Disclaimer: I don't own VLD!

A/N: Thanks for the comments and everything, y'all! They always fuel my muse. Sooo, have some more scary stuff and angst?

Chapter 4

"I think he's coming around for real this time."

"You've said that two times already."

"His heart rate's changing."

Keith kept his eyes closed, listening to the voices around him. He forced himself to stay still and assess the situation, chasing away the lingering disorientation. There must have been some kind of bright light shining at him because his eyelids were that red color they get when someone beams a flashlight in your face.

"Did Saveri make a final decision on implant placement with these two?"

"She just made up her mind." Someone snorted. "I think she's going with the other one first."

The other one? Emi? He was laying down now, his back against something hard and firm. With tiny, cautious movements, he tried to turn his wrists, but they were held in place. Same thing with his ankles.

A finger landed on his eyelid and pried it open. "Told you he was awake."

Keith jerked his head to the side, blinking against the light. Slowly the glare faded, and he could see three people gathered around him, all of them wearing white and blue outfits and clear plastic face masks. His shirt was missing, and there were electrodes attached to his chest and sides. There was a quiet beeping sound coming from somewhere behind him, and as he strained to look around, he saw monitors and other equipment.

"Where am I? Where's Emi?"

"BP rising. Should we dose him again?"

"No, Saveri said to wait." The tallest one leaned over him, eyes shaped like a goat's and the shade of lemon peels peering at him closely. "You have to stay calm or we'll be forced to sedate you."

To hell with staying calm. But he also didn't want them to knock him unconscious again, not when he didn't know what they would do to him or where Emi was. Had they hurt her? Keith jerked at the restraints on his wrists and glowered at the tall alien. "What's going on?"

"You're at the Ferren and Saveri Hybridization Institute," the alien replied. He picked up something from one of the nearby metal tables and shined it into Keith's eyes. "Make a note for an optometry scan."

Hybridization? Keith tensed and looked away from the alien, his mind racing now that it wasn't fogged with drugs. Both he and Emi were hybrids, that must have been why they were brought there. But why would they give up the name of their facility so easily?

Unless they didn't expect him to ever leave it.

"Where's Emi?" he demanded, "Is she all right?"

"The girl? Of course she is," said one of the other aliens, "Doctor Saveri is with her. Doctor Ferren will be back here in a minute so you can meet him."

"I want to see her."

The aliens shared a glance, and the tallest one made a clicking noise. "We need to test reflexes anyways." He looked down at Keith. "I know you believe that you can make some kind of heroic escape if we release your restraints, but that's poor logic." He tapped Keith's shoulder, and Keith noticed that there was a dull pain there, where his shoulder connected to his torso. "Not only could you not reach the girl, you wouldn't even get to the door. This is an electrical collar of sorts, though it's subdermal. Don't force us to shock you."

Keith ground his teeth together. Damn it. "I'll cooperate if you let me see her."

"This is a terrible idea," one of the aliens said as the tallest one started undoing the restraints on Keith's wrists. "You know he's a warrior, right? The Red Voltron Paladin? Plus he's half Galra. He could probably kill us all with a scalpel in seconds."

"It might level him out if he can at least see the girl for a moment," said the other alien, this one with antennas, "And we do need that initial reflex data."

"It won't be completely accurate, he was just unconscious…"

"It's the initial baseline, not the final, Tierj."

Keith glared up at the ceiling as the aliens bickered, trying to puzzle his way through this. He could grab the metal tray and take out two of them but that left the third. Which one had the remote to shock him? He assumed there was only one remote, but what if they all had one. Then even if he did take out the aliens, he didn't know if the room was locked or if he could get out. Plus, what if he did get out and then couldn't get to Emi? He wouldn't leave without her. On top of all that, he wanted to make whoever had done this suffer.

A lot.

When all of the restraints were undone, Keith sat up and resisted the urge to rub his wrist. The nervous alien, Tierj, had his finger resting on band on his wrist, which clued Keith into how the whole electrical collar thing worked. If they pressed a button on one of their wristbands, it would shock him. Good to know.

Keith would be breaking a lot of wrists in the future.

"She's over there," the tallest alien said, gesturing to a wall made completely out of a clear glass-like substance.

Through the wall, there was a set-up almost identical to the one in his room. There was another team of aliens in there, but there were two extra ones. Someone shifted, and suddenly he could see her. She was wearing a short white gown and sitting on a medical exam table, her legs hanging off the edge. Her eyes were dull, at least until she glanced up and saw him looking at her.

"Keith!" Before anyone could stop her, she had jumped down from the table and ran over the wall separating them.

Oh shit, they were going to shock her, could they shock her, did she have that too? "Kiddo, stop!" He got off his own table, his legs still feeling like cement, and walked toward the wall, yanking the electrodes off his chest.

She put both hands on the wall, panic in her voice when she spoke. "I wanna go home, I want Mum and Dad, I want Lance and Coran and Hunk and Pidge, I want Black. I want you to take me home. Please, Uncle Keith, I want to go, let's go, please."

"Return to the table immediately," said Tierj, probably with his hand twitching over the shock button, "Now!"

Keith ignored them and knelt in front of Emi, trying to get her to look directly at him. "Emi, take a deep breath."

She slapped her hands against the wall. "No! I want to go home!"

"Hey, hey, shh, I'm going to take you home, I promise," he said, feeling useless, "But we can't right now, and you have to calm down."

"I just want to go home."

"Me, too," he said. He wanted to shatter the wall, grab her, and then run until they found a way out. But he had to come up with a plan. He couldn't come at this in his normal way, attacking first and thinking through it later.

Emi's eyes went wide and her body went rigid before she collapsed in a heap. Keith slammed a fist against the wall, erupting into a stream of curses as one of the aliens came over and scooped her up. They put her back on the exam table, placing a breathing mask over the lower part of her face while another injected something into her arm.

"What are they doing to her?" Keith demanded, "What's going on?"

"Setting up for placing her implant, which is something we need to do as well."

Keith turned around and saw a three-armed Ullini standing by the door. He must have come in when Keith was talking to Emi. Unlike most people on his planet, he was dressed in white and blue instead of the normal garish Ullini colors.

"If you prefer to stay conscious for a few more minutes, Mr. Kogane, I think you should take a seat." He gestured toward the table, but Keith didn't move away from the wall. The Ullini sighed. "It's a minor surgery, honestly. They're putting her under so she won't feel a thing."

Familiar, welcome anger flared again, and Keith clenched his fists. They were torturing her. He was going to kill anyone who touched her. If something happened to him, Shiro would finish the job when he got there. Keith launched himself at the Ullini, but he dropped to the ground halfway there as electricity surged through him, stealing his ability to move and wracking him with pain.

"Let's try that again," the Ullini said.

More angry space parents and rescue-Voltron family next time!