First Voltron fic! Whoop-whoop!

So if any of you have read my previous works on here, you will know that I am literally the worst at updating I'm so sorry. I will try :)

Also I didn't put an amazing amount of time into this - it started out as just a random drabble for myself but I actually got a nice plot for it, which doesn't happen very often so here it is. Do be prepared for half-arsed writing, though. I'm v tired.

I am going to say now, if you're worried, the other paladins WILL have big parts in the story. I'm not just throwing them aside to get them out the way, there's a reason I promise. Idk what reason it is yet but there will be one.

Thank you for giving this rubbish a shot :))))

They had been floating in space for days, lost in the outskirts of a tiny galaxy, the Castle of Lions immobilised by something, or as the team had recently found out – someone.
Coran's scan of all two planets in the system had returned negative, giving the paladins peace-of-mind that the little worlds were uninhabited by intelligent life, only harbouring low-level creatures and spinning their merry ways around a Mars-sized star.
The down-time had been accepted with open arms at first – that last battle had been gruelling and injuries had been taken, so time to use the cryopods, whether bumbling about a black sky with faltering engines or not, was very much welcome.
Pidge had been in the cryopod room at the time. She herself had come out of the latest Galra fight relatively unscathed, but found that, despite how she prided herself in not needing much company, Hunk's absence was painfully noticeable.
She sat cross-legged on the cold floor, a few metres back from the active pod, staring at Hunk with glazed eyes. It was so weird, watching him hang there like an inactive puppet. The expressionless face almost didn't look like his.
Her fingers hovered over the keyboard balanced on her lap, a fingernail tapping the h-key. She'd been suspicious when the environment scan had come back negative, but no one had believed her, no-one out of all three others left conscious – Coran, Lance, Shiro and herself. The rest were either in cryopods or sleeping. So, over the last few days, she'd been obsessively typing away, running scan upon scan upon scan. The planets were habitable, and the Castle wouldn't just shut down for no reason, right? Right.

Right, because she was right. Her attention was snatched from Hunk when her headphones vibrated around her neck. Picking them up and holding a pad to an ear, she hunched back over the computer and watched the screen flash red, red, blue.
"AHA!" Pidge yelped. Days ago she'd set up a 3D render of the system she could run scans through, and right now the smaller of the two planets was pulsing blue, meaning… "I WAS RIGHT!" She grinned at her victory and began to type commands into the keyboard – zoom in, lock on, deep-perimeter scan… Just as she'd suspected! There was something under the planet's surface, something giving off the slightest heat signatures. That was enough for her. Snapping the laptop shut, she sprang to her feet and sprinted out into the corridor.

"GUYS!" She shouted, bursting into the main control room. "Wait!" Skidding to a stop, she looked around. "Where's Coran?"
"Pidge?" Shiro slipped out of his seat, standing to frown at her, "He went to check the engines again. What's the matter?"
"My scanners found something!" Pidge skipped forward and looked up, pointing, "There, that planet there! There's something underneath the surface and whatever it is it's probably the thing that made the engines fail!"
"You're sure?" Shiro's lack of hesitation gave Pidge a surge of confidence.
"Totally!" She tapped halfway down the steps and sat on one, opening back up the laptop and beckoning Shiro over, "Here, see?" She pointed at the virtual planet, then the real one. "There's something there! I was right!"
Stooped, Shiro looked back up at her, "You're suggesting we check it out?"
"Well yes! This is the only explanation for our engines failing and we don't know how long it'll be until Allura is well enough to even check what's wrong! And even if I'm wrong, maybe they could help us?"
"I don't know, Pidge. There are only four of us left awake and if these people are hostile…" Shiro straightened back up, sighed. "Leaving the lions with only a few of us ready to defend is risky."
"So we just wait?"
"No." He said it with a quirk in his voice, as if he were considering. "Because you're right. If we wait any longer something else could go wrong with the ship."
They stared at each other for a good long moment, as if sizing one another up.
Finally, Shiro's shoulders dropped. There was a slight hint of a roll in his eyes before he concluded, "You and I will take the Green Lion in under your cloaking device. I'll get Coran to watch us from up here and tell Lance to keep an eye on the rest of the Castle."

So there they were, under cover of the cloak, in the cockpit of the Green Lion as they held their breaths, entering the planet's atmosphere.
"So! I don't know anything about this planet! For all I know you could be flying straight into highly poisonous death clouds! Or hailstones! And I don't mean your hailstones I mean actual rocks! Flaming rocks! Rocks that could rip your lion apart!" There was a pause in which
Pidge and Shiro looked in opposite directions, suppressing shivers. Coran's voice didn't tremble however when he piped, "Good luck!" And left them to panic.
"Is that a thing?" Shiro calmly questioned and Pidge lent him her ear, struggling with the joysticks to keep her lion steady. "Flaming rock stones?"
"Uhhh…" Pidge frowned at the fire billowing around the lion's nose. "Maybe? I mean it's totally possible. If the atmosphere's right and above-water temperature is higher than- woa."
Finally, the fire had sizzled away and they could see the land perfectly. It was black, all black, as if the planet was just one big sphere of onyx. At first that's all it seemed to be, but as they drew closer to the ground, shapes began to form and the world opened around them like a pop-up book, cubic columns rising in steps, falling to create perfectly square pools of crystalline water, shining and polished and angular, yet with a kind of beauty. It was unlike anything they had ever seen.

A few more seconds, minutes passed as the two paladins gaped at the planet in complete awe-struck silence, until Shiro croaked, "Coran, are you seeing this?"
The line crackled for a moment, there was a thump and a cry, then - "No fair, you go to an awesome rock planet without me?!"
"I am afraid Number Three's not taking this too well!"
Shiro sighed, "Lance-"
"No no no, this isn't fair! How come you get to go to an awesome new planet and I'm stuck here on a half-working ship with no-one to talk to 'cept Coran! No offense, man."
Over Coran's bitter mumbling, Pidge grumbled, "We tried to tell you but you were in the bath. Again."
"No- I was TRYING to get the bath WORKING. Our hot water's gone!"
"All the more reason for Pidge and I to find someone who can help us. Sit tight, Lance. If this is a trap, we'll need you up there to defend the others."
Across the line, Lance groaned, "Fine. I'll be here."

"Okay, levelling out!" Pidge pulled the joysticks and began to fly amongst the pillars. Some were tiny, tree-sized, others were as large as the Castle. Looking to the left, Pidge laughed in glee, watching the reflection of her lion in the dark stone. She felt Shiro's hand tighten on the headrest of her seat and heard him chuckle.
"This is amazing. Who knew there were places like this in the universe?" He leant forward to get a better look out the window above, "The sky's the same as Earth's."
"Yeah-" Pidge shoved the joysticks right and did a barrel roll out of the way of a column, dodging away from another and pushing the Green Lion into a dive.
She howled with the thrill, gripping the handles tight and pulling up just before she hit the ground.
"Pidge!" Shiro gasped beside her, and it was only now she noticed his hand around her forearm.
"What?" She teased, "Scared?"
"There's a time and a place." He said evenly, though when she looked back up at him, it was difficult not to laugh at the mess his hair had become.
"You can let go of my arm now." She simpered and he stepped back. "Anyway, how is this not the place? This planet would be perfect for flight training."
"She has a point!" Coran chimed.
"I'll admit-" Shiro started, but didn't get much further – Pidge yelled, slamming the brake and snapping back, dragging the lion to a stop. The column they'd been flying at had flashed, flashed a bright yellow and if she wasn't mistaken, clanged like a church bell.
The emergency stop threw them both forward, and it took a few moments for them to recover.
"Paladins! Are you alright?!" Coran called.
Drawing himself upright from the jolt, Shiro breathed heavily, "Yeah, we're fine." After that, all fell silent, still. They waited.
Bong.
Pidge flinched, watching a lower column to their left light up a pale blue then fade, then another, right below them, green. They waited again. Waited. Waited.
"Umm…" Pidge finally hummed, scratching her forehead, "That was strange."
"Yeah." Shiro said, seeming to collect his thoughts for a moment before suggesting, "Let's keep flying."
"No, wait." Pidge mumbled, frowning at the pillars. "This probably won't work but…" Slowly, carefully, she pushed the lion forward, up to the column that had flashed first. Breath held, she lifted a paw and touched it to the black surface.
Bong! The pillar flashed again, same yellow as before, and faded.
"This just…" Pidge flew with more confidence now, "looks familiar." She arrived at the blue column and pressed that too, earning another flash, before diving down to the last one and gaining not only a green flash, but the terrain around them light up from the centre out like a radar, then fade once more.
She pulled the lion up a bit higher for vantage, then waited again. Sure enough, red, blue, green, yellow. Her heart was thumping. If this was what she thought it was… Making quick work of it, she touched the pillars in order and the ground lit up once more.
"This…" Pidge gasped, ascending once more, "It's like one big game of Simon Says! How awesome is that?! I wonder how they did it…"
The process repeated again and again and again, each time the patterns becoming more and more complex and difficult to keep track of. Pidge hated to think of what might happen if she got it wrong.

Six levels in and Pidge and Shiro were having to work together, recalling a sequence of ten flashes.
Again. And again. And again.
"You think there's a reason for this?" Shiro asked in a monotone after the eleventh round.
"To make me want to cry, yes." Pidge replied, completely serious. They both fell silent once more as the next sequence played out before them.
"Okay…" Pidge sighed, flying for the purple block. Yes, multiple colours had been added now. Fun. "Purple… red… yellow… uhhhh…. Shiro, did you get the fourth one?"
"Uh… blue?" He offered, not sounding very sure of himself.
"Yeah, sure, let's go with that." Luckily, Shiro had been right. "Okay, yellow again? Yep… greeeeeen… orange… pink?"
"Yeah, maybe?"
"Ah what the hell."
"NOOO!"
Both Pidge and Shiro yelped and an emergency stop was yet again the source of a few more bruises.
"What are you doing?! It's green! Green!" Lance shouted through the comm.
"You sure?" Shiro pressed.
"Have I ever been wrong?"
With a sigh, the leader gave in, "Try the green one."
Apprehensive, Pidge lowered the lion, bracing as she pressed the green pillar. Lo and behold! Lance was right!
"Thanks, Lance." Shiro laughed, though Pidge identified with the shake of his voice.

Now that Lance was in the fray, everything moved a lot smoother. It turned out he was a pro at memory games, much to their good fortune.
It was level twenty one, when the tiny sun began to set, that something happened.

Will we ever know what that something is? Idk because I actually don't know what that something is myself lmao if you're hooked y'all in for a rough ride.
See you in either a day or two years. There's no in-between.

Again, Hunk, Keith and Allura will be in later chapters I do love them really.

P.S thank you for taking time out of your life to read this that's so nice.