( Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Voltron because believe me my series would be cannon if I did. Also i did not write all of this on my own, this was co-written with tumblr user: binart, Chapter 1 was written by them. However, i do own my Voltron OC: Kylee. side note: you can follow the tag #quintessencequestau on instagram. feel free to make fan art)

This was it. Pidge could feel it.

Matt was rescued by a group of resistance fighters; she knew this from the scant footage she was able to track down when delving into databases during some of their attacks on Galra cruisers and facilities. From there, Pidge was able to match the uniforms the resistance wore to the particular faction that rescued Matt. She sought out any way to track any individual down—bribing shady aliens at various outposts and cities rife with information, galra prisoner records, surveillance footage—and eventually hit a lead with an ID tracker used by the resistance faction she was looking for.

She didn't know who the ID number was assigned to—their alien features displayed on the information screen were entirely unrecognizable. But they would hopefully at least offer another lead. If they didn't know Matt, they could point her towards someone who did. If they didn't know anyone, they could point her towards whatever base of operation they worked out of. She was a paladin of Voltron, so earning their trust likely wouldn't be a huge issue.

The ID's signal was located about 30 light years away, so Pidge quickly approached Allura with her plan at the castle of lion's bridge. Though they were taking a few quintants off after a particularly nasty skirmish, she knew Allura spent most of her time there. Pidge's neck was still a bit sore from being whipped in every which direction when a fleet ambushed them, and she could still vaguely recall the sensation of hurtling through zero-G after being blasted with the edge of one of the galra's ion cannons.

The first day after the battle was dedicated to the entire team doing ship repair since externally there was an extensive amount of damage. They worked for hours and hours together with Coran, Pidge, and Hunk heading the operation, and later all collapsed in the living area to eat and watch old Altean cinema and rest up.

After that, internal repairs commenced. Pidge took care of the majority of rerouting power along with Coran, and Hunk went about repairing damaged circuitry and appliances. They hit a snag however, when Hunk's repair tool kit ran low on a vital soldering material, and he couldn't continue working. The only option was to go out and find the rare elements needed to make the material, or to find a vendor that sold it. They opted for the latter.

GAC in hand, Hunk, Coran, and Keith (as their self-appointed body guard in case anything went wrong) took a small craft and headed towards a local space mall. The others were told to sit tight and take it easy until they returned.

Like Pidge would do that, though. Spare time was something she was often without, and so when the opportunity arose to do some digging around to find her family, she did so.

Pidge hurried into the bridge were, as she expected, Allura was observing the local star system on the ship's system, and quickly explained the situation. Shiro listened in from beside them, arms crossed in thought, and Allura, ever intent on helping her find lost family, was more than happy to portal her over to the location. She instructed Pidge to prepare the green lion so she could send her through. Allura mentioned she was hoping to spend some time together, but understood her family took precedence over that.

Shiro, who had been in the bridge initially to talk to Allura, asked Pidge what she had found specially that gave her the lead. She explained the ID tracking device, and he smiled. Only Pidge would be able to figure out something like that.

"Why don't I go with you? He asked. "If you don't know anything about the resistance member, there's always the possibility they're not as friendly as you'd hope." Pidge snorted.

"Well, the system they're located in is just about dead, and there's no sign of galra chatter or anything. All they're doing is sending regular uploads of some kind of transmission data at regular intervals.. Probably just a low ranking member sending relevant information to higher command, so not someone I think I need to worry too much about."

"Still," Shiro presses. "It doesn't hurt to play it safe.. I'd rather wait until the other get back, so we could all go." Pidge looked at the dark circles hanging under Shiro's eyes, and felt a pang of sympathy. She knew it was tough being in a commanding position; recalling her father returning home after long days, exhausted from leading an entire team of people. "It'll just be a couple of vargas.." Lance peeked his head around the corner in then strode in, drawn by the voices of his teammates.

"It'll be fine, Shiro," Pidge insisted, voice low. Despite understanding where he was coming from and not wanting to make things hard for him, she also had no intention of waiting. she had a lead and she was going to pursue it now. "You guys should stay here and get some rest." Shiro looked about to protest, but Pidge cut him off. "Besides! I won't be going alone." She snagged Lance's arm as he approached and maneuvered him to face Shiro. "Lance is coming with me. Right, Lance?"

Lance craned his head back to see Pidge's burning stare in his peripheral , and whipped it back to face Shiro. "Yes, absolutely." His face was extremely serious, and he met Shiro's gaze with an expression of stone cold absolution. Then he looked back at Pidge and stage whispered, "What are we doing?"

Allura chuckled, and Shiro let out an amused sound through his nose. Pidge let go of Lance's arm and stage whispered behind her hand back, "Following a lead on my brother and letting these two have a day off." Lance let out a quiet oh, and nodded resolutely.

"Right. I knew that." He slung his arm around Pidge's shoulder and smiled charmingly at the two in front of him. " Don't worry guys, me and Pidge got this. We'll track down the lead, and watch each other's backs. Buddy System." Pidge nodded along with him.

Folding his arms together, Shiro looked upon the two fondly, and exasperated, gave in.

"Alright, just keep in radio contact the entire time, and be careful, okay?"

They gave their best salutes possible while still hooking their shoulders together, then detangled themselves and made their way to the green lion.

As they approached the base, Pidge quickly filled Lance in on the specifics. He whistled. "Nice detective work, Pidge." She beamed. "So basically.. We go in there, hopefully meet up with this resistance member guy, and get as many clues as possible?" She nodded. "What if it's not them, though?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I'm pretty sure the Galra wouldn't be too fond of any resistance members. What better way to lure them in than to steal one of their IDs and wait for them to go check things out, y'know?" Pidge grumbled in irritation.

"Were you not listening to what I said? There is zero galra chatter in this sector, so it's pretty unlikely they've got anyone stationed around here." Lance hummed, still unconvinced. "And the IDs are embedded inside of certain resistance members. That way, if they go MIA or uh, die, they can easily be tracked."

She turned her gaze back to the lion's viewport. "This guy is still listed as an active member in the database I hacked into, and his vitals are reading just fine." She pushed the joysticks forward, speeding up their descent. "Trust me, we won't be long." Lance conceded, giving her an alright before he went to fiddle with his bayard.

There was always that worried, paranoid twitch in the back of her mind that always assumed the worst. Always went to the terrible 'what ifs' which often centered around the well-being of her dad and brother. Lance tapped his foot in an uneven pattern on the floor of the lion and started humming.

She shook her head. It was most likely the two would drop in, get what they needed, then get back to the castle and resume the search for her brother and father. But even in the unlikely scenario that things did get dicey, she was a paladin of voltron. So was Lance. If anyone was capable of taking risks and coming through unscathed, it was them.

Hidden among a landscape of asteroids was were Pidge and Lance found themselves. The green lion weaved through the debris of the area before approaching their objective; a large industrial structure built within a larger asteroid. It jutted out from the dense space rock, but still hid itself well with a similar color scheme and simplistic, blocky shapes to the exterior of the structure.

"Is that it?" Lance asked from beside Pidge. Though she offered the seat behind her own in the cockpit, Lance argued he couldn't see well enough and insisted on hovering next to her. She nodded, then tilted the steering controls forward and they descended towards the building.

"So the security system was pretty well built, but I've already bypassed pretty much everything like, an hour ago. Other than a couple doors, I've already got the entire situation on lockdown." Lance gave another impressed whistle at that, and Pidge couldn't help but to smile. She was pretty impressive.

They approached some massive docking bay doors, but decided against entering through since if they did have any bad company, that's where they'd expect them to enter. It would be a much safer dea to enter via a now unsecured ventilation system underneath the building.

Pidge and Lance fastened their gear, then launched out into the vacuum of space in an exhilarating rush. The sudden burst of speed into zero-G made Pidge's breath catch in her throat, but Lance seemed downright excited.

"This never gets old!" Lance laughed, almost breathlessly as they hurdled towards the entrance vent, guided by their suits navigation system. Pidge raised her forearm towards the approaching dark alloyed surface.

"Alright, here we go." Almost simultaneously, their suits explosively deployed the tethering system, which whisked towards and then fastened itself with a dull clang to the surface.

Once secured, the tethers began to detract back into their suits, pulling the two inwards. They landed soundlessly, and gave each other a thumbs up for the successful maneuver. Pidge breached the ventilation system with her bayard and they both slipped inside.

The inside of the facility mirrored the exterior with it's dull, metallic colors and industrial structure. Their lightly clanging footsteps seemed to echo through the corridors as Pidge led them towards the location of the resistance member.

"My initial scans of the place didn't detect any lifeforms here at all," she started, tapping at the map screen her suit displayed. Lance made a noise of confusion as they walked side by side.

"Wait, what? Why are we looking for the resistance member here then?" His furrowed brow was much easier to see without his visor to obstruct his expression, as the two had earlier removed their helmets after realizing they were in an oxygen rich environment.

"The ID tracker, remember?" The small device fit snugly in one of her side pockets, and Pidge quickly pulled it out and brandished it towards Lance. "This place may be able to interfere with our local scanners and block us from being able to track life signatures, but I'm pretty sure this tracker syncs up with a database the rebellion maintains in some remote location or something. So we can use this to find them, even if our other scanners don't work."

"..Okay, yeah, that makes sense." Lance crossed his arms and looked up in thought, then peered suspiciously back towards Pidge. "Where'd you say you found that thing again?"

Pidge looked away uncomfortably. "uh, well.." She'd been hoping he wouldn't ask, as she was still coming to terms with it herself. "..I came across some wreckage of a galra cruiser and some ships that matched what the rebellion's look like, and when I went looking for some survivors inside, I found it."

Lance's expression shifted to something more uncomfortable as well. "Oh.. Well, was there anyone..?" The question, though left unsaid, was obvious. She shook her head, and he visibly deflated.

There weren't any survivors. The ships had been ripped apart and the interior with all of its inhabitants had been exposed to the vacuum of space immediately. Pidge had floated past one two many corpses with agonized expressions on their faces that she considered cutting her search short. In the end, she left with a vital clue, and an experience she wasn't keen on sharing with the others.

"Hey." She felt a sympathetic hand on her shoulder and slowed down her pace to look up at lance. "That must have been pretty messed up to see, Pidge," he empathised, giving her a gentle squeeze on the shoulder. "I'm sorry you had to go through that."

In a moment of genuine surprise for Pidge, she found herself thinking of Shiro. It almost felt like it should be him offering up those words of comfort. Not the goofy blue paladin. Maybe he wasn't as goofy or immature as Pidge thought he was.

She quickly shook herself out of of the train of thought. Interpersonal reflections could be saved for later; for now, the two had a mission to complete. She smiled and once again held up the tracker.

"Thanks.. I at least got this, though. And that's one step closer to Matt and dad."

He flashed her a grin and nodded, gripping his helmet more tightly under his arm. "Right. Let's find that rebellion guy and make him tell us where they are." With a quick flick of her wrist, Pidge enlarged the map display in front of her to show Lance exactly where they were headed.

"We're already pretty close, just around the corner here..." Blue light flashed within Lance's free hand and quickly materialized into his bayard. Pidge gave him a flat look.

"What? We don't know what could happen in there!" He reasoned, and while that was true, Pidge didn't want to potentially scare away someone that could be the key to finding her family.

"Yeah, but just—play it cool, alright? If they get spooked and attack, use your shield. No pointing guns at the rebellion!"

"If it's the rebellion!" Lance hissed, rifle raised at the door they approached.

"Shh!" Pidge pulled up the command system on the data screen beside the door. Wanting to be helpful, Lance cautiously pressed an ear up to the door. Nothing seemed to permeate the thick, metallic material, though Lance could feel a strange vibration against his cheek; Similar to the vibrations he'd feel in his lion whenever Allura would wormhole them to various locations.

Suddenly overcome with a growing feeling of apprehension, Lance leaned back. "Hey, I really don't know if this is a good idea.. I'm getting some bad vibes, Pidge." Realizing what he just said, he chuckled nervously. "...Literally. The door is vibrating."

Undeterred, Pidge continued typing away on the console. "I can't even count the number of different space anomalies that would make a massive complex built into an asteroid vibrate slightly, Lance. It's fine." An affirming beeping noise sounded from the console, and Pidge made a noise of surprise, eyes glued to the screen.

"Oh, hold on.." The door began emanating a strange buzzing noise, and Lance jerked back.

"What, why?! What's happening?!" The edge in Lance's voice was growing more frantic as a creeping panic began to set in. Pidge quickly shoved her helmet on and strode over next to Lance, activating her shield, then bayard. Lance frantically copied her.

"The door actually seems to be.. a very small portal?" Paranoia was quickly becoming understandable suspicion, but Pidge tried to remain calm, hopeful that this was still the next lead to her family. "Could be another security measure the rebellion has to keep themselves safe from attack.. somehow." She double checked the coordinates on the tracker, and they matched where ever the portal led to. "Let's be careful, though, just in case."

Lance audibly swallowed, bayard posed at the ready next to his shield. Please be a false alarm please be a false alarm please be a false alarm-

The door hissed, releasing a bit of atmospheric pressure, before sliding open quickly.

The containment pod containing the comatose rebellion member off to the side of the room barely registered in Lance's peripheral vision as his body moved on its own, shoving Pidge off to the side as a bright beam of light from the massive canon 20 feet ahead of them slammed into him. He heard Pidge scream, then blinding brightness, then nothing.

Lance didn't register when he came to—eyelids too heavy to even open. Not that he would think to open them; his mind felt light years away from connecting to his body. There was a stillness in the dry air that made him feel like he was floating. He heard voices nearby.

"Its internal organs almost burst from our weakest tractor beam, are you sure—" A rough voice rasped, sounding like one of Lance's uncles that smoked too many cigars and always smelled like ash when he pulled him in for hugs.

"I am." A sharp, gravely voice cut the other one off. The words warbled strangely, like the chickens would back at his parent's farm. He felt prodding around his face, but couldn't muster up enough energy to open his eyes.

Then someone did it for him, and he saw them smile, wickedly pleased at the sight before them.

"We caught a paladin."