Chapter three: Blindsided
The ground jolted under everyone's feet, nearly knocking them over.
"Woah, what was that?!?!" Cried Lance, nearly hitting the ground.
"Let's take a look," Coran replied, scurrying to his control panel, as another blast shook the ground. And when the screen popped up everyone was worried. Cora froze, emotions rushing through her body all at once.
"They found me!" She breathed.
"What?!" Coran turned around. But after yet another blast they put the partical barrier up and took off.
"They've been chasing me for a while now." Cora explained, "they must have tracked me here." Her bit her lip. "I made a huge mistake coming here."
"It doesn't matter now," Shiro told her, adopting his confident leader voice, they'd all heard many times before. "We're here now. Let's focus on getting these guys off our tails. We need to figure out how they tracked you here and stop it. Allura open up a wormhole to distance ourselves from the Galra, that'll give us time to figure something out." Cora's eyebrows furrowed across her face, as Allura headed to the teludav.
"It doesn't matter," Cora's gaze dropped to the floor. "Even if we wormhole away, they always find their way back. I've been trying everything to figure out how they're tracking me. It's no good. Nothing I've done has worked."
"That's not true. There is a way, I can feel it." Shiro placed his hands in the sides of shoulder. They got blasted again, a blast that did knock everyone down this time.
"We have to get out of here. We can't take another shot like that!" Allura remarked urgently, sweat beginning to form on her brow.
"Everyone, get to your lions," Shiro instructed. "We'll try to slow the Galra ships down if we can. Coran, be ready to wormhole once we give you the all clear." As everyone headed to the lions, he turned to his sister before continuing. "Cora, keep trying to figure out how they are tracking you. Coran can help if he can. And well all be on our coms. We're here to help you,... no matter what it takes."
"I'll try," she dropped her shoulders awkwardly and nodded slightly. Then Shiro headed for the Black lion. Keith dashed to his ship.
"I'm coming with you, to give you some backup!"
"Keith are you sure?" Shiro eyebrows lifted, surprised that he was willing to dive right in so quickly.
"Yes, I want to help you out there." Keith insisted. Shiro smiled thoughtfully.
"Alright then. Let's clear us a path!" The lions shot from their bays and Keith's ship followed. As soon as they were out they scattered taking out fighters and blasting cruisers. Cora was standing next to Coran at the controls. She racked her brain, listing the possibilities on her mind. Then she remembered what Shiro had said.
"When I escaped from the Galra couple of years ago, I felt different... not myself. Like they had warped my brain or rigged my hand or something."
"Perhaps they developed some sort of psychic link similar the one Zarkon had with the Black Lion." Suggested Allura.
"Maybe, but they don't usually do that with their prisoners cause they don't expect to lose them. And most of them don't have any important information." Shiro reasoned.
"Exactly, so unless I had something of value to them they wouldn't want to psychically track me."
"Maybe they installed some sort of hard-to-detect tracker or something." Hunk thought out loud.
"The Galra aren't that low tech." Pidge reminded him.
"The Galra are much smarter than that too." Allura put in.
"Maybe they administered a program into your arm that gives them a traceable signal." Pidge finally realized.
"I guess that would make sense. But wouldn't that be too easy?" Cora pointed out.
"Not unless they installed an encrypted algorithm stored in a digital Trojan horse to cover their tracks." Pidge explained.
Then that's where we need to look." Shiro concluded decisively, "Pidge, can you hack into the prosthetic's mainframe and find the tracker?"
"I can try, but I'll need to use the info from your arm to do it." Pidge responded.
"Ok, then we need to wormhole away, but we're not getting very far as individuals. It's time to form Voltron!"
As soon as they formed Voltron, they began taking out ship after ship, but getting blasted from all sides was hard to avoid. After another hit they spun off just to the left side of the castle. And when they recovered themselves a Galra cruiser shot its ion cannon. Voltron dodged it quickly and Shiro called for the sword to slice through it. Then he called for the shoulder cannon, which took out several hundred of the many fighters, blasting them to pieces. When they thought everything was down they split back into lions and headed toward the ship.
"Nice work everyone. Let's get back to the ship, Coran prepare to wormhole." Shiro voiced their success. But then out of the corner of his eye, Keith, who had been fighting alongside Voltron this entire time, saw a cruiser that they had missed. It was aiming right at them with its ion cannon.
"Shiro!" He cried, "incoming!" He pushed his ship faster. As the lions jetted faster, the ion cannon fired. The lions scattered to avoid the blast. But the Black lion didn't move fast enough, and got blasted in the head!
"Shiro!!" Keith screamed, his pupils shrinking.
As the blast flashed across the lion's face, the extreme light it gave off nearly wiped Shiro out! An electricity-like energy surged through Shiro's and the Black Lion's bodies. It shorted out and the lion's eyes went dark, as it floated seemingly lifeless.
"No!!!" Everyone cried at once.
"The Black lion's out, Shiro's in trouble! We've got to get him it if here!!" Keith called from his ship.
"I'm on it!" Lance called, jetting the Red lion over to Black and retreating with the others.
"Coran," Allura instructed over the com. "You've got to open up a wormhole now!!"
"Yes, Princess!!" Coran responded, jumping in action. And when the wormhole opened everyone dove into it, leaving the Galran wreckage behind.
They landed the castle on a quiet moon, laying the Black lion down in its bay. Everyone hurried into it to find Shiro passed out in the cockpit. The blast had wiped him out. Keith breathed a silent sigh of relief, he didn't disappear this time, he thought to himself.
"Shiro?" He placed a hand on the older man's shoulder and shook it gently as he spoke, hoping to rouse him. No response, Shiro didn't move a muscle,... he didn't even flinch. Cora's eyes glazed over becoming slightly moist. Allura lowered her head in concern, then looked up as a shadow of determination suddenly cast itself over her face.
"We've got to get him to the castle infirmary immediately, to figure out what happened."
"What is there to figure out?" Lance protested helplessly. "He got blasted with an alien weapon. What more could there possibly be?"
"The ion cannon is a powerful and dangerous weapon." Allura explained. "And we don't know all it can do,... or what effect it has on living things." She glanced down at Shiro's still face. "We need to figure that out so we can find a way to wake him up."
"Then let's go." Keith answered, pulling Shiro's left arm over his shoulder and heaved him up out of the seat. Cora, looking sheepish, took Shiro's other arm and supported him from the other side.
In the infirmary, they had laid Shiro on an examination table in a small room just off to the side of the circle of pods. Pidge, Hunk, and Allura were attaching sensors and monitors to Shiro and other machines around him. Pidge was at one of the computers next to the bed, trying to make sense of the incident.
"The effects seem to be temporary, he's stabilizing, even now. He should regain consciousness any time now. I think the blast was simply too powerful for him and the Black lion to handle." Pidge observed.
"Well at least that's good... right?" Cora asked anxiously.
"We're not entirely certain, but it's looking that way." Allura commented calmly. Shiro made a sighing noise for the first time since they'd rescued him. A sense of relief washed over them.
"Even if we don't see it," Cora said her eyes never leaving her motionless brother, "I can't help but feel like something is happening..."
Shiro was lost in his own mind. It was dark, as if he were in a dark room that went on forever. When suddenly an image appeared before him. He saw himself, he was with his father and mother. Cora was there was there as well, they were all hugging each other. Everyone was smiling, and from the look of it, Shiro was about six when in the picture. It was almost a year and a half before Cora got sick and moved away. He remembered that day. They were having a picnic in their favorite park and enjoying the bright, fresh, summer air.
Suddenly, more images began to pop up. Each of them happy. They began with the first picture and went in order from there. Until those happy memories became sad and terrifying ones. Memories of his father's death and his mother's disappearance, and his experiences with the Galra came flooding back to him. With each step he took down the long line of memories, he grew sadder and sadder. Remembering the fear and anger he felt during these times, made him almost want to cry. But he didn't, he just kept walking. Then he saw pictures from the last couple of hours. Nearly attacking Keith, discovering he was part Altean, reuniting with Cora and finding out they were related. The pressure was so thick was like someone had set 500 lb. weights on his shoulders. He fell to his knees, not sure what to do. He cried out as if someone were to hear him, he threw his head up into the air. And at that moment he was shocked back into reality, he shot upright scaring everyone around him. He was so paralyzed by fear that when they touched him he lashed out at them as if they were an enemy.
"Shiro!" Called Keith, trying to talk him down, "it's us!" Shiro froze, and he was longer shielded from reality.
"Keith?" Shiro responded breathlessly, "where are you?"
"I'm right here." Keith put a hand gently on his left arm. Shiro looked in his direction, his eyes looked different.
"Um, Shiro are you ok?" Lance asked curiously. Everyone was staring at him with puzzled looks.
"Where is everyone?" Why is it so dark on here?" Shiro asked, squinting around, as if he were looking for something. Pidge and Allura looked at each other, then the Green Paladin took out a small pen light and shined it in Shiro's eyes, he didn't even flinch.
"Shiro," Pidge asked questioningly, "what do you see?" Shiro shrugged helplessly.
"Nothing," then his face lit up, "Pidge, am I..." He trailed off before finishing his thought.
"What is it, what's wrong?" Keith asked frantically. His heart beginning to race.
"No." Hunk realized the situation, "it couldn't be. Could it?"
"What? Couldn't be what?" Cora also sounded frantic, her hands beginning to tremble.
"It can't be?!" Coran gasped. Both Keith and Cora's eyes darted from one person the another. The pressure was so thick on them that they thought they were going to be crushed. A terrible pressure tearing at Cora's heartstrings, and dread and fear crept into Keith. It was like something was clawing it's way into his body.
"It is," Allura said gravely, she lowered her head and closed her eyes as she uttered those words two words, finishing with... "Shiro is blind."
Hey what's up Shiro fans! Hope you're enjoying this story! And here's to hoping that many more like it! Thx, so much for following my stories! More chapters are on the way so stay hyped folks!