Chapter 2
With Keith and Mara leading the way, the group soon found themselves among the giant boulders and caves were the mysterious energy source was. Hunk turned on the machine, and it began to beep loudly as the followed the signal. "I'm getting a reading!"
The beeping continued as Hunk and Pidge raced ahead of everyone else. The beeping got more and more intense as they found themselves right outside of one of the caves. Keith took out a map of the canyon and marked the spot where they were standing. "Let's head inside then."
Mara took out a flashlight from her bag and turned it on, illuminating the inside of the cave. The group then began to walk inside. Mara pointed the flashlight back and forth between the cave walls.
"What are these?"
"These are the lion carvings I was telling you about earlier. They're everywhere around here." Keith said, gesturing around the cave with his arms. Lance took a few steps away from the group and moved closer to the cave wall. He then felt compelled to place his hand against the carving. "I just feel drawn to them..."
The carvings then began to glow a soft blue throughout the cave, shining even brighter than Mara's flashlight. "They've never done that before." Keith said, with a mix of awe and nerves in his tone of voice.
Lance backed away from the cave wall and towards the others. Mara quickly looked over her shoulder. "Lance, did you touch something over there?"
Lance frowned and responded right away. "No!"
The ground then began to rumble and crack right beneath them. Mara let out an audible groan. That was when Lance began to panic. "Yes!"
And then the earth beneath them opened up, and they were all falling.
They all quickly realized while they were yelling that the drop down had turned into a water slide down, as they were then quickly deposited onto the wet, muddy ground.
Everyone either moaned or groaned from the impact of the fall. Lance was the first to sit upright, and when he looked forward, he made a loud gasp. "Oh my god, they are everywhere!"
Pidge was the next to get up, taking a few steps towards the glowing lion sphere before them. "Is this it? Is this the Voltron?"
Shiro got on his feet, looked forward and nodded his head. "It must be..." He then looked down and saw Mara still sitting on the ground, completely frozen at the sight before her. He extended his arm. "Need a hand?"
Mara shook her head to get out of her frozen state, and looked up to Shiro. She then gripped his hand and he helped pull her up and onto her feet. Mara blushed when she saw that she was still holding Shiro's hand and quickly let go of it. "Thank you."
"No problem."
Keith was the next to get up, and stood right next to Shiro. "This is what's been causing all of this crazy energy out here. It looks like there's some kind of a barrier around it."
"I wonder what the barrier is made out of..." Pidge wondered out loud, with a small smirk on his face and tiny sparkle in his eye.
Lance was moving side to side, with his eyes locked onto the barrier in front of them. "Uh...Does anyone else get the feeling that this thing is staring at them?"
Shiro raised his eyebrow as he took a glance at the barrier in front of them. "No."
Lance tensed up for a minute, as Hunk made a small laugh. "It's just you, man." But Lance continued to move side to side, at a faster pace this time, as he continued to stare at the barrier. "Yeah I'm pretty sure the eyes are totally following me.
"Or, you're just imagining things!" Mara teased.
"I wonder how we can get past this..." Pidge wondered out loud to himself.
Mara began to rummage through her bag, pushing and shoving various items aside until she found what she was looking for. She then whipped out a rod-shaped object from the bag, and walked towards the barrier. "Let me try using this..." And with the press of a button, a red laser shot out and began to collide with the barrier.
The group exchanged confused glances while Keith just nodded at Mara's actions. "Where did you find her by the way?" Lance asked. Keith turned to face them. "I've known Mara since I was a kid, we were pretty close, we were like brother and sister... Until we both moved on to different places."
Keith glanced over at Mara, who was still trying to melt the barrier with her portable laser tool. "I went to the Garrison and she went to a university overseas. But I personally asked her to come out here because of her expertise."
Mara let out a somewhat loud curse, and turned off the laser. She then walked back over to the group, looking disappointed. Though she was able to catch the last bit of the conversation they were currently having.
"Uh, expertise?" Hunk wondered out loud. Mara placed the laser tool back and her bag and rummaged around again. "I have a dual bachelor's degree in anthropology and archeology." Pidge let out a chuckle as he gestured to the tool in Mara's hands and the heftiness of her bag. "That would explain the bulky bag." Mara looked up, and smiled at Pidge. "Yup, everything I need for when I'm going to a dig site..." her words drifted off as she continued looking through her bag.
"And other things too." She added with a little wink as she looked back up at the others. When her hands came up from her bag empty, she sighed and then turned to Keith. "I don't have any other tools with me. That laser had no effect on it... and it was a high-powered laser."
Lance got a cocky smile on his face as he gave Mara a small push aside and walked up to the lion sphere. "Maybe you just have to knock!" And as soon as his knuckles touched the barrier it disappeared, causing Lance to almost fall forward. Soon, all of their heads were filled with various images of six giant lions flying in space, merging together to form something even bigger. But what was it?"
"Uh, did everyone else just see that?" Lance asked out loud, with a sense of uncertainty in his tone. "Voltron is a robot. Voltron is a huge, huge, awesome robot!" Hunk exclaimed with excitement.
"And this thing is only one part of it! I wonder where the rest of them are..." Pidge wondered out loud. If Mara thought that Pidge was really excited a few minutes ago, it did not compare to right now how Pidge was even more excited, with a huge smirk on his face and a bright sparkle in his eye.
But it also made Mara come up with more questions inside of her head. "Could the other Lions also be hidden somewhere here on Earth? Or maybe they are on other planets?" The possibilities were endless, and she felt like her mind was all over the place.
"So this is what they're looking for." Shiro muttered in awe. Keith found himself struck with the same awe and intrigue. "This is incredible." Mara turned to face him. "We did it, Keith."
Keith smiled and then turned to Mara, nodding his head. "Yes, we did."
Lance moved closer to the Lion and to their surprise, the Lion lowered its head down to the ground and then opened its mouth, almost as if it was inviting them inside.
Pidge and Hunk yelped while Mara, Keith, and Shiro flinched and took a step back from the Lion. Lance merely smiled, and began to walk up and into the Lion.
As Lance began to inspect and fiddle around with the controls inside the Lion, everyone else outside exchanged a look with each other before they also started to board the Lion. Mara was the last inside and stepped in-between Shiro and Keith as she glanced around the cockpit. She was right behind Lance, who was now sitting comfortably in the pilot seat. "Whoever built this was very advanced..."
"Okay, guys, I feel the need to point out, just so that we're all, you know, aware. We are in some kind of futuristic alien cat head right now." Suddenly Lance jumped in his seat. Mara wondered what he must have either heard or seen that made him freak out. "Whoa. Did you guys just hear that?"
Everyone started to look around the room. "Hear what?"
Lance looked back down to the controls in front of him. "I-I think it's talking to me. Hmm... Um..."
"What did it say?" Mara questioned.
Before Lance could reply, a massive roar was heard throughout the Lion. Pidge and Hunk screamed, and all of the noise caused Mara to cover her ears. How was the Lion able to communicate with Lance? And more importantly, why was the Lion only communicating with Lance?
Lance took a deep breath before placing his hands firmly on the controls. "Okay. Got it. Now, let's try this." And in almost an instant, the Lion shot out of the depths of the cave and they were greeted once again with sunshine. Pidge and Hunk screamed yet again and Mara found herself hanging on tightly to the pilot chair. "Wait, are we flying right now?" Mara couldn't believe her eyes.
Lance looked over his shoulder to her, excitedly nodding his head up and down. "Yup, now everybody hold on to your butts!" They shot forward, as Lance began using the various controls inside of the cockpit. They weaved in-between the canyon and the towering rocks, and at one point, they ended up going straight through a large rock formation.
Now they were constantly spinning around in the sky, but Lance continued to claim that he had everything under control. But not everyone agreed. "You are - the worst - pilot - ever!" Keith yelled out loud in-between spins. Mara nodded in agreement, and then turned to face Keith. "I promise, I will never make fun of your piloting skills ever again." Keith gave her a weary smile, before they felt themselves being shot forward once again. Mara suddenly lost her grip on the pilot seat and found herself beginning to fall...Until she felt herself being supported from behind. She looked over her shoulder and saw that Shiro had extended his arm around her, keeping her from falling backwards. She nodded her thanks.
In that moment, Lance had the biggest smile ever on his face. He flew the Lion close to the ground, and soon they were running across the desert. "Isn't this awesome?" Hunk began to sway side to side, and his face appeared to be turning a bit green. "Make it stop. Make it stop." He was afraid he was going to vomit at any minute from the mix of motion and nerves.
Lance's smile got bigger. "I'm not making it do anything. It's like it's on autopilot." Hearing this, Mara did a double take. "This thing has autopilot?" Lance moved the controls and suddenly they were shooting upward back into the sky. Keith leaned forward and yelled. "Where are you going?"
Lance groaned. "I just said it's on autopilot! It says there's an alien ship approaching Earth. I think we're supposed to stop it."
Hunk yelped, and had a look of panic on his face. "The aliens are here?!"
A million thoughts were racing through Mara's head. An alien ship approaching Earth right after Shiro arrived? It could have not been a coincidence. But the bigger question on her mind was if these aliens were the good kind or the bad kind.
Pidge quickly shushed Hunk, before leaning forward to be at eye-level with Lance. "What did it say, exactly?"
Lance shrugged, and struggled to find what to say in response. "Well it's not like its saying words, more like feeding ideas into my brain, kind of."
Soon everyone had a confused expression on their face. "Well if this thing is the weapon they're coming for, why don't we just, I don't know, give it to them? Maybe they'll leave us alone. Sorry, lion. Nothing personal."
Shiro's hand tensed on the pilot seat. "You don't understand. These monsters spread like a plague throughout the galaxy, destroying everything in their path. There's no bargaining with them. They won't stop until everything is dead."
For a minute there was nothing but silence after Shiro spoke. Mara cleared her throat. "They sound a lot like the Spanish Conquistadors from the 16th century."
Keith folded his hands across his chest and shook his head, with a small smile on his face. "Here we go..." Shiro raised an eyebrow at Keith's reaction. Hunk titled his head in confusion. "Conquistadors?"
Mara nodded her head, eager to explain. "They were soldiers under the Spanish rule who traveled to various locations in South America to conquer and colonize there. And they weren't very kind to the natives..."
Hunk cast his eyes downward. "Oh. Never mind then."
The Blue Lion let out another massive roar as they broke through the earth's atmosphere and headed towards the approaching massive ship. Hunk gasped and blinked his eyes a few times to make sure he wasn't imagining things. "Uh... Holy cow! Is that really an alien ship?" Shiro froze in his place. "They found me."
All hell broke loose as all of a sudden lasers began to shoot out from the alien ship, going in every direction to try and hit the Lion. Lance was just barely evading them, as he was still trying to get used to the controls in front of him.
Mara's heart sank hearing the tone of Shiro's voice as he spoke. He sounded completely terrified, it was a departure from the tones of his voice that he used earlier. "You recognize that ship?" Mara said quietly.
Shiro slowly nodded. "They were the ones that took me..." Hearing this, Pidge began to panic. "We've got to get it out of here!" Lance quickly took the controls and thrusted them forward. "Hang on!" Everyone was suddenly shouting as they began spinning around again, but this time they were in space. Which made it all the more terrifying. Lance nodded. "All right. Okay, I think I know what to do!"
Pidge frowned while hearing this. "Be careful, man. This isn't a simulator." Lance turned to face Pidge and made a sly smile. "Well, that's good. I always wreck the simulator." In that moment Mara's eyes went wide, as she gripped the pilot seat even tighter. "Did you just say you wreck the simulator? What kind of pilot are you?" she yelled.
And the Lion continued to dodge more of the lasers, each time with more ease as Lance got more comfortable. "Let's try this!" Lance then pushed forward one of the controls, as the Lion opened its mouth and fired a large blue laser. It impacted across the entire side of the alien ship, causing an explosion. Lance then flew even closer to the other side of the ship and let the Lion drag its massive claws across, causing even more explosions to occur. Everyone hollered and cheered while Lance smiled to himself. Shiro then patted the pilot's chair. "Nice job, Lance."
Lance turned and beamed at Shiro's praise. "Okay, I think it's time to get these guys away from our planet." The lion then shot forward as it moved further away from the Earth and into the depths of space.
Hunk looked over and saw that one of the monitors was beeping, indicating that they were still being followed. "Oh, no!" he yelled. Everyone glanced over to the monitor to see what Hunk was yelling about. When they saw the large dot on the monitor, they realized what was going on. Pidge gulped. "They're gaining on us!" Lance then made a wise observation. "But it's weird. They're not trying to shoot us. They're just chasing."
"The lion must be important to them, and they don't want to shoot it and cause damage..." Mara thought out loud. Hunk let out a deep sigh. "Okay, seriously, now we think having aliens follow us is good? I am not on board with this new direction, guys." Keith rolled his eyes as he scanned around the various screens in the cockpit. They were continuing to move very fast as they passed various objects in space. "Where are we?" Keith asked. Shiro moved forward towards the screen to get a better look ahead of them. "Edge of the solar system. There's Kerberos." Everyone then turned their heads to see the icy blue moon that Shiro was pointing to. "It takes months for our ships to get out this far. We got out here in five seconds." Pidge said in disbelief. Mara never thought she would ever be in space. She thought that she would always be grounded on the Earth, exploring each and every corner of it. And now here she was. "Amazing..." she thought to herself.
Suddenly, a large blue and white circle appeared in front of them. Mysterious markings and symbols decorated the edge of the circle, and at the center was a dark blue spiral. The entire circle had a weird aura around it. Everyone was quickly taken aback by the sigh before them.
"AHHHHHH what is that?" Hunk yelled.
"Where did it come from?" Mara questioned.
Pidge tilted his head to the side, trying to get a better angle. "It looks like a wormhole..." Hunk turned to face Pidge. "A wormhole?" Lance then spoke up. "Uh, this may seem crazy, but I think the lion wants us to go through there!" Everyone suddenly looked at Lance, confusion on all of their faces as they tried to process what he told them. Why does the Lion want them to go through the wormhole? Is the Lion somehow familiar with this kind of wormhole? Pidge was the one who broke the silence. "Where does it go?" Lance shook his head. "I-I don't know. Shiro, you're the senior officer here. What should we do?" Everyone then turned to look at Shiro, who turned forward to look at the mysterious wormhole in front of them. "Whatever is happening, the lion knows more than we do. I say we trust it, but we're a team now. We should decide together."
Everyone nodded, and looked down to Lance. He adjusted his grip of the controls and looked forward. Lance smiled. "All right. Guess we're all ditching class tomorrow... Well except Keith and Mara."
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As the Lion flew through the wormhole, everything began to vibrate and there was a high piercing noise. Everyone covered their ears and groaned. A few seconds later, they emerged from the other side of the wormhole, with a mysterious Earth-like planet in front of them. The wormhole then closed behind them. They had escaped the alien ship and now seemed to be in a totally different part of space.
Lance broke the silence in the cockpit. "Whoa. That was..." But before he could finish, Hunk quickly turned around and vomited. He let out a groan. "So sorry." Pidge adjusted his glasses. "I'm just surprised it took this long." Mara glanced over at Hunk with a concerned look on her face. "Is he okay?" Pidge shrugged his shoulders. "He just throws up a lot."
Everyone then glanced around the cockpit monitors, trying to look for anything around them that looked familiar from their solar system. Shiro narrowed his eyes and he looked, then shook his head. "I don't recognize any of these constellations. We must be a long, long way from Earth."
Lance spoke up. "The lion seems to want to go to this planet. I think... I think it's going home."
Mara looked at the planet ahead of them. "Home?" The longer she stared at it, the more she recognized attributes that made her think of the Earth, such as the white clouds, blue oceans, and green landscape. The Lion continued to fly on autopilot as they began to get closer and closer to the planet.
As they began to enter the atmosphere, the Lion began to vibrate and heat up. Everyone circled and clung onto the pilot chair, bracing for the impact. Lance seemed annoyed with all of them crowding around his seat. "Guys, personal space please. Hunk, your breath is killing me." Everyone took a step back, but soon realized that there wasn't a whole lot of room in the cockpit. It was pretty impressive that all six of them were able to fit to begin with. Hunk let out a small apology before he shook his head. "Um, is it just me or is anyone else having second thoughts about flying through a mysterious wormhole? Why are we listening to a robotic lion anyway?" Lance was quick to retort. "Hey, it got us away from that alien warship, didn't it?"
Keith crossed his arms over his chest. "I don't know if you noticed, but we're in an alien warship." Hearing this, Lance gave Keith a smug smile. "Oh? Are you scared?" Keith tensed up for a minute before he turned to look at Lance directly in the eye. "With you at the helm? Terrified."
Mara then pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration. She really hoped this entire little journey wasn't going to be these two constantly bickering. "Could you both just stop for a second?" Mara said in a calm voice, trying to not have her annoyance slip through her tone. But it was no use, as Lance and Keith continued to bicker.
"All right, knock it off!" Everyone turned, wide-eyed as they looked at Shiro. "No one's happy to be in this situation, but we're here now. If we want to get through this, we've got to do it together." The cockpit went silent for a moment as everyone let Shiro's words sink in. "That was very well said." Mara spoke up, nodding at Shiro. Pidge was the next to speak. "So, what do we do?" Shiro thought for a moment. "First, we find out where we're headed. Lance?" Everyone turned to look at Lance, who just stared blankly back at them. "I.. don't know." A look of confusion came across everyone's faces. "What do you mean you don't know? I thought the Lion was talking to you?" Mara questioned. Lance frowned and shrugged his shoulders. "I'm sorry guys. The lion's not talking to me anymore. Wait! Wait, wait, wait! Shh! Listen. I think I hear something..." Keith's head shot up as he spoke up. "I'm hearing it, too." Hearing this, Mara looked around the cockpit, trying to find a source for the noise. "I don't hear anything..." Hunk was the next to speak up. "It's, uh - It's kind of a - a high-pitched squeal?" Mara narrowed her eyes as she began to follow the source of the noise towards the pilot chair..."Wait a second." The noise got louder, until everyone realized what Lance was really doing. They all groaned and then covered their noses with their hands. "Come on, Lance!"
"That's so gross!" Mara yelled. Lance smirked, happy with his little stunt. "But seriously, there's a castle up ahead."
They all slowly turned their heads forward, seeing the mysterious alien castle ahead of them. It was completely white, and seemed to be composed of five spires. It was situated on a cliff overlooking an ocean. It was truly beautiful. "Look at that. I've never seen a castle like this before..." Mara was in complete awe. She had seen castles before when she studied in Europe, but this was something completely new and foreign to her. It made her feel very excited. The Lion then seemed to emit some kind of pulse, as the top of the spires began to glow. The Lion then flew towards the entrance of the castle and landed. "Keep your guard up." Mara frowned at hearing this while Pidge raised an eyebrow and turned to face Shiro. "Something wrong?" Shiro let out a sigh. "My crew was captured by aliens once. I'm not going to let it happen again." Pidge and Mara look downward, thinking back to the Kerberos mission, and how Shiro presumably was the only one who came back. Hunk looked towards the back of the cockpit. "So how do we get out of this thing again?"
Right as Hunk finished his question, the lion got down on the ground and opened up its mouth, where the stairs from earlier re-appeared. Mara couldn't help but be impressed with how the lion seemed to pick up on everyone's thoughts, and wondered back to how Lance mentioned that the lion had communicated with him telepathically.
The group then slowly exited from the Lion, taking in everything before them. They were on an alien planet. Nobody else from Earth had ever been on this planet, and here they were, the first ones. To their surprise, it also seemed like there was oxygen on the planet, so they didn't have to worry about suffocating. Mara couldn't help but think back to how the first colonists must have felt when they came to a new land, and compare it to what she was experiencing right now. It was like a whole new world.
Hunk looked towards the massive entrance doors to the castle. "So how do we get inside?"
"Should we try knocking on the door? It worked pretty well last time..." Lance replied, while looking right at Mara with a sneer on his face. "You're welcome for that, by the way." Lance added, shooting finger guns at Mara, who quickly rolled her eyes and looked away from him.
The lion rose from the ground to stand on all four of its paws once again, and began to open its mouth wide. Everyone gasped and looked over their heads with a look of fear in their eyes. What was happening now?
Hunk began to panic. "No, no! I knew it was going to eat us! No!"
The Blue Lion then made a massive roar and the ground began to shake. They all looked forward and saw that the doors to the castle were beginning to open for them.
Hunk slowly moved from his hiding spot behind Shiro. "Oh, the door is open. Guess I was wrong about you..." Mara turned around and smiled. "Thanks, lion!"
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A/N: Hello and welcome back to chapter two of Balance of the Universe. You could say that I ended on a cliffhanger, but we all know what's coming up next. Plus, I thought it would be a good stopping point, since the chapter was already over 3,000 words.
The dynamic between Lance and Mara begins a little rocky, mostly because Mara does not like that Lance is so rude to Keith. But as we know over time, Lance eases up on his taunts/rudeness to Keith, which makes Mara begin to see him in a better light. There are still times however that Mara is annoyed by Lance, but it's mostly his flirting skills or bad jokes.
Also, in regards to Mara talking about Keith's piloting skills… Mara is not the biggest fan of flying. I KNOW, IRONIC, ISN'T IT? She has a low-key fear of heights, but since she's gonna be piloting the White Lion and flying all around the universe, she kind of has to get over it. Mara doesn't know however, that Keith was the star pilot in his class back at the Garrison, so she assumed his skills were average.
I do not own Voltron Legendary Defender, but I do own my own original characters. I hope you will give them time and get to know them and love them as I have over the course of their creation/development.
So please, feel free to favorite, follow, and review! I look forward to getting constructive feedback from all of you as the story progresses.
