A/N: This was written as a birthday gift for my good friend, nabulos (tumblr). Crossposting here now. I hope you all enjoy this crack-y little drabble~~
"Stop right there!"
The robotic voice of the sentry sent a jolt of adrenaline through Allura's body. She felt Shiro come to a halt beside her.
"Put your hands up, thieves!"
She'd have done it too; she didn't defy authority as a rule, only as a necessity. But who was this synthetic sentry to disrespect her and her partner? Out of the corner of her eye, she met his gaze for just a moment; it was enough for understanding to pass between them.
Shiro rushed forward and tackled the bot as Allura drew out her whip and snapped it at the second sentry. They always came in twos. The end of her whip wrapped around the bot's ankle and it fell in a heap on top of the mess of limbs that was its partner. She turned to high-five Shiro and her face fell.
A third sentry had him pinned on the ground and was securing cuffs around him. Quiznak! Why was there a third? They always came in twos.
She turned foot and ran.
She folded her whip and tucked it in an inside pocket, pulling her hood low over her head. Time to break her man out. Using the cover of darkness, she made her way to the Low Security Prison for Petty Thieves, where she knew they would be keeping Shiro.
When she got there, she spent only a few minutes getting a lay of the place before she was striding ahead with purpose in her step. She made quick work of the bots guarding the entrance. Lazy bastards.
She knew her laser whip cutting through the sentries had triggered remote alarms. Backup would be arriving soon; she gave herself ten minutes before she'd expect Galra forces to descend. It was nowhere near enough time to breach all the prison's defenses—for the average criminal. Allura wasn't the average criminal. For her, it was more than enough.
The first cell she saw housed a frazzled looking bytor. He gripped the cell bars with all twelve of his hands and watched her with huge orbs as she passed.
She had luck a couple of units down. Shiro was doing push-ups on the cell floor in a prison uniform.
She tapped on the bars to get his attention. "Let's go," she said, pulling out her whip to cut the metal.
"Princess?" He gawked at her for a moment before a relieved smile hit his face. "You found me! What are you wearing?"
What? "What I always wear when we sneak around at night. Why are you calling me princess?"
"Because you are one?" He looked as baffled as she felt.
"Don't dig up ancient history, partner. Let's just stick to reality." They would deal with whatever weirdness had gotten into Shiro later. Right now, they only had seven minutes to get the hell out of there. She broke two of the bars and started to leave, knowing Shiro would follow. But when she turned, her feet were leaden against the floor. Shiro was in the cell across from her. She looked over her shoulder, Shiro was right behind her.
One mirror, one shadow.
The one still behind bars looked exactly the same as the one she'd just busted out—well, almost. There was something off. At first she thought his fringe was shorter, but when she looked more closely, that wasn't it. She wondered if his undercut was cropped closer to his skull, but the prison was too dark to be sure. She was about 60% sure the one behind her was the right one. But...
This Shiro hadn't seen her yet, and first Shiro's view of him was blocked by her body. They had a precious five minutes before shit hit the fan, and the universe was playing games with her. Cursing under her breath, she made her way over without bothering to explain.
"Which one of you is my Shiro?" she demanded, even as she got to work on Shiro-2's cell bars.
"Me," they both replied at once.
Great. "Whatever, we'll figure it out once we're out. Come on!" She made for the way she'd come in but spotted the first of the backup starting to arrive from there. Quiznack.
"Yoo-hoo," Shiro's voice called from directly above her.
She looked up to see a man peeking out of an air vent with Shiro's face but a wholly more jolly expression and black hockey-cut hair without the shock of white. This was definitely not her Shiro. So why did she sort of wish he was?
"Looking for a vay out of here?" he asked cheerfully in a Scandinavian accent that sounded so wrong in his stoic voice. He held down a hand to her, and what choice did she have? Guards were descending on the main entrance.
Not-Shiro pulled her and Shiros 1 and 2 up into the vent, leading the way toward what he assured them was a hidden exit. "It leads out through the sewers," he explained with a great deal more enthusiasm than the situation called for. "My name is Sven by the vay," he continued. Okay so 100% not Shiro. "I broke in here to rescue my partner Slav. I've already got him, and he is vaiting by the exit determining the angle ve should jump from that is statistically least likely to kill us."
"There's a jump?"
There was a jump, and with the help of Slav—the bytor Allura had seen earlier—they made it safely onto ground.
"This is the basement," Slav informed them. "We are one level deeper now than before. This way!"
They ran down an empty corridor. As they turned the corner, Allura's eyes fell to an exam table on which a prisoner lay still.
"Wait!" she cried, skidding to a stop. The two Shiros bumped into her from behind. She ran toward the table and found that her eyes had in fact not been mistaken. It was Shiro. Lying lifeless. He looked just like Shiro-1...except his earlobes seemed off? Like someone had drawn him but forgotten to align his ears with his nose.
"I'm the real one," Shiro-2 insisted preemptively.
"We don't have time for this!" Ready to tear out her hair, Allura tugged off the wires hooking him to the various machines, and threw his whole deadweight over her shoulder. "Okay, let's go."
"You know, you look a lot like the Empress," Sven mused, now that he was seeing Allura in proper light.
Empress? Princess? What was next, Supreme Leader? "Thanks, but let's get going."
"Oh, any likeness to the Empress is no compliment." Sven shook his head somberly. "But yes, just down this corridor."
They ran again, and surely there would be no reason to stop now. They were almost home free when they passed a prisoner hanging from the ceiling by his wrists.
Allura would have run right past him—she couldn't save everyone after all—if it hadn't been for the low voice she just barely heard. The man muttered her name in a broken voice—Shiro's voice. She paused to look and saw he was in and out of consciousness, but mostly out. Up close, it was clearly Shiro. But his hair was long, past his shoulders, the white fringe—more of a lock at this length—covering one side of his face. She had the sudden urge to run her fingers through those tresses. She filed the thought away for later perusal. He was sporting a beard a few weeks old. She was 80% sure this wasn't her Shiro, because he had been captured a day ago; there was no way his hair had grown that fast. Unless the Galra had done something to make it grow…. She wouldn't put it past them. And if he wasn't hers, why did he have her name on his lips even when he was so far gone? Regardless, she couldn't just leave him here.
"The guards vill start to search this floor soon," Sven prodded, apparently completely unfazed by the now four lookalikes around him.
Allura set down the Shiro on her shoulder as gently as she could and cut down the ropes that long-haired Shiro lightly swayed from. He fell to the ground and immediately woke up, charging up his galra hand as he stood. When he saw it was her, tenderness flooded his features as he gathered her into a brief but close hug. He pulled back and looked over her shoulder, locking eyes with each of the awake Shiros and raising his eyebrows at the one passed out on the floor.
"Honestly, we will just leave without you all," Slav said, starting to sound irritated.
Long-haired Shiro pinched the bridge of his nose, let out a resigned breath, and fell into place beside Shiro-1, who took an uncomfortable step away. Allura slung Shiro-3 over her shoulder again like a potato sack, and they were off.
Allura and her five Shiros, and a random statistical savant bytor, made it out of the Low Security Prison for Petty Thieves with no casualties. As she took them all home, Allura wondered if there was a word for the opposite of casualties.