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Su and Naruto in Voltron
Permalink Mark Unread

The year is 2314. 

Earth survived World War Three and came out stronger. Humankind has begun to explore their solar system, sending manned flights out to Jupiter, Saturn, and beyond under the aegis of an international astro-exploration initiative known as the Galaxy Garrison. With bases all over the world, the Garrison trains new generations of astroexplorers and sends them up equipped with the best technology Earth has to offer. 

Sometimes, however, their best isn't quite enough. One year ago, a mission to Kerberos, one of Pluto's moons, ended in disaster. All three crew members of the Kerberos Mission—pilot Shirogane Takashi, and scientists Samuel and Matthew Holt—were lost along with their ship in what has officially been deemed 'pilot error'. 

All three were graduates, Matthew Holt only the previous year, of the Galaxy Garrison Academy, based in Arizona. 

Right now, one class of cadets is running team exercises in the flight simulators. Their 'task' is a rescue mission to Kerberos. It takes nearly five months to fly out there in real-time, so the simulators have skipped all the way to the interesting part at the end: reaching the moon itself, finding the planned landing site for the original mission, and attempting to make contact with the missing crew. 

Kerberos looms before them in the viewscreen as the simulation begins. 

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She's the pilot, which means she's hyper-focusing, brain streamlined in, mind clear of everything except her task - 

She can never explain how she does it.

Nuray Uzun is a very good pilot.

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Ideally, he won't have much to do beyond basic routine tasks as the simulation's engineer. Still, he's calm, centered, on call in case something goes wrong - in his domain or others he's authorized to help with.

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It's a simulation designed to test their functioning as a team; of course something's going to go wrong. 

The comms tech and final member of their 'crew', Pidge Gunderson, is equally quiet, focused on his bank of blinking lights. They haven't worked together before, but Cadet Gunderson probably skipped about three grades in middle school or something, because he looks about 14, several years younger than Akira and Nuray. He looks like he knows what he's doing, though. 

They've got about a minute before their ship enters the moon's gravity well. 

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She went over the plan with them before starting - presumably in real life that would've happened on the journey.

Now, she's recording her formal pilot's logs, focusing on getting them landed safely.

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There's some turbulence as they come into range of Kerberos' gravity, but nothing they haven't trained for. 

Something beeps.

"We've picked up a distress beacon!" 

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She gives orders for the appropriate people to get ready to evaluate the safety of the site, to explore, and to receive any potential casualties, as she maneuvers them closer.

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"Locking on to coordinates...got it!" 

It seems like the distress beacon is located not far from the planned landing site of the Kerberos Mission. The approach to it from here is twisty and difficult due to the moon's rugged geography. 

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Nuray, fortunately, is very good at her job. The piloting part, at least. 

She brings them in gently, more carefully than she actually wants to, so they can be properly alert for any problems.

Does it look safe to land and send out a team?

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Pidge is already attempting to make contact with whoever sent out the beacon.

"—hailing the crew of the Prometheus, if you can hear me, please respond. Over."

For a minute, there's no response and no sign of movement. Then there's a crackle of static over the airwaves, and a distorted voice starts to come through in broken chunks. Frowning, Pidge adjusts a dial, but that only makes it worse. Sparks fly from the console.

"Uh, engineer, whatever your name was—" 

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"Suzuki," he says, coming over and bending over the console to run diagnostics.

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The 'malfunction' proves 'fixable' with a little patience. 

"Thanks, Suzuki!" Pidge goes back to hailing the crashed ship—the wreckage of which can be seen on the ice field in front of them—but gets static again.

"...are you sure you fixed it?" 

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He checks again, saying, "The problem could be on their end..." as he does.

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"I'll keep trying different frequencies. Maybe—"

He's cut off as the ship shakes. 

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She starts snapping out orders - mostly trying to find out what's gone wrong - 

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What's gone wrong, as is apparent as soon as Nuray looks out of the 'viewport', is that the ice beneath them is starting to crack under the combined weight of the two ships. 

Their cockpit starts tilting backwards, shuddering again to give the impression of movement. 

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They can't stabilize easily; there's nothing for it but to lift off, either to land somewhere more remote or to send an exploration team in a much smaller craft.

Does removing their weight remove the problem?

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Well, it removes them from the problem, in the sense that they're no longer sinking through the ice. The extra push from their takeoff, though, must have destabilised the ice sheet even further, because with a massive CRACK the wreckage of the Prometheus starts to sink beneath the surface.

In front of them, jagged spikes of ice larger than their craft rear up in their path, creating a treacherous, constantly-shifting obstacle course. 

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Crap. Well, she screwed that one up.

She's able to navigate the ice field; that's something she's good at, at least. Can she find somewhere stable to - either land their craft or a smaller away vehicle?

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The path through spires of rock and ice gets increasingly tricky, requiring fast reflexes as well as some thinking ahead to avoid getting caught in a dead end. There aren't really any big flat surfaces on this moon other than the—proven to be treacherous—ice sheets. 

"Great job," Pidge snarks from the comms console. "You've sunk the ship we were supposed to be rescuing." 

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Yeah no ignoring the commentary flying - 

Not perfectly - 

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Things are going wrong as new and exciting stresses are put on the ship! And they have one engineer who can't be everywhere at once, and who is slow and methodical so far.

Something fails catastrophically.

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And despite Nuray's best efforts, that's enough to knock them far enough off course that they collide with a spire of rock. The cockpit shakes and rattles in a convincing imitation of impact.

The landscape in the viewscreen is replaced with a black screen blinking "SIMULATION FAILED" in large red letters. The simulator comes back to resting position and shuts off. 

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Pidge slumps in his chair with a frustrated noise. 

"An absolute pleasure flying with you," he says, sarcasm dripping from every syllable in the way only a 14-year-old can manage. 

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"Same! Good work, team!" she says, entirely non-sarcastically.

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Pidge is about to reply to that, but before he gets a chance, the simulator opens up, revealing the rest of the room. 

Their instructor, Commander Iverson, glares down at the trio with his one working eye. "A sub-par performance," he says. "Would anyone else in this class like to tell me what these cadets did wrong?" 

Hands fly up from where the rest of their class are standing around waiting for their turn. "The pilot landed without making sure the ice was stable!" "The engineer wasn't doing anything for half the time!" "The comms officer didn't help fix the equipment!" "They just kept yelling at each other instead of fixing things!" 

Iverson quiets them and turns back to the three in the simulator. "While your individual performance was adequate, your cohesion as a team was poor. Do better. Next!" He gestures impatiently for them to move so the next group can take a turn. 

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She moves on, smiling at her team. "Wanna talk about strategies for next sim?" she asks, mostly towards Pidge.

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"Here's a strategy," Pidge snaps. "How about you don't screw up!" 

He shoves past Nuray and stalks off down the hall, but not quite fast enough to hide the tears starting to build in his eyes. 

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"...Is he okay?" she mutters, staring after him, a bit baffled.

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Akira sighs. "C'mon Nuray, we can talk on our own."

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She nods, slowly. "Sure..."

And off to one of the quiet little nooks they've found over their friendship.

(Big conclusion: they need to get better at working with people who aren't the two of them. She and Akira don't really need to talk, even, to understand each other, but it's sometimes hard to slot anyone else in... Nuray's pretty decent at working with arbitrary people, but something about them both in a larger team - it's like a three-person waltz.)

Still, they'll be ready for the next challenge!

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The instructors keep throwing them into group exercises over the next week or so, with a variety of groupings. Pidge doesn't seem to be good at working with anyone, but he doesn't snap at his teammates again. 

One evening, five minutes before curfew, Nuray and Akira happen to see Pidge in the corridors with a backpack and dressed in civvies, clearly sneaking out. He seems to have done this before, from the way he calmly steps around a corner to avoid a patrolling officer. 

"Oh. Hi." 

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"Hey! Going somewhere?"

She doesn't actually super care if he wants to break the rules, and needs to get back to her bunk anyways, so she's talking quietly and intends to keep this short.

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"Uh. Nnnoo?" 

Pidge is apparently a terrible liar. 

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"Well, stay safe, practice lying a bit maybe."

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He snorts. "You got me. I'm only going up to the roof, though, 'cause there's better signal up there." 

Pidge turns to go, then adds as an afterthought, "Come if you want, just don't bug me." 

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"That sounds neat! You coming, Akira?"

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He nods.

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"Lead the way, then."

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"Cool. Okay, follow me and stay quiet." 

He leads the other two through the corridors of the Garrison. The lights go down to signal curfew, leaving their path lit only by small strip-lights running along the walls, but he doesn't miss a beat. 

A few stairways and a ladder later, they're on the roof. It's wide and flat, but a good half of its surface is taken up with solar panels, generators, satellite dishes, and the like.

Pidge finds a clear spot near the edge, with a good view over the whole Garrison site. He sits down cross-legged, pulls a laptop and some other electronic gadgets out of the backpack, and starts setting up a tiny satellite receptor of his own. 

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Nuray wedges herself into a weird, high point, where she has as close to an unobstructed view of the sky as possible. (She's assuming 'stay quiet' applies here, too.)

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Akira perches where he'd be able to see if anyone is coming, and signal to at least Nuray to hide better.

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Excellent. Pidge fiddles with gadgets and has everything set up in a few minutes with practised efficiency. The equipment is obviously jury-rigged and heavily modified. 

Pretty soon, the electronics are beeping away, and he puts on headphones to listen to the radio signals that come in. 

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"What'cha doing?" she whispers at what seems an opportune moment.

Okay so she's not very good at staying quiet.

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"Listening in on alien radio chatter. Here, you wanna listen?" He offers the headphones.

"They're excited tonight. Must be something happening." 

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"...Aliens?"

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Pidge doesn't seem bothered by her disbelief.

"Put the headphones on or give them back, we're missing stuff." He points at the activity on his screen, which does seem to be fairly busy. 

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She puts them on.

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And her ears fill with chatter in an unintelligible language. It sounds harsh, full of hard consonants and strange clusters of sounds that don't naturally go together in most human languages. Several different voices are barking at each other, sometimes interrupting and talking over the others. 

Some words and phrases are repeated often enough to catch: vrepit sa. ZarkonVoltron

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She loves languages, even if they're super hard, and is quickly imagining getting to talk to these people, find out who they are, if they dream of the same stars -

She whispers the words she notices repeating to Pidge. Or, well, the best approximation she can pronounce.

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"Vrepit sa's not new, they're always saying that one, and I'm pretty sure I've heard 'zarkon' before as well. 'Voltron' is new tonight; I think it's what's got them all excited."

He reaches for the headphones. "Can I have those back—"

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She hands them over, bouncing a little.

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And Pidge goes back to listening intently to the signals, typing away at ridiculous speeds to make notes on the content, the locations it's coming from, the frequencies...

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Alarms start blaring.

"ATTENTION STUDENTS. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. WE ARE ON LOCKDOWN. SECURITY SITUATION ZULU NINER. REPEAT: ALL STUDENTS ARE TO REMAIN IN BARRACKS UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE." 

A bright orange light begins to be visible in the sky, getting brighter and larger by the second. It looks like a meteor headed in the general direction of the base. 

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The fuck!!!

"- We need to move."

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Pidge grabs a pair of binoculars and peers at the 'meteor'.

"It's a ship! An alien ship!" 

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Akira jumps down from his perch. "This place might not be safe."

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As the base wakes up beneath them, the apparently-not-a-meteor plummets towards the ground, on a trajectory to land in the desert near the Garrison. 

Pidge is disassembling his equipment as fast as he can. "We've gotta go check this out!" 

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Akira looks very exasperated, but just rolls his eyes.

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"We'll come with."

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"Great." 

And then there's a BOOM and a shockwave as the alien spaceship crash-lands less than half a mile away. 

"C'mon, we have to get out there before the Garrison covers it all up. This way." 

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She follows, pulling Akira along by his hand.

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Pidge leads them down through side corridors and disused stairwells to the garage, where they can slip out through the big doors amidst the confusion of groups of Garrison scientists and medtechs being hustled onto trucks. 

It's less than a 10-minute walk to the crash site through the desert wilderness. It's easy to find: they just have to head towards the massive plume of smoke. Pidge is anxious as they walk. He keeps putting his hand up to his ear or cheek, as though he's going to adjust the headphones he's no longer wearing, and then putting it back down. 

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She focuses on her hearing, trying to tell if there's any trucks approaching or people talking...

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While Akira looks around, keen eyes scanning their surroundings.

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By the time they make it to a small ridge overlooking the site of the crash, the Garrison has already set up cordons and put up a large tent-like dome in the impact crater. There's an airlock leading into the dome, and guards all over the place.

The crashed ship, an angular black-and-grey wedge with purple running lights, is being loaded onto a truck to be taken away. It's a little smaller than a bus, about the size of the three-man craft they were supposedly flying in the simulator the other day. 

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"Aw, man." 

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Nuray is keeping very low and very quiet. (She's really not bad at stealth.)

"Wanna get closer?" she whispers. "Or head back?"

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Akira is keeping an eye out to make sure no one sneaks up on them.

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"...Neither. Give me a minute." Pidge starts getting out some of his electronics again.

He waves his binoculars at the other two without looking up. "Here, one of you tell me what you can see down there." 

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Nuray takes them, and starts whispering reports of what she sees.

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Things which can be seen:

A cool alien spaceship, some of its strange purple lights still glowing and turning the whole scene an eerie colour. 

Medics being sent into the dome along with guards. The dome itself is opaque. 

A Garrison officer Nuray doesn't recognise, stood outside the airlock holding a tablet. The two golden tabs on her shoulders say she's only medium rank, but she outranks everyone else in view, which means Commander Iverson isn't in evidence. 

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A minute or two of typing later:

"Guys, take a look," Pidge whispers. He angles his screen so the other two can see.  "They set up a camera in there and I patched into its feed." 

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What's there to see, then?

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The camera is pointed at a man strapped to a table, with three figures in hazmat suits working around him. He's wearing some kind of skintight black jumpsuit, stretching from his neck to his toes, under a torn purple tunic-ish thing. His hair is black, but the bangs falling over his face are white.

The man struggles weakly against the restraints, getting nowhere. "Hey! What are you doing?" he demands. 

         "Calm down, Shiro," one of the other figures says, putting a hand on his arm. "We just need to keep you quarantined until we run some tests—" 

"You have to listen to me—aliens are coming—" He struggles harder. 

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The fuck!!!

"We should do something!" she whispers.

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Pidge is staring at Shiro as though the man holds the secrets to life and death and also kicked his puppy. 

"That—that's Captain Shirogane Takashi," he stutters. "He was the pilot on the Kerberos mission! We have to go down there!" 

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Akira starts calculating a path through the encampment. "We won't do much good caught."

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"But how do we get past the guards?" Pidge mutters. "We could...get some hazmat suits and sneak in pretending to be medtechs?" 

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"I'm pretty good at fast talking? And yeah some kind of stolen uniform's gonna work best I think. Though biggest is not looking nervous, you gotta look like you belong."

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Pidge nods seriously. 

"You know, what we really need is some kind of—"

There's a BOOM as something explodes just over a nearby hill on the opposite side of the crater. 

"...distraction?" 

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"...That was weirdly convenient," Nuray mutters.

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"Yeah, but not for us—look!"

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As most of the guards rush to investigate the explosions, someone with a scarf tied over their face drives up on a hoverbike from the side nearer the three cadets, out of sight of the distracted guards.

Leaving the bike running, the person leaps to the ground and heads into the airlock of the med dome. 

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"Let's go."

She starts heading to the med tent, keeping down but moving fast.

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Akira curses under his breath and follows her.

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Pidge follows too, scrambling to keep up on shorter legs. 

With the guards' attention diverted, it's not hard to reach the airlock. From there, they find their way cleared for them: the stranger with the hoverbike has left a trail of knocked-out Garrison personnel behind him. 

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When the three of them get into the dome, he's already cut the straps and is hauling Captain Shirogane—who seems to have been drugged unconscious—off the table. The medtechs, like the guards, are down for the count. 

He's pulled his scarf down, and under the bright lights, hoverbike guy is recognisable as a cadet from Nuray's class who got expelled last year. 

"Oh, great. Who the hell are you." 

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" - We're cadets. We were investigating the crash and then saw they had him tied up and wanted to rescue him."

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"Fine." He tugs one of Shirogane's arms over his shoulders. "One of you get his other arm." 

The 'other arm' in question, Shirogane's right, is some kind of metallic prosthesis. 

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Nuray does; she suspects she's the strongest of the three cadets, and Akira's going to be more useful keeping an eye out, anyways.

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Then she can help haul an unconscious guy outside and load him onto the hoverbike. It's a passenger model, with a second seat behind the driver and a bit of extra cargo space at the back, and clearly modified considerably. 

Its owner, who hasn't introduced himself yet, is constantly alert, looking around for any sign that the rest of the guards have noticed their presence. 

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A torch beam swings in their direction, and they can hear the guards shouting to each other. 

"...we should get out of here."

Having said that, though, Pidge is making no moves to actually step away from the hoverbike and its passenger. 

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He swings himself into the driver's seat and sighs. "Alright, get on, quickly."

There's just about room for all of them to pile onto the hoverbike. Someone's going to have to have the unconscious guy on their lap, though. 

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Nuray fortunately has zero bubble. She and Akira climb on, Nuray with unconscious dude in her lap.

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Pidge squeezes in as well. 

The bike starts to move almost as soon as everyone's feet are off the ground, accelerating a little too fast to be entirely safe and leaving a dust cloud behind them. Sounds of pursuit are clearly audible behind them as the bike streaks across the desert. 

Their driver is reckless, scarily so, but he clearly knows this terrain like the back of his hand and knows his vehicle even better. There's one particularly heart-stopping moment where he drives them straight up to the edge of a cliff—Garrison trucks right behind them—and then carries on right over the edge, sending them plummeting downwards.

(Pidge shrieks like a girl.)

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This is actually kind of fun. She never gets to do bullshit like this anymore.

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Isn't it, though. 

He's laughing when he brings them out of the dive, pulling up at just the right moment to translate downward momentum into forward motion using the hoverbike's cushion of air. Their pursuers, not being equipped with hover vehicles, watch helplessly from the clifftop as they escape into the night. 

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"Warn us next time, asshole!" Pidge yells, voice high-pitched with shock and indignation. 

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Nuray starts laughing.

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Eventually, they come to a stop outside a small...well, 'shack' is probably the only word for this building. It looks like there are maybe two rooms inside, but it has its own generator and water tank. 

"Help me get him inside." 

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Nuray does.

"So, I kind of recognize you, but, like, how'd you know he was here and why the whole rescue plot?"

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"It's...kind of a long story."

The interior of the shack is if anything even less impressive than the outside, and almost as short on places to sleep. There's a sagging couch covered with a ratty old blanket, and a small side room has a mattress on the floor. He directs them to the latter, laying the unconscious guy carefully on the mattress. 

"The short version is, I didn't." 

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"You didn't?" Pidge repeats, having followed them in.

"Then why were you there?" 

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He leans against the doorframe of the bedroom, not so casually putting himself between Captain Shirogane and the rest of them. 

"I...knew something was going to happen tonight, something was going to arrive," he says, picking his words carefully. "I just—didn't know it would be him." 

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"From the aliens?"

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"Sort of, it's—look, can I explain this in the morning? You guys can argue over the couch, I've got some spare blankets and shit somewhere." 

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"Is there any imminent danger?"

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Shrug.

"Your guess is as good as mine. The Garrison'll be looking for Shiro, and maybe for you three as well."

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"...Oh yeah shit we're gonna be in a ton of trouble when they figure out we're not in bed."

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"They might have already."

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"You two can go back if you want," Pidge says from where he's sat curled up against a wall. "I can erase the camera footage from the med tent, they'll never know we were there." 

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She shakes her head. "No. This is - big. This cover up. The aliens."

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"I'm with Nuray," is all Akira says.

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"Alright. I'll still erase the footage, though." 

He yawns.

"...dibs on the couch." 

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Akira nods; he's not planning on sleeping, anyways.

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"Sure thing."

She'll just use Akira as a pillow.

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Their host, who keeps neglecting to introduce himself, produces blankets and pillows. 

He curls up on the bedroom floor next to the mattress and...possibly sleeps.

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Pidge talks in his sleep, very quietly. Very little of it can be made out, but the name 'Matt' repeats a few times. Or was that 'Dad', or maybe both? 

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Akira keeps watch, over the others and the man they rescued alike.

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Their rescuee has night terrors, very quiet ones. He wakes up several times gasping in terror, eventually giving in and staying awake when the first light of dawn starts to peek in through the windows of the little cabin. 

For the first few moments after waking, every time, he seems disoriented, looking around the room as if he's seeing somewhere else. 

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Either their host is a very light sleeper, or he's pretending to be; he blinks awake every time Captain Shirogane does, talking to him quietly until he calms enough to fall back asleep. Akira, in the other room, is too far away to hear what they say to each other. 

In the morning, the closet turns out to contain a change of clothes in Shirogane's size, despite the fact that he's easily half a head taller than the only person who lives here. 

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He goes outside to watch the sunrise, trying to move quietly through the main room so he doesn't wake the people still asleep. 

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Akira nods at him, though since Nuray's still using his lap as a pillow he doesn't get up.

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He gets a nod and a small smile in return, the expression somehow managing to convey gratitude and a hint of friendliness. This morning, Captain Shirogane seems very different to last night's half-mad prisoner raving about an alien invasion.

If Akira hadn't been awake for the nightmares, he might be fooled into thinking the man had entirely recovered from his ordeal.

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A little later, after a breakfast of miscellaneous canned food—including what looks like appropriated Garrison field rations—the five of them convene in the cabin's main room for some overdue explanations. 

Pidge is bleary-eyed but awake, nursing a mug of coffee and glaring at the world. 

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Nuray is bright eyed and bushy tailed! And trying not to be too obnoxious but she didn't know there were aliens until like last night, so really: what the hell???

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"So, I know how I knew about the aliens, but how did you know about the aliens?" Pidge asks their host.

"And who are you, anyway, and why do you live all the way out here in the desert?"

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"My name's Keith. I...used to be a student at the Garrison until I got kicked out." He sneaks an almost guilty glance at Captain Shirogane as he says the last part.

"As for the aliens, I wasn't exactly sure until last night, but I'm pretty convinced there's something out there now. What about, uh, you three? I recognise at least one of you from pilot class, but I don't know your names." 

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"I'm Nuray Uzun. I followed Gunderson here up to the roof, got a chance to listen in on some alien chatter, and then the whole crash thing happened. This's my friend, Akira Suzuki. He followed me."

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"Oh, it's my turn. I'm, uh, Pidge. Pidge Gunderson. I'm a comms-tech cadet at the Garrison, and I modified this radio to pick up extra-terrestrial signals after the Kerberos mission lost contact. I've been listening to alien broadcasts for the last few months trying to find out what happened to them," Pidge explains.

"Uh, Captain Shirogane? What did happen out there? Were you abducted by the aliens? Where's the rest of your crew?" 

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"I...I can't remember," he admits. "And, please, call me Shiro."

He sighs. "Keith says it's been a year, but most of that time is a blur. I don't even know how I ended up in the shuttle that crashed last night. One of the only things that's stuck with me is the name Voltron. It's some kind of weapon the Galra are searching for, and they think it's on Earth. We can't let them find it." 

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"They were talking about it on the radio."

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"Somehow I'm not surprised," Shiro says. "Could you make out anything else useful?"

He directs the question to all three of the cadets, effortlessly taking charge of the conversation. 

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She recites everything she remembers from what she heard. It's an actually rather impressive amount, given her lack of familiarity with the language.

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Shiro flinches at the sound of the alien language, but he tries to translate it anyway, frowning in concentration. "I think some of those are...numbers? They're not coordinates, though—something about an energy signature?" He scribbles down the few numbers he can make out from the secondhand recitation. 

He recognises the words 'zarkon' and 'vrepit sa', too. "Zarkon is the name of the Emperor. I've only seen him once that I remember, over a video link between him and the commander who first captured us. Vrepit sa is...I think their equivalent of 'yes, sir,' or something. I remember hearing it a lot." 

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She kind of really wants to hug him. She does not. But she thinks about it very hard.

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Akira is a math nerd and goes to focus on the numbers. An energy signature... Perhaps a heading?

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Pidge stands on tiptoe to peer over Akira's shoulder.

"If it's a frequency, we could maybe retune my equipment to track it. We'd need to get pretty close, though, within about a hundred kilometers." 

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"Was Voltron supposed to be coming to Earth? There might be - records of movement, something seen on someone's telescope - "

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Keith, who's been quiet for the last few minutes, speaks up. "I think I might know somewhere we could look first. You said it's an energy signature?" 

Going over to the back wall, he tugs down a hanging cloth to reveal a conspiracy board. In the centre is a map of northern Arizona, with a location circled and labelled ENERGY SOURCE? in black marker. The rest of the board is covered in photos showing cave paintings, rock carvings, and canyon landscapes, with bits of string presumably showing where they were taken.

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"Neat. We could probably search pretty well there? And that's not too far I don't think?"

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"It's only a few hours from here by hoverbike," he confirms. "About fifty kilometers. But there's a lot of cave systems in that area: I've spent the last few months exploring them and I still haven't found everything." 

He points out some of the pictures. "Nearly all the caves have these carvings on the walls. They tell different stories, but they all show the same blue lion. Maybe it's related to your 'Voltron' thing." The recurring image in the photos is stylized, but it's recognisably meant to be a big cat of some kind.

"These paintings are how I knew to expect something last night," he tells Shiro. "If you put the clues together, they talk about something arriving that night. I don't know how they knew, but...I'm not gonna question it." 

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"Why caves?"

She's a bit more skeptical about prophetic paintings...

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"I'm not sure. It's like there was something...drawing me out there, telling me to investigate. And, well, I didn't have anything better to do since I got booted out, so...I listened."

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Alright, aliens and spooky woo woo. Cool. Nuray can roll with that.

"Gunderson's thing will maybe help narrow it down?"

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"Hopefully. I don't fancy trekking around in caves all day." 

Pidge is already gutting his radio receiver and putting it back together in a different configuration with Akira's help. 

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"We'll wanna move faster than the aliens, too."

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Shiro nods grimly.

"If we don't get to Voltron before they do, the whole planet, even the galaxy, could be in danger." 

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"We'll move fast, then."

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It's not long before the tech duo think they have something. It's picking up readings from the direction of Keith's energy source. 

"Does it seem weird to anyone else that we happened to be within a hundred-kilometer radius of this thing? Earth has a surface area of more than five hundred million square kilometers, the odds of it being that close have to be less than one in a hundred thousand." 

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" - Do we know why the garrison was built here, actually? Could be related? But yeah if it's not, it's really weird."

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"Yeah, I've wondered that too. It's almost like they knew it was here, but I've never seen any signs of Garrison activity in the caves." 

The caves in question turn out to be less than two hours away by hoverbike, at least at the speed Keith drives. As before, all of them somehow pile on, Pidge holding the modified scanner on his lap. 

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After a certain point, the terrain becomes too uneven for the bike and they have to walk the rest of the way, picking a path between the large boulders that litter the floor of the canyon. 

The scanner continues to think they're going in the right direction. 

red stone canyon

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This is at least a very pretty area! The blue lion people have good taste.

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Akira's helpful with Gunderson but is mostly quiet on the drive and subsequent walking.

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"We're close!" Pidge announces. "The scanner says it's in this cave up ahead." 

He points out the mouth of a cave that seems no different from the other openings they've seen in the rock as they walked. 

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"Then let's go take a look."

As promised, the walls of this cave are covered in ancient carvings. Lines etched into the rock depict the stylized lion they saw in the photos, over and over again in combination with a variety of other glyphs. Keith has clearly been here before; he brought a torch. The beam doesn't do much to illuminate the cave's interior, but it's better than nothing. 

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Do the other glyphs look at all meaningful? Like, does anything resemble a person even vaguely, or repeat often... She's not gonna be able to do an in-depth analysis but she might get a sense of like 'are these numbers' or 'are these words' or 'are these drawings.'

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They seem to be pictures. Lines of people waving weapons march around the base of the walls, some kind of vaguely kangaroo-like animal hops along on several of the walls, and there's something on a slab near the entrance that could be either a mushroom or a UFO.

Another repeating design is a large circular ring with lines radiating out from it. The centre of the ring is empty, and the rim has triangular detailing that almost suggests arrows pointing towards the hole in the middle. 

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Pidge shuffles around the cave, waving the scanner about and watching the readings change. 

"According to this, it's directly below us..."

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She's pretty sure you're not supposed to poke ancient carvings, but also her low-light vision's not that good.

"Hey Akira, make anything of these?" she asks.

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He comes over to squint at them, brushing his fingers over one part that's faded heavily.

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The carving lights up beneath his touch, the lines glowing a bright electric blue that spreads out through the whole cave until every groove carved into the rock holds the same phosphorescent glow. 

A second later, the cavern floor starts to shake and crumble under their feet. 

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"Akira you're officially the first to die in a horror movie!" Nuray shrieks.

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Akira tries pulling her away from the crumbling.

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Too late. The whole floor falls away, sending all five of them sliding down...a waterfall? 

(Pidge still screams like a girl.)

They land in a pool of water at the bottom. 

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Nuray yelps.

And then: "Where did this water even come from!"

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"There are underground rivers all over this area," Keith says, picking himself up and looking around.

"I have a more important question. Where did that come from?" 

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The cave they're in is bathed in the same blue light as the one above, only brighter. Its source is a glowing spherical forcefield made of interlocking hexagons. (Pidge's scanner didn't survive the waterfall, or it would be going crazy right now.)

Within the forcefield is a massive blue robotic lion with red and silver accents, sitting on its haunches. It looks large enough to fit several of them in its mouth at once, but it sits inert and unmoving. 

The 'eyes' of the lion are flat yellow panels with no lights or detailing, but nevertheless Akira might get the sense that it's watching him. 

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That's creepy, and he's watching it right back.

"Do you think this is 'Voltron'?"

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"It...must be," Shiro replies in a hushed tone. Like everyone else, he's staring at the lion in awe. 

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"This is what's been causing all the crazy energy out here." 

Keith wades out of the pool and heads directly towards the forcefield to investigate, Pidge not far behind. When he reaches it, he puts his hand right on the barrier, which ripples but doesn't give way. 

"I wonder how we get to it."

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Akira comes up to investigate the barrier as well, trailing his hand along it after Keith's actions fail to cause any more cave-ins.

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At Akira's touch, the forcefield flashes brighter then starts peeling itself back, vanishing one hexagon at a time. The lion's eyes light up and begin to glow yellow. 

A moment later, all five of them see a vision of another giant robot, this one in the shape of a person with winglike protrusions on its back. The robot's body, arms and legs are each made up of lions like this one, five in total, with the blue lion forming the right leg. This, they somehow know, is Voltron. 

Voltron robot

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"We're in a giant robot anime? Awesome!" is Nuray's takeaway. "You're lucky this isn't a horror story yet, Akira."

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He rolls his eyes.

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

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"Yup. Voltron is a giant robot." 

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"And this is only one part of it..." 

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

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

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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. 

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"...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."

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"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." 

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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." 

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He nods.

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

He walks up the ramp.

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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. 

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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."

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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. 

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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?

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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. 

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Pidge is bouncing. 

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

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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.

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"Great, let's go!"

Pidge darts up the ramp.

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

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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. 

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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. 

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

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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." 

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

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"Giant! Robot! Anime!" is Nuray's contribution. "Also if I ditched this jerk he might forget what food is."

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"Love you too," Akira says, rolling his eyes.

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Pidge contributes an eye-roll of his own at all the dramatics.

"When else are we gonna get a chance to visit an alien planet? Let's go already." 

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Blue lion? He'd like to take you home, now.

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And if he grabs that joystick, they can go whooshing forward like this, and burst right through the rock and out into open air. 

The lion lets out a joyful roar as they make for the upper atmosphere, at a speed that forces Akira back against his seat and throws the other four around the cockpit. 

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He warns them to grab onto something when he realizes they're about to move.

He's flying for real!

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He is! ...sorta. At this stage, the lion is basically doing warmup laps around in the sky while Akira gets the hang of which controls do what. There's a sensation in his head, in the way he's learning to recognise as the lion's communication, that calls to mind the feeling of standing up and stretching after a while of sitting still. 

But that's enough of that, it tells him after a minute, because there's a hostile alien ship entering Earth's atmosphere. Like the rest of the lion's communication, it doesn't come in words, just a sense of impending danger and a direction. 

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"Incoming hostiles," he snaps, moving to intercept.

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The alien ship is black with purple lights, like Shiro's crashed shuttle from yesterday, but vastly larger. It's long and thin, with strange protrusions that make no aerodynamic sense, and big enough to fit the blue lion inside it ten times over. 

As soon as it comes into view, it starts shooting at them, little bursts of laser fire in the same purple. 

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Then they'll take evasive maneuvers. What are their attack options?

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Wheee aerial acrobatics!

The lion informs Akira that it has a laser cannon in its mouth! He can fire it like so. 

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This is perhaps more fun than it should be.

Laser canon! They are smaller and more maneuverable than their opponent, that has to count for something.

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It counts for quite a lot, actually! (The lion is of the opinion that Akira is having exactly the right amount of fun with this.)

Specifically, it means that while they haven't yet taken more than a glancing blow, the lion's cannon is producing some quite satisfying (although soundless) explosions along the length of the enemy ship. 

On the flip side, all of this dodging means that some of the blasts meant for them are instead turning patches of the desert into glass.  

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Not good. Can they take out their enemy's weapons specifically?

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"We have to get it further away from Earth!" Shiro shouts from where he's clinging onto a handhold at the back of the cockpit.

"We can't let them endanger innocent lives." 

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If he retreats will the alien ship follow him?

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Yep. 

It also sends out smaller fighters, little swooping black and red things that add their own laser weapons to the fight. They're all focused on the blue lion, ignoring the planet that rapidly falls behind. 

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He'll let them keep up for a bit, mostly picking off everything that gets close to him and taking pot-shots at the bays the fighters are coming out of.

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With the added sources of attack, they've started taking hits. Nothing serious, yet, but damage warnings start flashing red in the corners of Akira's attention. 

The lion suggests that they put a little more space between them and the enemy, then shows an image of the same alien planet as before. 

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He'll set a rapid course for that, now that the enemy seems safely away from Earth.

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They speed up until the stars in the distance blur into streaks and the enemy ships are far behind.

Pidge, looking out of the viewscreen, gasps. "That's Pluto! It takes our ships months to get out here! How fast are we going?"

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Not much further past the edge of the solar system, the lion slows back down to a comprehensible speed.

Opening its jaws wide, it lets out an echoing roar, and a glowing ring of energy opens up before them, expanding until a ship the size of the enemy cruiser could fit through the swirling vortex in the centre. 

In Akira's mind, a series of images play out: the lion going through the vortex, emerging from a different glowing ring, and then the alien planet it keeps showing him. 

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Onwards.

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Through the swirly glowy thing they go. 

On the other side, the stars are different, and the planet from the visions spins below them. The lion swoops down towards the planet's surface, seeming to know exactly where it's going. 

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"Was that a wormhole? Did we just go through a freaking wormhole?!" 

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"We went through a wormhole! In a giant robot space lion!!!"

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As the lion swoops lower, their destination becomes visible: a castle with four shining white spires surrounding a central turret. It's on an island by itself, with an impressively tall bridge connecting it to the closest landmass. 

They land in a large open courtyard between the end of the bridge and the grand front entrance. It looks like there'd be room for another four lions like this one, and then some. 

Bending its head down to the ground again, the lion opens its jaws and extends the ramp.

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"Awesome! Come on, let's go explore," Nuray says, bouncing out of where she'd secured herself and heading for the ramp.

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The others follow.

"Stick together and stay alert," Shiro warns. "Just because the Galra don't like these guys doesn't mean they're friendly." 

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The massive front doors swing silently open as they approach. 

Inside is a cavernous hall, lit only by the setting sun through the open doors. Second-storey balconies run down either side, and several passageways with lower ceilings lead off in different directions. The walls are the same sleek white, grey and blue as the exterior, made of finely shaped panels that fit together like metal or plastic, rather than stone. 

Castle of Lions entrance hall

One by one, pale blue lights begin to glow on the walls of one corridor. The others stay dark. 

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Akira's somewhat grouchy about having been poked into leaving the blue lion.

"That looks like the way," he says. "Let's go."

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The lights continue to paint a path for them, through abandoned rooms and corridors, and up flights of stairs coated in a layer of dust. 

Nothing else stirs. 

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"The lights are on...but nobody's home," Pidge jokes, wincing when the word 'home' echoes around the walls for a second or two. 

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Nuray huffs. "Wonder how much longer it'll take to get wherever?" she asks, valiantly resisting the urge to say 'are we there yet.'

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"We saw this place from the outside; it can't be that big." 

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She starts giggling. "Maybe it's bigger on the inside!"

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Pidge snorts in amusement, and even Shiro lets go of his wariness long enough to grin. 

"Nice to know I'm not on an alien planet with a bunch of uncultured swine." Apparently Nuray isn't the only one who likes classic sci-fi, which isn't too surprising given that they're all students or former students at an academy for space explorers. 

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Keith shrinks a little and doesn't join in the laughter. 

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She smiles at Keith. "Sorry about the in-jokes." And, sticking her tongue out at Pidge: "Gundam and Evangelion are better anyways. And more relevant! Possibly." To Akira: "Maybe I can finally get you to watch some of the classics now."

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"Good luck with that," he says, mildly. 

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After a few more downward flights of stairs, they reach a door.

It slides back into the walls on either side, revealing a circular room beyond. Eight pillars surround a large central dais, in the very middle of which is a waist-high pedestal with a tilted surface, almost like an ergonomic desk. Around the edge of the dais are eight raised circles, each identical and a little larger than a manhole. 

Everything continues to be sleek white, black and grey with blue lighting. 

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Pidge heads straight for the pedestal in the centre and starts poking it. 

"I think this is some kind of control centre." Something beeps. "...oookay that did something." 

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"What is it with you guys and poking stuff!"

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One of the raised circles next to Nuray's feet starts rising out of the floor with a pneumatic hiss, followed a second later by the one on the other side of it. 

They turn out to be tubes about seven or eight feet tall, with sides that look like frosted glass. Vaguely humanoid shapes are visible silhouetted inside. 

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She jumps back, away from the creepy tubes.

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The 'glass' of the one next to her dissolves into light, which clears to reveal the tube's occupant. 

Inside is a young woman who could be mistaken for human, with dark skin and striking white hair. She's wearing blue and white robes, or possibly a dress of some kind. Her eyes are closed.

A breath later, she collapses forward out of the tube.

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Nuray darts back forward. She doesn't know much more than the basic first-aid, but - she can try to catch the woman, check if she's breathing - 

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The woman's eyes flutter open. 

In the second before they focus on her surroundings, she calls, "Father!" in a tone of anguish. 

 

"...where...what happened? Who are you and where is my father?" 

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"I'm Nuray. A blue lion brought me and my friends here. I don't know who your father is, but I can help you find him?"

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"The Blue Lion? But—oh, no..." 

She looks wildly around the room. 

"Where is its paladin? What have you done with him?"

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"We didn't see anyone. The blue lion was just - in a cave, on our home planet."

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"Your home planet?"

She peers at Akira. "None of you are Altean! I suppose that explains why your ears are all so..." She hesitates, clearly self-censoring. "Strange." Her own ears are large and pointed, like an elf's, and there are two small pink half-moon shapes on her cheeks, just below each eye. 

"Where are we?" she demands. "Is this your planet? How did you find me?" 

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"We're on - I don't know which planet. The blue lion took us here, and then there were lights leading to this room."

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"None of this makes sense." 

The woman heads towards the central pedestal. "I've got to find out where we are...and how long I've been asleep." She presses her hands to the panels at either side, and it lights up with glowing holograms, flickering a little at first.

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"Look, why don't you tell us who you are, and we'll help you figure out what happened," Shiro suggests. 

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Distracted, she looks up from the console. "I am Princess Allura, of Altea. And you?"

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"Captain Takashi Shirogane, from Earth." 

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"Pidge Gunderson, also of Earth."

He peers over the top of the console. "Can you show me how this thing works?" 

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"Nuray Uzun, of Earth."

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"Akira Suzuki, Earth. I was the one flying the blue lion."

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Shiro has to nudge Keith before he introduces himself. 

"Uh, Keith. Also from Earth." 

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"Keith was the one who found the lion," Shiro adds, with a hint of pride in his voice. 

"None of us really know much about other planets. It was only recently that Earth found out we weren't alone in the universe." 

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"I wonder how the Blue Lion can have ended up in such a place," Allura muses. "Perhaps—"

She's cut off by the sound of the second tube activating. 

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The alien inside continues the theme of 'surprisingly human, but with elf ears and face markings'. He's fairer-skinned than Allura, with bright orange hair and blue half-moons on his cheeks. He's wearing a navy, black and white outfit with paler blue shoulder pads, not dissimilar to epaulettes, that give it a military look. 

Unlike Allura, he's awake instantly, springing out of the tube to land on his feet. "Enemy combatants!" he cries as he spots the humans in the room. "Prepare to face—aaaaugh!" 

His legs buckle under him, and he flails for balance. 

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"We're not enemies! Are you okay?" 

She's a bit too far to catch him if he falls right away, unfortunately, but she jogs over anyways.

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"Perfectly fine!" he insists, regaining his composure and dusting himself down. 

"Why, if I hadn't had a case of the old sleep-chamber legs, you'd have been the ones in trouble, let me tell you!"

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"We're not here to fight you guys?"

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"Precisely what an enemy would say, to lure me into a false sense of security!" 

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"You can relax, Coran. I think they're telling the truth." Allura doesn't look entirely convinced, though.

"They say they're from an uncontacted planet, one that's never even heard of Alteans or the Galra. And they did bring us the Blue Lion. Our enemies would have taken it straight to Zarkon."

She says the name as though she's met its bearer, and came away bitterly disappointed. 

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"The lion wanted to come here. So here we came."

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"The lions...Alfor and the others must have succeeded in hiding them!" Coran exclaims. "Where did you say you found it, again?" 

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"In a cave on our planet."

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"I just don't understand what happened. Father should be here..." Allura is back at the console, manipulating the holograms with delicate sweeps of her fingers.

 

 

"...oh."

She stares at the unintelligible writing on the screen with horror. "Oh, Coran. We've been asleep for ten thousand years!"

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Coran moves to stand beside Allura, putting a hand on her shoulder. The holograms continue to flick through a stream of data, all of it unreadable to the humans but clearly all too meaningful to the two aliens.

"Princess...I'm so sorry." 

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"I'm sorry, too. We - couldn't have gotten here sooner, but that's - I'm sorry."

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The news apparently doesn't get any better.

"Planet Altea...our entire solar system, destroyed! I knew Zarkon was insane, but this seems beyond madness." 

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"I'm sorry for the loss of your people, Princess," Shiro says gently. "If there's anything we can do to help..."

He pauses, unconsciously rubbing his upper arm where prosthetic meets flesh. "I've seen the cruelty of the Galra first-hand. Your planet isn't the only one Zarkon has destroyed or enslaved. He needs to be stopped." 

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"...Are Galra immortal?"

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"Maybe...Altean years are a lot shorter? Or it's a common name among Galra royalty or something?" Pidge suggests. "I mean, maybe it's not actually the same Zarkon."

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"If it is, I have no idea how he could still be alive after so long," Coran says. "The Galra don't live that much longer than Alteans, and we're lucky to reach one thousand, let alone ten. I'm afraid haven't a clue what that would be in your planet's years, though!" 

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"Whether or not this Zarkon is the one we knew," Allura interrupts, "it sounds as though he is continuing to lead the Galra down a path of conquest and destruction, and therefore must be stopped." 

She looks at Shiro. "What can you tell me about Zarkon and the Galra? You said you have first-hand experience of their methods?" 

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He nods. 

"I spent the last year as Zarkon's prisoner. I still don't remember much of that time, but the memories are coming back slowly, and I knew he was searching for a superweapon called Voltron. Trying to find it before he did is what led us to the Blue Lion." 

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"He's searching for it because he knows it's the only thing that can defeat him. And that's exactly why we have to find it before he does." 

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"We can help. I think the Blue Lion knows where some are, at least."

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"You may be able to help with more than just finding the Lions, if you are willing," Allura says, as she leads the way out of the room and up the stairs.

"I believe the five of you were brought here for a reason. The Blue Lion has chosen you, Akira, for its paladin, and unless I am very much mistaken, she has identified the rest of you as potential paladins as well." 

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"We got that vision..."

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"Nuray's the Yellow Lion," he says, confidently.

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Allura looks at him strangely. "I believe you are correct, based on the colour of her personal quintessence, but I am curious as to how you can tell. The ability to perceive quintessence is rare in the galaxy..."

She pauses. "...perhaps even rarer, now." 

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"I was talking to the Blue Lion about her. They sent me an image of the yellow leg next to the blue."

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"It sounds as though you have a strong bond with your Lion already," Allura notes with approval. "That will help when it is time for you to form Voltron." 

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"That's great and all, but what's - quintessence?" Is this a MAGIC giant robot thing, she hopes it's a magic giant robot thing, that'd be cool.

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"Quintessence is the energy that comes from all living beings. Plants, animals, people...every being in the universe has a unique power source inside them. Each of the Lions resonates with a different type of quintessence, and seeks out a paladin whose quintessence mirrors their own."

They arrive at their destination, a large room which seems to be near the top of the central tower. The walls on three sides are transparent, looking out over a view of blue sky and rolling green hills. In the centre of the room, a massive blue crystal hangs from the ceiling above a raised platform. 

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Definitely a magic giant robot thing!

"Can you cast spells with it?"

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"Sorry, what was that word?" Allura asks distractedly as she heads over to stand underneath the crystal. 

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"Spell. Like, a - okay I don't know how to define it. I guess 'can you do specific magic stuff intentionally'?"

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Coran takes over the explanations, shepherding the humans to a spot where they can watch Allura work without getting in the way. 

"Some Alteans—Allura included—have the ability to manipulate quintessence, from their own bodies as well as from external sources like that Balmera crystal. Allura's going to use it to find the Lions. King Alfor connected them to her lifeforce; she alone is the key to the Lions' whereabouts." 

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"Neat! Maybe humans can figure it out, too..."

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As Allura stands under the crystal with her eyes closed, it begins to glow, filling the space around her with pale turquoise light. 

Suddenly, the glow expands with a rush, and the room is filled with stars. Constellations whirl around them, some with strange symbols attached. Five points glow brighter than the rest: red, blue, purple, yellow and green. 

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"Whooooa." 

Pidge squints at the lights as they swirl past. "It looks like the...Purple Lion? Is in the same location as the Blue Lion." 

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"Very observant, Pidge. That's because the Black Lion is in the castle." 

Allura continues to watch the stars as the display rotates. The yellow and green lights settle into place, floating along with the rest of the starscape. The red light continues to swirl around aimlessly. 

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Coran is staring with just as much focus.

"To keep the Black Lion out of Zarkon's hands, King Alfor locked it in the Castle of Lions," he explains. "It can only be freed if the other four Lions are present." 

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Akira nods. "Looks like the Green and Yellow are in specific places. Does it know where the Red is?"

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Allura bows her head. "Unfortunately, I cannot locate the Red Lion's coordinates yet. There must be something wrong with the Castle..."

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"Well, I suppose after ten thousand years, it might need a bit of work! Don't worry, though, we'll find it soon." 

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"So...Akira has the Blue Lion, and Nuray's going to fly the yellow one. What about the other three?"

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Reaching out, Allura scoops the purple hologram representing the Black Lion gently out of the air.

"The Black Lion is the decisive head of Voltron. It will take a pilot who is a born leader, and in control at all times. Someone whose men will follow without hesitation."

She opens her cupped hands, letting the purple light drift away towards Shiro. "That is why you, Shiro, will pilot the Black Lion." 

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Shiro watches as the light comes to rest in front of his face, taking on definition and the outline of a lion's shape. 

He says nothing in response, only nods as he reaches up tentatively with his left hand—the flesh one—to surround the light as Allura did. 

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"The Green Lion has an inquisitive personality," Allura continues, sending the green light on a course towards Pidge, "and needs a pilot of intellect and daring."

She smiles. "Pidge, you will pilot the Green Lion." 

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He beams down at the green light as it becomes a tiny holographic lion standing on his outstretched hands. 

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"The Red Lion is temperamental, and the most difficult to master. It's faster and more agile than the others, but also more unstable. Its pilot needs to be someone who relies more on instincts than skill alone." 

The little red light forms into a lion shape and goes bounding around the room to circle Keith. 

"Keith, you will fly the Red Lion." 

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He watches it leap and cavort around him with a tiny smile, but he makes no move to catch the hologram in his hands as the others have done. 

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"What does the Blue Lion say about Akira?" she asks, bouncing.

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Allura smiles at Nuray's enthusiasm. "The Blue Lion is the most flexible of the five Lions. While it may not be as strong as the Yellow Lion, or as fast as Red, it is able to fill any role at need. It chooses a pilot who can see ahead to what must be done, and will do whatever is necessary to make that a reality." 

The tiny blue hologram 'perches' weightlessly on Akira's shoulder without needing any direction from Allura. 

"Last, but not least, the Yellow Lion is caring and kind. Its pilot is one who puts the needs of others above their own. Their heart must be mighty. As the leg of Voltron, you will lift the team up and hold them together." And now there is a tiny yellow lion hologram, too, sitting in the air in front of Nuray. 

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"Fitting," Akira says.

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"These guys are really good at us!" she says, reaching forward to scoop the yellow.

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"Right then!" Coran declares briskly. "Now that's all sorted, how about a nice hearty lunch to fill you all up before you go and fetch the rest of your Lions? We'll have to see if the food producers in the kitchen still work..." 

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"Oh yeah, we had rations and trail mix for breakfast..."

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"Food producers? Do you mean food processors?" Pidge asks.

"—actually, wait, you're not speaking English, are you? Allura didn't know what a spell was earlier. How does that work?"

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"Well, you see—" Coran begins, but is interrupted by the blaring of an alarm. Several red holograms pop up around the room, flashing warnings in the Altean writing that doesn't seem to be covered by whatever mysterious translation is going on. 

"Oh no! A Galra warship has locked onto our position! It's heading this way!" 

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Shiro is instantly alert. "How long until they get here?" 

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Coran counts on his fingers.

"Let's see...account for quantum space-time factorials...carry the seven...uhhh...two days!" 

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"So we need Voltron."

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"We don't have much time. Nuray and I will go after the Yellow Lion. Akira, you take Pidge and get the Green one."

Keith looks about to protest, but Shiro puts a hand on his shoulder. "Keith, you stay here. If Allura manages to locate the Red Lion, you can go get it." 

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"In the meantime, I'll get the castle's defence systems ready. We're going to need them." 

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"And I'll just...make you all some boxed lunches to eat on the trip, I suppose."

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"Let's go, then." He nods to Pidge, turning.

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"How are we getting to the yellow?" she asks Shiro.

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"You can take one of the castle's shuttles."

Allura manipulates some holograms, and the lights in one of the corridors turn yellow. "Those lights will lead you to the hangar. They're simple enough even a child could fly one." 

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To Shiro, "Let's go," as she's already following the lights.

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"Guess we'll find out if Garrison pilots measure up to an Altean child." 

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Once both groups are in their respective crafts and ready to go, Allura draws on the castle's energy through the crystal to open two wormholes, like the one they flew through to get here.

Coran warns them, over commlink, that she can only keep the gates open for two hours. Each group has the coordinates of the Lion they're looking for, and they've also been given timers counting down to when they need to be back. 

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In the Blue Lion's cockpit, Pidge is a ball of excited energy who can barely keep his hands off the consoles.

"What does this do?" 

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"Don't touch anything," he says with a sigh, and then starts listing out functions that the Blue Lion feeds him.

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Pidge does not touch anything. 

...Pidge is maybe vibrating a little. 

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The Blue Lion sends Akira the image of a small green lion cub bouncing around, a blue lioness watching tolerantly as the cub mock-pounces at her tail-tip. Along with the image comes a sense of amused fondness. 

The wormhole spits them out above a planet covered in a dense green jungle. There aren't very many places clear enough for the Lion to land. 

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He snorts at the image.

And: for clearings, they're sorting for closeness to the Green Lion's probably location, stability, security...

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There's no indication that any of the potential landing sites are particularly unstable, nor that any are more or less secure than another. 

That one, a kilometer or so away from the Green Lion's coordinates, looks like the closest. They might have a bit of a walk. 

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He's in good shape, at least...

He directs the Blue Lion to land there.

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Pidge has the coordinates on some kind of handheld device. He's down the ramp almost as soon as it's lowered. 

"C'mon, let's go!" 

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He follows at a somewhat more sedate pace.

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The jungle is green and shady and humid. It's somewhat swamplike in places, and there's very little flat ground to be found. They end up walking on the roots of large trees a lot of the time, the alternative being the mud that might or might not decide to swallow their shoes. 

Pidge's tracker still has signal under the canopy, so the biggest challenge turns out to be finding a way to move in a relatively straight line towards their destination. He's quiet and focused as he picks out a path for them.

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Akira isn't used to this kind of terrain, so mostly focuses on where he's putting his feet, and on keeping an eye out.

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It's relatively quiet, especially compared to a similar environment on Earth where they could expect to be bombarded with birdcalls and the like from every direction. There are a few animal noises, and some tiny brightly-coloured things flitting around, but overall the jungle is...peaceful. 

Pushing between some large leaves, they come out onto the bank of a river, which seems to be flowing in roughly the right direction.

A crude log canoe is tied to a post in front of them. 

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"...Are there people here?"

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"Maybe." Pidge crouches down to inspect the canoe. "Coran didn't say, he just told me it was a peaceful planet. Which could mean the uninhabited kind of peaceful or the inhabited-but-they're-friendly kind of peaceful. Kinda wish I'd asked, now." 

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What looked like a tall rock near the shore moves, and turns out to be a six-foot-tall sloth-like alien standing right next to them. 

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He startles a bit, turns to face the alien, then says, "Ah... Hello."

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The sloth alien bobs their head in what might be a greeting. 

Pidge holds up the tracker. "We're trying to find a big green robotic lion. Have you seen anything like that?" 

The sloth peers at the tracker, extending a single claw to trace the V-shaped logo blinking on the screen. They blink slowly, nod again, then straighten up and beckon the two humans towards the canoe.

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He guesses they're following.

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Canoe time! The sloth paddles them downriver like a gondolier, making a sort of buzzy humming noise. 

"Well, this beats trekking through another half a kilometer of jungle. It's actually kinda relaxing." 

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"Definitely."

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Pidge's tracker continues to indicate that the river is taking them in the right direction. They float between leafy banks, past a group of yellow rabbit-like creatures, with three eyes and six legs, munching on the vegetation. The creatures stop what they're doing to stare at the boat as it goes past, chirping excitedly. 

A little way further along, a rock face rises on one side of the river. Carved into the rock is the familiar shape of a lion, facing downstream. 

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Pidge is sat hugging his knees at the front of the boat.

 

 

"...what if the Princess was wrong about this being my Lion?" 

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"I don't think she was. The description sounds like you."

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"Okay, but...I'm not even a pilot; I don't know how to fly a spaceship. What if I can't figure it out?"

His voice is high with stress. "What if I crash?"

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"The lions are pretty smart. It's - they'll show you what to do."

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Pidge curls up into an even tighter ball. The sloth groans inquisitively and tries to pat him on the head. 

"That's not any better, though, because what if it doesn't like me? There's just...nothing I can do about that, if it doesn't like me then it won't talk to me and show me how to fly it and I'll be useless ag—"

He cuts himself off. 

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He vaguely wishes, not for the first time, that he had some kind of shoulder Nuray for social stuff like this.

"The blue seemed pretty confident," he says after a probably too long pause.

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Pidge sighs. "Yeah. I'm probably worrying over nothing, I know that. It just sucks that there's nothing I can do to change it. Either the alien robot likes me or it doesn't." 

Pretty pretty jungle. Tiny alien creatures with orange wings flutter down from a tree to circle them, then fly off again. There's another lion carving on a rock. 

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"Lots of things are like that, yeah."

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"Too many things, if you ask me. I prefer the ones I can do something about."

The conversation seems to have perked him up a little, and he's back to sitting upright and watching where they're going.

The river passes into a natural tunnel in the rock, with more lions carved all over the sides and excited alien rabbits chirping down at them from above the entrance. 

"At least they seem to like us."

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"Nuray would like this place."

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"I hope her and Shiro are having this easy a time getting to the Yellow Lion." 

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(Approximately twenty minutes earlier:)

"...you know, this actually doesn't look too hard," Shiro says as he inspects the controls of the Altean pod. "I should be able to fly this." 

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"I'm a pretty good pilot, but yeah I'm not sure about alien space-ships..." Still, she'll peer at the controls.

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"Do you want to pilot on the outward trip? I'll fly it back, since you'll have your Lion by that point." 

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"That'd be great, thanks!"

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So when they take off and fly through the wormhole, Nuray is in the pilot's seat. 

They come out above a rocky brown planet, with a black-and-purple Galra fleet in orbit around it. Fortunately, the Galra either haven't spotted their craft or haven't identified it as hostile, because nothing immediately moves to intercept. 

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Softly, and with feeling: "Crap."

"Uh do you know enough about their transmissions to pretend to be friendly whenever they do spot us - "

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He's staring fixedly at the large Galra cruiser. 

 

"I, uh. Don't think so. Sorry." 

Their tracker thinks the Yellow Lion is somewhere on that planet. 

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She'll then carefully and hopefully in a friendly manner inch towards the planet!

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Good news: their two-man pod is around the size of a Galra fighter and can pretty easily go unnoticed until they hit the planet's atmosphere. 

Bad news: now they're closer, the Yellow Lion looks to be in the middle of, or more likely underneath, an active mining operation with installations in Galran black-and-purple. 

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"Uh hey so what do Galra look like..." she asks. "And do you know their codes for like officers and stuff?"

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That question is apparently unexpected enough to shake Shiro out of whatever he was thinking about. 

"They're purple, or at least most of them are. Taller and stronger than humans for the most part, with completely yellow eyes like a cat. Some have fur like cats, as well, but not all of them. As for the codes...I don't know. Even if I overheard anything on the ship where I was held, it might not apply here. Our best bet is to get in and to the Yellow Lion before they work out why we're here." 

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"I was thinking like Bavarian fire drill for getting past them, pretend to be an officer, but yeah we might just have to land the craft as close as we can and run for it..."

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Around this point, the Galra base notices their craft and starts firing on them. 

Black-and-red fighters swoop in to give chase. 

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Okay so they're darting for the Yellow Lion!!!

"Shiro can you handle shooting back!"

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"On it!" It takes him a few moments to figure out the pod's weapon systems, during which time Nuray manages to dodge most of the blasts heading their way.  

Looks like the Yellow Lion could be in one of the tunnels coming off that massive excavation pit over there. Their pod might fit in the tunnel, but it could be a tight squeeze, and there's no way they're getting Yellow out through that opening if it's a similar size to the Blue Lion. 

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That sounds like a problem for future Nuray. Pod: into tunnel. Nuray is exceptionally good at navigating even the tightest spot, but she's figuring they'll have to stop and get out and run at some point.

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The pod goes in the tunnel and gets stuck in the entrance! Shots continue to be fired from outside but they have effectively blocked the opening, so there's no way for pursuers to follow them in. 

"...I'm not sure we're getting this thing out of here," Shiro says. "That was some nice flying, though." 

The tracker says the Yellow Lion is pretty close by. 

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"Thanks. And at least they'll have to do some serious blasting to get after us..."

Head for the Lion?

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Lionwards!

The tunnels are full of lion carvings again. As they walk, the carvings light up a warm yellow under Nuray's feet.

From the mining and drilling equipment scattered around, including the artificial lighting installed on the tunnel walls, it looks as though the Galra knew the Lion was here and have been digging to try and reach it. Speaking of the Galra, the explosions from the tunnel entrance suggest that they won't have long until the soldiers blast a way through. 

And...this is a dead end. The yellow glow spreads up the wall and around to light up a large, previously-invisible ring shape on a flat rock face off to the side. It looks a little like a wormhole, or maybe a target. 

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What if she puts her hand in the center?

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Yep, that sure is a solid rock wall with some glowy lines carved into it. 

In this section of the tunnel, there are: some light fixtures with trailing wires, an abandoned mine cart, a ride-on powered drill mounted on wheels, and a bunch of rocks. 

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 Shouting and sounds of blaster fire start echoing down the tunnels. Shiro positions himself at a bottleneck and takes up a fighting stance. 

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She doesn't have a weapon.

The drill's the closest thing. 

She runs over to it, sees if it's obvious how to turn it on.

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It's not hard to figure out. Probably designed for use by untrained operators. 

Something in a faceless grey suit of armour with purple highlights appears around a bend in the tunnel. It starts shooting red laser blasts in their direction. 

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Shiro blocks with his metal right arm, which appears undamaged but...starts glowing purple? 

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Weird glowing arms can wait for later!

Does anything especially weird happen if she drives the drill at the wall with the target, drill aimed so it starts blasting through the target circle?

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The drill breaks through the wall. 

 

A giant robotic yellow lion in a colour-coordinated forcefield doesn't count as weird if that's what she was expecting to find, right? Its eyes are already glowing gold and looking directly at her. 

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Running to the Lion:

"I really need help rescuing my friend!"

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The Lion has its mouth open and its ramp lowered by the time she gets there. 

(Shiro has positioned himself so only a couple of Galra can reach him at a time without getting in each other's way, and he's using his glowy-purple prosthetic to block attacks and occasionally hit them back. It seems to be working okay.) 

And once Nuray's in the cockpit this is how she makes the Lion go, and it will leap forward to grab Shiro in its mouth and then barrel straight through the rock ceiling to fly them out into the open.

New and different Galra start shooting at them from little fighter craft, but that's fine because the Yellow Lion is tough and can take it. 

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Sorry about the man-handling Shiro, they're leaving!

(She does make sure Shiro's safely inside before getting too far.)

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Shiro is safely inside the Lion's mouth but hasn't made it any farther than the ramp. Nuray can't see him from the cockpit, but he sounds like he's in serious pain. Maybe he got shot and didn't manage to block it? 

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Can the Lion autopilot at all? Except they're being shot at - 

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The Yellow Lion is happy to cooperate in going as fast as they can towards the wormhole, leaning on autopilot wherever Nuray isn't quick enough with the controls yet. It's bigger and bulkier than the little craft she's practised flying in the simulators, and it's not very fast on turns, but it can bull its way through a fleet of Galra fighters no problem. 

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Then she'll get them to where they have a clear-ish shot at the wormhole, and run to find Shiro.

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He's on his knees on the ramp, curled in on himself in agony and clawing at the point where his still-glowing prosthetic arm meets flesh. It's hissing and crackling a little. 

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That looks bad.

"Shiro, are you injured other than the arm?" she asks, going to kneel by him.

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He looks up sharply as she approaches, snarling a wordless warning. 

There's no sign in his face that he recognises her as an ally. 

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Meanwhile, on a different planet: 

The alien sloth guides the canoe to rest at the side of the river. Before them rises a stone ziggurat, the steps overgrown with tangled vines that get thicker towards the top. Closer to the river, a pair of lion statues sit either side of a path that leads to the ziggurat's base. 

Pidge steps out of the boat, eyes fixed on the structure. 

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He steps out as well, thanking the sloth quietly.

"This looks likely," he says to Pidge.

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"...yeah. Alright, I can do this." 

Pidge strides determinedly forward, lines and shapes on the ground lighting up green under his feet.

He hits the base of the steps and starts climbing: the steps themselves are sized for a short human, but the massive vines that wrap around the building are about the size of tree trunks in places and make things a little trickier. 

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He'll follow, ready to catch Pidge if he falls.

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Pidge does not fall! He has to slow down and even back up in a couple of places to pick a safe path through the overgrown parts, but he's careful and methodical and always tests a foothold or handhold before putting weight on it. 

The stones of the ziggurat continue to light up under his touch, giving off a green glow. 

When he gets to the top he stops and looks around, confused.

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Akira climbs up next to him, looking around as well.

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Pidge turns in a full circle (carefully, on the uneven footing) and peers down at the massive growth of plant matter covering all four sides of the ziggurat. It's centred on the top, where they are, not coming up from the base as one might expect from an overgrown building. 

"...hmm." 

He finds one of the bigger gaps between giant vines and sits down to slide through it, disappearing inside the green tangle. 

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He sighs and stays where he is. For now. He'll follow if he hears screaming.

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There isn't any screaming.

There is a new green light, much brighter than the little glowy carvings, beaming out from the interior of the viny mass. The vines—actually, the whole ziggurat—start to move. 

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He's going to get out of the way as much he can, but otherwise crouch down and hold on.

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After a minute the rumbling stops and Pidge's head pops up through the hole again. 

"I found my Lion," he says, somewhat unnecessarily. "Want a ride back to yours?" 

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"Sure."

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So they do that. 

When the two Lions are next to each other, the green one is still huge, but noticeably smaller. The Green Lion lets Akira out so he can go fly Blue home, and then they're off again and heading for the wormhole back to the castle. 

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Well, that was conveniently easy.

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Nuray would like to register her day has been neither convenient nor easy. Just for the record. Maybe when they put up her memorial marker they can put 'really dealt with a lot of bullshit' on it.

She backpedals away from Shiro.

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He doesn't attack her, just kneels there shaking with pain and fear as the purple glow of his arm flickers and dies away.

A few seconds later, he blinks and the wounded animal behind his eyes is replaced with his usual intelligence. He's still scared and disoriented, but he's looking at Nuray rather than through her. 

"...what...are you okay?" 

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"I'm fine. Are you?"

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"I—I think so; I'm...not sure what happened."

He's rubbing at the connection point in his upper right arm again, almost absent-mindedly. 

"...where are we?" he asks, looking around.

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The Yellow Lion sends Nuray what it can see: the green-and-blue planet that holds the Altean castle, getting larger in its view as they come in for a landing. The Green and Blue Lions are swooping down ahead of them. 

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"We're back at the castle. Looks like Pidge got his Lion, too - Yellow can see both Blue and Green."

"We were fighting Galra. You were holding a choke-point so I could get Yellow. We kind of just scooped you up on our way out."

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"Right. That's...that's good." Shiro's breathing is still ragged, and he's dripping with sweat, but he seems calmer. 

"I remember fighting the Galra soldiers..." He stares down at his prosthetic hand, flexing it and watching the metal joints move. It makes tiny clicks and squeaks as the internal mechanisms shift. "My arm was...glowing. No, that doesn't make any sense." 

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"...I saw it glowing too. After it got hit."

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"Thank you," he says quietly. "With my memories of the past year as patchy—and strange—as they are, it can be hard to tell what's real sometimes."  

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"Well, I can be your reality-check when I'm there, how about?"

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Shiro looks kind of conflicted about it, but nods.

"Thanks." 

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The Yellow Lion lands next to Green and Blue with a thump.

It sends Nuray an image of a fluffy yellow lion with two lion cubs dangling from its mouth, one yellow and one black. 

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She starts choking on her laughter.

"Ah - sorry - Yellow's sending me funny stuff."

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"It...talks to you? That must be strange." 

Shiro starts picking himself up off the floor. He seems to have pretty much recovered. 

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"Not words so far, just images. Apparently Akira and Pidge are kind of like lion cubs."

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"It showed you Akira and Pidge as lion cubs?" he repeats. "How could you tell it was them?" 

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"Hair color? - Which probably giant Lion can't see actually, but why was - "

"Hey wait it was referring to us!"

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He chuckles at Nuray's indignation. 

"Well, they are over ten thousand years old," he points out as they head down the ramp and into the castle. "I'm not surprised we look like cubs to them."

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"Guess so."

She pats the wall. "Thanks for looking out for us, Yellow."

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The Lion purrs in Nuray's mind, a warm, comforting rumble. 

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When the two of them return to the central control room at the top of the tower, everyone else is waiting for them. 

"Oh, good, you're back. Did you have much trouble finding the Yellow Lion?" 

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"The Galra had found the planet first, which means they know we have Yellow."

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"Ah, bad luck!" Coran says. "We've had...well, a mixture of good luck and bad, really." 

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"I've figured out why I couldn't locate the Red Lion," Allura explains. "It's already been found by the Galra." 

She brings up the coordinate map again with its glowing spots, zooming in on the area where all four of the other lions are gathered. The Red Lion isn't far away. "The good news, if we can call it that, is that it's aboard the Galra cruiser orbiting this planet, Arus. It turns out Coran's time estimate was...a little off." 

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"Yeah that's kind of a lot off. What can we do?"

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Allura looks at Shiro, who's pulled an aura of military authority around himself like armour. 

"The Galra know we have the Yellow and Blue Lions, but they don't know we have the Green as well. Akira, Nuray, you'll be our distraction. Keep their attention—and their weapons—pointed your way, while the rest of us use the Green Lion to sneak aboard that cruiser."

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"Will do."

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"Right."

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"By the way, whatever happened to the pod you two borrowed?" Coran asks Shiro and Nuray. "Safe and sound in the Yellow Lion's cargo bay, I trust?" 

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She starts laughing awkwardly. "We, ah, kind of couldn't get it to Yellow, so used it to block the Galra from following us?"

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"You left Altean technology in the hands of the Galra? I suppose we should be lucky you didn't leave the Lion behind instead."

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"It was that or get shot at more! We needed to run, and the pod wouldn't fit down the tunnel in the first place."

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A beeping holographic panel pops up, distracting Allura from whatever reply she was about to make. 

"We'll discuss this later," she says crisply as she turns to deal with the beeping. 

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The panel enlarges into a video transmission that takes up most of a wall. In the frame are the head and shoulders of an alien with purple fur and large fluffy cat ears, dressed in a red-and-black uniform. His right eye is a cybernetic-looking prosthesis. 

"I am Commander Sendak of the Galra Empire," he declares. "I come on behalf of Emperor Zarkon, Lord of the Known Universe. I am here to confiscate the Voltron lions. Turn them over to me—or I will destroy your planet." 

The transmission ends without giving them a chance to respond. 

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"Did they just hang up on us?!"

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"...I mean obviously we aren't doing the thing but how does he expect to get his answer?"

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"...he wants us to give him the Lions," Keith repeats softly. "It's like he's asking to be distracted." 

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"Oh, I like how you think. Fake out time?"

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Shiro nods. "Keith's right; this plays perfectly into our plans. We'll pretend to give them Yellow and Blue as a distraction. By the time they notice the deception, Keith and I will have snuck aboard the cruiser. The rest of you will have to buy us time while Keith looks for the Red Lion."

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"I'm coming with you," Pidge objects. "If I can get onto that ship, I might be able to hack into their systems and get us some information about the Galra."

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"...alright. It's worth a shot," Shiro agrees. "Nuray, Akira, are you still up for playing bait?" 

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She trades a serious look with Akira, then says, "Yeah. We are."

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"Well then! You're going to need some better gear!" 

Coran leads the five humans down to the armoury, where five suits of armour stand in cases. The skintight undersuits are black, and the plates of armour themselves are made of something white and glossy and futuristic, with highlights in the colour of their Lions. Shiro's armour is all black-and-white, Keith's has red highlights, and so on. When they put on the suits, the proportions will adjust automatically to fit each person's measurements. 

The final case holds a set of four objects—in the same white-and-Lion-coloured scheme—that look like handheld controllers for some kind of games console. There's a gap in the middle, where the black one is missing. Coran explains that these are Bayards, weapons attuned to the paladins' quintessence, which can be activated by the paladin alone and will take whatever form suits them best. 

"I'm afraid, Shiro, the Black Bayard was lost along with its paladin. You'll have to make do." 

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"That's fine," Shiro says. He looks uncomfortable with the whole thing, metal hand clenching and unclenching at his side. 

"I don't...really need a weapon." 

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Meanwhile, Keith picks up the Red Bayard. After a moment, it glows red and transforms, the original Bayard shape becoming the hilt and crossguard of a very real-looking sword. He takes a few test swings—keeping well away from everyone else—with a tiny smile on his face. 

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Akira takes up the Blue Bayard, and it turns into a bow in his hand - which feels right -

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Nuray's Yellow Bayard becomes an awesome trench knife!

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Pidge's Green Bayard barely changes shape at all, just gaining a short, wide arrow-shaped blade that attaches to the H-shaped hilt like a katar. He fiddles with it, pressing a hidden button, and the blade shoots out to hit the wall, a grappling line connecting it to the handle. Another press of a button and it reels back in.

"...I love it," he whispers. 

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"These are really awesome!"

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Coran has been watching quietly with an unreadable expression on his face.

"In the old days, when a paladin had deepened their bond with their Lion sufficiently, they could learn to change their Bayard's form to suit different circumstances," he tells them. "Just something to work towards!" 

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"Yeah, definitely."

"So what now?"

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Shiro snaps out of contemplating the creases of his metal palm and comes to attention. 

"Is everyone ready?" 

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Nuray and Akira are.

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So are the others. Pidge looks serious and determined. Keith is fidgeting but that could be impatience as easily as nerves. 

"Let's do this already." 

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They do this. Shiro, Keith and Pidge are in the Green Lion, waiting for the Galra to be distracted so they can sneak up on Sendak's cruiser from beneath. 

Meanwhile, Nuray and Akira have the task of being that distraction. The built-in comms in the paladin helmets should let them all communicate, even when the other three are sneaking around the Galra ship, so they'll know when Keith finds the Red Lion. 

No way to tell how long it'll take him, though. That's a big ship. 

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Time to put both their piloting skills to the test, then.

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The 'pretend to be surrendering' trick works great! In fact, it works too well, because the Galra ship tries to catch the Yellow and Blue Lions in some kind of tractor beam and pull them in. 

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Meanwhile, the Green Lion slips unnoticed under the belly of the cruiser and picks a landing point with plenty of cover. 

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Pidge's voice comes over the comms. "Found a way in! Looks like there's a maintenance hatch or something just over there." 

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They don't want to give the game away before the Green Lion is in -

How much time does he have before they're grabbed, can he and Nuray non-suspiciously delay that - can they figure out if the beam's breakable -

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The Blue Lion thinks they should just dodge the beam. It does so, disguising the movement as a natural change of direction. The Yellow Lion is slower and less agile, though, and might have a harder time dodging with any subtlety. 

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Uhhhhhhh they probably don't have a good opinion of her skills, right, she can pretend to be shit at these controls and start "over correcting" - each time missing the beam by a hair.

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A short time later, Pidge reports, "We're in." 

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They delay a few seconds more, but then it's untenable to keep up the charade - 

They start to fight back.

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The Galra were not expecting this! They recover quickly, though, and start fighting back. Swarms of tiny little red-and-black fighters come pouring out of the massive cruiser to engage the two Lions. 

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Over the comms:

"Shiro! What's wrong?" 

       "I'm okay. I just...I've been here before. These corridors...I remember this ship. It's the one that captured us on the Kerberos mission."

"You don't have to come with me. You could wait in the Lion—"

       "I'll be fine, Keith. Let's move."

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"Wait! Shiro, if this is the same ship, do you think—could the rest of your crew be here?" 

       "I—don't know. It's possible."

"We have to look for them! You've been here before, right? So you know the way to where they keep the prisoners. If there's even a chance—" 

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"Keith, are you—"

       "I've got this, Shiro. Go." 

"Alright. Good luck." 

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He doesn't really have time to tell them they're likely being dumb, given how busy he is fighting the Galra.

He's not as good a pilot as Nuray, but he's still going to give them a hell of a fight.

He'll keep this up until the others succeed, hopefully.

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They manage to draw the fight out for a while, but as powerful as the Lions are, two of them against a whole fleet is a battle they're not going to win. 

Eventually, a small group of Galra ships manage to herd Akira into the path of the tractor beam. Before he has time to notice where they are, he's caught. 

The Blue Lion hangs limp and unresponsive as it's pulled inexorably towards the cruiser. 

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And that's when a blast of energy hits the source of the beam, disrupting it just long enough for Akira to break free.

The Red Lion enters the fight at full speed, tearing through the little Galra fighters like they're made of paper and gouging lines of fire down the side of the cruiser with its claws. 

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He's shaken, but only for a moment. 

He rejoins the fight.

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With three Lions—four once Green weighs in as well—the tide turns. Working together, they're able to damage the forcefield protecting the cruiser's planet-destroying ion cannon, and then take the cannon itself out of commission.

With that accomplished, Allura calls them back. Now Sendak won't be able to destroy the planet as he threatened, they can safely retreat inside the castle's particle barrier, a bright blue sphere of interlocking hexagons similar to the ones the Lions generate. They need to unlock the fifth Lion before they can hope to defeat this fleet permanently. 

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How do they do that?

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Allura directs them to land their Lions in a hangar that's easily big enough for all of them, arrayed in a sort of semi-circle facing a massive pair of doors marked with the same V-shaped symbol that's on all the paladins' chest plates. 

Shiro, also under Allura's instructions, gets out of the Green Lion and stands in front of the big doors. He looks kind of shaken—something must have happened on the Galra ship.  

Once he's in position...

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All of...

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...the Lions' eyes...

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...start...

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...to glow. 

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In response, the lines of the doors in front of them light up as well. With a majestic slowness, they part, sliding outwards to reveal a Lion that's as much larger compared to Yellow and Blue as they are to Red and Green. The Yellow Lion's head looks like it would come up to about the Black Lion's shoulder. 

On the Lion's back are a pair of folded red wings, made of the same alien metal as the rest.

Its eyes light up as they lock onto Shiro, and it throws back its head and roars. A moment later, the other four echo it, and the paladins can feel the Lions' elation at being together again for the first time in millennia. 

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Eeee!

"Awesome!"

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He's smiling.

"So what now?"

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"Now, you form Voltron, and defeat Sendak once and for all!"

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"...Uh. How?"

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Frantic alarms begin blaring. The castle's sensors detect a massive shape descending through the atmosphere along with a host of smaller ones. Warning lights flash red in every Lion's cockpit. 

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"Sendak's fleet is entering the atmosphere! I—" Allura's voice is urgent and panicked. "You'll have to figure it out as you go; your Lions know what to do. I'll give you cover from the castle's defence systems for as long as I can. Good luck, paladins." 

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"Right! Let's go, then!" Nuray says, already heading for her Lion.

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Shiro gets into his own Lion and leads them out to meet the attackers. They're safe behind the castle's energy shield for now, but it won't hold forever under the barrage raining down on them. 

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"Listen up, Team Voltron," Shiro says over the comms.

"The only way to succeed is to give it all you've got! This looks bad, but we can do this! Are you with me?"

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"Yeah!"

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"Sure."

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"Let's do this already." 

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"Uh. Do what? I dunno about you guys but I don't see a 'form Voltron' button anywhere on my dashboard," Pidge babbles. 

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"Lion?" he asks.

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The Blue Lion's response is wordless, as usual, but nevertheless gives a definite impression of 'figure it out yourselves'. 

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"Apparently we need to solve this for ourselves."

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"Probably some kind of simul thing? Is there a big obvious button we all have - "

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"How about the one that makes them go," Keith suggests sarcastically. 

As if to punctuate his words, a particularly strong blast hits the forcefield with a boom, making it flicker. 

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"Even if we don't have Voltron yet, we can still fight," Shiro declares. "Everyone, form up on me. Let's go get 'em!" 

The Black Lion heads for the edge of the forcefield at a run, the Red and Green Lions falling in at its right and left sides. 

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Yellow and Blue fall in behind Red and Green. Nuray's turning her people-reading abilities to her leader, trying to anticipate him like she anticipates Akira - Akira's less good at falling in sync with random people, but if he's in sync with her and she's in sync with the others...

Team's important, after all, and they're not going to get out of this playing lone cowboys.

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The five of them burst through the forcefield in a ragged V-formation and take to the sky. Almost immediately, though, any attempt at staying in formation is abandoned as Galra fighters swoop in to harass them and everyone has to dodge and roll to avoid taking fire. 

"Can't they just stop shooting at us for one minute so we can figure this out?" Pidge grumbles. "Is that too much to ask?"

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Yes. It is. 

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It disrupts Nuray a bit - but she gets back on track, focusing, her attention splitting briefly between her leader and worrying about Akira - she needs to focus more on her leader -

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He's okay. She's got this, and he's got her - he can read her even if he can't read anyone else, and they've always been in sync -

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Nuray takes a deep breath -

And calms down, recentering herself.

Time to focus.

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And then...things get a little bit weird.

The five of them—no, the ten of them—are all connected, with one singular focus and goal: forming Voltron and defeating the Galra. In a previously unused portion of their minds, each paladin becomes aware of an unfurling web of lights, linking lions and paladins alike. From inside the cockpits, it's hard to see exactly what's going on as the lions reshape and join together, but the end result...

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...is unmistakeably Voltron

Standing several times taller than the Black Lion, the man-shaped (or possibly Altean-shaped) giant robot has a Lion for each arm and leg, with Black forming its torso and head. Although each limb is controlled separately by its own paladin, their new level of connection will let Voltron fight as a single entity.  

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"Holy crap." 

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"Language!" Shiro responds, fast enough that it's probably instinctive. He sounds a little dazed. 

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"Wow wow wow wow -" Nuray says, words tumbling over themselves. This is so cool - she pokes Akira, delighted.

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Her good mood is infectious.

Akira snorts, pokes her back.

And - he's in sync with the others, now, too.

"Let's do this."

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And Voltron rises up, swatting away the little Galra fighters like flies and ploughing inexorably towards the warship. 

By the time the Red Lion slams their right fist into a gun turret, there's enough momentum behind it that a whole section of the ship just crumples. After that, it doesn't take long before the Galran vessel is falling towards the planet below, trailing black smoke. 

They've won. 

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"Ah hah! Take that, evil alien dudes!"

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"Well done, paladins. I knew you could do it!" Allura says from the castle. (In the distance, the warship hits the ground in a cloud of smoke and dust.)

"I'll meet you on the front steps for a debrief." 

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"And after that, a well-earned rest!" Coran puts in. 

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"Alright!"

Back to the castle with them all?

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Back to the castle they go!

Shiro stumbles a little as he walks down the ramp from the Black Lion's mouth, but it could easily just be tiredness. They've had a long day. He recovers quickly, and joins the rest of them on the castle steps to meet Allura and Coran. 

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Pidge is bouncy and excitable. 

"How did we even do that? It was so weird!" 

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"It was really awesome!"

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Akira squints, keeping an eye on Shiro - apparently Nuray's currently in maximum excitement mode, so she's unlikely to keep up with reading people...

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Keith also seems to be keeping an eye on Shiro, hanging back a little from the group and glaring at the rest of the world in a way that suggests he has a headache, a grudge, or both. 

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Allura clears her throat. 

"Congratulations once again, paladins," she says with a smile. "You've proven beyond all doubt that you are truly meant to pilot Voltron." Her expression turns serious. "We won the battle, but the war has only just begun. I'm afraid Zarkon will not stop until he gets these Lions."

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 "It's a good thing you Paladins know what you're doing, because you're going to have to form Voltron again and again!"

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"...Yeah."

"We'll do what it takes."

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Shiro nods. "We won't let you down. Hopefully forming Voltron will get easier the more we practice at it." 

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"Hopefully."

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"You'd better hope so! That was only one ship," Coran says, far too cheerfully. "Imagine what it'll be like when you're fighting a whole fleet! It's not going to be easy being the defenders of the universe." 

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"Defenders of the universe, huh?" Keith echoes. "I like the sound of that." 

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"Sounds cool."

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"It sounds—like being part of something bigger." Pidge turns to look up at the five massive Lions, which just a few minutes ago came together as Voltron. 

"I think I like it."