He rolls his eyes.

"Did everyone else just see that? Please tell me you all saw that." 

"Yup. Voltron is a giant robot." 

"And this is only one part of it..." 

Nuray starts mumbling, "One, two, three, four, five... Five of us, five lions!"

"That part's gotta be a coincidence," Pidge argues. Whatever he was about to say next is forgotten, though, as the blue lion moves. 

A swish of the segmented tail is followed by the shifting of one massive paw, the twitch of a mechanical ear. 

Then the whole body is moving as the lion bends down in front of them, opening its mouth and extending a ramp...right at Akira's feet. 

"...Alright then." He steps forward, glancing at the others. "I think I should try this alone, first. In case it is dangerous, or the lion has a preference."

"I think it's expressed its preference pretty clearly at this point," Pidge says.

"...wow, that's a weird sentence to be saying about a ROBOT LION." 

Shiro looks conflicted.

"As the senior officer, I should be the one to take the risks in this scenario. But...it does seem to like you." 

He nods.

(It feels oddly nice, to be chosen for something.)

He walks up the ramp.

Inside the lion's head is a cockpit, with a single chair in the centre from which a pilot could reach every console and see out of the 180-degree viewscreens. As Akira walks in, banks of lights come on.

There's a brief flash of an image in his head: Akira sitting in the pilot's chair, with the other four standing around him, arms stiff and straight at their sides. 

He goes to sit in the pilot's chair. "Should I ask them in, then?" he asks. "Though I don't think Nuray will stand that still."

Around him, blue holographic displays spring to life. The viewscreens show the cave around them as if he was looking through the lion's eyes. 

The lion rumbles in what might be amusement, turning its head to look at Nuray. There is a brief flash of the Voltron image again, but this time the focus is on the two legs—one blue and one yellow, different and yet balancing each other. 

That seems an appropriate place, for the two of them.

He doesn't particularly want to leave here, not yet. Can he figure out an intercom system?

The controls are extremely intuitive, as can be expected from something that's almost certainly reading his mind. Pressing that button there will turn on the external speakers that echo his voice to the people outside. 

Pidge is bouncing. 

"Can we come up yet? I wanna see how this thing works!" 

What a good robot lion. He approves of the user interface.

"Yes, this seems safe. I think they want us to find the other parts of Voltron?" He doesn't know the lion's gender, and 'it' seems rude right now.

"Great, let's go!"

Pidge darts up the ramp.

Nuray follows close on his heels, laughing. This is way better than she'd expected with the whole aliens and spooky caves thing.

Keith and Shiro are the last into the lion. 

As Shiro steps off the top of the ramp, it pulls itself up behind him and the lion's head lifts off the ground. He startles but keeps his balance. 

The lion sends Akira another image: an alien planet, blue and green like Earth but with different continents. 

Accompanying the visual is an impression of vast spans of time passing, and a faint trace of something that might be longing. 

"The lion wants to go home, I think."

Shiro seems less awed by the situation and the advanced technology than the rest of them. He has the air of someone who maxed out his surprise meter a long time ago and is now incapable of being shocked by anything, up to and including telepathic alien robot spaceships. 

"Alright. Anyone who doesn't want to leave Earth and go to an alien planet, this might be your last chance to back out." 

"You're not leaving me behind," Keith says immediately. He looks up to meet Shiro's eyes. "If you're going, I'm going."