Cracks in the Mirror, a voltron: legendary defender fanfic

"See anything Keith?"

Space. It was a vast entity of time, loops, even paradoxes, not to mention cold and quiet.

To quiet.

"No, where all clear in this quadrant Shiro."

The red lion, it was the smallest of the five only slightly mimicking the size of the green lion. The one Pidge got to call her own.

There was a brief pause in the transmission where the conversation lulled, Keith found his hand sliding off Reds controls as they floated idly. His harsh black eyes softened as his hands reached for the small dagger on his side. His oculus gandered at the purple marking upon the blade as his mind swirled and flashed.

You're not supposed to go thru that door.

He gasped almost dropping the knife. There was a rumble from inside the cockpit.

"No..im fine..." Keith spoke almost quietly to his lion. To think of what he was, even how minuscule THAT part of him truly was, still made him feel uneasy, even more so of an outsider. Now how was that fair? He never really felt like he was part of the others. Hunk, Pidge, and Lance, they were all friends before Voltron, back at the garrison. Keith knew Shiro before the events of Kerberos but, never did he considered him a friend... more of a mentor, there... well, leader. Hell, he lived alone in the desert after his parents died. He was always a loner, outcast and now this?

It just alienated him more.

"Keith?"

The sound of Shiro's voice in his headset shook his mind from the thought of the sword, from the doubts that plagued his mind.

"I'm here, sorry." He spoke over the radio frequency located in his helmet, his hand fumbled with the sheath on his pilot chair and moved back to the controls. His palms, despite being clad in paladin armor were sweatier than before. "did you say something." Again, there was a pause.

"Yeah, I had asked if you were heading back, Allura can't keep the wormhole open for much longer. Keith... are you feeling alright?"

Right. Keith allowed his breath to leave his lungs. The five of them had been out searching for a safe location, a good place to dock the castle. After the last encounter with Zarkon, the castle needed time, more time than they had. The blade of Marmora had gone dark on them, no word from the inside, it seemed any plan to take down Zarkon were at a stand still, but honestly, it was for the best. It would be better to be over prepared then go in half cocked and guns blazing.

So this aria, the space taco, as Hunk would dub it later, would suit them just fine. Actually... better than just fine.

"I'm heading back now, I'll mark the location on the ma-" he stopped then, having to cut off his word as he was forced to watch the screen on his Lion. It went fuzzy, fading in and then out in a repetitive motion.

"Ke- th do you- copy? Com-in"

The transmission was fuzzy, but he could still make out the words in his headset. He could still recognize Shiro's voice and the panic the bubbled within.

"Shiro, you're breaking up, my Lion, the powers cutting out." he almost shouted, not knowing why. Maybe it was the twinge of anxiety he felt creeping in his own heart.

"ke-com-in"

This time the voice as more distorted and faint, the screen inside the lion went black. All that now illuminated the hull was the faint red of the lion itself, which didn't help with the feeling of isolation.

"It's Ok, just..think." He breathed as another rumble came from inside the cockpit and a faint scraping sound from outside. "look thru your eyes... right." Keith gulped as he sat there, mouth closed and eyes slammed shut. His finger joints creaked around the controls with how hard he gripped them. There was a slight hitch of breath as the two connected. Peering into the darkest pit of space, the scraping sound came clear, there idle floating drifted them into an asteroid field.

A slight breath of reassurance left his lungs. That must have been the reason for the communication and power failure, least that's what he had to tell himself. Keith was never one to panic like Hunk or some of the others. He normally had a fairly level headed, least that's when he wasn't thrown off the rails on some tyrant. So this uneasiness he felt, it could be considered unusual, but, for some reason, he just had a gut feeling. But that feeling, that state of mind, that small window of relief he had grasped, would soon be ripped from him, like a toy taken from a chil.

There was a crash as he was thrown from his chair, his eyes shot opened as he was slammed into the corner of his pilot chair. A warm sticky substance leaked from his forehead. His vision blurring as he watched the tiled floor be consumed by a spreading black substance. At the time, Keith probably wouldn't learn what the substance was for quite some time, if at all, but the substance was his own blood.

Tin

Echo

Drip

Slowly Keith's eyes began to flutter. There was an overwhelming taste of iron clenched in his jaws. He spat the muddled liquid, it didn't go far instead it only smeared on the white of his paladin armor. That was really the only thing he could focus on for quite some time. He could hear muffled voices, a faint dripping sound and a ring in his ears. Had there been an explosion? He slowly tried to move his eyes. They shook in his skull, the movement gave him the urge to vomit and soon came to realize that the surrounding aria was just too much to process. His right eye slowly closed, feeling red slip into his vision, his head it was still cracked and bleeding from when he was inside his lion.

That was the sound of the dripping, it was his head. His blood dripping onto the floor like a leaky faucet someone refused to touch up.

"He's waking." The voice, it was soft, but not in the sense of kindness, it was cold, eerie and almost... hollow...

"What?" Keith managed to squeeze from what felt like crushed lungs.

"Haggar wants him."

"Hag-who?"

His words were like knives in his throat. He felt his body thrash in a mini boost of adrenalin. Most of it had left his body, that's why the feeling of pain was so prompt, but the thrash made him realize something. He couldn't feel the ground. His feet dangled. Keith's head turned upwards seeing his arms stretched above his head. He was hanging from a hook, his back pushed against a black and purplish slab of unknown space material.

The room was starting to become more clear as well, it was a circular room with an ominous red glow, it wasn't like his lion's. This was different, sinister.

The floor that the cloaked, masked beings stood upon was some sort of grated metal that led to darkness. Now that he looked at it, where he hung opened up to nothingness as well, it was probably for easy cleanup. Maybe it was a quick way to dispose of the bodies of those who would perish during these sick experiments or even torture. He swallowed back the iron taste in his maw. This wasn't something he wanted to think about. His darkened, circle stained eyes glared at the mast figure. The mask reminded him a lot of the old horror movies he used to watch as a kid. But, that was a fleeting memory and honestly wasn't the memory he wanted to think of if this was his last hours in this world.

As he shook those thoughts and hopefully memories from his mind he forced himself to look around at the walls. they were empty. He had half expected alien knives and other items to cause bodily harm, but he saw no such thing. besides where he hung, the only other thing in the room where two control panels. One close to the large bulkhead like doors and a stand-alone panel close to him. the Masked men stood at it, watching him, like some kind of demonic bird of prey. Keith had a feeling, if he wanted to get out of here alive, he had to get to that panel.

There wasn't much time to act on this plan because in that moment the large space doors opened at the thinnest part of the room. In walked a purplish being with deep red lines painted on their face. The beings long white hair grew ragged and stuck out from under her hood. It looked as if it hadn't been washed for quite some time. But, on a Galra warship, who had room for such amenities.

The being raised her purple claw-like hand. Her long nails gnarled and fierce. She seemed to be waving off her lackeys and like the mindless soldiers that they were, listened. Flowing seamlessly down the same walkway they moved as if they were clouds of smoke with the way their robes billowing behind.

Keith his eyes narrowed at the sharp-fanged being before him.

"You must be Hag-" Before he could finish a slap echoed through the metal halls. Haggard had dug her nails deep into the flesh of his face a slight cry of pain left his lips as fresh blood ran down his pale skin.

"you speak, when I give you the word, boy." the woman moved slightly, hair and robes swaying as she did. That's when a ghostly laugh left her hollow being. "You paladins are all the same. Your serious act, you're holier than thou stance." Another chuckled left her cold body. "But you're different, I can smell it in your blood." She spoke as her pointed tongue licked a droplet running down her bony fingers. This site ran a shiver down Keith's spine, his teeth clenched tight, like a steel trap.

"If you think I'm going to tell you-" Before Keith could finish the cliché line from any action flick, the woman pushed her hand over his mouth, catching his jaw.

"your blood. I can taste it. Even with how little it is." Keith, his eyes grew as her eyes narrowed, a sly smirk came across her icy lips. Her fingers began to glow. "let me show you what you truly fear." The glow from Haggard hands was quick to transfer into the boy. His body grew tense as if he was being electrocuted. A muffled scream was forced from his pursed lips. His body shook and vision darkened.

"Is that... him?"

"I think..."

"Oh god..."

Foreign, still and cold. This is what the inside of his lion felt. As if, it wasn't his, his head lay back on the hard chair, he felt his body, it felt as if he was floating, not just through space but... through his mind too. He was numb to all that was around him.

"Easy, we don't want to hurt him any more than he already is."

That one... that was Shiro. What was he talking about? Hurt who?

"We could extract him from his lion, assess the damage and take him aboard one of our own, too... uh... minimize further stress?"

Pidge? What was she talking about? This was a question he wished desperately to ask but his words were halted in his throat like a caged beast. A lion.

"That's a good Idea... ye-yeah! We could use Lances' lion it's...uh... less clunky and agiler than mine. Less likely to cause more damage."

"ME!? WHY NOT SHIRO?"

Lance and Hunk, they were here too? This must have been a mission. A mission they needed him on. But, if that was the case, then... why couldn't he open his eyes.

But the voice. They stopped then for a brief moment in time. Least that's what Keith thought.

"Ok. I'm in."

Lance? Why could he hear him so clear, where were the others? The echo of paladin armor against the lion's metal reverberated into his ears. He felt a pained breath hic passed his loosened lips. The sounds of the footprints became soft, muddled, Keith was passing out again... he could feel himself slipping.

"Oh God." Lance, his eyes worried, his heartbeat quickened. He hurried over to his teammate, his friend. His hand fell on the other's shoulder, he could feel the cold sweat run down the back of his own neck. "Keith.." Lance's eyes moved from the man to the floor, the blood that covered it. "Oh Dios mío..." the words left his slightly cracked lips. With his Cuban background, he tried not to speak much Spanish away from home, a place at this point, he figured he never see again, but at a times he felt himself so stressed and worried, sometimes that language would just stumble out.

"Lance is everything ok?"

Lance felt his body jerk back hearing their leader's voice. His eyes moved up looking up as if he'd actually see Shiro standing before them, his body shook as his eyes grew moist. Dispute the fights they had, the countless bets and playful rivalry they both came so a custom too... It still killed Lance to see him like this, someone he's come so close to even call... well a friend.

"I... N-No... Nothing is ok! There...there's so much blood." The other paladins they fell quiet. It felt like hours before someone spoke again, it was Shiro who finally spoke up.

"Don't panic Lance, no one panic. We'll get him back to the castle and get him looked at. Just be sure his armor is on tight before you live, we'll cover the two of you. Everythings going to be fine."

Lance scanned around the cockpit, his vision blurring from the salty solution that dripped from his optics. His bottom lip shook as his breath wheezed from his agape mouth, his upper jaw moved to pin down his bottom. The quivering continued despite his efforts to stop it. His feet scooted along the hard ground, they felt as if they were weighted down by cinder blocks. His hand reached out and scooped up the paladin's helmet. He looked at the tarnished white and red helmet, Keith's blood was splattered all along the outside and soaked deep into the padding on the inside. His hand rubbed along the outside smearing the droplets, his tears soon added to the sanguine fluid. Some of the new liquid added fell into the cracks that ran along the helmet. They weren't bad enough to worry about air loss complications, but they would have to repair it before the next mission... if...there was a next mission. He turned back to his friend, scooting back over to the man, seeing his black hair threw the low light and the dried blood that cling to his ebony locks.

"He-hey, I...I got your helmet... It's going to be ok, I'm going to get you out of here." Lance practically whispered. He hadn't realized that his communication lines were still open and the others, they had heard. There was an odd static before a faint grunting that comes flowing over the metaphorical tethers that connected their words and a shifting of weight. It took a bit of finagling and shifting of body parts but eventually, Keith's clad chin rested on Lance covered shoulder. Keith's head was tilted slightly and his arms dangled like loose pool noodles. Lance made sure Keith back was arched in a way that his boosters wouldn't scorch his armor or his body for that matter. Lance moved his arms back, hooking under Keith's knee caps. He stood there for a moment, getting his bearing straight, making sure he would actually be able to crawl out of the lion with the combined weight. He wasn't used to physical activities of this sort. He was a ranged weapons specialist, he was rarely in hand to hand combat, unlike Shiro or Keith. That didn't mean he wasn't trained for it, he just, wasn't as strong at it, like the others. For a moment longer he just stood there, clutching the inner of Keith's knees, his fingers twitched as he clenched his teeth, no, he had to do this. It was that or, just watch their friend die. His head turned up and watched as the doors opened.

"Ok. where coming out."

"You're good, you're clear to move forward. Hunk get into position, once we get visual, stabilize Keith's lion."

"Right"

Lance, hearing his friends speak, he was quick to enabled his jetpack and floated back over to his lion. Blue floated idle, it's gold eyes watching, as if they were just as worried, maybe Blue was... whether it was for Keith, or the red lion itself, he didn't know and doubted he'd get an answer if he asked.

Lance didn't look back, not even after hearing the jaws of the yellow lion as it grabbed hold of Red. A second and third sound of scraping metal as Pidge and Shiro's Lions joined to help. Lance glanced back before he moved into his own lion. His cockpit was a bit roomier, came with the larger lion he guessed. Once the hatch closed, Lance carefully slid Keith's unconscious body from his back. Only then, when Keith was safe on the ground, Lance began to remove his armor. Once Freed from the restrictive protective material, he pulled at his olive green jacket he favored so much. He was quick to ball it up, sliding it under Keith's head to give him something to rest it on. He kept the helmet on, just in case. His gray hoodie hung loosely around his torso as he stood.

"Ok." The word fell from Lance's stiff lips. From the flight over, he was able to gain his composer, even if it was just a flimsy façade. He forced himself back into his own chair, the blue hue of his lion reflected on his face as his hands came up and took the controls. Lance closed his eyes, forcing air from his lungs. "All right Blue. I need you to take it nice and slow." his hand moved to the center dash as if he was petting the large metal beast. His head looked back at Keith. "We need to get him back to Allura." Following was a rumble as Blue led the pride, flying off towards the direction of the castle.