Voltron: Renewal
Chapter one: Recap
"How is he?" Keith asked, standing in front of what looked like a cryopod.
"Well it's definitely no cryopod like that if the Castle of Lions, but a few days in here has done him some good." Ryner reported happily. She pressed a few buttons, and the pod opened with a weesh is what seemed like steam. Shiro stumbled slowly forward, his white hair flopping in his face. Keith caught him before he hit the floor.
"Easy, Shiro." Keith advised tenderly. The Black Paladin slowly recovered himself.
"What time is it? Where are we?" Shiro wondered weakly, rubbing the blurriness from his eyes. He looked down to where his right arm once was, only a metal cap remained to cover where Keith had sliced it off.
"We're on Olkarion." Keith told him softly. "After our battle with Lotor we came back here."
"We've been trying to figure out what the Galra plan to do now that... Lotor is out of the picture." Allura swallowed hard on those words, still feeling the pain of Lotor's betrayal.
"But what about the Castle?" Shiro continued, sitting down stiffly. "Shouldn't you be tracking their movements?" Everyone's smiles faded to be replaced with despair, as they all stared at the ground. "What? What is it?" Dread filling his heart, many thoughts coming to mind.
"The Castle of Lions has been destroyed. Many rifts were opened by Lotor's version of Voltron, with the ability to jump in and out of the quintessence field at will." Pidge told him sadly.
"What?!" Shiro was shocked. Allura stared at him quizzically.
"Your mind always trapped inside the Black Lion, and the Black Lion was there when we blew up the ship, closing the rifts. Don't you remember that?"
"I guess not," Shiro sighed. "The last thing I remember helping Keith reach you and part of the battle. Things went dark after that. The next things I remember is waking up surrounded by you guys." He sat down simply, gazing up at his friends.
"It seems that the process that brought you back has had an affect on your memory." Allura guessed.
"Or the Black Lion was protecting you for some reason." Pidge hypothesized.
"Yeah... maybe." Shiro nodded. Keith turned to face him and suddenly Keith's face flashed and turned to terror, as he saw himself pressing a glowing blade, coming from his right arm, getting closer to Keith's face. He was then zapped back out of it, grimacing a little he grabbed his head with his only hand.
"Shiro?! Are you ok?!" Keith cried confused by this.
"What is it, what's wrong?!" Allura feared the worst. As the wave of pain dissipated, he looked back up at Keith. Standing up again, he lightly touch the mark, as if hoping he was seeing things. But realizing he wasn't stepped back in despair.
"What ave I done?" He wondered aloud, looking at himself. Keith's eyes widened slightly.
"Nothing, this isn't your fault." He tried to reassure him.
"No." Shiro corrected the younger man. "What did I do to deserve this? To be captured and experimented on by aliens. To lose my arm to those same aliens. And to have others use my likeness to hurt those close to me, using my skills against them.-"
"Shiro." Allura interrupted," "you're not the only one who has been used. Lotor used me and my new alchemic knowledge to strengthen his ships and his grip on the quintessence field." Her eyes met his. "You're not the only one who's hurting because of it."
"Besides," Lance spoke up. "You aren't responsible for anything you did. The you that did this was a fake."
"The Shiro that attacked Keith and unleashed the kill virus in the Castle was under someone's else's control." Pidge added. Keith thought for a moment.
"I think we should look on to this. Whoever was controlling the fake Shiro may still be able to, and will try again if they can. We need to figure out how they did it so we can fix it so it won't happen again."
"Keith has a point who knows what kind of connection they had with the fake Shiro. And how much of it still exists. If at all." Allura agreed.
Shiro was laid on a table and a laser was scanning his body passing over his head and slowly continued down.
"I'm not finding anything." Pidge reported.
"We better keep looking, we don't want to miss anything." Allura decided. As Shiro lay there he suddenly felt a surge of energy race through him. He could hear the Black Lion talking to him and he was zapped back to the place he did not recognize. Coming back into reality, he shot up to a sitting position, hunching over and holding his forehead.
"Shiro?!" Keith cried coming forward.
"We have to go." The Black Paladin groaners. He got up of the bed and stumbled hastily away.
"Shiro!!" Allura called, as everyone rushed after him.
"Team get to the Lions." He told them, heading for the Black Lion's temporary hanger bay. The rest of the Paladins stopped and looking at each other, turned to carry out the order. When they had launched they all jetted after Shiro in Black. Keith was with him. Shiro wasn't sure where he going, but yet he still knew.
"Shiro? Where are we going?" Keith wondered, half frantic.
"I don't know." Shiro said simply,
his eyes glued to the screen.
"But you know, don't you?" He asked again.
"Sort of," Shiro answered, he turned to his friend. "It's hard to explain." Keith was puzzled something was different about Shiro. But Keith couldn't quite figure it out.
Shiro didn't let up, he continued on pushing his lion forward more the rest of the team could hardly keep up.
"Where is he going?" Pidge wondered quietly.
"He must know something we don't." Allura suggested.
"Apparently." Lance commented sarcastically. Shiro kept going, they tailed the Black Lion. Til it suddenly stopped and taking them all by surprise. The lion was still and stared out at their new location. And when the rest of the team looked they gasped.
"What is the place?" Hunk breathed.
"Yeah, anybody have any idea where we are?" Lance wondered aloud.
"I do." Keith spoke up. He paused with his eyes closed. "This is where I fought Shiro clone." He finished looking up again. Right after he said that Shiro was zapped back to that picture he'd seen before. The blade buzzed over Keith's face getting closer and closer. He then saw more of the things that transpired here. Attacking Keith and explosions going off and finally, his arm being sliced off. Coming out of it he pushed the lion on.
"Shiro, what are we doing here." Keith wondered.
" I don't know." Shiro responded, he, too, was trying to figure it out. Gliding through the wreckage memories flashed across both Keith and Shiro's minds. Some of which Shiro did not recall. The Black lion growled, Shiro seemed to half read its mind. "Let's go team." Shiro said, landing on another broken up rock. Exiting the lion, Shiro walked as if he had somewhere to go, but the truth was that he had no idea where he was going. But, yet, what he was doing felt right. He could hear the lion again. The team was barely keeping up, Shiro's train of thought seemed to be going a lot faster that theirs.
"Shiro!" Keith gasped, trying to keep up with him. "Where are you going?"
"I don't know, it just... feels right." Shiro replied. Keith stumbled making Shiro stop in his tracks. "Keith-"
"I'm fine! I'm good." Keith responded quickly getting to his feet, the space wolf nudged his hand gently. Shiro sighed with relief. But then, the ledge he'd been standing near crumbled beneath his feet. He let out a cry as he tumbled down the twenty-five-foot incline into a crater.
"Shiro!!!" Allura shouted after him, as the Paladins rushed to help their leader. Shiro hit the bottom so hard, he felt dizzy. Then the world seemed to fade away into darkness...
Shiro stood in darkness, looking around he saw where he was. It was the place they had been, but it looked different... cleaner. There were pods lining the edge of one of the platforms. Machinery on another, and a large round platform just below it. At that moment an explosion went off. And he saw himself and Keith engaged in an all out attack. Suddenly his head began to throb as the vision faded away. Back to the concerned and troubled faces of his friends.
"Shiro, are you ok?" Pidge cried, her voices seemed to echo back to normal. He slowly sat up, head still pounding. He sat with his knees up, resting his elbow on them and kept his head lowered, waiting for the pounding to stop.
"Yeah," he breathed, a little disoriented by the fall. Keith took Shiro's hand and slowly and carefully pulled him up on his feet. But feeling the pounding worsen, he fell to one knee.
"Easy Shiro. You must have hit your head from the fall." Allura guessed looking at the ledge behind them. Shiro stayed there for a second but hearing something again looked to his left. An object lay only but a few yards from him. Suddenly the throbbing became distant, standing up he cautiously approached the object. His head cocked to the right as he steadily neared the long cylindrical object. Looking at it more closely he saw it hand extremities... fingers. It looked like an old Galra sentry's arm, but more detailed and clearly more high-tech. It was like nothing he's ever seen.
Then yet another flash showed the moment his arm was once again removed from his body by Keith's hand. The end of the memory brought on the throbbing once more. Dropping to his knees he groaned as the dust settled. Keith immediately and to his side, recognizing Shiro's hand lying beside him, his eyes flashed. He, too, suddenly saw the memory zap it's way back to him.
"Shiro." He stammered. "How did you know this was here?" Shiro's eyes met his.
"I didn't." A seemingly non-existent light flashed on Shiro's deep brown eyes.
"Then how?-"
"I don't know."
Keith's eyes widened.
"The Black Lion." Keith our the pieces together. "It led you here!" He gasped. "Your connection is stronger than ever... I can feel it."
"Then perhaps the Black Lion is trying to tell us something." Shiro guessed.
"What ever it is, it has something to do with your arm. Which means we must take it back to Olkarion and examine it." Allura decided.
"And maybe we can salvage it for reattachment." Pidge agreed.
Keith picked up the decapitated arm and handed it to Pidge. Then he slung Shiro's left arm over his shoulder. And using their jet packs together, climbed back up the slope back to the lions. Black stood patiently waiting for its master to return. Suddenly Shiro's world began to spin, making him stop cold in his tracks.
"Shiro?" Keith said. No response the Paladins turned around. Shiro felt as though his head would explode, like something weighed upon in that had to be removed. Memories that he did not recognize flashed one by one, without ceasing.
"Shiro?!" Pidge called, kneeling beside him as he sank to the ground yet again, trying to get a response. Still nothing, Shiro tried to fight the flashbacks but couldn't seem to stop them from coming.
"Hang on." Allura said jumping into action. She knelt down to Shiro placing her hands on his temples. Felling her touch he tenderly grabbed her wrists, as if begging for help. Focusing herself, she began to glow and so did Shiro. And suddenly that weight that was almost crunching him finally lifted. His head still hurt, but it was no longer pounding. It was a truly welcomed relief!