alright, Pidge close the doors.” Lance demands into his arm’s comms. The doors to the hangar waste no time sliding shut and locking with a clink.

“Those doors won’t stop him if he comes this way,” Krolia remarks.

“I know, so we’ll have to stay here and hope he doesn’t come this way.”

“I hope he does.” Krolia shakes out her hands and pulls out her blade, forming it into its larger form. Lance eyes the galra’s battle stance and large blade, gulping at the brutality he doesn’t doubt she is capable of.

Keith’s peripheral catches a figure dash past from behind a transparent screen and he scrambles to follow. “Quiznack,” Keith recognises the hallway and, whether purposeful or not, he knows the direction is very bad. “Shiro please!” Keith speeds up, legs and heart pounding as the distance closes more and more. Lotor’s head tilts up and his weight starts to shift, signalling his entrance back into consciousness. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” As they pound down the hall in a heated chase, Keith notices Lance waiting on the other side of the clear hangar doors who has his bayard raised. The doors that would ordinarily open automatically remain shut and stay shut even as Shiro attempts to manually override it. Lotor quickly calculates the situation and shoves himself off Shiro. He brandishes his sword elegantly yet menacingly. Shiro turns and slams his body into Keith chasing after them whilst Krolia quells her urge to reveal her hiding position and help her son. She breathes in angrily and moves her attention to Lance instead, waiting for a signal. Lotor swings his sword with precision honed from thousands of years of battles that could never be hindered by a mere concussion. The doors give into his blade, gradually being sliced through. With a kick, the metal material falls to the ground and a makeshift passage opens up.

“Stop!” Lance fires off warning shots but Lotor doesn’t falter, in fact, he seems to ignore Lance completely. The look on his face is cold, not even trying to fake a political smile, so Lance lowers his bayard ever so slightly to assess the man. “Lotor? C’mon man, this isn’t what Allura wants.” That seems to touch on the man’s buried emotions and he visibly tenses up but doesn’t slow his pace. “Don’t make me do this! Please!” Lance raises his bayard and fires a shot at Lotor’s foot who parries it easily with his sword. “Allura! Come to the hangar now!” Lance commands into his comms and that seems to provoke Lotor because his body language begins to exude ruthlessness and danger, like he is prepared to do anything to get past Lance.

“Copy that,” Allura’s voice calls out over from Lance’s armour.

“Do not come princess.” Lotor pronounces each word carefully.

“LANCE!” Keith’s panicked voice echoes out from behind Lotor. It happens rapidly, Lotor lunges at Lance with his sword brandished and Lance’s bayard switches to a broadsword whilst Krolia leaps out from behind a control system. Everything seems to pause for a tick as Keith tunes out the battle for a second, viewing everything with clarity as if he were observing from above. Shiro’s glowing purple arm pushing onto him no longer feels heavy, or at least, Keith can’t feel his arms for the moment as a hum resounds in his head. Familiar. The black bayard disappears from the observatory deck and flies rapidly, leaving behind a purple trail. Keith feels its presence and briefly lets go of his blade. At once, Shiro’s arm burns into Keith’s cheek whilst a black blade lodges itself into the glowing arm. Keith pushes Shiro off and, with a grimace and a pang of guilt, he slices through Shiro’s arm. Shiro stumbles off balance and before he can make a final lunge that would certainly end his life, a staff hits into the side of his head brutally. His eyes roll back and his head seems to shake on his neck before his whole body falls to the ground completely limp. Keith meets Allura’s sad eyes and nods to her. “It had to be done,” he reassures as he turns away and focuses on Lotor. Lance duels with Lotor briefly, forced to defend himself as he barely catches up with Lotor’s expert swings. Krolia intervenes quickly with her blade, forcing Lotor off Lance who jumps away and switches to his blaster for covering fire. Lotor winces as some shots graze him and growls as he’s forced back from Krolia’s brutal slashes. Their sword styles clash, noticeably different despite their shared appearances. Another shot sings out but Lotor finds it difficult to even attempt to dodge because of the galra in front of him masking the shot’s trajectory. He cries out as it narrowly skims past Krolia’s head and into his shoulder.

“Lotor!” Allura cries out.

“Focus princess!” Keith commands as he runs up and knocks Lotor’s legs from behind to send him stumbling.

“Go AWAY!” Lotor yells out like an irritated teenager. With his rising anger, he roughly parries a slash and aggressively fumbles with his flight suit. “ACXA! COME NOW!”

“Acxa?” Lance falters which proves to be detrimental as Lotor whips out a small device that he throws towards Lance. It beeps menacingly in the air as Lance’s eyes widen and he brings his shield up painfully slowly whilst he tenses up and turns his face away to brace for the familiar explosion. Keith untangles himself from the fight and sprints towards Lance desperately. Lotor pushes passed Krolia and starts a manic sprint towards his ship that opens up to his approach. The explosion sounds off and Lance is knocked off his feet roughly but strong arms wrap around him and cradle his head. Lance wastes no time to swing up his shield to protect the two of them as they fly out of the blast’s immediate radius. Lance’s ears ring but gradually he hears the sounds of swords clashing and Allura’s voice. He groans and rubs his head, noticing that another hand is laying below like a pillow. Regaining his bearings, he jolts to check on Keith whose head is laying on top of his chest. “Keith!” He drops his bayard and lifts Keith’s face with both his hands, ignoring the commotion around them.

Keith blinks blearily up to Lance. “L-Lance,” He struggles out. “Did you- you got smaller?”

“Pfft,” Lance scoffs and lets out a relieved sigh. He strokes a thumb against Keith’s cheek, newly branded by a clean scar. “Stupid space ninja, you’re going crazy,” he pulls back his hand to slap Keith’s cheek gently. Keith adjusts to push himself up onto his arms and Lance pushes himself out from under him, standing up and reaching a hand out to help Keith up. Lance pulls Keith up and Keith stumbles into Lance slightly who holds him by his waist. Lance smiles warmly down at the man, joy overcoming him at being able to fully confirm that indeed Keith is warm and safe in his arms. The two of them have their attention grabbed by a loud rumbling as the hangar is sliced through. The castle’s strong metal gives in easily and is sucked out into space, sending all the inhabitants of the room grasping for a handhold. Keith pushes against the force, wrapping his arms beneath Lance’s arms and holding up both their weight whilst Lance guides them to the hangar’s walls. They can only watch as an ominous mecha hovers just outside…watching. Lotor tumbles past them and grabs onto his ship, pulling himself in before taking off. Krolia has her claws scarping into the ground as she holds onto Allura’s back, stopping her from going after Lotor as she cries out to him but Lotor takes no heed to her words. A crackling over the speakers is barely audible over the chaos but they all hear Coran’s voice over the comms.

“Paladins! To your lions! Pidge and Hunk will provide cover!” The Green and Yellow lion fly from behind the mecha, shooting weak blasts at the beast and chasing Lotor’s ship.

Lotor growls annoyed at the vermin on his tail. “Acxa engage! Before they form Voltron!”

“But sir-”

“ENGAGE!”

The woman hesitates but sees Lance, holding onto the man she could not stop hearing the end of and in this moment he looks so small. Gripping tightly onto someone he thought was dead and she doesn’t doubt that he would jump in front if she were to attack. She looks down depondently, remembering Ezor and Zethrid…and Narti. Lance looks up carefully and it’s almost as if he sees her inside the sincline. His face is scrunched up, bearing the elements yet he manages to look sad. She breathes in deeply and grits her teeth.

“No.”

“What?!”

“I said no.” She turns the sincline away from the hangar, refraining from any actions.

“...So you have chosen to betray me.”

“That’s not-”

“Get out, I’ll finish the job.” Lotor orders and Acxa can tell that this will be a rare opportunity for her to escape unharmed yet she feels the familiar dread that follows when Lotor loses rationality.

“Lotor, you cannot beat Voltron.” She says, and Lotor’s ship circles around the sincline before he forces it to open. She panics and begins her own extraction, sliding herself out and towards where Lotor’s ship would have entered into. Lotor storms through sincline, quickly entering the cockpit which he discovers as empty.

“Figures you would run. No one is capable of standing up to the challenges. No one is willing to make the sacrifices!” He yells out and roughly slams the walls. “No one is capable of changing this world!” He slides himself into the cockpit, the controls humming beneath him. “Except me.” The sincline whirs to life, its intended owner taking control.

“Uhh guys?!” Hunk calls out over the comms as him and the green lion fly backwards and away from the mecha that seems to glow with quintessence. “Hurry!”

Chapter Text

“Hurry guys!” Pidge yells out as she dodges a shot from Lotor. Hunk groans through the comms as his lion is roughly pummeled by the sincline’s tail which is proving difficult to fight against.

“We can’t! The pressure is too strong!” Lance responds through groans.

“It tore out the whole system! There’s no backup doors or shields or anything!” Coran calls over. “One of the lions has to pick you lot up!”

Allura holds onto Krolia tightly as the woman uses both her hands to claw her way to the makeshift passage Lotor had made earlier.

Lance watches them slightly bug-eyed. Blinking slowly at the sight. He turns to Keith and Keith looks up at him through squinted eyes.

“No.” Keith answers curtly and Lance bursts out laughing which uplifts Keith’s grouchy mood for a moment, causing his heart to beat faster. “You’re ridiculous,” Keith chuckles along with Lance. Part of him knows that he’s telling himself that - seriously Keith? Distracted on the battlefield? There’s a pull that he feels towards the man grabbing him that was only strengthened by the two years Keith spent looking at the wonders of the universe and picturing what the future would be like and why he felt so strongly about the vision of Lance. Lance’s eyes seem to twinkle but Keith notices that there’s something about him that’s different. The demeanor, the sleepless eyes, the longer hair, the strength at which the man holds him. He exudes a reliable strength and a heightened maturity. He finds that for once he doesn’t want to be a soldier anymore or a paladin. For once he truly believes he can live a peaceful life on a farm somewhere and that he wants to work towards a life for himself where he can leave the fight without guilt. Even for a day or two he just wants to forget the war for a moment and tell Lance everything about himself, about his journeys and about his newfound knowledge of his origins. How he wants to explore Earth, the planet of which his father originated from, and develop a connection with his origins as well as the place his friends came from.

“I’ll try to call for Red,” Lance announces and turns cautiously to Keith. “Can you try to call for Black?” He suggests and Keith nods slowly. Lance squeezes Keith tighter, “Black chose you.” He levels Keith with a deep look that briefly takes Keith aback.

“There’s no helping it huh?” Keith relents with a scoff but truthfully he hopes Black answers his call and, with Lance’s support, there’s an added confidence that it will happen. Lance closes his eyes and tries to focus on that meta-physical feeling that thrums in his head from time-to-time. He feels everything tingle around him, the feeling of his hand gripping tightly around an exposed pipe and Keith’s warm, big, hard body - when did his chest get so big? - cocooning him. FOCUS. He hones in on a speck of matter that seems to thump warmly in his head and when the warmth washes over him, he’s left with a cool shimmer before Red’s roar resounds. “Yes!” He cries out in glee, opening his eyes and being greeted by the sight of Red awaiting him. He silences himself when he notices that Keith is still focusing intently with his eyebrows furrowed cutely. Lance bumps his forehead against Keith’s, hoping that somehow it will strengthen the man’s connection by sending some sort of cosmic energy or something. After a bit longer of uncertainty, Keith murmurs a quiet, ‘thank you’ before he too opens his eyes. For a brief moment Lance thinks he’s failed but a smirk grows on Keith’s face and Black roars loudly before appearing next to Red and startling Lance. Lance recovers quickly, hooting and hollering, before he looks affectionately at Keith. “Welcome back, team leader.”

Keith smiles back at him, warmth blossoming in his chest at the familiar feelings he didn’t realise he had missed so much. “It’s good to be back.”

The two of them let go of their grips on the pipe and carefully make their way towards their lions.

“As much as I enjoyed this, my ride’s here,” Lance jokes. “Catch ya later,” he says with a two-finger salute before letting go of Keith and jumping to plunge in Red’s open jaw. Keith cringes at the lame lines but laughs to himself as he jumps into Black.

The two paladins simultaneously make their way into the cockpits and slide into their positions in front of the piloting panel. Red turns its mechead towards him and Keith announces with unabashed confidence, “Black and Red online!”

Pidge cheers loudly whilst Hunk breathes out his gratitude. With Red and Black joining the fight, the four of them manage to weave counter attacks towards the large mecha standing before them.

“Allura’s still not here?” Lance yelps.

“She was with my mom,” Keith supplies.

“Well she’s clearly not here is she?!” Pidge counters.

“Allura you okay?” Hunk whispers through the comms. The group wait for a response but don’t hear anything. “Allura-”

“I’m okay,” her voice comes through.

“Is there something wrong with Blue?” Keith asks.

“How dare you, there should be nothing wrong with Blue,” Lance chastices.

“No…I’m just-I need a break.” Allura says.

Pidge’s face falls and she quirks an eyebrow in disbelief, “A break?”

“...I can’t face Lotor...”

Hunk grips his controls tighter as he sustains another hit. “I don’t want to fight him either but I don’t think we exactly have a choice!”

“...I can’t!-”

“You can,” Lance interrupts. “I know you love him and I know you just want him to be safe…but right now he’s going to destroy us before the two of you can talk it out.”

“Lance is right princess,” Keith adds on. “Whatever feelings you have, they’re going down with the ship if we let him go on. There’s a chance he’ll listen to us once we stop him. We need you.”

The paladins wait with bated breath for Allura’s response. They hear a slap and her voice groaning out, “You’re right, let’s do this.”

“Nice!” Hunk hollers out. Blue quickly flies out from the castle and joins them whilst the group move to meet up with her halfway. Lotor watches as Voltron forms before his eyes and once again, it appears that he is the villain.

“Then so be it.” Lotor grunts as he pours his energy and focus into Sincline, piloting the large beast to move exactly how he wants.

“Form sword.” Keith commands and Lance locks his bayard into the port before twisting. Voltron pulls out a large sword and brandishes it proudly, ready to change the tides of battle from defense to attack. Sincline watches, almost amused, before leaping into action.

“How does he move like that?!” Pidge cries out when their sword can barely make contact with the fast ship. Lotor delivers them a brutal beating before something clicks in Lance’s mind and he sees flashes of times spent miserably contemplating the consequences of war but, more relevantly, accompanied by Acxa in the training room.

“Sync with me guys! I trained with Acxa and she moves similar to this,” Lance announces over the comms and the group allow their right hand to take over. “Hunk!”

“Got it!” Hunk grunts as he pushes his controls to move backwards and twist Voltron, narrowly missing a hit to the left side then boosts upwards to miss a swing from the back aimed at the legs. Hunk then twists and bellows out as he quickly adjusts to slam his lion in Sincline’s head.

“Oh yeah baby!” Lance whoops out. With an early celebration, Keith takes over and pushes Lance through their mental connection to swing Voltron’s sword to intercept Sincline’s aggressive tail swing.

“Phew good catch team leader!” Pidge calls out.

“Allura!” Keith calls out but it’s too late because Voltron is grabbed by its right foot and swung around violently.

“Sorry!” Allura calls out before she adjusts her controls to send a stream of ice down Sincline’s arm that allows them to force themselves out of its grasp.

“Allura you have to focus! This is BAD Lotor, not GOOD Lotor,” Lance cries out. Sincline looks at them menacingly, roughly shaking its arm of the pesky ice.

“I know I know! I’m focused now, let’s do this!” She yells as Voltron pulls itself together and charges. With all of them in sync and reading Lotor’s movements, they manage to match him and start overpowering him quickly with the experience and observations of five paladins.

“Keep going!”

They continue their onslaught and Lotor becomes more and more agitated at the beat down. He groans and slams the controls of the Sincline, annoyed that he can’t overwhelm Voltron. “Come on…COME ON!” He yells to himself and his eyes can only see red but there’s a thrumming in his chest that is strange yet familiar. Without thinking too hard, he aggressively latches onto the feeling and, almost as if it were being whispered into his ear, he learns exactly how to make use of Sincline’s true ability. Before Voltron can swing its sword against Sincline’s body again, the mecha disappears and Voltron is roughly knocked from behind before the large ship appears in front of them again to deliver a brutal series of hits. The paladins groan out in tandem.

“He’s fast!” Keith cries out.

“No,” Allura looks down in distress, her Altean marks thrumming with energy. “He’s entering the quintessence field at will…” She breathes out.

“Paladins you okay?!” Coran calls out. “Lotor appears to be dipping in and out of…well…something?!”

“Then how are we supposed to stop him?!” Lance cries out.

“Are you watching Allura?” Lotor spits out. “This is the true defender of Alteans, the true defender of the universe.” He smiles with wild eyes at the power seeping through him and charges up a powerful blast.

“High energy signals!” Pidge calls out.

“Divert everything to shields!” Keith commands and looks around rapidly to find the source of the inevitable attack.

“5 o’clock!” Hunk yells out and Voltron barely turns in time to meet the powerful blast. Pidge grits her teeth as she forces her lion to withstand the intense pressure.

“Hang in there!” Keith calls out.

The pressure finally subsides with a powerful aftershock that renders their lions briefly camotose.

“Guys?” Lance calls out worried.

“Where’d he go?!” Keith demands.

“He’s back in the quintessence field!” Allura cries out.

“Probably charging up another one of those!” Hunk whimpers out.

Allura feels a thrumming in her head and it resonates through her body as she turns her attention to the source of the feeling. She identifies the energy resonating from a particular point around them but it drifts back and forth rapidly.

“I-I think I can get us into the quintessence field,” She suggests. The paladins listen to her carefully. “I can feel the gate but it is constantly shifting around and almost impossible to enter without some cosmic power.”

“Wouldn’t that be exactly us then? Isn’t Voltron made from the exact same thing Lotor’s ship?” Pidge interjects.

“Yes that’s correct, and I believe my father - long ago - had done what we are about to attempt…but it will be dangerous and I need all of your full intent and willingness to go in.”

The paladins think for a brief moment before Keith furrows his brows and closes his eyes. “Take the lead Allura.”

Allura closes her eyes and the paladins follow in suit, reaching into the energy they’ve all felt before but truly tapping into its origins. Allura feels keenly the tingling of the gate and feels an echo of that in her lion. When she reaches out to Voltron’s connection, the echo reverberates and, as if a key was twisting in a lock, it clicks. Without words exchanged, Voltron rapidly charges towards an empty point in space and twists as if to kick with its right foot. Despite nothing existing there, Voltron meets a wall that ripples out from Blue’s touch. They sink into their legs with hands reaching out to the wall before pulling apart the very space before them. An enveloping white light overcomes their senses and when each paladin comes out of focus from their lions, they look mouth agaped around at the changed scenery.

Chapter Text

“Look alive people,” Lance reminds everyone.

Lotor’s ship stands before them. “Good work princess,” He murmurs bitterly and reveals two blades before charging at Voltron.

“Sword!” Keith orders and Voltron quickly draws its sword to clash with both of Lotor’s.

“You’ve gotten this far but it was a mistake. I draw infinite power from here!” He gloats.

“Quiznack! Voltron isn’t capable of absorbing quintessence the way Lotor’s ship can!” Allura exclaims.

“We’re not absorbing the power too?!” Pidge yells out confused.

“No! We’re not designed to do such a terrible thing! At this rate, he’s only going to get stronger and we’re going to be overwhelmed by the energy field It’s unnatural for anyone to be here!”

“Then let’s finish this quick.” Keith orders. The team battle a losing fight where they’re unable to reach Lotor’s exponentially growing speed and power. Everytime Lotor clashes with them, quintessence is stolen little by little.

“This isn’t working, we need a new plan!” Hunk cries out. Allura looks at her tingling hands briefly before squeezing them tighter around her controls and pinching her eyes.

“If Lotor wants power…then we should give it all to him.”

“What?!”

“Allura you can’t give up like that!” Lance interjects

“NO! Listen to me,” she demands. “I can control the flow of quintessence with the alchemy I learnt from Oriande. We cannot store it in Voltron because it would destroy us and Lotor also has a limit to what he can store. If he wants the quintessence so much, then I’m going to give it to him ten-fold until it destroys him.”

The paladins are silent for a beat.

“Will…it kill him?” Hunk asks.

Allura breathes out a long draw of air from her nose. “I don’t know,” she says curtly. “It will most certainly harm him, but at least it will be from the thing he wanted most.”

“Alright then team,” Keith begins. “This is our only conceivable way. Allura - Princess, take it away.”

Voltron retreats from Lotor quickly as Allura closes her eyes and hums an old Altean children’s melody to herself. She feels Voltron warm up rapidly and tries not to think about the consequences in lieu of focusing on the task at hand.

“Foolish endeavour, I absorb faster than you.” Lotor spits out and charges at them with his blades ready but he’s repelled back by a tidal wave of channeled quintessence emanating from Voltron. “HAHAHA! Brilliant!” He bellows out as he feels the Sincline vibrate pleasantly under the constant stream of energy.

“Keep going Allura!” Pidge cheers. Allura squeezes her controls tighter and chances a brief glance with one eye. She sees the quintessence, in all its shining glory, feeding itself into Lotor’s ship. The sight of such pure quintessence in such a large quantity amazes her but it also strikes fear in her heart when she sees Lotor’s ship start to shiver uncontrollably. The other paladins watch with baited breath as they feel the stream of energy flow in and out of Voltron. Lance feels Red protest against the strain and looks worriedly to his video feed to check on Allura.

“Something’s definitely happening!” Pidge cries out elated.

Lotor laughs manically, feeling a mist coat his thoughts. The energy emanates everywhere around him with everything becoming hypersensitive. His limbs start to become overwhelmed by the feeling and he loses feeling in it steadily. Sincline begins to protest and it feels like he’s being squeezed into a tight ball. Lotor’s face drops as he feels true inescapable fear overcome him. “No!” He screeches out. “No no no NO NO NO NO!” His screams are lost to even his own ears as everything becomes too bright and too loud. An explosion ripples out.

“Allura stop!” Lance cries out at the sight and the paladins feel Voltron go eerily quiet. The Sincline drifts off with Lotor’s screams echoing in its chamber. His fate left a big question mark. “You did it,” Lance breathes out but not before alerts pop up in each of their lions followed by rumbling.

“Let’s grab Lotor and get out of here.” Keith groans.

“We can’t! We have to leave now.” Pidge argues as she dismisses alerts left and right.

“We must try.” Allura decides. She watches Lotor drift helplessly and her heart aches even though he had betrayed them…betrayed her. He looks so alone and she can’t bear to see the sight of him so helpless. She fully trusts Keith and Romelle but she also trusts the goodness she was able to witness in Lotor. He had always wanted to do good and he had been beaten down so many times by friends and foe alike over the centuries. She wishes so badly to reach out to him and shake him; ask him angrily what he’s thinking! But now, he drifts alone - a victim of his own ambition.

“Lotor’s made his choice!” Keith tells Allura.

“Voltron is done for in the next dobosh and that’s not an exaggeration!” Pidge yells out. A surge of energy shocks them as if to prove her point. Allura squeezes her eyes shut and bites her lip. She feels that there are so many loose ends, so much left unsaid, so much unexplained, and so much more to Lotor than to die here. “I’m not leaving him!” She cries out and the other paladins feel her resolve through their connection. Tears prick her eyes, and she grips her controls. “LANCE!” Allura commands. Respecting her choice, Lance heaves against his controls with all his weight, yelling through the strain, and grabs Lotor in Red’s jaws. Voltron shakes as if being beaten from every angle.

“WE’RE RIPPING APART!” Hunk cries out.

Red hums to Black as Lance and Keith simultaneously push their bayard into their ports and twist with all the effort they can muster. Lance’s arms feel like they weigh three times his bodyweight and are moving through thick oil but with that final twist from Black and Red, lustrous wings fan out from Voltron’s back and they power through the opening as guided by Allura.

Coran checks his ticker yet again, looking back and forth between it and the space outside the castle. Before him, Voltron appears almost from out of the blue, drifting lamely by and clearly in poorer shape than when they entered. “Paladins?!” Coran calls out.

All of them breathe heavily. Lance is slumped in his seat, head tilted back and breathing ragged breaths. Pidge has her hands glued to her controls, unable to let go because her hands are shaking so much. Hunk has stripped off his helmet to breathe easier and Keith’s closes his eyes in silence to get his bearings together. Allura is slumped over when she answers Coran’s call, “We’re here Coran.”

Coran can almost weep from the relief despite Allura’s clearly exhausted appearance and the distress painted on her face. Keith quickly contacts Lance and when he sees that Lance is still moving in his seat he breathes out a sigh of relief.

“How’s Lotor?” Keith asks. Lance pulls himself forward with his arms bracing himself up on his knees.

“I’ve got him, I’m not letting him go don’t worry.” He reports with a tired smile.

Keith offers a faint smile back before it falls. “...and how are you?” He asks.

Lance chuckles lowly and the sound somehow eases the aching muscles in Keith’s body. “Not gonna lie, it was pretty rough in there.”

Keith laughs quietly at the understatement. “You pushed through for us at the end there,” Keith praises and Lance can’t help the smile that graces his features.

“That’s me.” He flicks a tired finger gun that makes Keith roll his eyes.

“I’m sorry to interrupt paladins, but Lotor’s jumps in and out of the quintessence field has created multiple growing rifts in the fabric of time and space!”

“Meaning if we don’t do something about it fast, those rifts will expand and destroy all existence.” Pidge says slowly in understanding.

“There has to be something we can do,” Keith hurries to his scanners.

“Negative.” Pidge responds.

“How long do we have?”

“I’d say about 15 doboshes!” Coran reports.

“Allura, do you have no way of closing it?”

“I’m sorry,” she pinches her eyes together, tears forming, why can’t anything go right? “I simply don’t possess the alchemic knowledge for such thing.”

“The only thing that could possibly pull the rifts closed is a source of gravity more powerful than a supermassive black hole.” Pidge supplies.

“Any chance we can find a source and tow it in 15 doboshes?” Lance responds sarcastically. To his surprise, Coran does pipe up in response.

“The teludav! It creates a brief flash of infinite mass. I can overload the teludav reactor and seal the rift!”

“But…that would mean sacrificing the castle of lions. That’s your heritage Coran…it’s the last piece of Altea…and it’s our home.” Hunk says quietly.

“We don’t have a choice, it’s the castle or all existence,” Pidge says.

“Coran, make the preparations.” Allura orders with equal determination. “Everyone, start unloading the castle. We need to evacuate immediately.”

All the paladins disperse in their lions with Hunk and Keith helping Red tow back the Sincline. When they make it back to the castle, Allura dashes to the trio’s lions and climbs up Lotor’s ship to the cockpit. When she looks inside, she sees a faint image of a man slumped in the seat and sinks to her knees. A hand on her shoulder grabs her attention and she turns to see a pitiful look in Keith’s eyes but thankfully he doesn’t say anything. The man pulls out his bayard and kneels next to Allura before plunging it over and over into the material separating them from the man inside. Another sword joins him and Allura recognises it as the one her father used to wield. When she looks up, she sees a determined Lance plunging his broadsword over and over into the ship beneath them shortly followed by a disheveled Pidge who wastes no time swinging her katar. Lance helps pull Hunk up before he slips again from the side and the two of them share a laugh as they both grab Lance’s sword to swing in tandem. Allura smiles to herself with tears threatening to spill out but she wipes them away and pulls out her own bayard to hack away with her team. With their combined effort, the material starts to crack and Keith and Lance lodge their blades into the gap before twisting to widen it. The effort proves to be minimal as the weakened material bends against itself easily revealing a stale air and the man inside. Allura slaps her hands over her mouth to stifle a cry and Hunk wraps an arm around shoulder with a grimace as he looks away. Pidge envelops the two in a comforting hug whilst pinching her eyes together. Lance looks to Keith with a pained expression and Keith looks back at him with a sad look before he bends down to unlatch Lotor and pull him up. Pidge jumps down to retrieve a medical pod and Keith hauls Lotor’s dead weight into his arms whilst Lance helps transfer the body into the pod.

Keith turns to Lance and Pidge, “he’ll come with us for now until we figure out what to do with him.” The two of them nod in agreement. With that settled, the paladins disperse in tense silence to pack their belongings into their lions whilst Keith hovers by the lions to help out.

“Yorak,” Krolia greets as Coran and her make their way through. She passes Keith a white and red suit along with the black bayard and places a firm hand on his shoulder. “I believe this belongs to the leader of Voltron.” She says proudly and caresses his face, running a thumb over the scar on his cheek.

“We haven’t had the chance to look over Shiro but for now he’s camotose in the pod. He will be okay if that’s what we want…” Coran explains as he scoots up a medical pod with a prone Shiro lying inside.

“Yeah,” Keith turns to Black. “We’ve got Lotor in a pod too…so we’ll have to figure out what we’ll do with the two of them at some point.”

“Keith!” Lance calls from down the hallway and when Keith turns, he sees a cropped red jacket that immediately spark fond memories.

“You kept it?” He asks in disbelief as he makes his way towards Lance who is holding up the jacket.

Lance chuckles nervously, “couldn’t just let this horrendous thing rot away alone. It was the only thing at the mall that stood out to you so who knows when you’ll find anything like it again.” He holds the jacket up to Keith’s frame and hums before relinquishing the garment to the man. “Seems like you’ll have to get it tailored.” Keith starts pushing his arms through the sleeves and Lance watches as the jacket’s shoulders stick up oddly from behind. “Wayyy too small now,” Lance clicks before bending down to pick up his bags. Keith interrupts him and snatches the bags before he can get them then promptly makes his way to Red. Lance hums satisfied and turns to retrieve more castle belongings.

They all help one another once they finish boarding their luggage, with Pidge having the most junk that keeps toppling over forcing them to backtrack to pick it up. When they’re ready, Coran says his final goodbyes. He looks forlornly around the empty castle, remembering when he first laid his eyes on it and all the memories tied to his dead compatriots. His dead home. He huffs and sets the teludav to the wrong settings before dashing to Blue. For one final time, he relishes in the sound of the castle’s teludav powering up.

The lions fly out, abandoning Lotor’s ship and retreating out of the blast radius. Allura looks sadly at the inevitable and Coran closes his eyes with a hand on Allura’s shoulder. The castle explodes and they all brace themselves for the aftershock. Then it’s done. The expanding rifts are no longer, and neither is the castle. Allura looks up to Coran with a watery sheen in her eyes and he squeezes the hand on her shoulder. They seem to always lose everything, but they never lose each other.

“Look!” Hunk tells everyone, and Yellow flies towards where the castle previously was. “The pressure condensed the castle into a diamond.” Hunk observes and swallows up the crystal in his lion. He moves to pick it up and shows it to the other paladins. In the split screen, he sees Allura and Coran smile gratefully to him.

“So, we’ve saved all existence. Now what do you guys want to do?” Lance asks tiredly.

“We need to land somewhere.” Keith responds.

Chapter Text

The pride of lions soar through space before finding what appeared to be either an uninhabited planet or a moon. After Pidge scans the area, Keith orders the group to touch down and discuss the outcome of the two men in his cockpit. Upon landing, the paladins stroll out of their lions with Keith and Krolia each dragging the med pods holding Shiro and Lotor. Allura barely makes it out of her lion before the grief hits her tenfold at the sight of the pods and Coran and Romelle have to each hold one of her hands so they can join the group. Keith’s wolf zaps itself in front of Keith and receives a sturdy scratching along with a ‘hey buddy’ before capping in front of Allura and tilting his head. The action causes Allura to sniffle slightly and cough out a laugh as she moves to pat the adorable space wolf that successfully lifted her spirits.

“Gather up team, we have matters to sort out.” Keith orders and the paladins obey. Lance sidles up next to Keith and bumps into him gently.

“Big dog,” he says.

“Space wolf,” Keith answers with a twinkle in his eye. Lance pouts, somehow feeling like he lost in some way. Coran taps on the pods and they both open up with a hiss of air to allow the paladins closer access to the men.

“Anything of note?” Pidge asks as she pulls out scanners by her wrist and hovers over Shiro.

Coran thinks carefully before answering, “apart from the fractured bones and torn ligaments…nothing physically abnormal. But we of course know that there was something wrong,” he looks to Keith who nods.

Pidge holds up her scanner to Shiro’s head and waits for a beat before checking the results. She shows it to Coran who nods solemnly.

“Nothing abnormal with the brain…” She notes to the group.

“That’s not right,” Keith argues. “Shiro didn’t listen to me and certainly wasn’t listening to his own basic survival instincts. There has to be something…check again.”

Allura gently pushes past and hovers her hands over Shiro’s head. She moves around the rest of the body and withdraws, seemingly processing something in her own mind. “Nothing’s appearing because truly nothing is physically wrong. It’s his quintessence. It’s all muddled by the head but the rest of the body feels familiar.” She explains.

“What was the cause?” Keith asks.

“...If I had to guess, it’s the work of Haggar. But this must’ve happened long before Shiro returned to us because he never would have made contact with her after.”

In that moment, Black invades Keith’s mind causing him to seize-up then and there. Distantly he can hear his wolf whimper and the paladins call out to him with his mother grabbing his face in her hands but he finds that he can’t escape his lion’s call. Falling deeper, he opens his eyes and finds himself in Black’s mindscape where in front of him a faint figure of a man stands.

“-eith.” It calls.

“What?” He murmurs as he looks around him confused.

“-eith!” The voice echoes again. Keith squints his eyes and walks towards the man but the distance doesn’t close between them. “Keith!” Shiro’s voice calls out.

“KEITH!”

Keith shakes out of his daze and in front of him, Krolia holds his face with Lance and Allura looking at him with concern. Lance shakes his shoulder from where he has a firm grip and waves a hand in front of his face.

“You’re with us now right?” He asks and Keith blinks rapidly around before eyeing Shiro’s prone body.

“Yeah,” he answers distracted and turns around to look at Black behind him. Lance looks to Allura who gives him a confused look back. “Allura,” Keith begins slowly.

“Yes?”

“I think Shiro’s…real mind…is there.” He points towards Black and Coran’s mouth falls agape.

“The lions are known to traverse the paladins’ conscious and subconscious but storing a person’s quintessence and mind is…a stretch.” Coran says.

“But there have only ever been 11 paladins in history including us! Clearly Black was showing Keith something so maybe we should trust that the most?” Hunk suggests and the paladins look to Black in silence.

“What would we even do though?” Pidge asks and Allura makes her way to the mechanical beast with a gentle hand carressing its paw. She gently rests her forehead against it. A thrum of energy envelops her and, beneath Black’s stern and confident energy, she feels something else in there. She breathes out relieved and places her other hand to Black before lifting her face to the sky and absorbing the quintessence laying deep beneath.

“Woah…” Lance whispers as he watches Allura’s body shimmer in the colour of Keith’s eyes. Allura turns to them and they falter at the sight of her eyes coated in a sheen of shimmering light. Coran and Romelle watch Allura with admiration as she rejoins the group and places her hands by Shiro’s head that start to bleed white through his hair as the light flows from Allura to him. Allura breathes out a deep breath before looking to the group with a big smile on her face. Meanwhile, Shiro’s face pinches together and he stirs in the pod.

“Keith?...Where am I?” He murmurs out weakly.

Pidge lunges to grab his hand and squeezes it tightly.

“You’re back with us, everything’s going to be okay - you can rest,” Keith reassures with a sad smile on his face.

Shiro nods slowly and closes his eyes, “thank goodness.” He says and Coran closes the pod. After a beat, they all erupt in quiet celebration but Keith frowns sadly and places a hand on the glass against Shiro’s face shortly followed by Lance’s hand wrapping itself on top and Krolia’s arm wrapping around his shoulder.

“Whatever happened, there was nothing you could’ve done to stop it,” Krolia reassures quietly and Lance nods with a sad smile on his face.

“Allura, we must check over Lotor.” Coran says and Hunk looks worriedly at the pod behind them with a glance towards Allura. She nods and makes her way to the next pod with Coran and Pidge following closely. Coran opens the pod and the familiar hiss feels ominous to the team as they look upon the scarred and shrivelled man beneath them. Pidge squeezes Allura’s hand as she holds up her numerous scanners and Coran types away at a panel by the head of the pod.

“Quintessence poisoning,” he reveals.

Pidge sighs and puts down her scanners. “Body and brain functions are almost non-existent.” Allura pinches her eyes together and hovers a hand by Lotor’s own. She finds that she feels nothing - no tingle and no hum of energy. She shakes her head and retreats her hand.

The team stands silently around the man. “Um…” Hunk pipes up, “I don’t want to give us any false hope but we’re pretty sure Haggar is Lotor’s mom right?”

“99% sure,” Lance answers.

“Right, and Lotor’s been alive for this whole time right?”

Allura nods.

“So…Lotor was born from Haggar who was poisoned by quintessence…the same quintessence that kept Haggar, Zarkon, and Lotor alive for centuries upon centuries right? I’m thinking that maybe this isn’t a done case and that he could survive with a little boost since quintessence poisoning is the whole reason he was even around.” Hunk explains.

“He is the son of Zarkon and Haggar, two notoriously stubborn survivors,” Krolia pipes in. “Is he not the child of one of the strongest Galran’s in history?”

“-and of one of the strongest alchemists in Altean history,” Coran adds.

“Maybe there’s a chance Allura,” Lance suggests leaning in closer. “If somehow you can repair his body…”

Allura gnaws on her lip and grips the edge of the pod with both her hands. “...His quintessence lines are fried which weakens him significantly…his body couldn’t handle the pressure and now has collapsed…but I think I can feed him my life energy to repair his quintessence lines and Oriande taught me how to strengthen the body’s functions with alchemy- quick! Bring him to the blue lion!” She says and the paladins scramble to move Lotor’s pod to Blue. “This will be a long and arduous process which might not even work but…if you’re all willing to bear with me…I think I can bring Lotor back.” She says turning around to them with a twinkle in her eye.

“Whatever you need princess,” Keith answers.

She nods and tenderly squeezes Lotor’s cold hand in hers before closing her eyes. The ground beneath her hums with quintessence and lights up in a shining blue as she herself glows in a swirl of pinks and blues. The marks beneath her eyes flicker brightly and she wills her quintessence to pour into Lotor.

“I will give much of my quintessence to Lotor which I must do slowly to give me time to replenish through the Blue lion lest I destroy myself. I’m not sure how long I will have to do this but I am so grateful that you all will look after us in this process.” She says to the paladins.

“Alright, come on guys. We’ll leave you to it Allura but we’ll be right outside, yell if you need anything,” Keith nods to her, then he nods to Coran who seems set on staying by Allura’s side. The paladins file out to give them privacy and to be on lookout outside of the lion.

Pidge stares intently at a pop up screen with a confused pout on her face whilst Lance stretches with a groan and eyes Keith discreetly. Romelle runs up to Hunk who and the two engage in what seems to be a serious conversation. Krolia sadles up to the two to listen in and Lance sees that Keith is flicking through the items on him to take inventory. Lance punches him lightly in the shoulder and steps in front of him with a frown to get his attention which is successful because Keith looks up surprised and concern immediately paints onto his face.

“What did I do?” He asks.

Lance sighs and waves a dismissive hand in front of their faces. “What were you even doing in the past 2 months?”

“...2 months? Is that 2 pheobs?”

“Around, yes.”

“So it was only that long for you guys,” Keith says with a downward gaze.

“...What do you mean?”

“Mom and I were stuck in the quantam abyss - time becomes really messy in there and we expected that the time that passed outside would be different.”

“Oh…so it wasn’t 2 pheobs for you two?”

Lance follows Keith around to a more secluded place by Blue.

“We counted our sleeps diligently to maintain order and a routine…we got to 2 deca-pheobs by the time we met Romelle.”

Lance looks away with a blank expression, “I see.”

“I’m glad that not too much time passed outside then. Worst case scenario, we miss all the conflict.”

“Worst case scenario you never return.”

Keith looks towards Lance who has his face turned away from him and looking out to the rest of their team, concealing his expression. Keith fiddles lamely with the tools in his hand and flicks his gaze to each corner of his vision in contemplation.

“...This is the part where you’re supposed to agree with me,” Lance says.

“I never thought we wouldn’t return,” Keith says genuinely. Lance’s mouth falls open at the man blinking dumbly in front of him with that illegal innocent twinkle in his eye.

“You-! Gah,” Lance hunches over and ruffles his hair whilst Keith bends down to follow with a cute tilt in his head. Lance looks to Keith with tired eyes and an accusatory finger in his face, “We all genuinely thought you were dead!” Lance stands to his full height with hands on his chest. “Do you even know how upset I was?! I developed like anxiety attacks or whatever! The whole team was ignoring it too because if we didn’t we’d all fall apart! Meanwhile, you so nonchalantly talk about surviving the quantam abyss as if it isn’t a big deal?! Y-you need to tell Kolivan right now and tell Pidge or someone handy about the quantum abyss so next time we can actually TRACK you when you decide to piss off there!” Lance turns and begins to stomp away but Keith grabs one of Lance’shands and stalks closer to him causing him to walk backwards into the Blue lion’s metal where Keith positions a leg in between Lance’s as Lance’s other hand presses against his chest. Lance briefly forgets his anger and pent-up frustrations in lieu of staring up at the domineering man boxing him in. Shaking off his gawking, Lance notices that Keith looks sad and weathered, like a soldier who has taken one too many beatings. This is the first time that Lance recognises the human part of him instead of the grizzly bear that is as flighty as a cat, but it somehow doesn’t feel unfamiliar and almost like a layer of Keith underneath all the other ones - the echoes of a young boy who only wanted to play fight and not actually fight - buried long long ago in the hull of a Marmoran base.

“I didn’t know you all would be so upset,” Keith explains.

“...So that’s what this is about? You didn’t realise we cared about you?” Lance sighs out.

“I haven’t understood what it’s like to be truly overcome by loss for a long time. It always felt like there was some greater purpose like something to be proud of when someone close goes, so we wouldn’t think about it too much and that’s how I thought it would be like when I go. But in the abyss, I learnt about my father and my Earthian - I mean ‘human’ origins. With nothing much to do but survive alongside my mom, I felt her emotions so clearly…and I felt my own strange ones. I didn’t know the man but did you know he gave me the name ‘Keith’?”

Lance’s hands travels up Keith’s chest and towards his cheek where it rests there for a moment. Keith sighs into the touch and tilts his face further into it.

“2 deca-pheobs in that place taught me the pain of loss and it gave me new perspective on who I am. That I’m actually uncomfortable with death. My mom and I came to an understanding that if the war can be won, we’d both want to do what we personally want to do and you know-” Keith gently moves Lance’s hand that was pinned against Blue to his lips. “-we started to hope because of Voltron. Because someone gave us that opportunity when Blue was awakened.” His breath is light against the back of Lance’s hand and Lance blushes but turns away at the intimacy between them right now.

“I didn’t even do anything, it was Blue that did all the work.” Lance rambles out quickly.

“That might be true, but nevertheless you were the first paladin in so long and the one that brought all of this together,” Keith gestures to all the lions and Lance bites his cheek nervously but shamelessly lets the pride swell inside him. “I’m both happy and upset to know that you were so upset by my disappearance, and I want you to know that I’m still learning about these complicated feelings. There’s still a long way to go,” Keith says before letting go of Lance’s hand and backing away to give Lance more space after saying his piece.

Lance leans against Blue awkwardly, glancing up at Keith through his peripherals and quickly looking away. There’s no doubt about it now…he is unequivocally attracted to this man. The sincerity and strength of almost everything he does and the genuine intention to make the world better. The man is gruff and skittish but so gentle and caring that he makes an effort to understand others’ emotions by digging deep into his own repressed ones. The way he so easily praises others and so humbly brushes over the fact that he is the leader of Voltron and a valued member of the Blade of Marmora. That when the universe is fully liberated, the universe can thank him for his life’s efforts. He can’t even push it off as a platonic fondness of the man because of the way his heart beats and brain shortcircuits in imaginary anticipation from the proximity of the handsome man. He can’t deny some of the sinful dreams he has at night that he used to desperately try to forget out of the shame and confusion it brought to his conscious mind. How sometimes he would even will the subject matter to be Allura or Axca, thinking that Pidge and Hunk was right about him having a type, but how it would always end up being Keith that popped up.

“Um,” Lance begins awkwardly as he scoots off Blue.

He opens his mouth once or twice whilst pointedly not making eye-contact with Keith. He wonders if the signals he read from Keith were wrong and maybe Keith just sees him as a good team member. It’s true that he’s caught Keith staring at him once or twice but he’s also caught the man chewing on his paladin helmet so he can’t exactly gauge what’s going on in that head of his but it makes him all the more attractive to with the mystery and the constant surprises. No day would be dull. If he truly has read the situation wrong, can the team recover from it? He glances out to where Shiro is still laying in the pod outside Black and briefly weighs the pros and cons. Pro: he doesn’t have to conceal his feelings and can get it out in the open to the one it matters most to. Con: he potentially ruins the team dynamics but at least Keith could go back to piloting Red and Shiro can take over Black again? But will Red even take Keith back given how much he had to work for her trust in the first place? Will Shiro even get accepted again? If Black preserved his consciousness inside her then surely she would permit him to pilot her again right?

Crack.

Keith lowers his fingers from in front of Lance’s face after successfully gaining the attention of his bright blue eyse. He knows that in Earthian culture it’s more customary to snap fingers to get someone’s attention but the typical Galra way is more useful when you have thick material covering your fingers that prevent you from generating the friction needed to snap. He remembers the first time he had cracked his fingers to get Pidge’s attention in the observatory deck and all the humans looked at him with bewilderment that day but Lance had deflated the weird mood in the room with a chuckle that made Keith’s heart sing.

“Say what you want to say.” Keith demands and crosses his arms in waiting.

“I don’t actually know if I should.”

“What is there to hide from me?”

“Well…this, clearly.”

“Cut the quiznack, I’ll find out when we form Voltron anyways.”

“No way! You clearly haven’t found out yet!”

“Next time I’ll dig deeper.”

Lance shudders at the promise which feels more like a threat. The thought of his feelings being revealed through the Voltron connection and not directly from him gives rise to an unpleasant taste in his mouth.

“So what is it? Is it about Lotor? Acxa? Shiro?” Keith probes.

“No…”

“Then what is it,” Keith asks impatiently.

Sensing that Keith won’t relent after his slip up, he combs through his mind to find something to say that would serve as a scapegoat.

Crack.

“I’m paying attention!” Lance chastices and slaps Keith’s hand away but Keith’s other hand quickly comes up and grabs Lance’s raised one.

“You wanted to say it before. Don’t overthink it and just tell me.”

Lance finds himself lost in Keith’s big eyes that swirl such unique colours within them. They dig a hole into Lance’s head and it feels like, for almost a second, that they can somehow see what he’s thinking. Lance sighs and flicks Keith’s hand off. “I like you,” he mumbles.

“Huh?” Keith leans in closer.

Lance grits his teeth and starts twiddling his fingers together. “I like you,” he says at his normal volume.

“Like…like love?” Keith asks slowly. He feels himself getting dizzy on the spot with thoughts swirling everywhere as if he’s in the quantam abyss again and seeing flashes of memories. Is this one of his delusions?

“Yes,” Lance confirms aggressively with shoulders tense. “But it doesn’t have to impact the team, I just wanted to get it out.”

“You like me?”

“YES!”

“You want to be my partner?”

“YES! I mean- I don’t know what Galran dating is like but I would enjoy being together with you and stuff. Don’t make fun of me,” Lance says with a sad frown and he feels tears start pricking at the corner of his eyes. Lance’s shaken composure sends Keith back onto ground zero and he quickly closes the distance between them and envelops Lance in a tight hug with an impossibly large growing smile on his face. “What does this mean?” Lance asks muffled in Keith’s shoulder.

“I love you too.” Keith says. Lance’s eyes blow wide open at the strong admission and he finds his legs become shaky at the relief. “I can’t believe you love me.”

“Oh my god get over yourself stupid space ninja,” Lance jokes but squeezes Keith tighter. Keith peels his head away but keeps Lance wrapped up in his arms as he raises Lance’s chin whilst the two of them look deeply into the others’ eyes. “Would a kiss be okay now?” Lance asks sheepishly and Keith doesn’t hesitate to lean in and press his lips against Lance’s. Lance sighs into Keith’s lips and feels his body turn to jello whilst his head burns hot. It’s been a while since he last kissed someone he’d been crushing on for ages and, no offence to Jenny, this kiss was a hundred times better.

Keith wonders if he’s doing a sloppy job because it’s his first proper kiss. Sure he’s been kissed before but it was more along the lines of someone pressing their lips against his rather than actually kissing him. It was part of training at the blades to remove the inherent fear of someone approaching one’s face to prevent flinches in battle or even to pass off as a normal Galran citizen undercover. He would gladly label this heavenly kiss as his official first one and he hopes to the stars that Lance is enjoying it as much as he is. When he thinks the kiss is over, he’s surprised by Lance moving his lips against his own to go back in and it sends a shudder through his whole body. He doesn’t allow Lance to steal all the thunder though as he pushes against Lance’s lips with his tongue, always one to pick up the flow and feeling of bodies quickly. It seems to please Lance as he emits a low moan into Keith’s mouth that makes him grin at the corner of his lips.

“JESUS CHRIST!”

Keith pulls Lance’s head away and quickly whips his own head backwards to assess the situation. At the sight of Pidge standing there dumbfounded with a compass and digital map in hand, Keith suddenly feels embarrassment cloud his head instead of the alertness from previously.

“Go away pigeon!” Lance screams annoyed.

“No! What the fuck! You guys are seriously tongue-fucking when Allura’s in there reviving Lotor and we’re stranded with no castle?! I have things to report!” She yells back. “Congratulations I guess?!” She throws her arms up.

Keith buries his face into Lance’s shoulder who pats him consolingly.

“What do you have to report?” Keith asks, already back to the action.

“Besides the fact that our leader is having inappropriate relations with our right hand? Just the fact that our battle with Lotor caused us to skip 3 years.” She shakes out her map and Keith sighs out before approaching her and acting like the leader Lance admires so much.

“Show me.”

Chapter Text

“So putting it all together we can see that we’ve been gone for roughly 3 years,” Pidge finishes.

“Did the quintessence field do this?” Hunk asks.

“No it can’t be; we were on the castle whilst you lot were in there…but to us it felt like a few doboshes,” Romelle says glancing to Krolia for confirmation who nods.

“But something clearly did it and the only differing factors are Lotor’s ship or the quintessence field.” Keith says with fingers holding his chin. “Unless you guys can think of something else?”

Pidge sighs and packs up her tools, “Whatever it was, it caused time itself to fracture. No wonder the universe was at risk of tearing from our fight.”

“This feels like it’s gone to a whole new scale,” Lance says.

“Really? Not the fact that an intergalactic mechanical robot man formed from the fusion of 5 sentient mechanical lions woke up so we could fight against a 10,000 year old man?” Pidge says sarcastically and Lance pouts angrily back at her.

Keith flicks two fingers towards Pidge, “Hey, knock it off,” he says.

“Oh I’m sorry, did I hurt your boyfriend’s feelings?” She snaps back and Keith bristles at the mockery, moving his fists angrily to his side. At that, the tension instantly increases ten-fold between the group. Hunk looks nervously to Romelle who returns a similar expression and Krolia flicks her gaze between her son and the blue paladin and narrows her eyes at Pidge once she realises there’s no denial coming from either of the men.

“What’s your problem Pidge?” Lance chastices.

Pidge sighs heavily and presses a hand to her head. “I don’t know how long I can take fighting on the complete other side of the universe when our home planet could be in danger! I just got my dad and brother back but we’re stuck in all corners of the universe to fight this war our home planet is ill-equipped to deal with. Meanwhile, all this…bullshit!” She waves her arms wildly around. “We’re constantly stretched to our wit’s ends by every fucking thing that the universe seems hellbent on throwing at us. I mean come on - freaking energy and time-bending entities?! Meanwhile we’ve skipped precious years because of that thing-” She points towards the blue lion. “-and who knows how the universe is fairing without us? Who knows if Earth is even on the map any more?! Who knows where the rebels are?! Where Matt is! Our castle is fucking GONE! And we’re here reviving a dead guy whilst our original leader went full Order 66 on us and our current one is canoodling with loverboy,” she spits with finality, puffing heavy from her rant.

Lance feels his hair stand up at Pidge’s attitude and decides to focus on the final part of her rant. “It wasn’t his decision!” He yells angrily.

“It wasn’t his decision to be with you? Wow cus a moment ago it sure seemed like he was happy wrapped with you-”

“Enough!” Keith interrupts angrily with a barely audible growl in the back of his throat.

“This is the absolute WORST time to be distracted from the things that could use our full attention!” Pidge argues back. “Excuse me for actually caring about the universe and our families!”

“Pidge I think we’re all stressed out so how about we dial it back?” Hunk tries to probe but Lance ignores his peace treaty.

“Will you fucking relax?!” Lance yells. “Do you think we don’t know these things?! Do you think he doesn’t realise the weight of the universe on his shouldes?! For god’s sake, he spent two whole years fighting for his life in survival mode only to come back to this shit,” Lance gestures to Blue who Hunk notices has opened up now with Coran quickly approaching the group.

“Um,” Hunk tries to interrupt again.

“-He should be the one complaining about all the bullshit we’ve been through yet he isn’t and you know why? Because he’s a good leader and he knows when to take a chill pill when we’ve barely had time to recover! I’m tired! We’re all tired!”

Hunk sees Pidge start shaking from her anger and swelling emotions, “I am the only one here who is pulling their goddamn weight unlike some of us!” She yells out and her words cause a visible mental spiral in Lance signalling to Pidge that she’s messed up big time. Lance feels a hand on his shoulder and turns around to hazily see Coran standing in front of him.

“Allura needs you!” Lance hears from the man and it feels like he’s hearing it through water as the rage, insecurity, anxiety, and depressive feelings overcome him all at once and cloud his thoughts. He nods to the man, operating on autopilot, and retreats from the group to follow the man.

“Lance?” Keith calls out but Lance doesn’t seem to hear him or else he would’ve acknowledged his leader. Keith instantly turns on Pidge with eyebrows drawn together angrily but when he sees her shaking composure his anger subsides and his tense jaw slackens as he willfully turns away. Hunk looks at the ground with a dull ache in his heart as Keith’s wolf whimpers.

-

“Allura!” At the sight of the profusely sweating woman, Lance sprints up the ramp and lays a supporting hand on her back.

“Thank you for your concern, I’m struggling to draw Blue’s quintessence to myself but if I stop now it will all be for nothing!” She looks up at him with desperate eyes. “I implore you to tap into your connection with Blue and help me draw out enough energy to keep this going!”

“I’m not really sure how to do any of that…” Lance begins but he catches the pleading look painted on her face and hurriedly rectifies his words. “Tell me exactly what to do.” He sits next to her and lays a hand on her shoulder with closed eyes to focus.

“Focus on Blue, and channel her energy into yourself. I can handle the rest,” Allura directs with a raspy voice. Lance breathes in and out, struggling to focus on Blue with thoughts of Pidge’s words in his head. “Focus,” Allura reminds him. He feels Red’s familiar temperament and stubbornness but attempts to to abandon those feelings to instead tap into the nostalgic calmness and fierce loyalty that used to get him through the unknown. A faint energy throbs in and out and he pinches his eyebrows together, head starting to hurt at the mental strain. “I feel turmoil in you,” Allura says. A lion roars in his head but he recognises it as Red’s and not Blue’s.

“I’m sorry, it’s been a rough day.” Lance almost feels like crying at those words. He supposes in that moment that the painful thoughts and feelings that began flourishing from 18 years old when he had entered the war were now a permanent part of him. Losing Keith had been a huge blow to his mental state and even though the man is back, he probably will never be able to recover from the pain of those days.

“...Blue chose you,” Allura tries to support. “and I’m so grateful she did.”

At those words, Lance chokes up slightly and coughs to keep the tears away but they start falling down his face regardless. He squeezes Allura’s shoulder, “thank you for saying that.”

“It’s true.”

Lance hums at the admission and breathes a deep breath in and out, finally he latches onto Blue’s faint thrumming energy and feels it swell within. For now, the pain will have to subside for the people in front of him right now.

“That’s it!” Allura cheers quietly. Blue’s energy feels so comforting and nostalgic like the cool breeze at Varadero beach that causes a lone final tear to stroke down his cheek.

-

“What’s happened team?” Coran asks in his usual chipper tone but it doesn’t serve to conceal the dejected tiredness on his features. Pidge is about to pipe up but Hunk throws a hand in front of her face and shakes his head at her with disappointment. Coran looks at them and then at Keith who is pointedly not looking at anyone.

“A group disagreement,” Krolia answers with a pointed look towards Pidge when no one else says anything.

“That’s normal, we should allow time to get our thoughts out in the open lest they foster into something larger than any of us can handle.” Coran looks around again at the team still awkwardly not addressing each other. He turns to look at Blue who he had left to give the two paladins privacy and turns back around with a sigh. “Alright gather around, we should use this time wisely.”

“Like doing recon?” Pidge suggests.

“No of course not, this is a team and it is sensible to make sure the team is happy with each other to enhance our work in the future.”

Pidge lowers her head in a mixture of shame and annoyance.

“Pidge,” Hunk begins. “It’s just as important to make sure the team is doing okay as it is making sure the universe is doing okay.”

“Correct Number 2. Now sit down, you too Romelle.” Then Coran turns to Keith’s mum with a gulp, slightly intimidated at the hulk of a mama bear. “And you too Krolia, you are just as part of the team now with all that you’ve done.” The woman slinks down next to her son with their wolf popping into existence between the two. Keith picks up a stick and starts making scratches in the sandy earth beneath them whilst Romelle mimics him with her head laying in her hand tiredly.

“So who should start?” Hunk asks.

“Woah woah woah, what do you think this is? Is this a help line?” Pidge turns to Coran.

“I don’t know…what will make all of us happy?” Coran poses the question to the group.

“A plan.” Pidge answers quickly and Keith shoots her an annoyed look.

“Then we’ll work on a plan, Keith?” Coran turns to him for input but the man shrugs. “What will make you happier Keith?”

“He’s in the Blue lion, there’s no point right now.”

“Lotor will be fine,” Coran reassures.

Keith immediately sits up in disgust. “No?! I mean Lance!”

“Lance?” Coran yells in confusion.

“You didn’t know?” Romelle asks the baffled man. “Keith literally talks about him all the time.”

“I don’t!”

“Well then how come I know him so well?”

“You don’t!”

“He is exactly what I pictured so really you should be proud of your recall ability,” she responds and Keith buries his face in his hands in dismay.

“What are you getting shy for? He is a good mate,” Krolia says.

“Mom!”

“He reminds me of Tom,” she turns to the group. “His father,” she explains. “A lot louder though…” At Keith’s grumbling she snaps out of her reminiscence and levels Pidge a look of disapproval. “Everyone should be happy for my son.”

“I am happy for him!” Pidge defends herself. “I’m just upset that it’s happening now! Like really?! Now of all times?!”

“When would be a better time then?”

“Like when the war is over! I don’t know!”

Krolia sighs and lowers her gaze in sadness. “This war has proceeded for over 10,000 years. Many of our ancestors had their whole lives painted by the Galran empire’s conquest so I ask you, do you think none of them deserved a good partner and a chance at love? I myself fell for an Earthian man during my mission which is how my dear Yorak was brought to us. It is in our culture to find love amidst battle and war because for 10,000 years we have not known any different.” She turns a fond gaze towards Keith. “I’m not saying that you cannot end this war, in fact, I believe this treacherous battle will finally be over. But once it’s ended, there will always be conflict and suffering many of which will be a result of the war. If he cannot love now then when? It is only sensible to allow this reprieve because that is how the world moves on and keeps going.”

“I agree, it is the same in Altean culture. Duty comes first but love follows closely behind because it motivates and causes us to be braver and more considerate. There is a time and place but it is hard to allocate that for something so important that breathes life into our souls.” Coran turns around to look intensely at Blue and hears a sniffle behind him.

“So well said,” Hunk wipes a finger across his eye. Romelle giggles and pats the man on his back as Keith returns Krolia’s fond gaze.

Pidge grits her teeth thinking carefully but seems to give up after a bit. “I’m sorry Keith,” she admits out loud and Keith rubs the back of his neck awkwardly.

“That’s alright, I get that you want to put the mission first but a lot has happened.”

“My anxiety is through the roof thinking of my dad and how Earth is doing.”

“Speaking of Sam Holt, I believe we will have to reconvene with him soon.”

Pidge perks up at Coran’s words.

Coran winks at her, “your father has the only surviving plans to build a second castle of lions.”

“Ohmygod! I forgot about that,” she jumps up. “We can kill two birds with one stone! Rebuild the castle of lions and defend Earth!”

“Indeed!” Coran seems to sparkle at the good reception to his idea.

“Sounds like a plan, we’ll have to contact the Blade to update them,” Keith says. “Any objections?” Everyone shakes their head.

“I would love to see what this planet is like!” Romelle says excitedly with a clap.

“It has been a while,” Krolia nods in approval.

“Alright, then once Lance and Allura are finished we’ll fill them in,” Keith commands.

“Operation return to Earth is a go,” Hunk says brightly. “Happy?” He says to Pidge.

“Very,” she smiles back bashfully.

-

“Mm” Lotor groans out and the two inhabitants gasp at the noise.

“Allura, you freakin did it!” Lance cheers out but doesn’t remove his hand from her shoulder. She coughs out a watery laugh and squeezes Lotor’s hand tighter before falling forwards. “Allura!” Lance pulls her shoulder back and reaches with his other hand to hold her body up but as he’s doing so he notices that her other arm is being pulled up by the man laying in the pod, as if he was trying to hold her up.

“I’m okay, got very dizzy there.” She reassures.

“Lotor will be okay now with just the pod, you need to rest now.” Lance says as he tugs on her. Allura refuses to budge and shakes her head.

“I will rest with Lotor. I must see his recovery to the end.”

Seeing her dedicated expression he relents. “I still think he’s dangerous but I’m sure you’ll be okay,” he offers her a supportive smile. “I’ll close the pod for you two.”

“Thank you Lance,” she says and climbs into the pod scooting closer to the healthier looking man. Lance closes the pod’s door with a hiss and cool air gushes out inside briefly obscuring the inhabitants from view. He decides that he should leave them be and report to the others what’s happened so with a brief look behind his back at the two figures laying in rest, he finally leaves Blue.

Chapter Text

The team huddles into their lions to perform checks and preparations for their journey to Earth. Keith, however, sits with his arms crossed outside of the blue lion with his wolf laying sleepily over his legs. Having been away for a while, he begins forming battle plans and formations with the lions in mind instead of fellow blade members. He simulates battles over and over in his head which has become more difficult because of the distinct lack of the castle of lions.

Krolia interrupts, “I trust the Blade taught you appropriate intercourse.”

“Mom!” Keith’s eyes blow wide open and a blush dusts his face. His mom sits herself down next to him and squeezes his hand.

“Whilst I don’t regret having you, I will advise you to avoid having children so soon in these warring times.”

Keith rubs his face and groans into his hand. “Human males can’t get pregnant,” he explains.

“I know,”

“And you know that I can’t get pregnant either right?” Keith asks slowly, suddenly doubting his mom’s sex education.

“I am aware, but there are so many children out there without parents and the parental urge is strong when you are with your mate. I suggest you avoid taking responsibility for any children.”

Keith lowers his head, mood made sombre by the thought of all the war-torn planets full of orphans.

“You should be careful with intercourse because you are from different planets so he may carry terrible diseases.”

Keith blushes again and furrows his brows.

“I’ll be careful,” he says awkwardly, hoping Blue will open up quickly and Lance will save him from his doom. His wish comes true because Blue’s door opens up with a swoosh. Keith immediately jolts up to attention and when he meets Lance’s tired eyes, he smiles warmly at him.

“Hey,” Lance sighs out as he trudges down the ramp.

“Hey there,” Keith responds and makes his way up with his hand held out towards his boyfriend. With a cursory look at Lance’s expression, Keith makes a quick assessment and wraps a supportive arm around the man’s back with a squeeze. “You can tell me later,” he says.

Lance sighs and gently bumps his head against Keith’s armoured shoulder. “I’ll let the whole team know,” he says before his attention is grabbed by the wolf waiting at the bottom of the ramp. “Aww, what’s your name big guy?” Lance coos which warrants a judgemental expression from Keith.

“No name,” Krolia answers.

“Now how can that be?” Lance asks with a cutesy voice and turns towards Keith who looks at him bewildered.

“I’m waiting!”

Lance levels Keith with an unimpressed look, “waiting?”

Seeing Lance’s expression causes Keith to reflect on his own words and he turns away shyly. “I thought he might already have a name and he would tell me when he was ready,” he answers.

Lance stares at his boyfriend who pointedly avoids making eye-contact. He avoids eye-contact long enough that Lance eventually relents and turns to the wolf which he has squatted by. “How about Kosmo?”

“Lance?!”

“Keith he needs a name! We can’t keep calling him Keith’s wolf can we?”

Keith pouts which sends a throb through Lance’s heart. “How about that Kosmo? You like it? Our cute little Kosmo?”

Kosmo yips and Lance can’t tell if the space wolf truly understood what he said or if the blank expression genuinely betrays the lack of thoughts behind the wolf’s eyes.

“Kosmo,” Krolia tries the name on her tongue and then smiles. “I like it.” Lance looks up shyly at her with a smile. Keith crosses his arms and murmurs the name to himself but not quietly enough to avoid Lance’s notice.

“Keith?” Lance asks and when he turns his bright blue eyes with that cute expectant look on his face, Keith finds that he doesn’t feel like doubling down on his ridiculous idea anymore.

“Kosmo it is.”

“Haha,” Lance knocks the back of his hand against Keith’s leg who bends over the squatted man to ruffle Kosmo’s fur, enveloping the two with affection.

“Lance!”

Lance turns at the sound of his name to see Hunk jogging towards them. “Did Keith tell you?”

“Hm?”

“Not yet, I’ll call the rest of the team over. Lance has to update us,” Keith answers.

“We’re coming,” Pidge’s voice carries through Hunk’s comms. Lance frowns and stands up with hands pushing onto his knees but before the thoughts can warp in his own head, Keith gently knocks his shoulder against him. The two smile warmly at each other which is interrupted by Pidge and Romelle’s hasty entrance.

“Lance do you want to go first?” Keith asks with a gesture towards the man.

“Alright, I know we might have mixed feelings about this but Allura and I got Lotor to a healthy point. From here on, it’s a matter of rest and using the pod before he’s up and about again.”

At Lance’s words the group looks solemnly at one another and the ground, unsure how to react. Keith breaks the silence, “what did you have to do in there?”

“I had to draw out Blue’s quintessence to fuel Allura. She…she was struggling real bad you guys, so I think we should just be grateful that we know she’s capable of something like this…”

“Yeah we should keep our harsher opinions to ourself for now and just greet Allura like normal,” Hunk supplies. “How long do you think it’ll be before she’s ready to fly out?”

Lance holds his chin in his hand and frowns. “I’m honestly not sure. Her health deteriorated beacuse of the quintessence mumbo jumbo and I figured the pod couldn’t heal that…She might not be able to rely on the pod’s healing and will have to recover in normal time.” Lance turns to Pidge subtly. “Who knows how long that’ll be…”

The group makes various noises of acquiescence as they think for a beat to themselves.

“Pidge, did you want to fill Lance in on what we’ve got up to so far?” Hunk nudges the smaller paladin.

Pidge rubs the back of her neck and looks awkwardly to Lance who looks at her with an unreadable expression. “Um yeah…firstly I’m sorry for everything I said. I was uh- pretty frustrated.” She blabbers out quickly. “And plans-wise we’ve decided to return to Earth to rendevous with my dad so that we can rebuild the castle of lions.”

“Th-That’s great!” Lance stutters out, unsure how to address the apology in front of everyone. “That’s almost everything solved in one go! You get to check up on your family and we can get the castle back.”

Pidge smiles appreciatively, “yeah, of course we have to assume there are many variables in play here but it’s good to have a clear focus now.” Lance hums with a nod but clenches his fist over and over nervously.

“It’d be great to see all of our families again,” he says with a wilt in his voice. Keith hurriedly grabs his hand and Lance squeezes back with a racing heart at the sudden contact but then seems to catch himself as he quickly lets go to look at Pidge.

“Don’t worry about it, I realised that I actually couldn't care less what you guys get up to as long as it doesn’t affect the team,” she says with a dismissive wave. Lance smiles to himself and squeezes Keith’s hand back in his own.

“So what exactly is the step-by-step plan?”

Romelle perks up and steps forward to flick a device’s projection out for everyone’s viewing. “Here’s what we’ve found so far! We had to assume that for whatever reason, neither you nor the princess could pilot your lions so we did a lot of scanning and maths to try and figure out where we were and what we can use for resources from now on. We’re quite a ways away from any inhabited and resource rich planets but we’ve identified many relief points where we could potentially land your lions and take a breather if necessary. It’s great that you’re up and about because that accelerates our plans further because we need to visit these planets to gauge the state of the universe as well as gather the necessary resources to make the long trip to your home planet.” As she explains, Romelle wiggles the projection around and points excitedly at the maps.

“I was just about to head out here,” Hunk says whilst pointing to one of the highlighted dots on the map. “Which is the closest resource-rich planet, then once I deem it safe I will send back an ‘a-okay’ so that Pidge can head here-” he points to a different highlighted dot slightly further away from their central point. “-so she can scan the surrounding planets and hopefully give us intel then Keith would head out the furthest here, but-” Hunk looks to Romelle who sharply picks up what she must do and adjusts the map slightly to reveal another highlighted dot. “Now that you’re with us Lance, the adjusted plan is that you head out all the way here. Your lion’s the fastest and will be able to more easily rendevous with us if there’s an issue. So the lion formation would look like this-” Hunk draws in the air. “-Me here first, then Pidge leaves for a further planet, then you and Keith head out with Keith in between all of us.”

Lance nudges Keith, “you’re the center.”

“Football?” Keith asks with an eyebrow quirk.

“Basketball,” Lance answers with an eyebrow wiggle.

“Pretty much actually, Lance you’re the point guard, Keith is the center, I’m the right forward and Pidge is the left forward!” Hunk splays out his arms with excitement. “How is it?” He asks Keith and Lance.

“I like it, it’s careful and takes into consideration our lions’ strengths. What’s the plan if there’s an issue back here?” Keith asks and Lance nods along, briefly marveling at his reliable boyfriend.

“We’re definitely a lot more defenseless with most of the lions gone…we were hoping that Allura would be okay to move if Lance was.”

“What if, Hunk, you return as soon as you’re done?” Lance suggests.

“We could do that but that stretches us out more leaving the rest of you three more vulnerable out there.”

“It’s a safer risk to take than leave the blue lion out here defenseless,” Keith says. “If Lance or Pidge have a problem I’ll be right there so let’s not worry too much about the potential danger as long as we remain vigilante once we’ve split.”

Lance turns around to look up at Blue standing resolutely but quietly. “Poor Blue,” he murmurs.

“Also we think Keith should take everyone including your wolf-”

“Kosmo,” Lance interrupts Hunk.

“Oh Kosmo? - they should all go into Black first and then Pidge can finish her preliminary assessments to hopefully give us a better understanding of what to expect from each planet. Then we can drop off the passengers to the best lion. What do we think guys?”

“What’s the passenger’s main goal?” Keith asks.

“We want to help you guys out!” Romelle pipes up cheerily. “It’ll be far too lonely having to do the mission by yourselves and it’ll be safer with two eyes watching than one right?”

Keith crosses his arms and puffs out a sigh. “No offense Romelle, but you’re not exactly a mission person.”

“How awfully rude of you Keith! After all I have been through with you lot and even getting you and Krolia out of the quantam abyss!”

“Oh yeah about that, did you say you spent two years in the abyss?” Pidge asks.

“The most recent mission was to extract my mother but we were too late and were forced into the abyss to evade our pursuers. Time moves differently there so yes, I spent two deca-pheobs out there.”

“...Cool,” Pidge whispers out. Lance furrows his brows at that which Pidge catches and sheepishly looks away.

“Alright so we’ll split the passengers once we have Pidge’s information, to save time let’s have all the lions head out but spread out amongst the relief points.” Keith commands.

“Sounds great to me!” Lance cheers, clapping Hunk on the shoulder. Hunk looks to everyone with a shaky smile and pulls Lance and Pidge into his arms. “Aw you guys, we make such a great team you know? We’re gonna get through this and make it back home so please let’s try to resolve conflicts from now on.”

“Haha you got it Hunk,” Lance answers with an outstretched hand towards Keith who takes it gently into his own.

“Yeah yeah yeah,” Pidge rolls her eyes good-naturedly.

Keith smiles at his paladins, a nostalgic fondness overcoming him in that moment. Romelle puffs out her cheeks with a humph and Krolia pats Keith’s shoulder whilst Kosmo yips happily at his feet. In this moment, he strongly feels that life couldn’t get any better with his lover’s hand in his own, his mother’s support, and his friends surrounding him. He breathes in deeply, savouring the moment for longer before announcing, “okay team, those are our plans. Hunk, if you’re ready to start then by all means.”

Hunk salutes to Keith. “Yes sir!”